From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 1 07:48:31 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:48:31 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Seamen on boy-poets In-Reply-To: <20040930212835.8611.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <415D0BCF.17998.2109FB@localhost> To a Boy-Poet of the Decadence Showing a curious reversal of the epigram -- ?La nature l?a fait sanglier; la civilization l?a reduit a l?etat de cochon.? Owen Seamen But my good little man, you have made a mistake If you really are pleased to suppose That the Thames is alight with the lyrics you make: We could all do the same if we chose. >From Solomon down we may read, as we run, Of the ways of a man and a maid; There is nothing that?s new to us under the sun And certainly not in the shade. The erotic affairs that you fiddle aloud Are as vulgar as coin of the mint; And you merely distinguish yourself from the crowd By the fact that you put them in print. You?re a ?prentice, my point, in the primitive stage, And you itch, like a boy, to confess: When you know a bit more of the arts of the age You will probably talk a bit less. For your dull little vices we don?t care a fig It is this that we deeply deplore: You were cast for a common or usual pig But you play the invincible bore. From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 1 07:48:30 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:48:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Ellmann on a frustrated poet In-Reply-To: <20040930212835.8611.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <415D0BCE.3768.210676@localhost> To A Frustrated Poet RJ Ellmann This is just to say I know You wish you were in the woods, Living the poet life, Not here at a formica topped table In a meeting about perceived inequalities in the benefits and allowances offered to employees of this college, And I too wish you were in the woods, Because it's no fun having a frustrated poet In the Dept. of Human Resources, believe me. In the poems of yours that I've read, you seem ever intelligent and decent and patient in a way Not evident to us in this office, And so, knowing how poets can make a feast out of trouble, Raising flowers in a bed of drunkenness, divorce, despair, I give you this check representing two weeks' wages And ask you to clean out your desk today And go home And write a poem With a real frog in it And plums from the refrigerator, So sweet and so cold. From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 1 07:48:31 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:48:31 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Frost on us all In-Reply-To: <20040930212835.8611.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <415D0BCF.31329.210B27@localhost> Etherealizing Robert Frost A theory if you hold it hard enough And long enough gets rated as a creed: Such as that flesh is something we can slough So that the mind can be entirely freed. Then when the arms and legs have atrophied, And brain is all that?s left of mortal stuff, We can lie on the beach with the seaweed And take our daily tide baths smooth and rough. There once we lay as blobs of jellyfish At evolution?s opposite extreme. But now as blobs of brain we?ll lie and dream, With only one vestigial creature wish: Oh, may the tide be soon enough at high To keep our abstract verse from being dry. From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 1 07:48:31 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:48:31 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Borges/Browning In-Reply-To: <20040930212835.8611.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <415D0BCF.1641.21078E@localhost> Browning Decides To Be a Poet Jorge Luis Borges In these red labyrinths of London I find that I have chosen the strangest of all callings, save that, in its way, any calling is strange. Like the alchemists who sought the philosopher's stone in quicksilver, I shall make everyday words-- the gambler's marked cards, the common coin-- give off the magic that was theirs when Thor was both the god and the din, the thunderclap and the prayer. In today's dialect I shall say, in my fashion, eternal things; I shall try to be worthy of the great echo of Byron. This dust that I am will be invulnerable. If a woman shares my love my verse will touch the tenth sphere of the concentric heavens; if a woman turns my love aside I will make of my sadness a music, a full river to resound through time. I shall live by forgetting myself. I shall be the face I glimpse and forget, I shall be Judas who takes on the divine mission of being a betrayer, I shall be Caliban in his bog, I shall be a mercenary who dies without fear and without faith, I shall be Polycrates, who looks in awe upon the seal returned by fate. I will be the friend who hates me. The persian will give me the nightingale, and Rome the sword. Masks, agonies, resurrections will weave and unweave my life, and in time I shall be Robert Browning. From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 1 07:48:31 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:48:31 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Benet on GH In-Reply-To: <20040930212835.8611.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <415D0BCF.31654.2108BA@localhost> Elegy for an Enemy Stephen Vincent Benet (For G. H.) Say, does that stupid earth Where they have laid her, Bind still her sullen mirth, Mirth which betrayed her? Do the lush grasses hold, Greenly and glad, That brittle-perfect gold She alone had? Smugly the common crew, Over their knitting, Mourn her -- as butchers do Sheep-throats they're slitting! She was my enemy, One of the best of them. Would she come back to me, God damn the rest of them! Damn them, the flabby, fat, Sleek little darlings! We gave them tit for tat, Snarlings for snarlings! Squashy pomposities, Shocked at our violence, Let not one tactful hiss Break her new silence! Maids of antiquity, Look well upon her; Ice was her chastity, Spotless her honor. Neighbors, with breasts of snow, Dames of much virtue, How she could flame and glow! Lord, how she hurt you! She was a woman, and Tender -- at times! (Delicate was her hand) One of her crimes! Hair that strayed elfinly, Lips red as haws, You, with the ready lie, Was that the cause? Rest you, my enemy, Slain without fault, Life smacks but tastelessly Lacking your salt! Stuck in a bog whence naught May catapult me, Come from the grave, long-sought, Come and insult me! WE knew that sugared stuff Poisoned the other; Rough as the wind is rough, Sister and brother! Breathing the ether clear Others forlorn have found -- Oh, for that peace austere She and her scorn have found! From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 1 07:48:30 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:48:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Holmes on us all In-Reply-To: <20040930212835.8611.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <415D0BCE.26705.210553@localhost> Cacoethes Scribendi Oliver Wendell Holmes If all the trees in all the woods were men, And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of paper; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth?s living tribes had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for ten thousand ages, day and night The human race should write, and write, and write, Till all the pens and paper were used up, And the huge inkstand was an empty cup, Still would the scribblers clustered round its brink Call for more pens, more paper, and more ink. From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 1 07:48:30 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 07:48:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Cunningham on his contemporaries In-Reply-To: <20040930212835.8611.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <415D0BCE.23894.210413@localhost> FOR MY CONTEMPORARIES J.V. Cunningham How time reverses The proud in heart! I now make verses Who aimed at art. But I sleep well. Ambitious boys Whose big lines swell With spiritual noise, Despise me not, And be not queasy To praise somewhat: Verse is not easy. But rage who will. Time procured me Good sense and skill Of madness cured me. From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 1 07:59:09 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 07:59:09 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Seamen on boy-poets References: <415D0BCF.17998.2109FB@localhost> Message-ID: <008301c4a7ae$13107410$22b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Who was the boy poet? I suspect he is now a lot better known than Seaman. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marcus Bales" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 7:48 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems about Poets - Seamen on boy-poets > To a Boy-Poet of the Decadence > Showing a curious reversal of the epigram -- "La nature l'a fait > sanglier; la civilization l'a reduit a l'etat de cochon." > Owen Seamen > > But my good little man, you have made a mistake > If you really are pleased to suppose > That the Thames is alight with the lyrics you make: > We could all do the same if we chose. > >>From Solomon down we may read, as we run, > Of the ways of a man and a maid; > There is nothing that's new to us under the sun > And certainly not in the shade. > > The erotic affairs that you fiddle aloud > Are as vulgar as coin of the mint; > And you merely distinguish yourself from the crowd > By the fact that you put them in print. > > You're a 'prentice, my point, in the primitive stage, > And you itch, like a boy, to confess: > When you know a bit more of the arts of the age > You will probably talk a bit less. > > For your dull little vices we don't care a fig > It is this that we deeply deplore: > You were cast for a common or usual pig > But you play the invincible bore. > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 1 10:41:29 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 10:41:29 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books goes to Emory Message-ID: <128.4c190bf4.2e8ec699@aol.com> Emory Receives Largest Private Collection of English-Language Poetry Friday, October 1, 2004 Atlanta-based Emory University has received Raymond Danowski's collection of English-language poetry, comprising 60,000 books as well as tens of thousands of periodicals, manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials. The library, considered the largest ever built by a private collector, has yet to be completely appraised by Emory. "We place the value at $6 million to $7 million and counting," Earl Lewis, the university provost, told the New York Times. The collection makes the university one of the world's best equipped destinations for the study of contemporary English-language poetry. "This library contains outstanding copies of the most singular rarities," Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and a poet himself, told the Times. "But beyond that, if there is any book of modern poetry that isn't in it, I'd like to know what it is. With this wildly omnivorous collection, Emory has become one of the major literary archives in North America." According to Emory, it took four tractor trailers to transport the collection to the university, and it will now begin cataloguing the works so that they can be used by scholars from around the world. Highlights include the first printing of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855); T.S. Eliot's Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), inscribed by the author; W.H. Auden's first collection of poems, privately printed; and Allen Ginsberg's second book, Siesta in Xbalba, printed on a mimeograph machine on a ship near Alaska. A retired London art dealer who now resides in South Africa, Danowski began his collection-building efforts in the 1970s. Soon he became a full-fledged bibliophile, and as years passed and his collection grew, he and his books began to attract interest themselves. Danowski formed Poets' Trust, a nonprofit organization to manage the collection, and soon his obsession with building the library became an obsession with finding a proper home for it. But by the early 1990s, Danowski's collection was so massive that selling it whole would be impossible; no single buyer could pay what it was worth. He would either have to break it up or give it away. Danowski wanted these materials to be shared and celebrated within the world of literary scholarship. When he learned that Emory would provide that home, he made his choice. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd at ripon.edu Fri Oct 1 10:50:40 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 09:50:40 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems on Poets: Bly Message-ID: Wallace Stevens and Mozart Oh Wallace Stevens, dear friend, You are such a pest. You are so sure. You think everyone is in *your* family. It is you and your father and Mozart, And ladies tasting cold rain in Florence, Puzzling out inscriptions, studying the gold flake. It is as if life were a visit to Florence, A place where there are no maggots in the flesh, No one screaming, no one afraid. Your job, your joy, your morning walk, As if you walked on the wire of the mind, High above the elephants; you cry out a little but never fall. As if we could walk always high above the world, No bears, no witches, no MacBeth, No one screaming, no one in pain, no one afraid. --Robert Bly. *Morning Poems*. HarperCollins, 1997: 68. ==================================================== 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 tad at opus40.org Fri Oct 1 11:53:08 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 11:53:08 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books goes toEmory References: <128.4c190bf4.2e8ec699@aol.com> Message-ID: <005301c4a7ce$bf689420$6501a8c0@MoleHQ> Wow. ----- Original Message ----- From: JforJames at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 10:41 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books goes toEmory Emory Receives Largest Private Collection of English-Language Poetry Friday, October 1, 2004 Atlanta-based Emory University has received Raymond Danowski's collection of English-language poetry, comprising 60,000 books as well as tens of thousands of periodicals, manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials. The library, considered the largest ever built by a private collector, has yet to be completely appraised by Emory. "We place the value at $6 million to $7 million and counting," Earl Lewis, the university provost, told the New York Times. The collection makes the university one of the world's best equipped destinations for the study of contemporary English-language poetry. "This library contains outstanding copies of the most singular rarities," Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and a poet himself, told the Times. "But beyond that, if there is any book of modern poetry that isn't in it, I'd like to know what it is. With this wildly omnivorous collection, Emory has become one of the major literary archives in North America." According to Emory, it took four tractor trailers to transport the collection to the university, and it will now begin cataloguing the works so that they can be used by scholars from around the world. Highlights include the first printing of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855); T.S. Eliot's Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), inscribed by the author; W.H. Auden's first collection of poems, privately printed; and Allen Ginsberg's second book, Siesta in Xbalba, printed on a mimeograph machine on a ship near Alaska. A retired London art dealer who now resides in South Africa, Danowski began his collection-building efforts in the 1970s. Soon he became a full-fledged bibliophile, and as years passed and his collection grew, he and his books began to attract interest themselves. Danowski formed Poets' Trust, a nonprofit organization to manage the collection, and soon his obsession with building the library became an obsession with finding a proper home for it. But by the early 1990s, Danowski's collection was so massive that selling it whole would be impossible; no single buyer could pay what it was worth. He would either have to break it up or give it away. Danowski wanted these materials to be shared and celebrated within the world of literary scholarship. When he learned that Emory would provide that home, he made his choice. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk Fri Oct 1 12:01:17 2004 From: m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk (m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 17:01:17 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is In-Reply-To: <128.4c190bf4.2e8ec699@aol.com> References: <128.4c190bf4.2e8ec699@aol.com> Message-ID: <1096646477.415d7f4dcfaa0@webmail.ukonline.net> This is for Bob, because he complained that his interlocutors were firing off a couple of one-liners and then running for cover. In defence I'd claim that a forum might not be the right place for a topic of such magnitude, that if it's to be treated at all one needs to do so devotedly, and I guess most people are already using all their devotion on other projects. But as it happens I did take some trouble recently to try and address the question in more depth, so for anyone else who's interested I've extracted the essential Qs and As (not without a shade of embarrassment at times) from the original email exchange, as below. Michael WHAT IS A POEM? [This exchange arose (by email) last year. I am the one giving the answers. The questions were posed by someone I didn?t know, and for what purpose I don?t know, but I rather suspect as an investigation into psychology or Socratic dialectic rather than literature.] Q1. What is a poem? A1. A poem is an instantiation of any class of things that one or more people have agreed to call poems; typically, a more or less fixed arrangement of words, oral or written. Anyone can state that anything is a poem and cannot be gainsaid. Anyone can respond to anything as a poem and, if they think they do, then that?s what they feel it is. Knowing the answer - or rather, any answer - to this question is a matter of ?conna?tre? not ?savoir?. Therefore, the only helpful response is to introduce someone to a poem. This, for example, is a poem....shake its hand... I hope you?ll find something to talk about .... *** NOW I'll undress, I can do no more I'll let the old rooms and moonlight fall off my back I'll let many doors and journeys fall I peel off springs the spring when leaves grew early on trees and the other spring, the darker and the other, the darker still I take off the sea while my teeth are chattering I undress myself of boats made of bark and my childhood's last, dim sail I am naked but you are still here nb by Pentti Saaritsa Q2. If a poem can only be recognised subjectively, how can Poetry be studied and taught? A2. I don?t see that the subjective element forms an obstacle to study, though I?m sure it causes a problem for marking. (No doubt the ease with which I accept this reflects my own lack of involvement in the educational system!) What a relativistic and subjective study of literature might look like, I might suggest from my own experiments in this direction: http://www.geocities.com/mpeverett/selhist1 - wildly uneven, solipsistic.... going nowhere... going the only places it?s really worth going... ? There is at any rate no shortage of material. As for teaching, it seems to me that though there are many interesting ancillary aspects of poems that you could teach rigorously and more or less objectively (for example, language fluency, literacy, editorship, literary and social history, poem as verbal artefact, marketing, publishing, politics, race and gender studies, etc) the critical engagement with a poem is fundamentally personal and subjective - it is not a study but an encounter; in fact, it is part of being alive. The Protean forms that ?English? has taken over the last century confirm, I?d suggest, my view that at its heart there isn?t a rigorous methodology or even a securely-defined subject. And so much for literary Theory. A teacher?s best aim should be to put their pupil in touch with something - with other people, with grasshoppers in a field, with books. To put someone deeply in touch with a poem must involve much that is personal in each teacher?s method. It is not a fully objective exercise at any level. In practice, teachers and lessons are mostly useless (as regards poems, I mean), and most young people?s serious poetry-reading takes place, I should guess, in revolt against what school has seemed to teach them. Which I think is fine. Q.3 But --- I present myself as one who has never seen or heard of a poem. I want to know how do I recognise such a thing. Can you help me? A3. The problem lies with the implications of the word ?recognize?. Usually we use this about an individual but you are not talking about an individual. Or, it may be used to describe the identification features of, for instance, a species of living creature such as Viola arvensis or Lupus lupus. This is not entirely unproblematic (because a ?species?, after all, does not exist in the same way that an individual does) but the assumption that there is a fixed set of identification features works overwhelmingly in practice. But how can one apply this idea to a collection of artefacts scattered through the world and time? Here there is no question of a common basis in DNA, chemical formula or measurable force. Even if they have all been CALLED ?poems? by someone or other, there is no way of knowing whether we are looking at instances of one or many art-forms, even if ?art-form? means something useful. All the evidence suggests that there are no common features that all poems share. Therefore there is no possibility of recognition at such an absurdly Olympian level as ?Poetry?. Identification is not the point. So far as that goes, we are back with the first answer I sent you - definitions of very great generality (probably involving the words ?verbal? and ?pattern?) and very faint interest. The statement that ?They that have pow?r to hurt, and will do none? is a poem, is the least important thing about it. The thought-experiment that you mention has something unrealistic in it. No- one could attain to a level of understanding sufficient for discussing unknown art unless they already had some prior familiarity with culture. How could I suppose that your uninformed person has never heard a song or a nursery-rhyme or a skipping-chant, or has never had the least contact with a verbal pattern that has some kind of cultural pattern (e.g. an inscription, a billboard, a headline, a roadsign?). It is difficult to imagine communicating anything much at all to such an inconceivable person. The point I am making is that people who are not in a narrow sense ?literary? or readers of poetry nevertheless have a fairly rich engagement with cultural experiences that already contain all the elements of poetry. ?The poetic? is an inextricable part of human experience. Q4. Could we then dispense with the words 'poem' and 'poetry'? A4. When any word gains currency it means that lots of people are finding a valuable use for it - in this case, it gained currency a very long time ago - I?d never want to dispense with a word like that and in fact I would happily use the words ?poem? and ?poetry? myself, probably several times a day, in all sorts of contexts where exact definition is not important. But when definition does become the issue then popular language shouldn?t set the agenda. ?Toadstool?, ?fly?, ?pip?, and ?weed? are all good, useful, common words but biologists steer clear of them. I suppose that?s also why when I go to my doctor and say that my ear?s blocked with wax, what he writes down is something totally different. Ordinary language lacks precision. Ask ?What is a Toadstool?? and it soon turns out that the word, though rich in connotation, isn?t a helpful one for a mycologist, but vague, incoherent, impressionistic. Is this bracket fungus high on a birch stump, for example, a toadstool? There?s no point asking (and really, there?s no-one to ask) - the word was never intended to be subjected to this kind of scrutiny. I know this analogy is not very exact. In particular, the mycologist can use something else in place of popular language; a vast technical naming system (taxonomy) subject to consistent improvement. There is no equivalent when we are talking about human arts, and my contention is that in this case a taxonomy is intrinsically impossible. The events we seek to pin down are mercurial, dynamic, restless - without experiencing them we can say little worthwhile about them, yet inasmuch as we speak of personal experience we introduce a subjective component. So we may as well go on using popular words like ?poem? and ?poetry?, conscious that the moment we get too definitional about it our whole system is just going to fall apart, exploding our conclusions along the way. Q5. You seem to have little doubt. The subject seems to present you with no great difficulty. Please tell me - have my questions, or your own consideration of the subject, caused you to debate much with yourself? Have your answers been with you for some time, or did you arrive at them - at least partly - while conducting this discussion? Could you think of arguments against anything you assert? If you can and do, I'd be interested to read them. A5. The general position that I?ve argued is the result of long ponderings over a long period and has been broadly stable for the past five years at least. I do have plenty of doubt, but I thought it would complicate things to go into that. I hope that my views would not petrify and become inflexible to outside influence. I think I have learnt a good deal from the exercise of replying to your questions; I would not say I had significantly changed my views, but I would say that in quite a few areas I have been forced to think them out with more clarity, and that I?ve probably benefitted a lot more than you have! In day-to-day life I try to focus on reading, writing, enjoyment, criticism, investigation, experiencing or (I can only say) ?living? of Specific things - poems among much else - and as far as possible to avoid generalization and big ideas like Poetry, topics which I see as a massive distraction and which I think never tell the truth. This anti-theoretical origin no doubt explains why I have not bothered to name any influences for my views. Though I have generally had the arrogance to assume I can come up with my own opinions I hope I have not entirely neglected what theoreticians think and I would certainly want to mention Stanley Fish?s book ?Is there a text in this class?? The view I have put forward has a subjective element and is intimately connected to relativism. I don?t think I would be ashamed to own up to the label of relativist, but I accept that relativism is deeply problematic. I think I could write a pretty good attack on it. It leads to outrageous paradoxes (like, there?s no point in correcting misprints, and no-one ever improves a first draft, and the ?untypical? quartets after Schumann?s mental collapse are as good as anything else he wrote, etc etc) - but then, the alternatives seem to me to lack explanatory power (e.g. why do tastes differ?). I think it could be argued that my approach does severe disservice to poetry as a craft and as something that can be learnt about; and that relativism bears a heavy responsibility for failing to transmit great cultural traditions to posterity (because it says to anyone who starts typing, ?hey, that?s great, whatever you write is perfectly fine?); and, in short, that my opinions may be all very well for a renegade general reader, but it?s a bit of luck for me that my own teachers didn?t think the same way. It has occurred to me since yesterday that there have been times when a group of people really seem to relish their art in a few very distinct and definable forms or kinds (e.g. symphonies or sonnets) and that the motives that lie behind this are something that I haven?t thought much about. That?s probably where I?d begin if I set out to refute my own position. ---------------------------------------------- This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net From grahamd at ripon.edu Fri Oct 1 12:12:17 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2004 11:12:17 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books In-Reply-To: <005301c4a7ce$bf689420$6501a8c0@MoleHQ> Message-ID: I heard William Heyen speak a few years back. He's not in the same league as a collector, but his story is pretty interesting in this regard. Decades ago he started collecting books by writers who came to read at Brockport, where he taught. He didn't set out to be a collector or amass a valuable collection, but simply acquired books by visiting writers that he admired. Often they were signed. When he started, some of these writers were relatively little known--I remember him mentioning Raymond Carver-- and the individual volumes over time became fairly valuable. At some point he decided to have his collection appraised, and was amazed by how much it was worth. Then he sold it for a bundle, and retired on the proceeds. I'm not in Heyen's league, myself, and I doubt I could ever retire by selling my bookshelves. But it occurs to me that, despite regular purges as I've moved around the country, nonetheless in more than 30 years of squirreling away small press volumes, I have acquired a pretty fair inventory. Many are signed and a great many now rare, so I may actually have a similar problem in my future. What to do with my little collection? Utterly uncatalogued and arranged by whim, of course. . . . What are you planning to do with *your* poetry bookshelves? on 10/1/04 10:53 AM, The Old Mole at tad at opus40.org wrote: Wow. ----- Original Message ----- From: JforJames at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 10:41 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books goes toEmory Emory Receives Largest Private Collection of English-Language Poetry ==================================================== 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 ==================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hruggier at localnet.com Fri Oct 1 12:42:07 2004 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 12:42:07 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books References: Message-ID: <008c01c4a7d5$97bbb3b0$06099942@Helen> four tractor-trailer trove of poetry booksIf I could find a buyer I would be tempted to sell. I've got copies of the 60s mag. signed by Bly and Ignatow and Galway Kinnell who autographed "The Bear". Among other books - but where do you go with all this stuff if you decide to sell? ----- Original Message ----- From: David Graham To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 12:12 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books I heard William Heyen speak a few years back. He's not in the same league as a collector, but his story is pretty interesting in this regard. Decades ago he started collecting books by writers who came to read at Brockport, where he taught. He didn't set out to be a collector or amass a valuable collection, but simply acquired books by visiting writers that he admired. Often they were signed. When he started, some of these writers were relatively little known--I remember him mentioning Raymond Carver-- and the individual volumes over time became fairly valuable. At some point he decided to have his collection appraised, and was amazed by how much it was worth. Then he sold it for a bundle, and retired on the proceeds. I'm not in Heyen's league, myself, and I doubt I could ever retire by selling my bookshelves. But it occurs to me that, despite regular purges as I've moved around the country, nonetheless in more than 30 years of squirreling away small press volumes, I have acquired a pretty fair inventory. Many are signed and a great many now rare, so I may actually have a similar problem in my future. What to do with my little collection? Utterly uncatalogued and arranged by whim, of course. . . . What are you planning to do with *your* poetry bookshelves? on 10/1/04 10:53 AM, The Old Mole at tad at opus40.org wrote: Wow. ----- Original Message ----- From: JforJames at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Friday, October 01, 2004 10:41 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books goes toEmory Emory Receives Largest Private Collection of English-Language Poetry ==================================================== 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Fri Oct 1 13:11:06 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 13:11:06 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is In-Reply-To: <1096646477.415d7f4dcfaa0@webmail.ukonline.net> Message-ID: Quite marvelous, Michael. I'm hoping it's not *only* for Bob. Hal "I don't know what music is." --Ludvig van Beethoven Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ { This is for Bob, because he complained that his interlocutors were firing off { a couple of one-liners and then running for cover. In defence I'd claim that a { forum might not be the right place for a topic of such magnitude, that if it's { to be treated at all one needs to do so devotedly, and I guess most people are { already using all their devotion on other projects. { { But as it happens I did take some trouble recently to try and address the { question in more depth, so for anyone else who's interested I've extracted the { essential Qs and As (not without a shade of embarrassment at times) from the { original email exchange, as below. { { Michael { { { { WHAT IS A POEM? { { [This exchange arose (by email) last year. I am the one giving the answers. { The questions were posed by someone I didn?t know, and for what purpose I { don?t know, but I rather suspect as an investigation into psychology or { Socratic dialectic rather than literature.] { { Q1. What is a poem? { { A1. A poem is an instantiation of any class of things that one or more people { have agreed to call poems; typically, a more or less fixed arrangement of { words, oral or written. { { Anyone can state that anything is a poem and cannot be gainsaid. { { Anyone can respond to anything as a poem and, if they think they do, then { that?s what they feel it is. { { Knowing the answer - or rather, any answer - to this question is a matter { of ?conna?tre? not ?savoir?. { { Therefore, the only helpful response is to introduce someone to a poem. { { This, for example, is a poem....shake its hand... I hope you?ll find { something to talk about .... { { *** { NOW { { I'll undress, I can do no more { I'll let the old rooms and moonlight fall off my back { I'll let many doors and journeys fall { I peel off springs { the spring when leaves grew early on trees { and the other spring, the darker { and the other, the darker still { { { I take off the sea while my teeth are chattering { I undress myself of boats made of bark { and my childhood's last, dim sail { { { I am naked { but you are still here { { { { nb by Pentti Saaritsa { { { Q2. If a poem can only be recognised subjectively, how can Poetry be studied { and taught? { { A2. I don?t see that the subjective element forms an obstacle to study, though { I?m sure it causes a problem for marking. (No doubt the ease with which I { accept this reflects my own lack of involvement in the educational system!) { What a relativistic and subjective study of literature might look like, I { might suggest from my own experiments in this direction: { http://www.geocities.com/mpeverett/selhist1 - wildly uneven, solipsistic.... { going nowhere... going the only places it?s really worth going... ? There is { at any rate no shortage of material. { { As for teaching, it seems to me that though there are many interesting { ancillary aspects of poems that you could teach rigorously and more or less { objectively (for example, language fluency, literacy, editorship, literary and { social history, poem as verbal artefact, marketing, publishing, politics, race { and gender studies, etc) the critical engagement with a poem is fundamentally { personal and subjective - it is not a study but an encounter; in fact, it is { part of being alive. { { The Protean forms that ?English? has taken over the last century confirm, I?d { suggest, my view that at its heart there isn?t a rigorous methodology or even { a securely-defined subject. And so much for literary Theory. { { A teacher?s best aim should be to put their pupil in touch with something - { with other people, with grasshoppers in a field, with books. To put someone { deeply in touch with a poem must involve much that is personal in each { teacher?s method. It is not a fully objective exercise at any level. { { In practice, teachers and lessons are mostly useless (as regards poems, I { mean), and most young people?s serious poetry-reading takes place, I should { guess, in revolt against what school has seemed to teach them. Which I think { is fine. { { Q.3 But --- I present myself as one who has never seen or heard of a poem. I { want to know how do I recognise such a thing. { Can you help me? { { A3. The problem lies with the implications of the word ?recognize?. { { Usually we use this about an individual but you are not talking about an { individual. { { Or, it may be used to describe the identification features of, for instance, a { species of living creature such as Viola arvensis or Lupus lupus. This is not { entirely unproblematic (because a ?species?, after all, does not exist in the { same way that an individual does) but the assumption that there is a fixed set { of identification features works overwhelmingly in practice. { { But how can one apply this idea to a collection of artefacts scattered through { the world and time? Here there is no question of a common basis in DNA, { chemical formula or measurable force. Even if they have all been { CALLED ?poems? by someone or other, there is no way of knowing whether we are { looking at instances of one or many art-forms, even if ?art-form? means { something useful. All the evidence suggests that there are no common features { that all poems share. Therefore there is no possibility of recognition at such { an absurdly Olympian level as ?Poetry?. { { Identification is not the point. So far as that goes, we are back with the { first answer I sent you - definitions of very great generality (probably { involving the words ?verbal? and ?pattern?) and very faint interest. The { statement that ?They that have pow?r to hurt, and will do none? is a poem, is { the least important thing about it. { { The thought-experiment that you mention has something unrealistic in it. No- { one could attain to a level of understanding sufficient for discussing unknown { art unless they already had some prior familiarity with culture. How could I { suppose that your uninformed person has never heard a song or a nursery-rhyme { or a skipping-chant, or has never had the least contact with a verbal pattern { that has some kind of cultural pattern (e.g. an inscription, a billboard, a { headline, a roadsign?). It is difficult to imagine communicating anything much { at all to such an inconceivable person. The point I am making is that people { who are not in a narrow sense ?literary? or readers of poetry nevertheless { have a fairly rich engagement with cultural experiences that already contain { all the elements of poetry. ?The poetic? is an inextricable part of human { experience. { { { Q4. Could we then dispense with the words 'poem' and 'poetry'? { { A4. When any word gains currency it means that lots of people are finding a { valuable use for it - in this case, it gained currency a very long time ago - { I?d never want to dispense with a word like that and in fact I would happily { use the words ?poem? and ?poetry? myself, probably several times a day, in all { sorts of contexts where exact definition is not important. { { But when definition does become the issue then popular language shouldn?t set { the agenda. ?Toadstool?, ?fly?, ?pip?, and ?weed? are all good, useful, common { words but biologists steer clear of them. I suppose that?s also why when I go { to my doctor and say that my ear?s blocked with wax, what he writes down is { something totally different. Ordinary language lacks precision. Ask ?What is a { Toadstool?? and it soon turns out that the word, though rich in connotation, { isn?t a helpful one for a mycologist, but vague, incoherent, impressionistic. { Is this bracket fungus high on a birch stump, for example, a toadstool? { There?s no point asking (and really, there?s no-one to ask) - the word was { never intended to be subjected to this kind of scrutiny. { { I know this analogy is not very exact. In particular, the mycologist can use { something else in place of popular language; a vast technical naming system { (taxonomy) subject to consistent improvement. There is no equivalent when we { are talking about human arts, and my contention is that in this case a { taxonomy is intrinsically impossible. The events we seek to pin down are { mercurial, dynamic, restless - without experiencing them we can say little { worthwhile about them, yet inasmuch as we speak of personal experience we { introduce a subjective component. { { So we may as well go on using popular words like ?poem? and ?poetry?, { conscious that the moment we get too definitional about it our whole system is { just going to fall apart, exploding our conclusions along the way. { { { Q5. You seem to have little doubt. The subject seems to present you with no { great difficulty. Please tell me - have my questions, or your own { consideration of the subject, caused you to debate much with yourself? Have { your answers been with you for some time, or did you arrive at them - at least { partly - while conducting this discussion? Could you think of arguments { against anything you assert? If you can and do, I'd be interested to read { them. { { { A5. The general position that I?ve argued is the result of long ponderings { over a long period and has been broadly stable for the past five years at { least. { { I do have plenty of doubt, but I thought it would complicate things to go into { that. { { I hope that my views would not petrify and become inflexible to outside { influence. I think I have learnt a good deal from the exercise of replying to { your questions; I would not say I had significantly changed my views, but I { would say that in quite a few areas I have been forced to think them out with { more clarity, and that I?ve probably benefitted a lot more than you have! In { day-to-day life I try to focus on reading, writing, enjoyment, criticism, { investigation, experiencing or (I can only say) ?living? of Specific things - { poems among much else - and as far as possible to avoid generalization and big { ideas like Poetry, topics which I see as a massive distraction and which I { think never tell the truth. { { This anti-theoretical origin no doubt explains why I have not bothered to name { any influences for my views. Though I have generally had the arrogance to { assume I can come up with my own opinions I hope I have not entirely neglected { what theoreticians think and I would certainly want to mention Stanley Fish?s { book ?Is there a text in this class?? { { The view I have put forward has a subjective element and is intimately { connected to relativism. I don?t think I would be ashamed to own up to the { label of relativist, but I accept that relativism is deeply problematic. I { think I could write a pretty good attack on it. It leads to outrageous { paradoxes (like, there?s no point in correcting misprints, and no-one ever { improves a first draft, and the ?untypical? quartets after Schumann?s mental { collapse are as good as anything else he wrote, etc etc) - but then, the { alternatives seem to me to lack explanatory power (e.g. why do tastes { differ?). I think it could be argued that my approach does severe disservice { to poetry as a craft and as something that can be learnt about; and that { relativism bears a heavy responsibility for failing to transmit great cultural { traditions to posterity (because it says to anyone who starts typing, ?hey, { that?s great, whatever you write is perfectly fine?); and, in short, that my { opinions may be all very well for a renegade general reader, but it?s a bit of { luck for me that my own teachers didn?t think the same way. { { It has occurred to me since yesterday that there have been times when a group { of people really seem to relish their art in a few very distinct and definable { forms or kinds (e.g. symphonies or sonnets) and that the motives that lie { behind this are something that I haven?t thought much about. That?s probably { where I?d begin if I set out to refute my own position. { { { ---------------------------------------------- { This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net { _______________________________________________ { 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 Fri Oct 1 14:56:50 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 11:56:50 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems on Poets: Bly Message-ID: <26579451.1096657010934.JavaMail.root@bigbird.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Color Bly green. - Jim -----Original Message----- From: David Graham Sent: Oct 1, 2004 7:50 AM To: "new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu" Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems on Poets: Bly Wallace Stevens and Mozart Oh Wallace Stevens, dear friend, You are such a pest. You are so sure. You think everyone is in *your* family. It is you and your father and Mozart, And ladies tasting cold rain in Florence, Puzzling out inscriptions, studying the gold flake. It is as if life were a visit to Florence, A place where there are no maggots in the flesh, No one screaming, no one afraid. Your job, your joy, your morning walk, As if you walked on the wire of the mind, High above the elephants; you cry out a little but never fall. As if we could walk always high above the world, No bears, no witches, no MacBeth, No one screaming, no one in pain, no one afraid. --Robert Bly. *Morning Poems*. HarperCollins, 1997: 68. ==================================================== 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org RelativeLinks: http://www.poetserv.com/relativelinks/home.html From JforJames at aol.com Fri Oct 1 15:03:44 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 15:03:44 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books Message-ID: <2b.6291b654.2e8f0410@aol.com> In a message dated 10/1/2004 12:12:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes: What are you planning to do with *your* poetry bookshelves? David, I try to keep several of my bookcases devoted to poetry & in alphabetical order...but there are quite of few titles lying on their sides, stacked here & there, and lots of things in boxes for lack of linear-feet of shelf space. I'm going to give them away when the time comes...but I don't expect that to happen before the my collection doubles or triples in size. I may be pushing a couple of pallets-full but no need for anything but a fork-lift as yet. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Fri Oct 1 15:09:46 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 15:09:46 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books Message-ID: <142.351fcd2e.2e8f057a@aol.com> In a message dated 10/1/2004 12:42:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time, hruggier at localnet.com writes: If I could find a buyer I would be tempted to sell. I've got copies of the 60s mag. signed by Bly and Ignatow and Galway Kinnell who autographed "The Bear". Among other books - but where do you go with all this stuff if you decide to sell? I know a few booksellers who specialize in poetry related materials and would probably give you a fair appraisal and/or make an offer. But you can probably make more by selling it yourself online...of course it takes a bit more effort that way. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD at ripon.edu Fri Oct 1 15:54:22 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 14:54:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems on Poets: Bly Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3B9@ariel.ripon.edu> > Color Bly green. > > - Jim > > I love Wallace Stevens's poems and so does Bly; any poet would have to be an idiot *not* to be a little green over them, seems to me. In any case I think Bly's got a point, don't you? Reading Stevens, especially when he waxes philosophical, I often think of Melville's remark about Emerson-- that he sounds like a man who has never had a toothache. ============================================ 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 ============================================ > -----Original Message----- > From: David Graham > Sent: Oct 1, 2004 7:50 AM > To: "new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu" > Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems on Poets: Bly > > Wallace Stevens and Mozart > > > Oh Wallace Stevens, dear friend, > You are such a pest. You are so sure. > You think everyone is in *your* family. > > It is you and your father and Mozart, > And ladies tasting cold rain in Florence, > Puzzling out inscriptions, studying the gold flake. > > It is as if life were a visit to Florence, > A place where there are no maggots in the flesh, > No one screaming, no one afraid. > > Your job, your joy, your morning walk, > As if you walked on the wire of the mind, > High above the elephants; you cry out a little but never fall. > > As if we could walk always high above the world, > No bears, no witches, no MacBeth, > No one screaming, no one in pain, no one afraid. > > --Robert Bly. *Morning Poems*. HarperCollins, 1997: 68. > > > > > ==================================================== > 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 bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 1 19:51:43 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 19:51:43 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <128.4c190bf4.2e8ec699@aol.com> <1096646477.415d7f4dcfaa0@webmail.ukonline.net> Message-ID: <006801c4a811$9efe41b0$82b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > This is for Bob, because he complained that his interlocutors were firing off > a couple of one-liners and then running for cover. I didn't mean to imply they ran for cover, or suggest they contributed no more than one-liners, just that they had some set notion of what a poem is, expressed it, and thought that sufficient. >in defence I'd claim that a > forum might not be the right place for a topic of such magnitude, that if it's > to be treated at all one needs to do so devotedly, and I guess most people are > already using all their devotion on other projects. I think there's no wrong place for a topic of such magnitude--but only wrong places for kinds of discussions of it. This, to me, should be an ideal place for lengthy informal (but serious) discussion of the topic. In the late discussion one example of the kind of thing that irks me stands out. I brought up the problem of defining poetry as the name of certain verbal constructions versus the defining of it as certain verbal constructions the definer likes. One respondent agreed with me, one disagreed, and three or four said nothing but implied in doing so that they disagreed. Same with the question of whether or not poetry must be verse, and the related question of whether or not all verse is poetry. People vote on these things, they don't discuss them. > But as it happens I did take some trouble recently to try and address the > question in more depth, so for anyone else who's interested I've extracted the > essential Qs and As (not without a shade of embarrassment at times) from the > original email exchange, as below. > > Michael > > > > WHAT IS A POEM? > > [This exchange arose (by email) last year. I am the one giving the answers. > The questions were posed by someone I didn't know, and for what purpose I > don't know, but I rather suspect as an investigation into psychology or > Socratic dialectic rather than literature.] > Q1. What is a poem? > > A1. A poem is an instantiation of any class of things that one or more people > have agreed to call poems; typically, a more or less fixed arrangement of > words, oral or written. > Anyone can state that anything is a poem and cannot be gainsaid. Follow-Up: Can anyone also state that anything is a truck or a neurosurgeon and not be gainsaid? If not, why can they state that anything is a poem and not be gainsaid? I won't get into the particulars of your defense of nihilism or whatever it is, but have a few comments. One is that I only now realize how self-centered such a position as yours and Hal's is. You, in effect, want to bar it from philosophical and/or scientific study. That would also bar creativity from scientific study since it would not be possible to learn how poems are made if it were impossible to know what a poem is. I'm not big on formal education but you would take poetry away from all teachers, even an older poet simply wanting to help a young would-be poet. Sure, the mentor could expose the pupil to specific specimens of what he calls poems, but it would be more profitable if he could expose him to a concept of poetry that helps the pupil know the size of the field. I could go on about the value for understanding of naming things like rhyme, alliteration, metaphor, visiophor, but am not up to it. As a poet, I want to know as much as I can, by name, about poetry. As a critic, I want such knowledge so I can pass on all that I feel I know about the art. As a theoretical pyschologist and/or philosopher of aesthetics, I want such knowledge because I don't feel I can have any chance of understanding without it. To put it briefly, informally, awkwardly. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 1 20:02:18 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 20:02:18 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] four tractor-trailer trove of poetry books goes toEmory References: <128.4c190bf4.2e8ec699@aol.com> Message-ID: <008501c4a813$1e2fa360$82b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Atlanta-based Emory University has received Raymond Danowski's collection of English-language poetry, comprising 60,000 books as well as tens of thousands of periodicals, manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials. The library, considered the largest ever built by a private collector, has yet to be completely appraised by Emory. "We place the value at $6 million to $7 million and counting," Earl Lewis, the university provost, told the New York Times. The collection makes the university one of the world's best equipped destinations for the study of contemporary English-language poetry. "This library contains outstanding copies of the most singular rarities," Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and a poet himself, told the Times. "But beyond that, if there is any book of modern poetry that isn't in it, I'd like to know what it is. With this wildly omnivorous collection, Emory has become one of the major literary archives in North America." I bet I can name over a hundred books of contemporary poetry that aren't in it. Some, of course, I know for a fact aren't in it. I'm curious to know if there's anything of real value in it--by which I mean one or more books by superior poets that aren't already in some college library or other. I applaud the collection, but not Gioia's characteristically silly remark about it. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Fri Oct 1 22:53:34 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 22:53:34 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is In-Reply-To: <006801c4a811$9efe41b0$82b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: I won't get into particulars either, Bob, 'cept to offer congratulations at your finding a position I didn't know I had. Hmm, must be the work of that brain I seem to have misplaced around here somewhere. Hal I won't get into the particulars of your defense of nihilism or whatever it is, but have a few comments. One is that I only now realize how self-centered such a position as yours and Hal's is. You, in effect, want to bar it from philosophical and/or scientific study. That would also bar creativity from scientific study since it would not be possible to learn how poems are made if it were impossible to know what a poem is. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 1 23:06:12 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 23:06:12 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems on Poets: Bly References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3B9@ariel.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <00f901c4a82c$c9fd3ae0$82b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> >> Color Bly green. >> >> - Jim >> >> > I love Wallace Stevens's poems and so does Bly; any poet would have to be > an idiot *not* to be a little green over them, seems to me. > > In any case I think Bly's got a point, don't you? Reading Stevens, > especially when he waxes philosophical, I often think of Melville's remark > about Emerson-- that he sounds like a man who has never had a toothache. I think Stevens cared about his mind, not his teeth. I feel there's no winter of the mind he did not visit and report movingly on. --Bob From Thom424 at aol.com Fri Oct 1 23:43:05 2004 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2004 23:43:05 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems on Poets Message-ID: <1ec.2b2f52dd.2e8f7dc9@aol.com> VISITING EMILY: POEMS INSPIRED BY THE LIFE AND WORK OF EMILY DICKINSON. University of Iowa Press, 2001. 78 poems by 78 poets. VISITING WALT: POEMS INSPIRED BY THE LIFE AND WORK OF WALT WHITMAN. University of Iowa Press, 2003. 100 poems by 100 poets. VISITING fROST: POEMS INSPIRED BY THE LIFE AND WORK OF ROBERT FROST. University of Iowa Press. Forthcoming, Fall 2005. 101 poems by 101 poets. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 2 06:37:08 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 06:37:08 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: Message-ID: <004e01c4a86b$c8ad8ac0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> I won't get into particulars either, Bob, 'cept to offer congratulations at your finding a position I didn't know I had. Hmm, must be the work of that brain I seem to have misplaced around here somewhere. Exactly, Hal. It takes the ability to analyze for a person to understand the necessary ramifications of his . . . feelings, I guess one would call it, in your case. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Sat Oct 2 08:21:47 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 08:21:47 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Gerardo Deniz, "Scientist" Message-ID: Scientist If in 1890 I discover a new simple compound in a certain Brazilian mineral I'll give it the name of nasturtium, provisionally determine its atomic weight and, treating chloride with potassium, render it, prior leaching, in a powdered state. Duplicating the experiment before a committee of enemies which the academy designates, the nasturtium will acquire citizenship, its position continuing to be defined: between that of synthetic osimum and aberrant molydenum, beneath a congratulatory shower --first element to reside on a Rialto bridge between two others and, suddenly, the periodic table is no longer flat, and not on a whim. Does the discoverer merit the order of the terrified dragon? Rain or thunder! And from now on we'll be like a thick rat that formed in the sand and lives buried there, moving little, barely breathing, long-lived, never reading. --Gerardo Deniz tr. Judith Infante in Marlboro Review, No. 8, Summer/Fall, 1999 Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: winmail.dat Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 2356 bytes Desc: not available URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Sat Oct 2 10:02:47 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 10:02:47 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is In-Reply-To: <004e01c4a86b$c8ad8ac0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: Much too high (or low) a goal for the likes of me, Bob. Hal "As Raymond Chandler said, 'It was one of those days when Los Angeles felt like a rock-hard fig.'" --Monty Python, c. 1974 Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ I won't get into particulars either, Bob, 'cept to offer congratulations at your finding a position I didn't know I had. Hmm, must be the work of that brain I seem to have misplaced around here somewhere. Exactly, Hal. It takes the ability to analyze for a person to understand the necessary ramifications of his . . . feelings, I guess one would call it, in your case. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 2 11:26:57 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 11:26:57 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems on Poets: Bly Message-ID: <9.34211faf.2e9022c1@aol.com> In a message dated 10/1/2004 3:54:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, GrahamD at ripon.edu writes: > Color Bly green. > > > >- Jim > > > > > I love Wallace Stevens's poems and so does Bly; any poet would have to be > an idiot *not* to be a little green over them, seems to me. > > In any case I think Bly's got a point, don't you? Reading Stevens, > especially when he waxes philosophical, I often think of Melville's remark > about Emerson-- that he sounds like a man who has never had a toothache. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 2 11:34:04 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 11:34:04 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Stevens at 125 Message-ID: <1d6.2c7440bb.2e90246c@aol.com> In a message dated 10/1/2004 3:54:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, GrahamD at ripon.edu writes: > Color Bly green. > > > >- Jim > > > > > I love Wallace Stevens's poems and so does Bly; any poet would have to be > an idiot *not* to be a little green over them, seems to me. > > In any case I think Bly's got a point, don't you? Reading Stevens, > especially when he waxes philosophical, I often think of Melville's remark > about Emerson-- that he sounds like a man who has never had a toothache. > Today is the 125th anniversary of Wallace Stevens' birth. Here's one posted by Bill Ford on the Wallace Stevens List today...Roethke having a little fun with and in tribute to the big Wally... A Rouse for Stevens Wallace Stevens, what's he done? He can play the flitter-flad; He can see the second sun Spinning through the lordly cloud. He's imagination's prince: He can plink the skitter-bum; How he rolls the vocables, Brings the secret--right in Here! Wallace, Wallace, wo ist er? Never met him, Dutchman dear; If I ate and drank like him, I would be a chanticleer. (TOGETHER) Speak it from the face out clearly: Here's a mensch but can sing dandy. Er ist einmals ausgepoopen, Altes Wunderkind. (AUDIENCE) Roar 'em, whore 'em, cockalorum, The Muses, they must all adore him, Wallace Stevens, are we for him? Brother, he's our father! --Theodore Roethke Happy 125th! Bill Ford --------------------------------- You are currently subscribed to wallace_stevens as: JforJames at aol.com To unsubscribe send a blank email to: leave-wallace_stevens-757762Q at lyris.wesleyan.edu List archive: http://lyris.wesleyan.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=wallace_stevens The Academy of American Poets: http://www.poets.org/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 2 12:14:22 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 18:14:22 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is Message-ID: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> I won't get into particulars either, Bob, 'cept to offer congratulations at your finding a position I didn't know I had. Hmm, must be the work of that brain I seem to have misplaced around here somewhere. Exactly, Hal. It takes the ability to analyze for a person to understand the necessary ramifications of his . . . feelings, I guess one would call it, in your case. --Bob I don't have anything to say, I am just going on with the stripes of the flag, so it is up to you now red bob, I am sure you have something else to add, merry xmas and happy new year, anny --- adding also a coupla stars ********************************* ********************************* ********************************* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Sat Oct 2 12:20:09 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 09:20:09 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net> Stay the course, Bob. It's hard work trying to define what poetry is. Very hard work. There's groups of folks who hate the freedom that lets you do all the hard work. They just like soft work. Stay the course. - Jim > Anny Ballardini wrote: > > I won't get into particulars either, Bob, 'cept to offer > congratulations at your finding a position I didn't know I had. Hmm, > must be the work of that brain I seem to have misplaced around here > somewhere. > > Exactly, Hal. It takes the ability to analyze for a person to > understand the necessary ramifications of his . . . feelings, I guess > one would call it, in your case. > > --Bob > > I don't have anything to say, I am just going on with the stripes of > the flag, so it is up to you now red bob, I am sure you have something > else to add, merry xmas and happy new year, anny --- adding also a > coupla stars > > > > ********************************* > ********************************* > ********************************* > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 2 12:35:05 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 18:35:05 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> <415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> "You have to be in a strange country like France, walking the meridian that separates the hemispheres of life and death, to know what incalculable vistas yawn ahead. The body electric! The democratic soul! Flood tide! Holy Mother of God, what does this crap mean? The earth is parched and cracked. Men and women come together like broods of vultures over a stinking carcass, to mate and fly apart again. Vultures who drop from the clouds like heavy stones. Talons and beak, that's what we are! A huge intestinal apparatus with a nose for dead meat. Forward! Forward without pity, without compassion, without love, without forgiveness. Ask no quarter and give none! More battleships, more poison gas, more high explosives! More gonococci! More streptococci! More bombing machines! More and more of it -- until the whole fucking works is blown to smithereens, and the earth with it!" Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934) Forwarded by Jon Corelis to Poetryetc. This seems to me a good piece of poetry, for example, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky From: "James Cervantes" Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2004 6:20 PM > Stay the course, Bob. It's hard work trying to define what poetry is. > Very hard work. There's groups of folks who hate the freedom that lets > you do all the hard work. They just like soft work. Stay the course. > > - Jim > > > Anny Ballardini wrote: > > > > I won't get into particulars either, Bob, 'cept to offer > > congratulations at your finding a position I didn't know I had. Hmm, > > must be the work of that brain I seem to have misplaced around here > > somewhere. > > > > Exactly, Hal. It takes the ability to analyze for a person to > > understand the necessary ramifications of his . . . feelings, I guess > > one would call it, in your case. > > > > --Bob > > > > I don't have anything to say, I am just going on with the stripes of > > the flag, so it is up to you now red bob, I am sure you have something > > else to add, merry xmas and happy new year, anny --- adding also a > > coupla stars > > > > > > > > ********************************* > > ********************************* > > ********************************* > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 2 12:39:03 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 11:39:03 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Stevens at 125 In-Reply-To: <1d6.2c7440bb.2e90246c@aol.com> Message-ID: Yes, let's raise a toast to the ghost. Here's my favorite Stevens poem, followed by my homage to it. 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 ------------------------------------------------- A Mind Of Winter I recognize the pose: casual cool, one arm spread along the top slat of the bench, legs wide in disdain, a gaze aiming at unreadable. For two days he's sprawled at ease near the student union, making it clear he's not moving come class or final. The season's second snowfall glazes his face and limbs. The fact that he's sculpted in snow explains much of his immobility but not all. For he's so much the ghost of the unlistener, that back-row child who passes through wisdom as through the weather, elemental and unaltered, that I know I've seen him sprawled over half my life. Not to mention that I've been that boy, chilling myself from inside out with the ice of unknowing. So I cannot pass without a kind thought tossed like a whiff of cool wind in his direction. His eyeless gaze cannot blink away new snow building, nor can my squint focus his form. By tomorrow both our heads will have been knocked off and reasserted more times than we can tell. --David Graham. *Stutter Monk*. Flume Press, 2000. ==================================================== 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 ==================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MillB at aol.com Sat Oct 2 13:59:35 2004 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 13:59:35 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Stevens at 125 Message-ID: <6b.34e621c4.2e904687@aol.com> Happy Bday Stevens! Here's my contribution. . . On a Theme by William Stafford If I could be like Wallace Stevens, I?d fold my clothes into the bureau drawer instead of living from a suitcase. I?d hang up my long coat in the closet and really move in. I?d cook food in my room on a hot plate, then open up the window for the neighbors. With my tongue pursed like a stick, I?d push my ice cream all the way down to the end, so that even the last bite contained both cone and cream. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 2 14:03:14 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 20:03:14 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Stevens at 125 References: Message-ID: <001401c4a8aa$16b67720$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> Stevens at 125Of Mere Being The palm at the end of the mind, Beyond the last thought, rises In the bronze decor, A gold-feathered bird Sings in the palm, without human meaning, Without human feeling, a foreign song. You know then that it is not the reason That makes us happy or unhappy. The bird sings. Its feathers shine. The palm stands on the edge of space. The wind moves slowly in the branches. The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down. 1957, 1989 Wallace Stevens Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 2 14:04:15 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 14:04:15 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net> <010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > "You have to be in a strange country like France, walking the meridian > that > separates the hemispheres of life and death, to know what incalculable > vistas yawn ahead. The body electric! The democratic soul! Flood tide! > Holy Mother of God, what does this crap mean? The earth is parched and > cracked. Men and women come together like broods of vultures over a > stinking carcass, to mate and fly apart again. Vultures who drop from the > clouds like heavy stones. Talons and beak, that's what we are! A huge > intestinal apparatus with a nose for dead meat. Forward! Forward without > pity, without compassion, without love, without forgiveness. Ask no > quarter > and give none! More battleships, more poison gas, more high explosives! > More gonococci! More streptococci! More bombing machines! More and more > of it -- until the whole fucking works is blown to smithereens, and the > earth with it!" > > > Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934) > > Forwarded by Jon Corelis to Poetryetc. This seems to me a good piece of > poetry, for example, It's a prose rant, Annie. Sure, it's poetry in the sense that a daisy or Hurricane Charley are poems, but anyone who wants to know as well as feel will want a definition of poetry less broad. But keep sending me stars. Stripes, too. --Bob From m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk Sat Oct 2 17:02:45 2004 From: m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk (m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 22:02:45 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is In-Reply-To: <006801c4a811$9efe41b0$82b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> References: <128.4c190bf4.2e8ec699@aol.com> <1096646477.415d7f4dcfaa0@webmail.ukonline.net> <006801c4a811$9efe41b0$82b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <1096750965.415f17759c41c@webmail.ukonline.net> You, in effect, want to > bar it from philosophical and/or scientific study. Absolutely not. I reject the idea of barring things, completely. Of science I only say let it be real science, not some kind of analogical use of a pseudo- scientific approach . One wants, I think, to begin with some sense of the vastness and unpredictability of the material. It seems to me correct to say at once that the terms "poem" and "poetry" have seen many different usages, and many different conceptions have been attached to them. If you want to go on to claim that there is, nevertheless, a useful and defensible core definition that can be discussed (perhaps there is a large central clarity with some muzzy limits, for example), then I'm listening, but I haven't come up with one myself and (for me, at any rate) this is not the most fruitful place to start. I'm working on a different coalface because I prefer to work from specifics and to say - this is a human artefact - let's see what can be said about it, setting aside the matter of classification... The practical problem that I often perceive with saying, "A is a poem, B is a poem, but C isn't a poem.." is that people then try and find the same things in B that they found in A, and that's an assumption at the back of so many casual dismissals; they condemn Jodie for not writing the poem that Julia writes. In our own time I see a very fragmented series of endeavours that are all called (and call themselves) "poetry" but are better approached, I think, as totally separate artforms, with largely separate audiences. Thus I may be a competent reader of a few of these bodies of "poetry" yet helplessly incompetent, merely annoyed and injured, when it comes to tackling some of the others (just as someone may be a profound admirer of classical music, yet has never looked twice at a sculpture in their lives). That would also bar > creativity from scientific study since it would not be possible to learn how > poems are made if it were impossible to know what a poem is. No, because to study creativity requires only a concept of "artefact", something done or made. A standing stone is an artefact, a glacial boulder is not. I do not have any such problem with this term as I do with "poem", and (uncontroversially) there's no doubt that one can pursue a philosophy of art or science of art on this foundation. > I could go on about the value for understanding of naming things like rhyme, > alliteration, metaphor, visiophor, but am not up to it. As a poet, I want to > know as much as I can, by name, about poetry. As a critic, I want such > knowledge so I can pass on all that I feel I know about the art. As a > theoretical pyschologist and/or philosopher of aesthetics, I want such > knowledge because I don't feel I can have any chance of understanding without > it. I agree with all this - I too am intoxicated by, especially, the technicalities of verse. I only think that it doesn't hold the key to a general theory of poetry - or poetries. ---------------------------------------------- This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 2 17:48:27 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 17:48:27 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is Message-ID: <78.6259afa8.2e907c2b@aol.com> Another country heard from... "American poetry has always been so full of energy and so inventive that it is impossible to define poetry once and for all or to delimit its space. What is, or isn't, a poem? What makes something poetic? These questions remain open. And the fact that there are no final answers is one source of the vitality of the art form." This is from Lyn Hejinian's intro to Best American Poetry 2004. I just picked it up this past week and have been skimming here and there. The first thing one notices is that she has included a very broad range of poets. Even a few, shall I utter the word, mainstream poets are in the mix. Charles Bernstein and Charles Wright rubbing shoulders here. Billy Collins and Kenneth Irby in the same Contents. Carl Phillips and Carla Harryman. Gerald Stern and Alice Notley. Nathanial Mackey and Yusef Komunyakaa. You get the picture. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 2 18:49:50 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 18:49:50 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <78.6259afa8.2e907c2b@aol.com> Message-ID: <018001c4a8d2$23919b00$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Another country heard from... Sounds like the same country all the effusions have been coming from to me, Jim. "American poetry has always been so full of energy and so inventive that it is impossible to define poetry once and for all or to delimit its space. What is, or isn't, a poem? What makes something poetic? These questions remain open. And the fact that there are no final answers is one source of the vitality of the art form." This is from Lyn Hejinian's intro to Best American Poetry 2004. I just picked it up this past week and have been skimming here and there. The first thing one notices is that she has included a very broad range of poets. Even a few, shall I utter the word, mainstream poets are in the mix. Charles Bernstein and Charles Wright rubbing shoulders here. Billy Collins and Kenneth Irby in the same Contents. Carl Phillips and Carla Harryman. Gerald Stern and Alice Notley. Nathanial Mackey and Yusef Komunyakaa. You get the picture. Finnegan Yes. Language poetry is now mainstream. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 2 18:58:35 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 00:58:35 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> <010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06> Thank you for having liked my stars, Here is a big book (The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry - Friedrich W. Block, Christiane Heibach, Karin Wenz) that tries to define _media poetry_, a brief excerpt for you: At the core of such media poetry, therefore, is the relationship of language in writing, pictures, and sounds to the technological media (books, typewriters, photography, film, electronic sound, letters, fax, radio, television, video, holography, computers): concrete and visual poetry, sound poetry, e-mail art, radio art, video- and holopoetry are corresponding genres related to digital poetry. Media poetry has long since prepared itself for mediating between divergent worlds: between individual media cultures, between art forms, between art and science. And it has long since left behind, or deconstructed, poetry's one-sided fixation on the book culture, even if these developments are only peripherally dealt with by literary studies, which usually continues to maintain the book as the primary medium. ... 12 Jacques Derrida's idea that in the act of reading the reader effectively writes the text (and thus becomes the author of the work) is not disputed here. Derrida's intention with this argument was to point out that the act of interpretation is as creative and significant in the formation of a text as is its writing. However, if we apply the idea of instantiation to Derrida's idea we see that each reading of a text becomes an instance of a "parent" text. As such, the author is still concerned with creating that parent text from which all other texts will flow. Thus, here are my thoughts worth a couple of cents, poetry becomes a broad social intuition, and/or mirror. More readers have access to one poem, more that particular poem will gain in _knowledge_. Dealing with the "parent" text, the one written by the Poet, if the Author is intuitive enough, has a particular personality, expresses specific ideas or uses terms, forms, that are close to his/her average contemporary social general aspirations - aesthetics - tragedies - emotions - desires - ways of observing and seeing - accepted truths - shared lies - compromises - fears - beliefs or lack of beliefs, then s/he will be successful. Otherwise, I am thinking of Emily Dickinson, the "parent" text might be discovered by a distinct historical time, and only then valued as "excellent poetry". Or, be forgotten and lost. Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Grumman" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2004 8:04 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] what poetry is > > "You have to be in a strange country like France, walking the meridian > > that > > separates the hemispheres of life and death, to know what incalculable > > vistas yawn ahead. The body electric! The democratic soul! Flood tide! > > Holy Mother of God, what does this crap mean? The earth is parched and > > cracked. Men and women come together like broods of vultures over a > > stinking carcass, to mate and fly apart again. Vultures who drop from the > > clouds like heavy stones. Talons and beak, that's what we are! A huge > > intestinal apparatus with a nose for dead meat. Forward! Forward without > > pity, without compassion, without love, without forgiveness. Ask no > > quarter > > and give none! More battleships, more poison gas, more high explosives! > > More gonococci! More streptococci! More bombing machines! More and more > > of it -- until the whole fucking works is blown to smithereens, and the > > earth with it!" > > > > > > Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer (1934) > > > > Forwarded by Jon Corelis to Poetryetc. This seems to me a good piece of > > poetry, for example, > > It's a prose rant, Annie. Sure, it's poetry in the sense that a daisy or > Hurricane Charley are poems, but anyone who wants to know as well as feel > will want a definition of poetry less broad. But keep sending me stars. > Stripes, too. > > --Bob > > > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 2 19:16:07 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 19:16:07 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <128.4c190bf4.2e8ec699@aol.com><1096646477.415d7f4dcfaa0@webmail.ukonline.net><006801c4a811$9efe41b0$82b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <1096750965.415f17759c41c@webmail.ukonline.net> Message-ID: <019201c4a8d5$cfb60710$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > You, in effect, want to >> bar it from philosophical and/or scientific study. > > Absolutely not. I reject the idea of barring things, completely. Of science I > only say let it be real science, not some kind of analogical use of a pseudo- > scientific approach . One wants, I think, to begin with some sense of the > vastness and unpredictability of the material. Not me. I just want the simpliest objective description. >It seems to me correct to say at > once that the terms "poem" and "poetry" have seen many different usages, and > many different conceptions have been attached to them. I don't think there have been that many, but the real problem is people who won't accept any definition--as it seemed to me you were (but I admit to not reading your post with the greatest care). >If you want to go on to > claim that there is, nevertheless, a useful and defensible core definition that > can be discussed (perhaps there is a large central clarity with some muzzy > limits, for example), then I'm listening, but I haven't come up with one myself > and (for me, at any rate) this is not the most fruitful place to start. To make something susceptible to discussion of any kind, but particularly to scientific discussion, and investigation, you have to decide what it is. >I'm > working on a different coalface because I prefer to work from specifics and to > say - this is a human artefact - let's see what can be said > about it, setting aside the matter of classification... To say anything about it is to classify it in the sense that you're saying it is some x and not some not-x. > The practical problem that I often perceive with saying, "A is a poem, B is a > poem, but C isn't a poem.." is that people then try and find the same things in > B that they found in A, and that's an assumption at the back of so many casual > dismissals; they condemn Jodie for not writing the poem that Julia writes. My impression is that you are thinking of evaluative definitions of a kind I don't want. I want to define poetry, not what I'm now more than half-seriously calling "poexty" (for poetry that one thinks is rilly rilly good). Anyway, I see no problem if you have a definition. If C doesn't fit the definition, it's not a poem. So what? If it does, it is. I run into this problem a lot with visual art using letters that my visual poet friends want to call visual poetry but I don't because they don't contain words, or the words they contain do not contribute aesthetically to the value of the piece. Some such works I like as much as any visual poem, so it's not a matter of denigrating them. But if you let anything be poetry, you bar scientific study. >In > our own time I see a very fragmented series of endeavours that are all called > (and call themselves) "poetry" but are better approached, I think, as totally > separate artforms, with largely separate audiences. Thus I may be a competent > reader of a few of these bodies of "poetry" yet helplessly incompetent, merely > annoyed and injured, when it comes to tackling some of the others (just as > someone may be a profound admirer of classical music, yet has never looked > twice at a sculpture in their lives). Let's not get personal. (Actually, I've looked more than twice at three sculptures in my life, at least.) poems are made if it were impossible to know what a poem is. > > No, because to study creativity requires only a concept of "artefact", > something done or made. I mean specifically. To determine how words are used to make a poem, for instance. Besides using words. Maybe you can say something meaningful, as a scientist or philosopher, about art in general with nothing defined but man-made object, but not about symphonies or poems. a standing stone is an artefact, a glacial boulder is > not. I do not have any such problem with this term as I do with "poem", and > (uncontroversially) there's no doubt that one can pursue a philosophy of art or > science of art on this foundation. > >> I could go on about the value for understanding of naming things like rhyme, >> alliteration, metaphor, visiophor, but am not up to it. As a poet, I want to >> know as much as I can, by name, about poetry. As a critic, I want such >> knowledge so I can pass on all that I feel I know about the art. As a >> theoretical pyschologist and/or philosopher of aesthetics, I want such >> knowledge because I don't feel I can have any chance of understanding without >> it. > > I agree with all this - I too am intoxicated by, especially, the technicalities > of verse. I only think that it doesn't hold the key to a general theory of > poetry - or poetries. My point is that you can't find the key without a terminology. Or, maybe you can find the key without a terminology, but you won't be ablt to show how the key works in specific works of art. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 2 19:42:59 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 19:42:59 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <01cc01c4a8d9$90c2ed80$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Thank you for having liked my stars, Here is a big book (The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry - Friedrich W. Block, Christiane Heibach, Karin Wenz) that tries to define _media poetry_, a brief excerpt for you: Sounds like a book I should read. Thanks for mentioning it. At the core of such media poetry, therefore, is the relationship of language in writing, pictures, and sounds to the technological media (books, typewriters, photography, film, electronic sound, letters, fax, radio, television, video, holography, computers): concrete and visual poetry, sound poetry, e-mail art, radio art, video- and holopoetry are corresponding genres related to digital poetry. Media poetry has long since prepared itself for mediating between divergent worlds: between individual media cultures, between art forms, between art and science. And it has long since left behind, or deconstructed, poetry's one-sided fixation on the book culture, even if these developments are only peripherally dealt with by literary studies, which usually continues to maintain the book as the primary medium. Okay, but all this is after the definition of poetry, it seems to me. The authors know what they mean by poetry and assume the reader will know what they mean by it, too. ... 12 Jacques Derrida's idea that in the act of reading the reader effectively writes the text (and thus becomes the author of the work) is not disputed here. Derrida's intention with this argument was to point out that the act of interpretation is as creative and significant in the formation of a text as is its writing. However, if we apply the idea of instantiation to Derrida's idea we see that each reading of a text becomes an instance of a "parent" text. As such, the author is still concerned with creating that parent text from which all other texts will flow. Thus, here are my thoughts worth a couple of cents, poetry becomes a broad social intuition, and/or mirror. More readers have access to one poem, more that particular poem will gain in _knowledge_. Dealing with the "parent" text, the one written by the Poet, if the Author is intuitive enough, has a particular personality, expresses specific ideas or uses terms, forms, that are close to his/her average contemporary social general aspirations - aesthetics - tragedies - emotions - desires - ways of observing and seeing - accepted truths - shared lies - compromises - fears - beliefs or lack of beliefs, then s/he will be successful. Otherwise, I am thinking of Emily Dickinson, the "parent" text might be discovered by a distinct historical time, and only then valued as "excellent poetry". Or, be forgotten and lost. Anny Ballardini We seem to be back in evaluation of poems, which is fine with me--so long as we know what poems are. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sun Oct 3 04:52:05 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 10:52:05 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06> <01cc01c4a8d9$90c2ed80$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <004d01c4a926$42880b80$b18e3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> Hi Bob, I think I sort of made it clear, I used intuition twice, poetry is intuition. Or, and then I gave a wider option: "that [are] is close to his/her average contemporary social general aspirations - aesthetics - tragedies - emotions - desires - ways of observing and seeing - accepted truths - shared lies - compromises - fears - beliefs or lack of beliefs" thanks to which intuition can be transformed into sensitivity, sensibility, a sensitive intuitive approach to the dynamics of thought, be it philosophical, religious, aesthetic, (unluckily) political, even economic, social, scientific, mathematical, musical, artistic, ... (you can add whatever you wish here). That is why its definition becomes so multi-sided, because every author will state his/her own approach, and being them infinite as the fields of knowledge -meant as our common inheritance, or even possibly, as the future fields of knowledge, then there is no limit to definitions. You will sooner of later have to accept it. What surprises me of you is that you are interested in alternative and new media and expressions, and you conservatively stick to the request of _A_ definition of poetry, when you know perfectly well that such a solution does not exist. Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob Grumman To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 1:42 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] what poetry is Thank you for having liked my stars, Here is a big book (The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry - Friedrich W. Block, Christiane Heibach, Karin Wenz) that tries to define _media poetry_, a brief excerpt for you: Sounds like a book I should read. Thanks for mentioning it. At the core of such media poetry, therefore, is the relationship of language in writing, pictures, and sounds to the technological media (books, typewriters, photography, film, electronic sound, letters, fax, radio, television, video, holography, computers): concrete and visual poetry, sound poetry, e-mail art, radio art, video- and holopoetry are corresponding genres related to digital poetry. Media poetry has long since prepared itself for mediating between divergent worlds: between individual media cultures, between art forms, between art and science. And it has long since left behind, or deconstructed, poetry's one-sided fixation on the book culture, even if these developments are only peripherally dealt with by literary studies, which usually continues to maintain the book as the primary medium. Okay, but all this is after the definition of poetry, it seems to me. The authors know what they mean by poetry and assume the reader will know what they mean by it, too. ... 12 Jacques Derrida's idea that in the act of reading the reader effectively writes the text (and thus becomes the author of the work) is not disputed here. Derrida's intention with this argument was to point out that the act of interpretation is as creative and significant in the formation of a text as is its writing. However, if we apply the idea of instantiation to Derrida's idea we see that each reading of a text becomes an instance of a "parent" text. As such, the author is still concerned with creating that parent text from which all other texts will flow. Thus, here are my thoughts worth a couple of cents, poetry becomes a broad social intuition, and/or mirror. More readers have access to one poem, more that particular poem will gain in _knowledge_. Dealing with the "parent" text, the one written by the Poet, if the Author is intuitive enough, has a particular personality, expresses specific ideas or uses terms, forms, that are close to his/her average contemporary social general aspirations - aesthetics - tragedies - emotions - desires - ways of observing and seeing - accepted truths - shared lies - compromises - fears - beliefs or lack of beliefs, then s/he will be successful. Otherwise, I am thinking of Emily Dickinson, the "parent" text might be discovered by a distinct historical time, and only then valued as "excellent poetry". Or, be forgotten and lost. Anny Ballardini We seem to be back in evaluation of poems, which is fine with me--so long as we know what poems are. --Bob ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sun Oct 3 05:33:50 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 11:33:50 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] The Ghazal Page Message-ID: <007c01c4a92c$17d9ee70$b18e3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> I can't remember who was looking for ghazals, here is a link: http://www.ghazalpage.net/ Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sun Oct 3 07:22:54 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 07:22:54 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06><01cc01c4a8d9$90c2ed80$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <004d01c4a926$42880b80$b18e3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <004d01c4a93b$5840e8b0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Any, I know perfectly well that a definition of poetry exists. Saying poetry results from intuition (or sensitivity) is an empty statement. I suspect you can't define intuition. I can, and find that it leads to many many things besides poems. I also know that poems can be composed without intuition. My interest in the definition of poetry doesn't have much to do with my own appreciation or composition of, but as a literary critic. --Bob Hi Bob, I think I sort of made it clear, I used intuition twice, poetry is intuition. Or, and then I gave a wider option: "that [are] is close to his/her average contemporary social general aspirations - aesthetics - tragedies - emotions - desires - ways of observing and seeing - accepted truths - shared lies - compromises - fears - beliefs or lack of beliefs" thanks to which intuition can be transformed into sensitivity, sensibility, a sensitive intuitive approach to the dynamics of thought, be it philosophical, religious, aesthetic, (unluckily) political, even economic, social, scientific, mathematical, musical, artistic, ... (you can add whatever you wish here). That is why its definition becomes so multi-sided, because every author will state his/her own approach, and being them infinite as the fields of knowledge -meant as our common inheritance, or even possibly, as the future fields of knowledge, then there is no limit to definitions. You will sooner of later have to accept it. What surprises me of you is that you are interested in alternative and new media and expressions, and you conservatively stick to the request of _A_ definition of poetry, when you know perfectly well that such a solution does not exist. Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob Grumman To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 1:42 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] what poetry is Thank you for having liked my stars, Here is a big book (The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry - Friedrich W. Block, Christiane Heibach, Karin Wenz) that tries to define _media poetry_, a brief excerpt for you: Sounds like a book I should read. Thanks for mentioning it. At the core of such media poetry, therefore, is the relationship of language in writing, pictures, and sounds to the technological media (books, typewriters, photography, film, electronic sound, letters, fax, radio, television, video, holography, computers): concrete and visual poetry, sound poetry, e-mail art, radio art, video- and holopoetry are corresponding genres related to digital poetry. Media poetry has long since prepared itself for mediating between divergent worlds: between individual media cultures, between art forms, between art and science. And it has long since left behind, or deconstructed, poetry's one-sided fixation on the book culture, even if these developments are only peripherally dealt with by literary studies, which usually continues to maintain the book as the primary medium. Okay, but all this is after the definition of poetry, it seems to me. The authors know what they mean by poetry and assume the reader will know what they mean by it, too. ... 12 Jacques Derrida's idea that in the act of reading the reader effectively writes the text (and thus becomes the author of the work) is not disputed here. Derrida's intention with this argument was to point out that the act of interpretation is as creative and significant in the formation of a text as is its writing. However, if we apply the idea of instantiation to Derrida's idea we see that each reading of a text becomes an instance of a "parent" text. As such, the author is still concerned with creating that parent text from which all other texts will flow. Thus, here are my thoughts worth a couple of cents, poetry becomes a broad social intuition, and/or mirror. More readers have access to one poem, more that particular poem will gain in _knowledge_. Dealing with the "parent" text, the one written by the Poet, if the Author is intuitive enough, has a particular personality, expresses specific ideas or uses terms, forms, that are close to his/her average contemporary social general aspirations - aesthetics - tragedies - emotions - desires - ways of observing and seeing - accepted truths - shared lies - compromises - fears - beliefs or lack of beliefs, then s/he will be successful. Otherwise, I am thinking of Emily Dickinson, the "parent" text might be discovered by a distinct historical time, and only then valued as "excellent poetry". Or, be forgotten and lost. Anny Ballardini We seem to be back in evaluation of poems, which is fine with me--so long as we know what poems are. --Bob ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sun Oct 3 08:16:23 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 14:16:23 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry intuition? References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06><01cc01c4a8d9$90c2ed80$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><004d01c4a926$42880b80$b18e3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> <004d01c4a93b$5840e8b0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <001901c4a942$ccd98680$18ad3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Please tell me what intuition is, thanks, Anny From: Bob Grumman Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 1:22 PM Any, I know perfectly well that a definition of poetry exists. Saying poetry results from intuition (or sensitivity) is an empty statement. I suspect you can't define intuition. I can, and find that it leads to many many things besides poems. I also know that poems can be composed without intuition. My interest in the definition of poetry doesn't have much to do with my own appreciation or composition of, but as a literary critic. --Bob Hi Bob, I think I sort of made it clear, I used intuition twice, poetry is intuition. Or, and then I gave a wider option: "that [are] is close to his/her average contemporary social general aspirations - aesthetics - tragedies - emotions - desires - ways of observing and seeing - accepted truths - shared lies - compromises - fears - beliefs or lack of beliefs" thanks to which intuition can be transformed into sensitivity, sensibility, a sensitive intuitive approach to the dynamics of thought, be it philosophical, religious, aesthetic, (unluckily) political, even economic, social, scientific, mathematical, musical, artistic, ... (you can add whatever you wish here). That is why its definition becomes so multi-sided, because every author will state his/her own approach, and being them infinite as the fields of knowledge -meant as our common inheritance, or even possibly, as the future fields of knowledge, then there is no limit to definitions. You will sooner of later have to accept it. What surprises me of you is that you are interested in alternative and new media and expressions, and you conservatively stick to the request of _A_ definition of poetry, when you know perfectly well that such a solution does not exist. Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: Bob Grumman To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 1:42 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] what poetry is Thank you for having liked my stars, Here is a big book (The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry - Friedrich W. Block, Christiane Heibach, Karin Wenz) that tries to define _media poetry_, a brief excerpt for you: Sounds like a book I should read. Thanks for mentioning it. At the core of such media poetry, therefore, is the relationship of language in writing, pictures, and sounds to the technological media (books, typewriters, photography, film, electronic sound, letters, fax, radio, television, video, holography, computers): concrete and visual poetry, sound poetry, e-mail art, radio art, video- and holopoetry are corresponding genres related to digital poetry. Media poetry has long since prepared itself for mediating between divergent worlds: between individual media cultures, between art forms, between art and science. And it has long since left behind, or deconstructed, poetry's one-sided fixation on the book culture, even if these developments are only peripherally dealt with by literary studies, which usually continues to maintain the book as the primary medium. Okay, but all this is after the definition of poetry, it seems to me. The authors know what they mean by poetry and assume the reader will know what they mean by it, too. ... 12 Jacques Derrida's idea that in the act of reading the reader effectively writes the text (and thus becomes the author of the work) is not disputed here. Derrida's intention with this argument was to point out that the act of interpretation is as creative and significant in the formation of a text as is its writing. However, if we apply the idea of instantiation to Derrida's idea we see that each reading of a text becomes an instance of a "parent" text. As such, the author is still concerned with creating that parent text from which all other texts will flow. Thus, here are my thoughts worth a couple of cents, poetry becomes a broad social intuition, and/or mirror. More readers have access to one poem, more that particular poem will gain in _knowledge_. Dealing with the "parent" text, the one written by the Poet, if the Author is intuitive enough, has a particular personality, expresses specific ideas or uses terms, forms, that are close to his/her average contemporary social general aspirations - aesthetics - tragedies - emotions - desires - ways of observing and seeing - accepted truths - shared lies - compromises - fears - beliefs or lack of beliefs, then s/he will be successful. Otherwise, I am thinking of Emily Dickinson, the "parent" text might be discovered by a distinct historical time, and only then valued as "excellent poetry". Or, be forgotten and lost. Anny Ballardini We seem to be back in evaluation of poems, which is fine with me--so long as we know what poems are. --Bob -------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sun Oct 3 08:48:37 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 08:48:37 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry intuition? References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06><01cc01c4a8d9$90c2ed80$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><004d01c4a926$42880b80$b18e3052@yourpk9x5fuc06><004d01c4a93b$5840e8b0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <001901c4a942$ccd98680$18ad3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <007f01c4a947$5113f0d0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Intuition is simply averbal knowledge. To know something without knowing words for it is an example of its use. It is not emotional knowedge, but perceptual knowledge. Its knowledge can always be translated into word, given time, and a person with an analytical mind. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Sun Oct 3 08:59:18 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 05:59:18 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry intuition? References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06><01cc01c4a8d9$90c2ed80$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><004d01c4a926$42880b80$b18e3052@yourpk9x5fuc06><004d01c4a93b$5840e8b0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <001901c4a942$ccd98680$18ad3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> <007f01c4a947$5113f0d0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <415FF7A6.C0D83B5D@earthlink.net> So there's pre-verbal intuition, then the articulated intuition. But intuitions can be "right" or "wrong." Can we attribute that to our translation? - Jim, just musing > Bob Grumman wrote: > > Intuition is simply averbal knowledge. To know something without > knowing words for it is an example of its use. It is not emotional > knowedge, but perceptual knowledge. Its knowledge can always be > translated into word, given time, and a person with an analytical > mind. > > --Bob > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sun Oct 3 09:11:51 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 15:11:51 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry intuition? References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06><01cc01c4a8d9$90c2ed80$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><004d01c4a926$42880b80$b18e3052@yourpk9x5fuc06><004d01c4a93b$5840e8b0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><001901c4a942$ccd98680$18ad3252@yourpk9x5fuc06><007f01c4a947$5113f0d0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <415FF7A6.C0D83B5D@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <005601c4a94a$8d22aaf0$18ad3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Very interesting, thank you. I think intuition is right. It becomes wrong, in my case, in the moment in which I allow it to be colored by e/motion, for example a wish or the fear of a disappointment, cancels the original pre-verbal intuition and distorts the articulated intuition giving me a false result. I should be smart enough to see these passages, but sometimes I do not want to see them, or, someone more interested than me in a question, does not allow me to see them, Anny From: "James Cervantes" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2004 2:59 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] what poetry intuition? > So there's pre-verbal intuition, then the articulated intuition. But > intuitions can be "right" or "wrong." Can we attribute that to our translation? > > - Jim, just musing > > > Bob Grumman wrote: > > > > Intuition is simply averbal knowledge. To know something without > > knowing words for it is an example of its use. It is not emotional > > knowedge, but perceptual knowledge. Its knowledge can always be > > translated into word, given time, and a person with an analytical > > mind. > > > > --Bob > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 at tbhinc.com Sun Oct 3 09:17:52 2004 From: paul at tbhinc.com (Paul C. Howell) Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 09:17:52 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Srevens at 125 In-Reply-To: <200410021524.i92FOHYD003902@wiz.cath.vt.edu> References: <200410021524.i92FOHYD003902@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20041003090828.01dd6e28@tbhinc.com> In a message dated 10/1/2004 3:54:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, GrahamD at ripon.edu writes Stevens at 125 The Off Season in Aspen a single shawl Wrapped tightly around us - Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour - Wallace Stevens Between scrub oak and shaking aspen Pluck, the most inventive of the standard gods, Savors the sultry air. He stands, both feet firmly on home ground, takes in the sunrise that glints off a glacier and counts out those spruces with odd jagged profiles - macabre dancers celebrate the Sabbath - Then lights up a Cuban cigar. There is a slant in his shadow as the smoke curls up and withers like the world in a wind which the hoi polloi never see and the light that skirts a sheer red face of granite. After the departure of the last summer guest with the deck chairs stacked and the swimming pool drained there is a sigh in the town of relief and exhaustion, and the gods turn over. A woman he knows very well takes his hand and speaks: Here is the time, Pluck, where a few stringent colors will blur into snowstorms and clambering tourists. But before that - the ground, while we still see it, and the church bells which shock us - let us not think of the money we came here to make But of this light and now this weightless silence And the emptiness of every part of the world We are not in Together. CO, 1996 Nov. 1 New Hampshire ?The real is constantly being engulfed in the unreal . [Poetry] is an illumination of a surface, the movement of a self in the rock.? - Wallace Stevens Stand on the rim and listen to the rock. There is some thing in there, some unreal thing. It is a climbing rock with sliding planes It is a rock as smooth as blue Let the thrush fly in this valley, the yellow thrush. Excite your hearing with its song, and your longing to fly. Does that hawk block the sun like a dangerous angel as the rock shields the self? It is modern, says the thrush, to feel apprehension, to tap the rock for its soul and listen for the scuttle, to glance over the shoulder of your self, whisper ?I?, and listen for the echo, to hope that the real will glance off the rock like sunlight, and confirm, oh, confirm Hear the self in the rock not the echo or the shadow nor the idea of the unreal thing but the innermost movement of the unsung rock itself. The Palo Alto Review, 2003 Paul C. Howell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Sun Oct 3 12:16:18 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 12:16:18 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is In-Reply-To: <004d01c4a93b$5840e8b0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: Quite right, and, in fact, there are lots of them--some quite personal and idiosyncractic. Here's a site that begins with what seems like a fairly objective one. Whatcha think? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry Hal ""Anything is art if an artist says it is." --Marcel Duchamp Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ Any, I know perfectly well that a definition of poetry exists. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sun Oct 3 14:08:53 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 14:08:53 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry intuition? References: <00ae01c4a89a$e16be0f0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><415ED539.B2B7353@earthlink.net><010701c4a89d$c6ebf1e0$18ac3452@yourpk9x5fuc06><010501c4a8aa$3e41c1a0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><003001c4a8d3$58d534b0$83d93052@yourpk9x5fuc06><01cc01c4a8d9$90c2ed80$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><004d01c4a926$42880b80$b18e3052@yourpk9x5fuc06><004d01c4a93b$5840e8b0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><001901c4a942$ccd98680$18ad3252@yourpk9x5fuc06><007f01c4a947$5113f0d0$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <415FF7A6.C0D83B5D@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <00c201c4a974$0e341010$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > So there's pre-verbal intuition, then the articulated intuition. But > intuitions can be "right" or "wrong." Can we attribute that to our > translation? > > - Jim, just musing To just muse back, Jim, I'd say no, that an intuition can easily be wrong. My impression is that if we can find any words to describe an intuition with, they'll probably be reasonably accurate. In fact, right now it seems to me that it is by translating intuitions into words that we find out whether they're right or wrong. --Bob From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sun Oct 3 14:22:59 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 14:22:59 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: Message-ID: <00e301c4a976$072cfb40$53b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Anny, I know perfectly well that a definition of poetry exists. Quite right, and, in fact, there are lots of them--some quite personal and idiosyncractic. Here's a site that begins with what seems like a fairly objective one. Whatcha think? It seems okay to me. I'd call it the standard academic definition. It's incomplete and insufficiently exact, though. A beginning point toward a useful definition. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Mon Oct 4 09:57:00 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 09:57:00 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in the news: George Hitchcock Message-ID: George Hitchcock edited *kayak*, the leading poetry magazine of its time Jeff Barnard Canadian Press October 1, 2004 Surrealist poet and playwright George Hitchcock sits July 14, 2004, in his home in Harrisburg, Ore. (AP/Jeff Barnard) HARRISBURG, Ore. (AP) - When the House Committee on Un-American Activities subpoenaed surrealist poet George Hitchcock in 1957 to answer for his leftist activities, they asked him to state his occupation and profession. "Gardener," he replied. "I do underground work on plants." Gardener barely covers Hitchcock's life as political activist and poet, but it nicely conveys the spirit of the man who 40 years ago single-handedly launched a small literary magazine called *kayak*, which helped shape American poetry from 1964 through 1984, providing a clear sense of what was a weed and what was not. "Here was an avenue to our rage, our sense of the ludicrous, the unreal that America had become," said Philip Levine, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, who collected a series of rejection slips from Hitchcock before gaining acceptance for what was to become his best-known poem, "They Feed They Lion." "I would say that for 15 years it was the most influential and most readable poetry magazine in America," Levine said. Hitchcock sits in the rambling craftsman house he's called home for many years in this Willamette Valley farm town, and says that gardening was never anything more than a healthy way to make a living while having time to write. As for writing poems, he says he tried to leave himself open to possibilities and let his ideas flow, without being conscious of having something important to say. "They are like jazz riffs in a sense," he says. Born in Hood River, Hitchcock was raised in Eugene, where his father sold lumber wholesale and his grandfather was a botany professor at the University of Oregon. After a divorce, his mother moved to the San Francisco area, where she was a newspaper reporter and later sailed her yacht to the South Pacific. Hitchcock graduated cum laude in English literature from the University of Oregon in 1935 after supporting himself playing poker, then hitchhiked to San Francisco. "To my generation of would-be intellectuals, it was the Paris of the West," he says. "Anybody who was worth anything went there." Hitchcock wrote novels he would rather forget and acted with the left-wing Theater Union. He also covered baseball and boxing for the People's Daily World, a left-wing labour movement newspaper. During the Second World War he helped build navy cruisers and shipped as a baker and waiter on troopships carrying army units to the Pacific. After the war he became a labour union organizer. "I had an ideological commitment to left-wing activities and I worked at it," Hitchcock said. "It came from looking around and seeing a country that was in a very bad way." In the 1950s, he returned to acting and writing. He had just joined the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland as an actor when the Committee on Un-American Activities summoned him. Cranky over having to go back to San Francisco, he was outraged when festival founder Angus Bowmer asked him to resign to protect the good name of the festival. He refused and returned to appear in two plays. "I was in the Young Communist League for a while. They knew that," Hitchcock said of the committee. "At the time they subpoenaed me, I was chairman of something called the Independent Socialist Forum, which was really struggling to try to unify all the various leftist factions around a practical program for the postwar period. It certainly wasn't Communist. Most of us had left the Communist movement long before that," over dissatisfaction with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. "These guys on the House Un-American Activities Committee, their game was to get people to name names and expose people. Those of us who weren't about to do that, they threatened with a contempt of court conviction. But I couldn't care less." It didn't hurt his career. Actors Workshop in San Francisco produced his play, *Prometheus Found*, a surrealistic look at two tourists hiking in Greece who find the mythological giver of fire tied up on a mountaintop and never let him go. Frustrated over disagreements with other editors of the *San Francisco Review*, Hitchcock launched *kayak* by himself in San Francisco. In its manifesto, he wrote he intended to print poems he liked, "come hell or high water. It plies the freezing waters of American poetry, negotiating its narrow channels and hurling an occasional spear at the more preposterous icebergs and barking walruses which bar its way." Rejection slips from the magazine featured a person lost in an icy crevasse, and sometimes lengthy advice written on the back. "It was a well known and respected magazine," said Michael Basinski, curator of the poetry archive at the State University of New York at Buffalo, which holds all 64 issues Hitchcock produced from 1964 to 1984. "It nicely builds a bridge between the fugitive publication and the overstuffed academic publication," Basinski said. "It had this fierce independence. The great function of these magazines and the great import of Hitchcock as editor would be to gather this community of writers around his literary vision, which was quasi-surreal." Levine broke into that community with his poem, "They Feed They Lion," a surrealistic image of a rainy drive through West Virginia and how rural oppression strengthens the oppressed. His own publisher had rejected it for two books, but Hitchcock snapped it up and it went on to be reprinted in some 50 anthologies, Levine said. Outside *kayak*, American poetry then was pretty tame, Levine said. "It looked a good deal like English poetry." Helped by poets, friends and students, Hitchcock cranked out the magazine on a second hand press that had once printed menus on a cruise ship. In 1969, Hitchcock was invited by provost and writer James B. Hall to teach at the new experimental College V at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he was savagely critical or kindly nurturing, depending on his assessment of the writer. Robert McDowell, publisher of Story Line Press, which last year printed *One-man Boat: The George Hitchcock Reader*, recalls a poetry workshop in the 1970s where Hitchcock harshly criticized a woman for singing her poems in a false hillbilly voice rather than her own. Never famous outside poetry circles, Hitchcock quit writing 15 years ago, feeling he had said all he had to say. He has since devoted himself to painting, particularly scenes from his winter home in Mexico. Last year, the Oregon Book Awards conferred the C.E.S. Wood Retrospective Award on him, named for an army officer in the Indian wars who became a Portland lawyer who defended civil rights cases and wandering radicals and later ran off to California with a poet. "I like to think I got this award because I'm the only person in the state of Oregon who actually knew Charles Erskin Scott Wood," Hitchcock says. ? The Canadian Press 2004 For picture click to http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/artslife/story.html?id=bd46568b-7880-4a10-9328-710ee7bba6b9 Hal Serving the tri-state area. Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From halvard at earthlink.net Mon Oct 4 10:18:40 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 10:18:40 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: George Hitchcock, "Training the Industrial Moustache" Message-ID: Training the Industrial Moustache you open the valise you step out you arrange yourself in orderly rows brushing the hair on the left side to the left and on the right side to the right the knives and forks are spread on the table the battle is about to begin the Chateau Laffitte uncorks itself the napkins take flight you comb the white hair growing from your knee to the right you comb the green hair to the left you manicure your elbows you wipe the wax from the candlesticks the clock strikes and strikes again you read the New York Times for 1 1/2 minutes everything is ready at last you open the valise and step in --George Hitchcock fr. *The Piano Beneath the Skin* [Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press, 1978] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From clitophon at yahoo.com Mon Oct 4 11:15:52 2004 From: clitophon at yahoo.com (Paul Murphy) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 08:15:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Comment In-Reply-To: <3743385.1096564496680.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com> Message-ID: <20041004151552.3787.qmail@web40404.mail.yahoo.com> I'm sorry I didn't realise this was the Royal Institute of Science and will go away and prepare my research notes more thoroughly next time. Get real! No one gives a fuck about you, me or this stupid fucking internet chatline.... --- Michael Snider wrote: > > On Thursday, September 30, 2004, at 12:56PM, Paul > Murphy wrote: > > >> This is simply wrong on the face of it. You seem > to > >> have some false > >> notion of economics that holds that only one kind > of > >> transaction can > >> be done in any historical period or geographical > >> location or legal > >> jurisdiction, or something like that. > > > >Where do I say this? I wasn't writing a history of > >the world, Marcus, merely some glib comments on an > >internet chatline. The sort of discourse you want > is > >better reserved for an academic journal. I suggest > >you go there and find an audience of people for > that > >kind of discourse. > > > > > Geez, Paul, there are a hell of lot of academics on > this list, and many of us who, like me, aren't > currently in academia have spent a fair amount of > time there. And even if we were all roofers (I was, > for 2 years not long ago), would you expect us not > to respond to one another except when we agree? > Maybe when you don't want us to think about > something you've written you could put "glib > comment" in the subject line and we'd know not to > bother. > > ----- > Sent from webmail, so I'm not at my computer. > http://radio.weblogs.com/0113501/ for the > Sonnetarium > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From marcus at designerglass.com Mon Oct 4 11:38:35 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 11:38:35 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Comment In-Reply-To: <20041004151552.3787.qmail@web40404.mail.yahoo.com> References: <3743385.1096564496680.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com> Message-ID: <4161363B.23480.352F98@localhost> On 4 Oct 2004 at 8:15, Paul Murphy wrote: > I'm sorry I didn't realise [glib comment, glib comment, glib comment]< Sorry Paul, there still seems to be some interference on this line. Marcus From marcus at designerglass.com Mon Oct 4 11:53:48 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 11:53:48 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Comment In-Reply-To: <20041004151552.3787.qmail@web40404.mail.yahoo.com> References: <3743385.1096564496680.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com> Message-ID: <416139CC.5539.431A7D@localhost> On 4 Oct 2004 at 8:16, Paul Murphy wrote: > Marcus, go and [[glib comment, glib comment, glib comment]. > You want to [glib comment, glib comment, glib comment] > Good for you [glib comment, glib comment, glib comment]. Sorry, Paul, can't hear you for all those glib comments you're making. Marcus From clitophon at yahoo.com Mon Oct 4 12:59:16 2004 From: clitophon at yahoo.com (Paul Murphy) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 09:59:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets on Poetry In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041004165916.38221.qmail@web40413.mail.yahoo.com> Hi Kent, do you have an e-mail address for a journal called Octavo? What do you think of my artwork? www.theengine.net I lost touch with Rosa Calaf de Villafranca but keep in touch with my friends in Sicilia and in UberBayern and Westphalia. best wishes, Paul Murphy --- Kent Johnson wrote: > Hola Paul, > > I don't very much agree with your recent sweeping > condemnations of > Christianity, but nevertheless... Como esta todo en > Barcelona? > > Of course, the journals I admire most are the ones > that publish work I > am associated with in one way or another. So my > favor is always > evolving. I used to favor Ironwood, Grand Street, > Conjunctions, Aerial, > American Poetry Review, Stand (UK), Poetry Review > (UK), Il Nuovo > Giornale dei Poeti (Italy),Vuelta (Mexico), the > Denver Quarterly, > Pushkin (Russia), and others. More recently I have > come to favor No: A > Journal of the Arts, TriQuarterly, Mandorla, > Octopus, Typo, Skanky > Possum, Jacket, Fence, Combo, BlazeVox, The Canary, > The New Review of > Literature, The Chicago Review, Coyote (Brazil), The > East Village, > Untitled: A Journal of Prose Poetry, The > Transcendental Friend, Rascuhno > (Brazil), The Cambridge Conference for Contemporary > Poetry Review (UK), > The Spoon River Review, Antennae, Cipher Journal, > The Poetry Project > Newsletter, the new Backwards City Review, and > others I am not thinking > of presently. > > All of these journals are peopled by Poetry thugs > and careerists, and I > slum amongst them, giving liberally of the charms my > sluttish form > provides. > > Kent > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From anny.ballardini at tin.it Mon Oct 4 14:36:20 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 20:36:20 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poets in the news: George Hitchcock References: Message-ID: <007f01c4aa41$0b4bf520$e7ae3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> I found this poem on PoemHunter: The one whose Reproach I Cannot Evade She sits in her glass garden and awaits the guests - The sailor with the blue tangerines the fish clothed in languages the dolphin with a revolver in its teeth. Dusk enters from stage left: its voice falls like dew on the arbor. Tiny bells sway in the catalpa tree. What is it she hopes to catch in her net of love? Petals? Conch-shells? The night-moth? She does not speak. Tonight, I tell her, no one comes; you wait in vain. Yet at eight precisely the moon opens its theatric doors, an arm rises from the fountain, the music box, face down on her tabouret, swells and bursts its cover - a tinkling flood of rice moves over the table. She smiles at me, false believer, smiles and goes in, leaving the garden empty and my thighs half-eaten by the raging twilight. George Hitchcock Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky From: "Halvard Johnson" Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 3:57 PM > > > George Hitchcock edited *kayak*, the leading poetry magazine of its time > > Jeff Barnard > Canadian Press > > October 1, 2004 > > Surrealist poet and playwright George Hitchcock sits July 14, 2004, > in his home in Harrisburg, Ore. (AP/Jeff Barnard) > > HARRISBURG, Ore. (AP) - When the House Committee on Un-American > Activities subpoenaed surrealist poet George Hitchcock in 1957 to answer for > his leftist activities, they asked him to state his occupation and profession. > > "Gardener," he replied. "I do underground work on plants." > > Gardener barely covers Hitchcock's life as political activist and poet, but it nicely > conveys the spirit of the man who 40 years ago single-handedly launched a small > literary magazine called *kayak*, which helped shape American poetry from 1964 > through 1984, providing a clear sense of what was a weed and what was not. > > "Here was an avenue to our rage, our sense of the ludicrous, the unreal that > America had become," said Philip Levine, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National > Book Award, who collected a series of rejection slips from Hitchcock before > gaining acceptance for what was to become his best-known poem, "They Feed > They Lion." > > "I would say that for 15 years it was the most influential and most readable poetry > magazine in America," Levine said. > > Hitchcock sits in the rambling craftsman house he's called home for many years in > this Willamette Valley farm town, and says that gardening was never anything more > than a healthy way to make a living while having time to write. As for writing poems, > he says he tried to leave himself open to possibilities and let his ideas flow, without > being conscious of having something important to say. > > "They are like jazz riffs in a sense," he says. > > Born in Hood River, Hitchcock was raised in Eugene, where his father sold lumber > wholesale and his grandfather was a botany professor at the University of Oregon. > After a divorce, his mother moved to the San Francisco area, where she was a > newspaper reporter and later sailed her yacht to the South Pacific. > > Hitchcock graduated cum laude in English literature from the University of Oregon > in 1935 after supporting himself playing poker, then hitchhiked to San Francisco. > > "To my generation of would-be intellectuals, it was the Paris of the West," he says. > "Anybody who was worth anything went there." > > Hitchcock wrote novels he would rather forget and acted with the left-wing Theater > Union. He also covered baseball and boxing for the People's Daily World, a left-wing > labour movement newspaper. > > During the Second World War he helped build navy cruisers and shipped as a baker > and waiter on troopships carrying army units to the Pacific. After the war he became > a labour union organizer. > > "I had an ideological commitment to left-wing activities and I worked at it," Hitchcock > said. "It came from looking around and seeing a country that was in a very bad way." > > In the 1950s, he returned to acting and writing. He had just joined the Oregon > Shakespeare Festival in Ashland as an actor when the Committee on Un-American > Activities summoned him. Cranky over having to go back to San Francisco, he was > outraged when festival founder Angus Bowmer asked him to resign to protect the > good name of the festival. He refused and returned to appear in two plays. > > "I was in the Young Communist League for a while. They knew that," Hitchcock said > of the committee. "At the time they subpoenaed me, I was chairman of something > called the Independent Socialist Forum, which was really struggling to try to unify all > the various leftist factions around a practical program for the postwar period. It > certainly wasn't Communist. Most of us had left the Communist movement long before > that," over dissatisfaction with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. > > "These guys on the House Un-American Activities Committee, their game was to get > people to name names and expose people. Those of us who weren't about to do that, > they threatened with a contempt of court conviction. But I couldn't care less." > > It didn't hurt his career. Actors Workshop in San Francisco produced his play, > *Prometheus Found*, a surrealistic look at two tourists hiking in Greece who find the > mythological giver of fire tied up on a mountaintop and never let him go. > > Frustrated over disagreements with other editors of the *San Francisco Review*, > Hitchcock launched *kayak* by himself in San Francisco. > > In its manifesto, he wrote he intended to print poems he liked, "come hell or high > water. It plies the freezing waters of American poetry, negotiating its narrow channels > and hurling an occasional spear at the more preposterous icebergs and barking > walruses which bar its way." > > Rejection slips from the magazine featured a person lost in an icy crevasse, and > sometimes lengthy advice written on the back. > > "It was a well known and respected magazine," said Michael Basinski, curator > of the poetry archive at the State University of New York at Buffalo, which holds > all 64 issues Hitchcock produced from 1964 to 1984. > > "It nicely builds a bridge between the fugitive publication and the overstuffed > academic publication," Basinski said. "It had this fierce independence. The great > function of these magazines and the great import of Hitchcock as editor would be > to gather this community of writers around his literary vision, which was quasi-surreal." > > Levine broke into that community with his poem, "They Feed They Lion," a surrealistic > image of a rainy drive through West Virginia and how rural oppression strengthens the > oppressed. His own publisher had rejected it for two books, but Hitchcock snapped > it up and it went on to be reprinted in some 50 anthologies, Levine said. > > Outside *kayak*, American poetry then was pretty tame, Levine said. "It looked a > good deal like English poetry." > > Helped by poets, friends and students, Hitchcock cranked out the magazine on a second > hand press that had once printed menus on a cruise ship. > > In 1969, Hitchcock was invited by provost and writer James B. Hall to teach at the new > experimental College V at the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he was > savagely critical or kindly nurturing, depending on his assessment of the writer. > > Robert McDowell, publisher of Story Line Press, which last year printed *One-man Boat: > The George Hitchcock Reader*, recalls a poetry workshop in the 1970s where Hitchcock > harshly criticized a woman for singing her poems in a false hillbilly voice rather than her own. > > Never famous outside poetry circles, Hitchcock quit writing 15 years ago, feeling he had > said all he had to say. He has since devoted himself to painting, particularly scenes from > his winter home in Mexico. > > Last year, the Oregon Book Awards conferred the C.E.S. Wood Retrospective Award > on him, named for an army officer in the Indian wars who became a Portland lawyer who > defended civil rights cases and wandering radicals and later ran off to California with a poet. > > "I like to think I got this award because I'm the only person in the state of Oregon who > actually knew Charles Erskin Scott Wood," Hitchcock says. > > ? The Canadian Press 2004 > > For picture click to > > http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/artslife/story.html?id=bd46568b-7880-4a10-9328-710ee7bba6b9 > > Hal Serving the tri-state area. > > Halvard Johnson > =============== > email: halvard at earthlink.net > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 4 14:52:26 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 20:52:26 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: George Hitchcock, "Training the Industrial Moustache" References: Message-ID: <008b01c4aa43$4af72c60$e7ae3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> Another one: Daylight Saving throw away the traffic charts say goodbye to the queen of podiums she won't miss you her microphone has leukemia it leaks neckties cancel that date with the ortho- dontist forget the chalk talk and the air-conditioned interview listen to the wind admonish the leaves its daughters cultivate the combustible lark in the sky the cicada with its brash fiddle the blue ventriloquist in the pinetree your absence won't really be noticed the directors are on their third martini so set your clock back a dozen years and take a deep breath George Hitchcock http://www.ralphmag.org/BQ/consider-poet.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Halvard Johnson" To: "New-Poetry" Sent: Monday, October 04, 2004 4:18 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: George Hitchcock,"Training the Industrial Moustache" > > Training the Industrial Moustache > > you open the valise you step out > you arrange yourself in orderly rows > brushing the hair on the left side > to the left and on the right side > to the right the knives and forks > are spread on the table the battle > is about to begin the Chateau Laffitte > uncorks itself the napkins take flight > you comb the white hair growing from > your knee to the right you comb > the green hair to the left you manicure > your elbows you wipe the wax > from the candlesticks the clock strikes > and strikes again you read the New > York Times for 1 1/2 minutes everything > is ready at last you open the valise and > > step in > > --George Hitchcock > > fr. *The Piano Beneath the Skin* > [Port Townsend, Wash.: Copper Canyon Press, 1978] > > > Hal > > Halvard Johnson > =============== > email: halvard at earthlink.net > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk Mon Oct 4 17:37:21 2004 From: m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk (Michael Peverett) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 22:37:21 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is In-Reply-To: <019201c4a8d5$cfb60710$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <000b01c4aa5a$881d80f0$27c628c3@FY.LOCAL> > (One wants, I think, to begin with some sense of the > vastness and unpredictability of the material.) > Not me. I just want the simpliest objective description. I intended "wants" in the sense of "requires", i.e. in order to make an objective description. ( It seems to me correct to say at > once that the terms "poem" and "poetry" have seen many different usages, and > many different conceptions have been attached to them.) > I don't think there have been that many, Probably depends what kind of conceptions we're talking about. You may be right as regards definitions of a poem by its form, but not as regards the mass of mental baggage in people's minds that constitutes their idea of what poems are like. let's see what can be said > about it, setting aside the matter of classification... To say anything about it is to classify it in the sense that you're saying it is some x and not some not-x. Ok, I'll concede that - though not entirely without a feeling that some discourses might be less classificatory than others, and that this might sometimes be good. I feel I'm getting a bit verbiage-ridden, but in common speech I just mean that it's good for an investigator not to jump to conclusions in advance about the nature of what they're investigating. My own approach originated in medieval studies - you can judge if it has any bearing at all on what you are attempting. This was more than twenty years ago, writing my doctoral thesis on Langland's Piers Plowman - that great but problematic medieval poem, (C.S. Lewis in the Allegory memorably finished his account by saying "he is confused and monotonous, and hardly makes his poetry into a poem.."). Langland devoted his life to the work, and meditated deeply on what he was doing - he called it "makyng", which of course one translates as "composing poetry". But one would be hard pressed to name a single work that he had read that we would classify as "literary" -apart from the popular "rymes of Randolf erle of Chestre" heard bawled out in an alehouse, his reading seems to have consisted exclusively of sermons, commentaries, the dreariest didactic allegories; even the bible - though in one sense he was completely immersed in it - he had never read, he knew its words only as a mass of little quotations, lines repeated a thousand times in church services. He wrote - brilliantly - in the slack alliterative measure of the mid-14th century, but predecessors (so far as we can guess at them) were barely literary. The literary connotations that I (or C.S. Lewis) unconsciously imported every time we used the word "poem" would have been simply incomprehensible to this author. It seemed better to say (what any reader was bound to feel) that this was a formidable work, set against a background one could hardly grasp (and, inasmuch as one could grasp it at all, this merely made the work more strikingly innovative) - and though it was a work that demonstrably delivered, and therefore one could try to talk about what it delivered, one did best to steer clear of terms and classifications that suggested analogies with other "literature". This was perhaps an eccentric start to literary criticism, but though Langland was admittedly an unusual case, it brought home to me that what I meant by "literature" and "poetry" were time- and culture-bound ideas, and also ideas that were perceptibly in violent upheaval today. This is not an argument, only a background. If one came to the field with different questions in mind, taxonomy might well seem a critical prerequisite for pursuing them. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Mon Oct 4 19:33:50 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 19:33:50 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] what poetry is References: <000b01c4aa5a$881d80f0$27c628c3@FY.LOCAL> Message-ID: <00fd01c4aa6a$9f23df00$72b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > (One wants, I think, to begin with some sense of the > vastness and unpredictability of the material.) > Not me. I just want the simpliest objective description. I intended "wants" in the sense of "requires", i.e. in order to make an objective description. I require the simpliest objective complete description. >( It seems to me correct to say at > once that the terms "poem" and "poetry" have seen many different usages, and > many different conceptions have been attached to them.) > I don't think there have been that many, Probably depends what kind of conceptions we're talking about. You may be right as regards definitions of a poem by its form, but not as regards the mass of mental baggage in people's minds that constitutes their idea of what poems are like. Maybe. I think the slushy definition Hal posted recently is close to what most people consider poetry to be, albeit in multi-differing words. > let's see what can be said > about it, setting aside the matter of classification... To say anything about it is to classify it in the sense that you're saying it is some x and not some not-x. Ok, I'll concede that - though not entirely without a feeling that some discourses might be less classificatory than others, and that this might sometimes be good. I feel I'm getting a bit verbiage-ridden, but in common speech I just mean that it's good for an investigator not to jump to conclusions in advance about the nature of what they're investigating. Here's our first major difference. I want/require a strong definition--in order to be able to investigate how it is created, and evaluate it. The definition clears the space for my real work. My own approach originated in medieval studies - you can judge if it has any bearing at all on what you are attempting. This was more than twenty years ago, writing my doctoral thesis on Langland's Piers Plowman - that great but problematic medieval poem, (C.S. Lewis in the Allegory memorably finished his account by saying "he is confused and monotonous, and hardly makes his poetry into a poem.."). That's the kind of thing that annoys me. Why couldn't he have said he "hardly makes his poetry into a good poem?" Langland devoted his life to the work, and meditated deeply on what he was doing - he called it "makyng", which of course one translates as "composing poetry". But one would be hard pressed to name a single work that he had read that we would classify as "literary" -apart from the popular "rymes of Randolf erle of Chestre" heard bawled out in an alehouse, his reading seems to have consisted exclusively of sermons, commentaries, the dreariest didactic allegories; even the bible - though in one sense he was completely immersed in it - he had never read, he knew its words only as a mass of little quotations, lines repeated a thousand times in church services. He wrote - brilliantly - in the slack alliterative measure of the mid-14th century, but predecessors (so far as we can guess at them) were barely literary. The literary connotations that I (or C.S. Lewis) unconsciously imported every time we used the word "poem" would have been simply incomprehensible to this author. It seemed better to say (what any reader was bound to feel) that this was a formidable work, set against a background one could hardly grasp (and, inasmuch as one could grasp it at all, this merely made the work more strikingly innovative) - and though it was a work that demonstrably delivered, and therefore one could try to talk about what it delivered, one did best to steer clear of terms and classifications that suggested analogies with other "literature". My aim would be a final definition of every kind of literature. If Piers Plowman isn't a poem, by my definition, then we should find out what it is, as you suggest, and go from there. Fine with me. I do that with what I call "textagraphs," which are works of visual art asemantically suing text. My friend in visual poetry want to call them visual poems but I say they aren't because they are not verbal. this bothers them because they take me as denigrating textagraphs, which is absurd. This was perhaps an eccentric start to literary criticism, but though Langland was admittedly an unusual case, it brought home to me that what I meant by "literature" and "poetry" were time- and culture-bound ideas, and also ideas that were perceptibly in violent upheaval today. But they needn't be, and wouldn't be if objectively defined. This is not an argument, only a background. If one came to the field with different questions in mind, taxonomy might well seem a critical prerequisite for pursuing them. Well, I don't think taxonomy would be a prerequisite for anything, just something that would allow a critic or philosopher to use a few previously defined terms in place of long explanations, repeated and repeated. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Tue Oct 5 09:29:46 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 06:29:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems By Others Message-ID: <20041005132946.60335.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> David Kirby has a poem over at Poetry Daily today: Jeff Newberry I Think Satan Done It David Kirby Jerry Lee Lewis is the undead, only cooler ? not even the undead just sit there staring and suddenly churn barrelhouse piano as though the devil himself has his forked tail up their butt, then dash through "Big Legged Woman" and "Breathless" and "Wild One," pausing only to say, "I think Satan done it!" when an amp goes out, all the while cheerfully interpolating their name into virtually every song: "Other arms reach out for ol' Jerry Lee, / other eyes smile tenderleeee!," thus celebrating himself and singing himself as Whitman did, that is, not as a "single, static marble statue elevated by a pedestal," as Ronald Knowles notes in Shakespeare and Carnival: After Bakhtin (London: Macmillan, 1998), but as one of the "sweaty bodies of a living carnival crowd," i.e., us, the 1500 or so who seem to be recruited mainly from Jacksonville shipyards and the ranches that begin around there and go clear down through central Florida, lots of sunburned, bowlegged guys with Popeye forearms and definitely the last generation to take men's hair seriously enough for me to look out over a sea of ducktails and pompadours anchored by what appears to be gallons of melted yak butter yet not a single drop of irony, and when I ask a woman where she got her Killer T-shirt because I want one for my wife, she says, "Here!" and starts to peel it off as I say, "No, no!" for fear that Dean Don Foss of the FSU College of Arts and Sciences is, as Jerry Lee works his way through "Once More With Feeling," "Workin' Man Blues" and "Waiting for a Train," leaning over the balcony at that very moment in gleeful anticipation of just such a misstep. Now the week before the concert, two things happened, one global and one not: first, Sir Johnny Cash died, and, sure enough, Jerry Lee begins his concert by saying, "Before we start rockin' and gettin' it and throwin' stuff and goin' to jail, I wanna sing a song for Johnny Cash," the song being "I'm Going to Take My Vacation in Heaven," which brings tears to the eyes of many of the 1500 because of its aesthetics rather than its expressed truth, for while the young may weep at circumstance, as a student's father told her recently, the old weep at beauty because they already know the world is sad. The non-global thing is an editor at a big-city northern newspaper for which I write wrote me and said I hadn't written anything for her in a while, and did I have an idea, to which I said, Do I have an idea! and told her I already had my Jerry Lee tix, so just hang in there and I'll have 800 words on your desk by the time you show up for work Monday morning. Back comes her e-mail saying Wait, I don't know, nobody around here thinks he's all that important, and I reply, N-not important?!? and tick off the facts on the fingers of my left hand, which, even though she can't see it, I'm holding in front of the computer screen in classic high-school debater mode: in the forties and fifties, Sun Records founder Sam Phillips (deceased) changed the world forever through the music of Elvis Presley (also deceased), Carl Perkins (ditto), Johnny Cash (ditto as of two days ago), and Jerry Lee Lewis, still smokin', drinkin' and rockin.' And when I say "change the world forever," I think of the time I was living in Paris and walking past the Hotel Dieu on Christmas Eve, and the Hotel Dieu is the oldest hospital in the city, dating back to the seventh century, if you can imagine, but, still, a working hospital ? people having babies and heart attacks don't care if it's Christmas Eve or not. I mean, say "oldest hospital in Paris" to a pissed-off French woman in her 17th hour of labor and see where it gets you! Anyway, as I walk past, just about frozen to death, I hear "Great Balls of Fire" coming out of an open second-story window, and when I look up, I see doctors and nurses in surgical scrubs, just dancing their hearts out. They're swing-dancing, complete with flash moves, and dripping with sweat and laughing and boogie-ing away all their stress and tension and unhappiness over their inability to make people live longer, just better, and that only for a while. The music was saving them, I told my editor; the music healed the doctors. How about that, reader? How about those arguments for factual irrefutability and rhetorical power, including but not limited to rodomontade, Hudibrastics and braggadocio, the whole made palatable, even tasty, by a certain je-m'en-fichisme, a subtle yet undeniable je ne sais quoi. You agree? Yes? Well, not that big-city editor! About an hour before I get into my car to go to Jacksonville, she writes "David, I'm afraid we're just a little too snooty to commission a piece on what's-his-name" ? okay, she didn't say "what's-his-name," though I can't resist the substitution because it conveys editorial indifference better than the truth would. And I'm not even talking about musicianship! For as he goes from "All Night Long" to "Big Blond Baby" and "Crazy Arms," I am thinking how, in the late 18th century, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg wrote in a notebook that in the plays of Shakespeare "you often find remarks doing a kitchen-hand's work in some remote corner of a sentence which would deserve pride of place in a disquisition by any other writer," which would be just as true if you substituted "Jerry Lee Lewis" for "Shakespeare," "concerts" for "plays," "piano playing" for "remarks," "song" for "sentence," my name for Lichtenberg's, our time period for the earlier one, and "this poem" for "his notebook"! And then Jerry Lee says, "If God made somethin' better than a lady ? umm! ? he musta saved it for himself!" And lest anyone accuse him of failing to practice what he preaches, let me remind you that Mr. Lewis has married six times, even if the majority of these unions followed the arc suggested by the titles of such songs as "Let's Talk About Us" but then "We Live in Two Different Worlds" and, finally, "She Even Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye." According to the program notes, "he has never claimed to be a role model" He's not? Well, that's news to the 1500! For he did exactly what he wanted, and it worked, and when it didn't work, he blamed the devil. Jerry Lee Lewis, Jerry Lee Lewis, may you have as much fun in hell as you did getting there, and if not, may the devil do as you do when you knock over a can of Sprite and begin to laugh helplessly as you wipe it up and then hold the towel over your face bandanna-style and say "This is a stickup!" and mug for the band as a heckler shouts "Play something!," and you swivel on your stool and look out as though seeing the audience for the first time and jerk your thumb toward the back of the auditorium and say, "Them doors swing both ways." ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Tue Oct 5 10:57:54 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 07:57:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems By Others In-Reply-To: <20041005132946.60335.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20041005145754.1395.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Ugh...I really screwed up the line breaks. Sorry. Try this link instead: www.poems.com Jeff Newberry --- Jeff Newberry wrote: > David Kirby has a poem over at Poetry Daily today: > > Jeff Newberry > > > I Think Satan Done It > David Kirby > > Jerry Lee Lewis is the undead, only cooler ? not > even > the undead > just sit there staring and suddenly > churn > barrelhouse piano as though the devil himself has > his > forked tail > > up their butt, then dash through "Big Legged Woman" > and "Breathless" > and "Wild One," pausing only to say, "I > think Satan > done it!" when an amp goes out, all the while > cheerfully interpolating > > their name into virtually every song: "Other arms > reach out for > ol' Jerry Lee, / other eyes smile > tenderleeee!," > thus celebrating himself and singing himself as > Whitman did, > > that is, not as a "single, static marble statue > elevated by a pedestal," > as Ronald Knowles notes in Shakespeare > and > Carnival: > After Bakhtin (London: Macmillan, 1998), but as one > of > the "sweaty > > bodies of a living carnival crowd," i.e., us, the > 1500 > or so who seem to be > recruited mainly from Jacksonville > shipyards and the ranches > that begin around there and go clear down through > central Florida, lots > > of sunburned, bowlegged guys with Popeye forearms > and > definitely > the last generation to take men's hair > seriously enough > for me to look out over a sea of ducktails and > pompadours anchored > > by what appears to be gallons of melted yak butter > yet > not a single drop > of irony, and when I ask a woman where > she > got her Killer > T-shirt because I want one for my wife, she says, > "Here!" and starts > > to peel it off as I say, "No, no!" for fear that > Dean > Don Foss > of the FSU College of Arts and Sciences > is, as Jerry Lee > works his way through "Once More With Feeling," > "Workin' Man Blues" > > and "Waiting for a Train," leaning over the balcony > at > that very moment > in gleeful anticipation of just such a > misstep. > Now the week before the concert, two things > happened, > one global > > and one not: first, Sir Johnny Cash died, and, sure > enough, > Jerry Lee begins his concert by saying, > "Before > we start rockin' and gettin' it and throwin' stuff > and > goin' to jail, > > I wanna sing a song for Johnny Cash," the song being > "I'm Going > to Take My Vacation in Heaven," which > brings tears > to the eyes of many of the 1500 because of its > aesthetics rather than > > its expressed truth, for while the young may weep at > circumstance, > as a student's father told her recently, > the old weep at beauty because they already know the > world is sad. > > The non-global thing is an editor at a big-city > northern newspaper > for which I write wrote me and said I > hadn't written > anything for her in a while, and did I have an idea, > to which I said, > > Do I have an idea! and told her I already had my > Jerry > Lee tix, > so just hang in there and I'll have 800 > words > on your desk by the time you show up for work Monday > morning. > > Back comes her e-mail saying Wait, I don't know, > nobody around > here thinks he's all that important, and > I > reply, > N-not important?!? and tick off the facts on the > fingers of my left hand, > > which, even though she can't see it, I'm holding in > front > of the computer screen in classic > high-school > debater mode: in the forties and fifties, Sun > Records > founder > > Sam Phillips (deceased) changed the world forever > through the music > of Elvis Presley (also deceased), Carl > Perkins > (ditto), Johnny Cash (ditto as of two days ago), and > Jerry Lee Lewis, > > still smokin', drinkin' and rockin.' And when I say > "change the world > forever," I think of the time I was > living > in Paris > and walking past the Hotel Dieu on Christmas Eve, > and > the Hotel Dieu > > is the oldest hospital in the city, dating back to > the > seventh century, > if you can imagine, but, still, a > working > hospital ? > people having babies and heart attacks don't care if > it's Christmas Eve > > or not. I mean, say "oldest hospital in Paris" to a > pissed-off > French woman in her 17th hour of labor > and > see > where it gets you! Anyway, as I walk past, just > about > frozen to death, > > I hear "Great Balls of Fire" coming out of an open > second-story window, > and when I look up, I see doctors and > nurses > in surgical scrubs, just dancing their hearts out. > They're swing-dancing, > > complete with flash moves, and dripping with sweat > and > laughing > and boogie-ing away all their stress and > tension > and unhappiness over their inability to make people > live longer, > > just better, and that only for a while. The music > was > saving them, > I told my editor; the music healed the > doctors. > How about that, reader? How about those arguments > for > factual > > irrefutability and rhetorical power, including but > not > limited > to rodomontade, Hudibrastics and > braggadocio, > the whole made palatable, even tasty, by a certain > je-m'en-fichisme, > > a subtle yet undeniable je ne sais quoi. You agree? > === message truncated === ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From elemenope at icubed.com Tue Oct 5 01:41:14 2004 From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions) Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 13:41:14 +0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: New-Poetry Digest, Vol 4, Issue 13: Grumman/Newberry/Kirby In-Reply-To: <200410051447.i95ElXYD028674@wiz.cath.vt.edu> References: <200410051447.i95ElXYD028674@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: Thanks to Bob Grumman for sharing insights into his deep scholarship. Thanks, as well, to Jeff Newberry for delivering David Kirby's great "Black Mountain" type Canto-poem to us. This particular mailing from New-Poetry is one of the best in a sequence of good ones (Grumman/Ballardini) of late. R i c h a r d D i l l o n -- From JforJames at aol.com Wed Oct 6 21:18:21 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 21:18:21 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Tupelo Press: Accolades & Announcements Message-ID: <195.3043192b.2e95f35d@aol.com> Subj: Tupelo Press: Accolades & Announcements Date: 10/4/2004 4:21:18 PM Eastern Standard Time From: info at tupelopress.org To: announce at tupelopress.org Sent from the Internet (Details) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Sip Some Wine, Nibble Zakuska, Meet Ilya Tupelo Press is dancing with joy at our perfect luck in publishing Ilya Kaminsky's Dancing in Odessa. We invite you to join us to toast this wonderful talent, this wonderful first book, Dancing in Odessa. Sunday October 17th 5:30-7:30 p.m. Russian Samovar Restaurant 256 West 52nd Street (between Broadway & 8th) Be treated to a brief reading by this extraordinary young man, whom Anthony Hecht called "a poetic talent of rare and beautiful proportions, whose work is surely destined to be widely and enthusiastically noticed and applauded." We hope you will be our guest at this wonderful event -- even last minute -- but if you know you are attending, please rsvp to: editor at tupelopress.org. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Tupelo Press Fifth Annual First Book Award Winners Winners and finalists of the Tupelo Press Fifth Annual First Book Award have been announced! The Judge's Prize is awarded by Michael Collier to: Lillias Bever of Seattle, Washington, for Bellini in Istanbul The Editors' Prize is awarded to: Brian Barker of Columbia, Missouri, for The Animal Gospels Finalists: K. E. Allen - Woman in a Boat Michael Brosnan - Unfold Trent Busch - Not One Bit of This is Your Fault Hildred Crill - The Book of Lichens Lara Glenum - Little Palace of Illness John Hennessy - Bridge and Tunnel Kate Lynn Hibbard - Qualia Nancy Kuhl - The Wife of the Left Hand Dale M. Kushner - Via Magdalene Deanna Kern Ludwin - Visitation Kevin McFadden - Carried Letters Peggy Munson - Pathogenesis Jim Murphy - Overland Routes Susan Settlemyre Williams - Ashes in Midair Noel Smith - Twisting Sourwood John de Stefano - Critical Opalescence and the Blueness of Sky John de Stefano - Three-Body Problems Alexandra van de Kamp - The Atmosphere of Objects ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Bibi Wein Featured in Adirondack Life Bibi Wein, Tupelo Press author of Way Home has a feature article, "How I Found My Adirondack Home" in the September 2004 issue of Adirondack Life: http://www.adirondacklife.com/template/ArticleDetail?assetid=37281 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- EVENTS THIS WEEK & NEXT Tina Barr FRIDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2004 4:00 PM Southern Festival of Books Cook Convention Center, Room L14 255 North Main Street Memphis, Tennessee Contact: Serenity Gerbman http://www.tn-humanities.org/serenity.htm FREE Reading from The Gathering Eye and signing books. Mary Koncel SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2004 7:30 PM Inkberry 63 Main Street North Adams, Massachusetts http://www.inkberry.org Reading from You Can Tell the Horse Anything with Margaret Szumowski and Jeffrey Levine. Jeffrey Levine SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2004 7:30 PM Inkberry 63 Main Street North Adams, Massachusetts http://www.inkberry.org Reading from Mortal Everlasting with Margaret Szumowski and Mary Koncel. Hermine Meinhard MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2004 5:00 PM Elmira College Tifft Lounge Elmira, New York 14901 Contact: Mary Jo Mahoney Email: mmahoney at stny.rr.com FREE Reading from Bright Turquoise Umbrella. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2004 7:00 PM Myopic Poetry Series Myopic Bookstore 1564 North Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park Chicago, Illinois 60622 Contact: Chuck Stebelton 773-862-4882 Email: eyeple at earthlink.net http://www.myopicbookstore.com/poetry.htm FREE Reading from Bright Turquoise Umbrella with Joel Craig. MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2004 4:30 PM Felix: A Series of New Writing Dept. of Special Collections Memorial Library University of Wisconsin - Madison Madison, Wisconsin Contact: Dave Pavelich 608-262-3243 Email: pavelich at wisc.edu http://slisweb.lis.wisc.edu/~Pavelich/felix/index.html FREE Reading from Bright Turquoise Umbrella and discussion about the publication of poetry in literary journals, especially 3rd bed and !Factorial, with Sawako Nakayasu. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2004 7:00 PM Avol's Bookstore 315 West Gorham Street Madison, Wisconsin 53703 Contact: Ron Czerwien 608-255-4730 Email: avols at chorus.net http://www.abebooks.com/home/avols FREE Reading from Bright Turquoise Umbrella. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2004 7:30 PM Madison Area Technical College, Downtown Campus 211 North Carroll Street, Room D332 Madison, Wisconsin 53703 Contact: Laura Sims 608-255-4730 Email: ljsims50 at hotmail.com FREE Reading from Bright Turquoise Umbrella and a question and answer session. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2004 6:00 PM A Room of One's Own Feminist Bookstore 307 West Johnson Street Madison, Wisconsin 53703 Contact: Sasha Mishur 608-257-7888 Email: room at chorus.net http://www.roomofonesown.com FREE Creative writing workshop with improvisational exercises, reading and discussion of work. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2004 7:00 PM Redletter Reading Series Woodland Pattern Book Center 720 Locust Street Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53216 Contact: Stacy Szymaszek 414-263-5001 Email: woodlandpattern at sbcglobal.net http://www.woodlandpattern.org FREE Reading from Bright Turquoise Umbrella with Sawako Nakayasu. Aimee Nezhukumatathil THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2004 3:00 PM New Writing from the Global Diaspora Old Dominion University Norfolk, Virginia Contact: Dr. Luisa Igloria http://courses.lib.odu.edu/litfest/27th/people.htm Reading from Miracle Fruit. Francine Sterle FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2004 7:00 PM Winona Arts Center 228 E. 5th Street Winona, Minnesota 55987 507-453-9959 Contact: Mary Coughlin, Director Reading from Every Bird is One Bird. Margaret Szumowski SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2004 7:30 PM Inkberry 63 Main Street North Adams, Massachusetts http://www.inkberry.org Reading from I Want This World with Mary Koncel and Jeffrey Levine. Bill Van Every THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2004 7:30 PM Park Road Books 4139 Park Road Shopping Center Charlotte, North Caroline 28209 704-525-9239 Email: books at parkroadbooks.com http://www.parkroadbooks.com Reading from Devoted Creatures with Ione Ohara reading from A Passing Certainty. Also, Bill will be doing several multi-layered impersonations: James Brown impersonating Ghandi protesting the salt tax, as well, John Wayne impersonating Mick Jagger reading Ted Roethke, and so on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Tupelo Press P.O. Box 539 Dorset, VT 05251 USA Visit Tupelo Press on the web (http://www.tupelopress.org/) Tel: 802-366-8185, Fax: 802-362-1883 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd at ripon.edu Wed Oct 6 21:20:46 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 20:20:46 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] October thoughts Message-ID: October Thoughts How one loves this great wine that one drinks all alone when the evening illumines its coppered hills not a hunter now stalks the lowland game the sisters of our friends seem more beautiful at the same time there is a threat of war an insect pauses then goes on. --Jean Follain, trans. W. S. Merwin. *Transparence of the World*. --------------------------------------- --just seeing if I'm still subscribed, really-- ==================================================== 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 kpaul at mallasch.com Wed Oct 6 21:54:02 2004 From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch) Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 20:54:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] October thoughts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20041006205221.H62057@kpaul.spinweb.net> http://www.mallasch.com/mug/audio/911b.mp3 http://www.mallasch.com/mug/audio/transition1.2.mp3 http://www.mallasch.com/mug/audio/winterof1.mp3 -kpaul mallasch.com/mug/ From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu Wed Oct 6 21:55:46 2004 From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne) Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 20:55:46 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: Job Search Notice Message-ID: If you know anyone interested in the following, please pass it along. This is the listing for a new position in my department that appears in the current MLA Job List and the AWP Job Information List. I would especially appreciate it if list members would forward this message to other writers' lists (poetry and fiction) where there may be interest. Please note the deadline for application letters is November 1. Thanks. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH Assistant Professor of English. Tenure track, to begin fall semester 2005 (pending final approval). MFA or Ph.D. required. Creative Writing. Secondary preparation in one or more of the following fields desirable: modern English grammar or linguistics, English education, technical writing. Candidates must be able to teach a broad range of texts and composition in a university-wide humanities core. Candidates must also show interest in working at a residential Lutheran university that emphasizes excellent teaching and commitment to student learning. Teaching load is normally three courses per semester. Traditional service functions (advising and committee work) are expected. Publications are necessary for advancement. Salary competitive. CV and letters outlining qualifications and expressing interest in teaching at Valparaiso University must be received by November 1 and will be acknowledged. We will request full credentials from those we wish to consider further. Preliminary telephone interviews will be conducted in mid-December, prior to invitations for campus visits. Address letters or inquiries to Edward Uehling, Chair, Department of English, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383. An equal opportunity employer. -------------------------------------------------- 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 anny.ballardini at tin.it Thu Oct 7 02:08:07 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (anny.ballardini at tin.it) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 02:08:07 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] NYTimes.com Article: Poetry Starts to Wear $100 Million Crown Message-ID: <20041007060807.C77D135040@web38t.prvt.nytimes.com> The article below from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by anny.ballardini at tin.it. /--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\ I HEART HUCKABEES - OPENING IN SELECT CITIES OCTOBER 1 From David O. Russell, writer and director of THREE KINGS and FLIRTING WITH DISASTER comes an existential comedy starring Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Hupert, Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Mark Wahlberg and Naomi Watts. Watch the trailer now at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/huckabees/index_nyt.html \----------------------------------------------------------/ Poetry Starts to Wear $100 Million Crown October 7, 2004 By STEPHEN KINZER CHICAGO, Oct. 6 - There were no red carpets, dazzling jewels or swarming paparazzi, but when two American poets stepped forward to receive large prizes at a gala dinner here on Tuesday night, their often obscure world seemed to come a step closer to the cultural mainstream. That, at least, was the goal of the Poetry Foundation, which is deciding how to use the astonishing gift of about $100 million it received two years ago. "This was a kickoff," said John Barr, president of the foundation. Soon to come, he said, are a host of projects, from a national recitation contest for high school students to "the biggest and baddest Web site for poetry out there." The projects are likely to comprise the most sweeping effort to promote poetry in the history of the United States or any other country. They may also make the Poetry Foundation a major force on the American cultural landscape. The dinner was held on the enclosed stage of Frank Gehry's spectacular new outdoor theater in Millennium Park, near the shore of Lake Michigan. About 120 people attended, most of them members or supporters of the foundation. In a touch that was supposed to invoke the suspense of the Academy Awards, guests were not told in advance who the winners would be. The two poets, however, knew they had been selected. The larger prize, called the Neglected Masters Award, is for "a significant American poet whose work has been under-recognized." It went to Samuel Menashe, 79, who lives in Greenwich Village in New York and has been writing poetry for more than half a century. Mr. Menashe came away with a $50,000 check and a commitment from the Library of America to publish a volume of his work. "This is a big day in my life," he said after the ceremony, appearing a bit dazed by his sudden turn of fortune. "The fact that they decided to do this, to recognize what they call neglected masters, is unbelievable. After so many years of unsuccessful hunting on the streets of Manhattan, it's pretty great to have a New York publisher." Unlike many modern poets, Mr. Menashe does not teach at a university. He was born in New York and for most of his life has lived in a small tenement apartment on lower Thompson Street. Although no one would argue his designation as "neglected," he is not entirely unknown. He has published several volumes of poetry and contributed to leading magazines. Stephen Spender once said that Mr. Menashe's poems were as "intense and clear as diamonds." Dana Gioia, the poet and critic who is chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, wrote that Mr. Menashe's career "demonstrates how a serious poet of singular talent, power and originality can be largely overlooked in our literary culture." The other new prize, worth $25,000, is the Mark Twain Award for humorous poetry. It went to Billy Collins, a former poet laureate who is one of America's best-known poets. Writing witty poems, Mr. Collins said, is at least as hard as writing any other kind. "Humor is like a disobedient dog," he said. "You call its name and it runs in the other direction." Mr. Collins said the huge gift to the Poetry Foundation, which came from the pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly, "has made this a fantastic time to be a poet." "People do pay attention to figures," he said. "And how many zeroes are there in one hundred million? This gift, with all its implications, has turned a lot of heads." After receiving their awards, the poets read from their work. Mr. Menasche recited "The Stars Are." The Stars are Although I do not sing About them - The sky and the trees Are indifferent To whom they please The rose is unmoved By my nose And the garland in your hair Although your eyes be lakes, dies Why sigh for a star Better bay at the moon Better bay at the moon ... Oh moon, moon, moon After reading, the honorees spent the rest of the evening basking in their success. For Mr. Collins, who has given countless readings to large audiences and has a wide following around the United States and beyond, the experience was quite familiar. It was less so for Mr. Menashe, whom the critic Danielle Chapman recently called "practically unrecognized, except as a sort of eccentric cult figure, the last West Village bohemian." The Poetry Foundation plans to award these prizes regularly, though not necessarily annually. Next year it will add a new prize for the best poetry manuscript by an unpublished poet over the age of 50. It already awards the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Prize for poetic excellence, which went this year to Kay Ryan. Since Ms. Lilly announced her gift to the foundation in 2002, poets and other cultural figures have eagerly awaited news about what it would do with such a huge sum of money. In an interview, Mr. Barr gave a few answers. He said that the recitation contest would be modeled after the national spelling bee, with regional and sectional playoffs, and that the Web site would not only be a huge archive but also steer people to poems that they could use on particular occasions like weddings. Mr. Barr said the foundation would soon commission a yearlong survey of American attitudes about poetry. He said it would be "a major reality check" and "tell us exactly what's going on out there." He also said the foundation would soon hire a staff member whose job it would be to place poems in niche magazines. "He'd call up the editor of Yachting World,'' Mr. Barr said, "and say, 'Hey, how'd you like it if we sent you over 10 poems about yachting?' " Although the foundation plans to start major initiatives to promote poetry through libraries and schools, Mr. Barr said, it has not yet decided how best to do it. "The mortality rate for poetry programs in school is pretty high," he said. "We still have to figure it out." Mr. Barr took over the Poetry Foundation in April, bringing with him not just a love of poetry but also decades of experience as an investment banker. That a Wall Street banker would take over such a position reflects how completely Ms. Lilly's gift has transformed this once-obscure foundation. "It's a completely different world," said Stephen Young, the program director. "Our phone rings a lot more. For a while we were hearing from a lot of people looking for money, but I think word is getting out that we are not going to be primarily a grant-making foundation. Other people are offering to help us in our mission of figuring out how this money can become not just a gift to us, but to the art. That's the heavy labor." The labor began to bear fruit at the awards dinner Tuesday. After an evening of praise, and with a large check in his jacket pocket, Mr. Menashe allowed himself to muse, "When one gets what one deserves, it's a wonderful thing." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/books/07poet.html?ex=1098129287&ei=1&en=8b2378acb5c52673 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://homedelivery.nytimes.com/HDS/SubscriptionT1.do?mode=SubscriptionT1&ExternalMediaCode=W24AF HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 7 07:38:07 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 07:38:07 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] NYTimes.com Article: Poetry Starts to Wear $100Million Crown References: <20041007060807.C77D135040@web38t.prvt.nytimes.com> Message-ID: <007501c4ac62$20b08bb0$7ab831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> The Times quickly shows what a worthless paper it is with its headline, "Poetry Starts to Wear $100 Million Crown." It can't even keep up with something as mainstream as what the morons at Poetry are doing: Poetry has long since "started" wearing its $100 million crown. It gave away a substantial prize earlier this year. Prediction: the Poetry Foundation will never become a "major force on the American cultural landscape." It will make the NY Times and its readers take notice, like the Pulitzer Prize does, but will not even slightly influence the people responsible for the advance of American poetry, except by contributing negatively to their morale. Gioia calls Menashe "original," but--typically-- doesn't say why. Anyone know? I've not read him that I know of but--yes, David--I nevertheless know he's not original, as I understand the adjective. I suspect he's a good poet, though, and it's a positive sign that some poet is getting money for his poetry. --Your friendly literary terrorist, Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jkok at hfa.umass.edu Thu Oct 7 09:19:10 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 09:19:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] October thoughts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for a wonderful poem. I always love his translations even if they have, sometimes, such a whiff of him - which, actually, this one does not. Yes, it has been quiet...K. On Wed, 6 Oct 2004, David Graham wrote: > October Thoughts > > > How one loves > this great wine > that one drinks all alone > when the evening illumines its coppered hills > not a hunter now > stalks the lowland game > the sisters of our friends > seem more beautiful > at the same time there is a threat of war > an insect pauses > then goes on. > > --Jean Follain, trans. W. S. Merwin. *Transparence of the World*. > --------------------------------------- > > --just seeing if I'm still subscribed, really-- > > > ==================================================== > 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 grahamd at ripon.edu Thu Oct 7 09:25:39 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 08:25:39 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe Message-ID: By any yardstick, Samuel Menashe is a fairly little-known poet. I like it that Dana Gioia pays attention to such folks, and suspect that the big award from Poetry to Menashe probably has a lot to do with Gioia's influence, as I'm sure the appointment of Kooser as Lariat did. A brief article of appreciation for Menashe, from Gioia's web site: http://www.danagioia.net/essays/emenashe.htm ==================================================== 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 jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 7 09:28:34 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 06:28:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Czelsaw Milosz Message-ID: <20041007132834.84121.qmail@web52610.mail.yahoo.com> Magpiety The same and not quite the same, I walked through oak forests Amazed that my Muse, Mnemosyne, Has in no way diminished my amazement. A magpie was screeching and I said: Magpiety? What is magpiety? I shall never achieve A magpie heart, a hairy nostril over the beak, a flight That always renews just when coming down, And so I shall never comprehend magpiety. If however magpiety does not exist My nature does not exist either. Who would have guessed that, centuries later, I would invent the question of universals? ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From grahamd at ripon.edu Thu Oct 7 09:29:28 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 08:29:28 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe 2 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A little gathering of little poems by Samuel Menashe: http://www.poemtree.com/Menashe.htm Here's a sample: Curriculum Vitae ? 1 ? Scribe out of work At a loss for words Not his to begin with, The man life passed by Stands at the window Biding his time ? 2 ? Time and again And now once more I climb these stairs Unlock this door? No name where I live Alone in my lair With one bone to pick And no time to spare ? Samuel Menashe ? ? *The Niche Narrows: New and Selected Poems*, Talisman House, Publishers, ? 2000. ==================================================== 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 jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 7 09:29:35 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 06:29:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: Philip Levine Message-ID: <20041007132935.28302.qmail@web52603.mail.yahoo.com> Magpiety Philip Levine You pull over to the shoulder of the two-lane road and sit for a moment wondering where you were going in such a hurry. The valley is burned out, the oaks dream day and night of rain that never comes. At noon or just before noon the short shadows are gray and hold what little life survives. In the still heat the engine clicks, although the real heat is hours ahead. You get out and step cautiously over a low wire fence and begin the climb up the yellowed hill. A hundred feet ahead the trunks of two fallen oaks rust; something passes over them, a lizard perhaps or a trick of sight. The next tree you pass is unfamiliar, the trunk dark, as black as an olive's; the low branches stab out, gnarled and dull: a carob or a Joshua tree. A sudden flaring-up ahead, a black-winged bird rises from nowhere, white patches underneath its wings, and is gone. You hear your own breath catching in your ears, a roaring, a sea sound that goes on and on until you lean forward to place both hands -- fingers spread -- into the bleached grasses and let your knees slowly down. Your breath slows and you know you're back in central California on your way to San Francisco or the coastal towns with their damp sea breezes you haven't even a hint of. But first you must cross the Pacheco Pass. People expect you, and yet you remain, still leaning forward into the grasses that if you could hear them would tell you all you need to know about the life ahead. . . . Out of a sense of modesty or to avoid the truth I've been writing in the second person, but in truth it was I, not you, who pulled the green Ford over to the side of the road and decided to get up that last hill to look back at the valley he'd come to call home. I can't believe that man, only thirty-two, less than half my age, could be the person fashioning these lines. That was late July of '60. I had heard all about magpies, how they snooped and meddled in the affairs of others, not birds so much as people. If you dared to remove a wedding ring as you washed away the stickiness of love or the cherished odors of another man or woman, as you turned away from the mirror having admired your new-found potency -- humming "My Funny Valentine" or "Body and Soul" -- to reach for a rough towel or some garment on which to dry yourself, he would enter the open window behind you that gave gratefully onto the fields and the roads bathed in dawn -- he, the magpie -- and snatch up the ring in his hard beak and shoulder his way back into the currents of the world on his way to the only person who could change your life: a king or a bride or an old woman asleep on her porch. . . . Can you believe the bird stood beside you just long enough, though far smaller than you but fearless in a way a man or woman could never be? An apparition with two dark and urgent eyes and motions so quick and precise they were barely motions at all? When he was gone you turned, alarmed by the rustling of oily feathers and the curious pungency, and were sure you'd heard him say the words that could explain the meaning of blond grasses burning on a hillside beneath the hands of a man in the middle of his life caught in the posture of prayer. I'd heard that a magpie could talk, so I waited for the words, knowing without the least doubt what he'd do, for up ahead an old woman waited on her wide front porch. My children behind her house played in a silted pond poking sticks at the slow carp that flashed in the fallen sunlight. You are thirty-two only once in your life, and though July comes too quickly, you pray for the overbearing heat to pass. It does, and the year turns before it holds still for even a moment. Beyond the last carob or Joshua tree the magpie flashes his sudden wings; a second flames and vanishes into the pale blue air. July 23, 1960. I lean down closer to hear the burned grasses whisper all I need to know. The words rise around me, separate and finite. A yellow dust rises and stops caught in the noon's driving light. Three ants pass across the back of my reddened right hand. Everything is speaking or singing. We're still here. ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 7 09:34:44 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 06:34:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Levine Message-ID: <20041007133444.55729.qmail@web52604.mail.yahoo.com> Does anybody know what Philip Levine's birthday is? I know he was born in 1928, but I'm wondering about the exactly month and day . . . Thanks, jln ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 7 09:46:45 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 09:46:45 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe References: Message-ID: <00d601c4ac74$19975b30$7ab831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > By any yardstick, Samuel Menashe is a fairly little-known poet. Gioia is all for little-known conventional poets, but near-completely blind to little-know poetries. That is why I do not have a high opinion of him. From halvard at earthlink.net Thu Oct 7 09:47:26 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 09:47:26 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] October thoughts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The Apple it is not a question of language but of ripe apples, the core the same, an outward preoccupation here it is a question of gold, its success from baser metals, the alchemist's means with an eye to what where and how we are, of what substance, what stage in the apple's life what cast in the eye of the looker he who looks behind his eyes, runs backward with ferocious longing, stills his heart in the apple's core calls the name of another god and never stops running. --Margaret Randall fr. *October* [Mexico City: ediciones el corno emplumado, 1965] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From grahamd at ripon.edu Thu Oct 7 10:02:46 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 09:02:46 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] October thoughts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Perfection O lovely apple! beautifully and completely rotten, hardly a contour marred-- perhaps a little shrivelled at the top but that aside perfect in every detail! O lovely apple! what a deep and suffusing brown mantles that unspoiled surface! No one has moved you since I placed you on the porch rail a month ago to ripen. No one. No one! --Willliam Carlos Williams. *The Wedge*, 1944. ==================================================== 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 ==================================================== The Apple it is not a question of language but of ripe apples, the core the same, an outward preoccupation here it is a question of gold, its success from baser metals, the alchemist's means with an eye to what where and how we are, of what substance, what stage in the apple's life what cast in the eye of the looker he who looks behind his eyes, runs backward with ferocious longing, stills his heart in the apple's core calls the name of another god and never stops running. --Margaret Randall fr. *October* [Mexico City: ediciones el corno emplumado, 1965] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== From grahamd at ripon.edu Thu Oct 7 10:18:53 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 09:18:53 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe In-Reply-To: <00d601c4ac74$19975b30$7ab831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: on 10/7/04 8:46 AM, Bob Grumman at bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net wrote: > > >> By any yardstick, Samuel Menashe is a fairly little-known poet. > > Gioia is all for little-known conventional poets, but near-completely blind > to little-know poetries. That is why I do not have a high opinion of him. No high opinion of Gioia? Well, knock me over with a feather, Bob. . . . ==================================================== 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 Thu Oct 7 10:38:24 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 10:38:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe Message-ID: In a message dated 10/7/2004 9:19:20 AM Central Daylight Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes: > > on 10/7/04 8:46 AM, Bob Grumman at bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net wrote: > > > > > > >>By any yardstick, Samuel Menashe is a fairly little-known poet. > > > >Gioia is all for little-known conventional poets, but near-completely blind > >to little-know poetries. That is why I do not have a high opinion of him. > > No high opinion of Gioia? Well, knock me over with a feather, Bob. . . . We need to lobby for old Bob to get one of those big prizes so he can turn it down. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 7 13:28:59 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 13:28:59 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe References: Message-ID: <00ee01c4ac93$5ebef780$7ab831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> >>> By any yardstick, Samuel Menashe is a fairly little-known poet. >> >> Gioia is all for little-known conventional poets, but near-completely >> blind >> to little-know poetries. That is why I do not have a high opinion of >> him. > > No high opinion of Gioia? Well, knock me over with a feather, Bob. . . . Gotta balance your predictably positive comments on Gioia with my predictably negative ones, David. And keep my boilerplate about neglected poetries out there. --Bob From JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 7 13:44:58 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 13:44:58 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe Message-ID: <143.35740563.2e96da9a@aol.com> In a message dated 10/7/2004 9:47:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time, bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: By any yardstick, Samuel Menashe is a fairly little-known poet. Gioia is all for little-known conventional poets, but near-completely blind to little-know poetries. That is why I do not have a high opinion of him. Talisman, as a press, has published a good number of non-mainstream poets (otherstream, to use your term). William Bronk is a good example of the slightly off-the-beaten-path kind of poet they've published. I know, I know, Bronk never did anything concrete/visual/infraverbal, etc...but believe it or not many people find words beautiful in & of themselves, and seem to cotton to them particularly when strung together in meaningful syntactic structures marked by a certain felicity, verve or fury. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From elemenope at icubed.com Thu Oct 7 02:22:50 2004 From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 14:22:50 +0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe In-Reply-To: <200410071351.i97DpNYD014553@wiz.cath.vt.edu> References: <200410071351.i97DpNYD014553@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: Samuel Menashe read in Lexington, Va. at W&L back in 1969. As I related to this list the last time his name came up, he's a friend of Dabney Stuart's. Dabney liked Menashe's book, the book, itself, because Menashe did not permit his publisher to use any blurbs from more celebrated poets, so, the cover was white blank. The Menashe I came to know by this reading was an alienated, deeply meditative, New York City intellectual. He was liked because he was outside academia but met many of the criteria they required in the quality of his verse. He wasn't a Beat, but in his own way offered that outsider status without the hyperbole. Singular, vulnerable, consistently self-reflective, the poet in the City, a scholar, a private person, all by himself, talking to pigeons at park benches, Menashe was accepted by thoughtful people as a voice of respite from the clamour, confusion, politicized glamour, star-system scenes of that era. R i c h a r d D i l l o n -- From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 7 14:28:54 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 14:28:54 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe References: Message-ID: <016501c4ac9b$885867e0$7ab831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> We need to lobby for old Bob to get one of those big prizes so he can turn it down. One of the things that made me feel really bad when it looked like I wouldn't be able to afford to get my hurricane-damaged house repaired was the thought that if the MacArthur people made a mistake and gave me a grant, I'd probably accept it. (Yes, I do fantasize about such things, absurdly.) But I'd accept it very ungraciously. At this very moment, though, there are men on my roof, fixing it, and FEMA gave me enough money to pay them. So I'm back to daydreaming about stinging speeches of award-rejection. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD at ripon.edu Thu Oct 7 14:42:20 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 13:42:20 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3D5@ariel.ripon.edu> Both Menashe & Bronk are striking examples of the vagaries of fashion & taste, not to mention the great variety available, even within the mainstream. Lots of reasons why each of them didn't hit the poetry jackpot as some of their contemporaries did; in both cases I think temperament had something to do with it. The mainstream is not just a stylistic designation: it has to do also with profession, personality, geography, networking, institutional affiliation, sheer luck, etc. In some ways Menashe (not so much Bronk) is utterly mainstream in style. In other ways he's the classic outsider poet. I guess Menashe did hit the jackpot recently, but given his age and other factors I don't think this prize will suddenly cause his appearance in *The Norton Anthology* or put him on many college syllabi. ============================================ 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: JforJames at aol.com > Reply To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Sent: Thursday, October 7, 2004 12:44 PM > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe > > > Talisman, as a press, has published a good number of > non-mainstream poets (otherstream, to use your term). > William Bronk is a good example of the slightly off-the-beaten-path > kind of poet they've published. I know, I know, Bronk never > did anything concrete/visual/infraverbal, etc...but believe it > or not many people find words beautiful in & of themselves, > and seem to cotton to them particularly when strung together > in meaningful syntactic structures marked by a certain felicity, > verve or fury. > Finnegan > From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Thu Oct 7 14:54:32 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 11:54:32 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [New-Poetry] October thoughts Message-ID: <10583498.1097175275581.JavaMail.root@rowlf.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Not one (poem/October thoughts) handy, but see Penn Warren's "Fall Comes to Back Country Vermont." - Jim -----Original Message----- From: David Graham Sent: Oct 7, 2004 7:02 AM To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views" Subject: [New-Poetry] October thoughts Perfection O lovely apple! beautifully and completely rotten, hardly a contour marred-- perhaps a little shrivelled at the top but that aside perfect in every detail! O lovely apple! what a deep and suffusing brown mantles that unspoiled surface! No one has moved you since I placed you on the porch rail a month ago to ripen. No one. No one! --Willliam Carlos Williams. *The Wedge*, 1944. ==================================================== 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 ==================================================== The Apple it is not a question of language but of ripe apples, the core the same, an outward preoccupation here it is a question of gold, its success from baser metals, the alchemist's means with an eye to what where and how we are, of what substance, what stage in the apple's life what cast in the eye of the looker he who looks behind his eyes, runs backward with ferocious longing, stills his heart in the apple's core calls the name of another god and never stops running. --Margaret Randall fr. *October* [Mexico City: ediciones el corno emplumado, 1965] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org RelativeLinks: http://www.poetserv.com/relativelinks/home.html From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu Oct 7 15:09:51 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 15:09:51 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe Message-ID: <192.301d83f3.2e96ee7f@cs.com> I know Samuel slightly, and I like the poems of his I've seen, which are short and witty in the Kay Ryan manner. I don't know how he's supported himself all these years, but he has. There was a nice profile on him in the New York Times a couple of years ago. I think he's a worthy recipient who surely can use the money. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu Oct 7 15:11:54 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 15:11:54 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe Message-ID: <194.2f0a99f6.2e96eefa@cs.com> In a message dated 10/7/2004 1:43:40 PM Central Daylight Time, GrahamD at ripon.edu writes: > > I guess Menashe did hit the jackpot recently, but given his age and other > factors I don't think this prize will suddenly cause his appearance in *The > Norton Anthology* or put him on many college syllabi. > He is in the Gioia, Mason, Schoerke anthology of 20th century American poetry. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 7 15:33:19 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 12:33:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: October Thoughts Message-ID: <20041007193319.61505.qmail@web52603.mail.yahoo.com> I posted this back in July on my 30th birthday. I think it's fitting for this current thread about October, as well. Jeff Newberry Poem in October Dylan Thomas It was my thirtieth year to heaven Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore The morning beckon With water praying and call of seagull and rook And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall Myself to set foot That second In the still sleeping town and set forth. My birthday began with the water- Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses And I rose In rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. High tide and the heron dived when I took the road Over the border And the gates Of the town closed as the town awoke. A springful of larks in a rolling Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling Blackbirds and the sun of October Summery On the hill's shoulder, Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly Come in the morning where I wandered and listened To the rain wringing Wind blow cold In the wood faraway under me. Pale rain over the dwindling harbour And over the sea wet church the size of a snail With its horns through mist and the castle Brown as owls But all the gardens Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud There I could marvel My birthday Away but the weather turned around. It turned away from the blithe country And down the other air and the blue altered sky Streamed again a wonder of summer With apples Pears and red currants And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's Forgotten morning when he walked with his mother Through the parables of sun light And the legends of the green chapels And the twice told fields of infancy That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. These were the woods the river and sea Where a boy In the listening Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide. And the mystery Sang alive Still in the water and singingbirds. And there could I marvel my birthday Away but the weather turned around. And the true Joy of the long dead child sang burning In the sun. It was my thirtieth Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon Though the town below lay leaved with October blood. O may my heart's truth Still be sung On this high hill in a year's turning. ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 7 15:40:25 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 15:40:25 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe References: <143.35740563.2e96da9a@aol.com> Message-ID: <002601c4aca5$815a0c00$74b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> By any yardstick, Samuel Menashe is a fairly little-known poet. Gioia is all for little-known conventional poets, but near-completely blind to little-know poetries. That is why I do not have a high opinion of him. Talisman, as a press, has published a good number of non-mainstream poets (otherstream, to use your term). William Bronk is a good example of the slightly off-the-beaten-path kind of poet they've published. I know, I know, Bronk never did anything concrete/visual/infraverbal, etc...but believe it or not many people find words beautiful in & of themselves, and seem to cotton to them particularly when strung together in meaningful syntactic structures marked by a certain felicity, verve or fury. Finnegan I think you've forgotten forty or fifty of my posts, James. I'm not against conventional poetry. I am against people who think that's the only kind of poetry there is. My micro-press has published over a dozen collections of conventional poetry. I've written and published lots of conventional poetry. I applaud Gioia for liking good conventional poetry. I dislike him for paying little or no attention to unconventional poetry. I don't know why you can't understand this. Liking burstnorm poetry needn't force one to dislike conventional poetry. As for Talisman, it published a lot of poetry that was otherstream at the time of publication but no longer is (language poetry), but also a lot of conventional poetry, such as Menashe's. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wwmorgan at ilstu.edu Thu Oct 7 15:44:21 2004 From: wwmorgan at ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan) Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 14:44:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] October Thoughts In-Reply-To: <20041007193319.61505.qmail@web52603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041007193319.61505.qmail@web52603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.0.2.0.2.20041007144234.04a85040@mail.ilstu.edu> Here's mine: The Pale Persistence Now is the yellow season shading into orange-brown of goldenrod and sunflower-- and after this, the white. April's snowy bloodroot, trillium, spilled into the pink and blue of soapwort, vetch, and chicory; and summer-long, the ghostly sheen of cherry, honey locust, blackberry-- the pale insistence sounding through the greening leaf and reddening fruit: the pedal-bass of blossom white. Clouds of wild asters now--the time of bronzing corn and caterpillars liveried in black and rust-- they bend and brush the earth, and warn: after this the white. Yes. After this, the white. --Bill Morgan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wwmorgan at ilstu.edu Thu Oct 7 15:48:08 2004 From: wwmorgan at ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan) Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2004 14:48:08 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] October Thoughts In-Reply-To: <20041007193319.61505.qmail@web52603.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041007193319.61505.qmail@web52603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.0.2.0.2.20041007144426.04aaf0a0@mail.ilstu.edu> And here's one by Thomas Hardy. (This poem, incidentally, is the Hardy Association's Poem of the Month this month, and you're invited to go to http://webboard.ilstu.edu/~TTHA_POTM_DISCUSSIONS/login to participate in an on-line discussion concerning the poem. Autumn in King's Hintock Park Here by the baring bough Raking up leaves, Often I ponder how Springtime deceives,-- I, and old woman now, Raking up leaves. Here in the avenue Raking up leaves Lords' ladies pass in view, Until one heaves Sighs at life's russet hue, Raking up leaves! Just as my shape you see Raking up leaves, I saw, when fresh and free, Those memory weaves Into grey ghosts by me, Raking up leaves. Yet, Dear, though one may sigh, Raking up leaves, New leaves will dance on high-- Earth never grieves!-- Will not, when missed am I Raking up leaves. 1901 From halvard at earthlink.net Thu Oct 7 15:54:38 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 15:54:38 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe In-Reply-To: <194.2f0a99f6.2e96eefa@cs.com> Message-ID: He's also in Harvey Shapiro's anthology Poets of World War II from Library of America (2003). Hal I guess Menashe did hit the jackpot recently, but given his age and other factors I don't think this prize will suddenly cause his appearance in *The Norton Anthology* or put him on many college syllabi. He is in the Gioia, Mason, Schoerke anthology of 20th century American poetry. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 7 18:50:00 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 18:50:00 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe Message-ID: <15c.4060700b.2e972218@aol.com> In a message dated 10/7/2004 2:42:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time, GrahamD at ripon.edu writes: Both Menashe & Bronk are striking examples of the vagaries of fashion & taste, not to mention the great variety available, even within the mainstream. Lots of reasons why each of them didn't hit the poetry jackpot as some of their contemporaries did; in both cases I think temperament had something to do with it. The mainstream is not just a stylistic designation: it has to do also with profession, personality, geography, networking, institutional affiliation, sheer luck, etc. In some ways Menashe (not so much Bronk) is utterly mainstream in style. In other ways he's the classic outsider poet. Yeah, I only have a dim recollection of reading his poetry... and it may be a case of 'suggeted memory'. I honestly couldn't tell you how to pronounce his name. I don't think I've ever heard it come up in conversation. Is it Men-ash, ma-nash-Eh,..? Did his name even come up when had our last round of name your favorite obscure/neglected poets? Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 7 19:10:26 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 19:10:26 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe Message-ID: Another question...I see in that article that Collins got the Mark Twain Award for humorous poetry. I live in Hartford CT so I should know this, but did Twain write humorous poetry? If so, was it any good? I don't know that I've seen any. Coupling Twain & poetry (which I think he disparaged, albeit humorously, in several instances) creates for me some cognitive dissonance. (I'm big on psych words today it seems.) Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 7 19:23:50 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 19:23:50 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Twain on poetry Message-ID: <199.30660fd8.2e972a06@aol.com> Here Mark Twain says something nice about the art...then his true colors start to show through... What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! ...Prose wanders around with a lantern & laboriously schedules & verifies the details & particulars of a valley & its frame of crags & peaks, then Poetry comes, & lays bare the whole landscape with a single splendid flash. - Letter to W. D. Howells, 2/25/1906 I have thought many times since that if poets when they get discouraged would blow their brains out, they could write very much better when they got well. - Speech, Liverpool, 7/10/1907 Anybody can write the first line of a poem, but is a very difficult task to make the second line rhyme with the first. - Speech, 9/23/1907 I shall not write poetry unless I conceive a spite against the subscribers. - Buffalo Express newspaper column, 1869 My usual style of ciphering out the merits of poetry, which is to read a line or two near the top, a verse near the bottom and then strike an average... - "Answers to Correspondents" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu Oct 7 20:13:20 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 20:13:20 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Samuel Menashe Message-ID: <111.39edef9b.2e9735a0@cs.com> In a message dated 10/7/2004 6:11:17 PM Central Daylight Time, JforJames at aol.com writes: > > Another question...I see in that article that Collins got the > Mark Twain Award for humorous poetry. I live in Hartford > CT so I should know this, but did Twain write humorous poetry? > If so, was it any good? I don't know that I've seen any. > Coupling Twain & poetry (which I think he disparaged, > albeit humorously, in several instances) creates for me > some cognitive dissonance. > (I'm big on psych words today it seems.) > Finnegan > He wrote that wonderful elegy for Stephen Dowling Botts in Huckleberry Finn, a parody of Julia A. Moore the Sweet Singer of Michigan, I believe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu Oct 7 20:14:49 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 20:14:49 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Twain on poetry Message-ID: His contemporary Bret Harte was a pretty good poet--wrote a wondeful parody of Whittier's "Maud Muller" and a very funny ballad called "The Society on the Stanislaus." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 7 22:55:13 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 22:55:13 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Public Service Announcement from Poetry Magazine Message-ID: <66.47981b6f.2e975b91@aol.com> This just in... The National Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine, being awash in legal drug cash, annouce a few other awards to go along with the Mark Twain Award for humorous poetry.... Ernest Hemingway Award for manly poetry Frederic Remington for Native American poetry William James Award for pragmatic poetry Moe, Larry & Curly Award for slapstick poetry Charles Ives Award for polyrhythmic and quotational poetry The public is invited to suggest nominees for these awards and to suggest other ways we might indiscreetly disgorge our largesse. Sincerely yours, National Poetry Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 8 08:16:25 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 08:16:25 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Humpty-Dumpty-ism In-Reply-To: <002601c4aca5$815a0c00$74b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <41664CD9.28775.2EC0E3@localhost> > ... Liking burstnorm poetry needn't force one to dislike conventional > poetry.<< This sounds so reasonable on the face of it, but is revealed as complete nonsense on any further examination. Would the sentence "Liking laws against rape needn't force one to dislike rape" make any sense? Would you believe it if you heard it? Of course not. The point of laws against rape is that we dislike and disapprove of rape; the point of burstnorm poetry is to burst the norm because it is disliked and disapproved of. To imagine that one would take something liked and approved of and deliberately attempt to destroy it is something nearly everyone would agree is irrational at best, and probably wrong on the face of it. The point of "burstnorm poetry" is to dislike "norm poetry"; a claim to like "norm poetry" while trying to burst that norm is like saying "Liking to break irreplaceable Tiffany windows needn't force one to value them". Would you believe it if you heard it? Of course not -- because the irrational people who want to break windows could, assuming they just had to break windows, break ANY windows -- the reason, in that claim's context, to break Tiffany windows would be to destroy the Tiffany windows, not admire them. It's a childish and narcissistic act to destroy value instead of making value. What this sentence would have us believe is that to "burstnorm" is valuable -- that's the central tenet of all of this notion. It argues that "burstnorm" is good and "norm" is bad because "norm" means "bland" or "all the same" and the like -- but in poetry a poem that is said to be "bland" or "all the same as other poems" is a poem for which someone is looking for euphemisms for "bad". It's preposterous Humpty-Dumpty-ism to come out with such obvious nonsense as "Liking burstnorm poetry needn't force one to dislike conventional poetry" because liking "burstnorm poetry" is exactly what forces one to dislike conventional poetry -- and, perhaps just as important, disliking conventional poetry is why one seeks out "burstnorm" poetry. From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Fri Oct 8 09:29:18 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 06:29:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry Message-ID: <20041008132918.66823.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> The literary magazine here on campus has asked me to lead a poetry workshop for its staff. I wanted something simple, something I could explain quickly and possibly lead the staff through a short composition of; so I told them I would talk about list poems--you know, lists of things, like that Christopher Smart poem about his cat Jeoffrey. Can any of you think of any shorter examples--perhaps more contemporary examples. I've put not thought into this just yet, so if you're slapping your forehead and saying, "How could this idiot forget [blank]?" know that I'm still thinking. I'd appreciate any responses. Thanks, Jeff Newberry ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. http://messenger.yahoo.com From JforJames at aol.com Fri Oct 8 09:41:11 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 09:41:11 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Mark Strand Receives the Wallace Stevens Award Message-ID: <90.4e384255.2e97f2f7@aol.com> Appears that the Academy has got the future figured out... http://www.poets.org/academy/news/pr041007.cfm -- Mark Strand Receives the Wallace Stevens Award $100,000 for mastery in the art of poetry New York, November 6, 2004--The Academy of American Poets announced today that Mark Strand has been selected as the recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award. Given annually, the $100,000 prize recognizes outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. The judges for 2004 were Jonathan Aaron, Jane Hirshfield, Lynne McMahon, W. S. Di Piero, and Rosanna Warren. Academy Chancellor and jury chair Rosanna Warren writes of Mark Strand's poetry: Strand defined a particular, haunted sensibility, years ago, but he has continued to grow beyond his own early dreamscapes. His last three books blend elegiac fullness and tragicomic wit. The language is beautifuly poised, and is a deep instruction against self-pity. His work is unmistakable. It has become part of our landscape. Mark Strand was born on Canada's Prince Edward Island in 1934, and was raised and educated in the United States. He is the author of ten books of poems, including Blizzard of One (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), which won the Pulitzer Prize; Dark Harbor (1993); The Continuous Life (1990); Selected Poems (1980); The Story of Our Lives (1973); and Reasons for Moving (1968). He has also published two books of prose, several volumes of translation (of works by Rafael Alberti and Carlos Drummond de Andrade, among others), several monographs on contemporary artists, and three books for children. He has edited a number of volumes, including The Golden Ecco Anthology (1994), The Best American Poetry 1991, and Another Republic: 17 European and South American Writers (with Charles Simic, 1976). His honors include the Bobbitt Prize, Bollingen Prize, three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a National Institute of Arts and Letters Award, the Edgar Allen Poe Prize, and a Rockefeller Foundation award, as well as fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. He has served as Poet Laureate of the United States and is a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He currently teaches in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. The Wallace Stevens Award is given annually to recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry. Established in 1994, the award carries a stipend of $100,000.The previous recipients are W. S. Merwin, James Tate, Adrienne Rich, Anthony Hecht, A. R. Ammons, Jackson Mac Low, Frank Bidart, John Ashbery, Ruth Stone, and Richard Wilbur. Wallace Stevens, one of the major American poets of the twentieth century, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1879. After attending Harvard University, he received a law degree from New York Law School, and worked as a corporate lawyer at the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company from 1916 until his death in 1955. Harmonium, his first collection of poems, was published in 1923, but it was only very late in his life, after the publication of The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954), that his work began to receive broad attention and critical acclaim. The Academy of American Poets was founded in 1934 to support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry. Through its awards program, the Academy awards well over $200,000 each year to individual poets. These awards include the Academy Fellowship, the Wallace Stevens Award, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the James Laughlin Award, the Walt Whitman Award, the Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Award, the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award, student poetry prizes at nearly 200 colleges and universities, and the American Poets Fund. Other programs of the Academy include National Poetry Month (April), the Online Poetry Classroom, the Poetry Audio Archive, and the award winning website Poets.org. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Fri Oct 8 09:47:34 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 09:47:34 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] October Thoughts Message-ID: <65.35b2c076.2e97f476@aol.com> October (section I) Is it winter again, is it cold again, didn't Frank just slip on the ice, didn't he heal, weren't the spring seeds planted didn't the night end, didn't the melting ice flood the narrow gutters wasn't my body rescued, wasn't it safe didn't the scar form, invisible above the injury terror and cold, didn't they just end, wasn't the back garden harrowed and planted-- I remember how the earth felt, red and dense, in stiff rows, weren't the seeds planted, didn't vines climb the south wall I can't hear your voice for the wind's cries, whistling over the bare ground I no longer care what sound it makes when was I silenced, when did it first seem pointless to describe that sound what it sounds like can't change what it is-- didn't the night end, wasn't the earth safe when it was planted didn't we plant the seeds, weren't we necessary to the earth, the vines, were they harvested? Section I is reprinted from October by Louise Gl?ck, published by Sarabande Books, Inc. Copyright ? 2004 by Louise Gl?ck. Reprinted by permission of Sarabande Books and the author. All rights reserved. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Fri Oct 8 09:56:04 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 09:56:04 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry In-Reply-To: <20041008132918.66823.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: { The literary magazine here on campus has asked me to { lead a poetry workshop for its staff. I wanted { something simple, something I could explain quickly { and possibly lead the staff through a short { composition of; so I told them I would talk about list { poems--you know, lists of things, like that { Christopher Smart poem about his cat Jeoffrey. { { Can any of you think of any shorter examples--perhaps { more contemporary examples. I've put not thought into { this just yet, so if you're slapping your forehead and { saying, "How could this idiot forget [blank]?" know { that I'm still thinking. Gary Snyder wrote scads of them. Here's a brief section from *Myths and Texts*-- 13 Now I'll also tell what food we lived on then: Mescal, yucca fruit, pinyon, acorns, prickly pear, sumac berry, cactus, spurge, dropseed, lip fern, corn, mountain plants, wild potatoes, mesquite, stems of yucca, tree-yucca flowers, chokecherries, pitahaya cactus, honey of the ground-bee, honey, honey of the bumblebee, mulberries, angle-pod, salt, berries, berries of the one-seeded juniper, berries of the alligator-bark juniper, wild cattle, mule deer, antelopes, white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, doves, quail, squirrels, robins, slate-colored juncoes, song sparrows, wood rats, prairie dogs, rabbits, peccaries, burros, mules, horses, buffaloes, mountain sheep, and turtles. --Gary Snyder fr. "Hunting" in *Myths and Texts* [New York: New Directions, 1978] Hal, slapping his head Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From Thom424 at aol.com Fri Oct 8 10:18:30 2004 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 10:18:30 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry Message-ID: jeff, you might want to check out *the list poem: a guide to teaching & writing catalog verse* by larry fagin, published by teachers & writers collaborative. lots of examples and prompts. thom tammaro moorhead, mn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tad at opus40.org Fri Oct 8 10:54:55 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 10:54:55 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry References: <20041008132918.66823.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <003e01c4ad46$c6c34b20$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Jeff - one I use is the children's book, "Goodnight Moon," by Margaret Wise Brown. It's a wonderfully effective list poem. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Newberry" To: "Poetry News and Reviews" Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 9:29 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry > The literary magazine here on campus has asked me to > lead a poetry workshop for its staff. I wanted > something simple, something I could explain quickly > and possibly lead the staff through a short > composition of; so I told them I would talk about list > poems--you know, lists of things, like that > Christopher Smart poem about his cat Jeoffrey. > > Can any of you think of any shorter examples--perhaps > more contemporary examples. I've put not thought into > this just yet, so if you're slapping your forehead and > saying, "How could this idiot forget [blank]?" know > that I'm still thinking. > > I'd appreciate any responses. > > Thanks, > > Jeff Newberry > > ===== > Jeff Newberry > > "Sometimes it's not so easy, > especially when your only friend > talks, sees, looks and feels like you, > and you do just the same as him." > --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" > > > > _______________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. > http://messenger.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From wjbat at conncoll.edu Fri Oct 8 11:01:28 2004 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 11:01:28 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry/Ammons In-Reply-To: <003e01c4ad46$c6c34b20$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> References: <20041008132918.66823.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> <003e01c4ad46$c6c34b20$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Message-ID: Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity A.R. Ammons You'll rejoice at how many kinds of shit there are: gosling shit (which J. Williams said something was as green as), fish shit (the generality), trout shit, rainbow trout shit (for the nice), mullet shit, sand dab shit, casual sloth shit, elephant shit (awesome as process or payload), wildebeest shit, horse shit (a favorite), caterpillar shit (so many dark kinds, neatly pelleted as mint seed), baby rhinoceros shit, splashy jaybird shit, mockingbird shit (dive-bombed with the aim of song), robin shit that oozes white down lawnchairs or down roots under roosts, chicken shit and chicken mite shit, pelican shit, gannet shit (wholesome guano), fly shit (periodic), cockatoo shit, dog shit (past catalog or assimilation), cricket shit, elk (high plains) shit, and tiny scribbled little shrew shit, whale shit (what a sight, deep assumption), mandril shit (blazing blast off), weasel shit (wiles' waste), gazelle shit, magpie shit (total protein), tiger shit (too acid to contemplate), moral eel and manta ray shit, eerie shark shit, earthworm shit (a soilure), crab shit, wolf shit upon the germicidal ice, snake shit, giraffe shit that accelerates, secretary bird shit, turtle shit suspension invites, remora shit slightly in advance of the shark shit, hornet shit (difficult to assess), camel shit that slaps the ghastly dry siliceous, frog shit, beetle shit, bat shit (the marmoreal), contemptible cat shit, penguin shit, hermit crab shit, prairie hen shit, cougar shit, eagle shit (high totem stuff), buffalo shit (hardly less lofty), otter shit, beaver shit (from the animal of alluvial dreams)?a vast ordure is a broken down cloaca?macaw shit, alligator shit (that floats the Nile along), louse shit, macaque, koala, and coati shit, antelope shit, chuck-will's-widow shit, alpaca shit (very high stuff), gooney bird shit, chigger shit, bull shit (the classic), caribou shit, rasbora, python, and razorbill shit, scorpion shit, man shit, laswing fly larva shit, chipmunk shit, other-worldly wallaby shit, gopher shit (or broke), platypus shit, aardvark shit, spider shit, kangaroo and peccary shit, guanaco shit, dolphin shit, aphid shit, baboon shit (that leopards induce), albatross shit, red-headed woodpecker (nine inches long) shit, tern shit, hedgehog shit, panda shit, seahorse shit, and the shit of the wasteful gallinule. Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html Since the house is on fire let us warm ourselves. Italian From GrahamD at ripon.edu Fri Oct 8 11:06:43 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 10:06:43 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3D8@ariel.ripon.edu> One of my favorite recent list poems: You Can't Have It All Barbara Ras But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love, though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys until you realize foam's twin is blood. You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs, so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind, glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness, never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you all roads narrow at the border. You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead, but you can have the words *forgive* and *forget* hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts, for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream, the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand. You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise. You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards, until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you, you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's, it will always whisper, you can't have it all, but there is this. Barbara Ras. *Bite Every Sorrow*. Louisiana State UP, 1998. ============================================ 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: The Old Mole > Reply To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Sent: Friday, October 8, 2004 9:54 AM > To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] List Poetry > > Jeff - one I use is the children's book, "Goodnight Moon," by Margaret > Wise > Brown. It's a wonderfully effective list poem. > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jeff Newberry" > To: "Poetry News and Reviews" > Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 9:29 AM > Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry > > > > The literary magazine here on campus has asked me to > > lead a poetry workshop for its staff. I wanted > > something simple, something I could explain quickly > > and possibly lead the staff through a short > > composition of; so I told them I would talk about list > > poems--you know, lists of things, like that > > Christopher Smart poem about his cat Jeoffrey. > > > > Can any of you think of any shorter examples--perhaps > > more contemporary examples. I've put not thought into > > this just yet, so if you're slapping your forehead and > > saying, "How could this idiot forget [blank]?" know > > that I'm still thinking. > > > > I'd appreciate any responses. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Jeff Newberry > > > > ===== > > Jeff Newberry > > > > "Sometimes it's not so easy, > > especially when your only friend > > talks, sees, looks and feels like you, > > and you do just the same as him." > > --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" > > > > > > > > _______________________________ > > Do you Yahoo!? > > Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. > > http://messenger.yahoo.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 > > From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 8 11:17:43 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 11:17:43 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Humpty-Dumpty-ism References: <41664CD9.28775.2EC0E3@localhost> Message-ID: <00bf01c4ad49$f9eeef60$7fb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> >> ... Liking burstnorm poetry needn't force one to dislike conventional >> poetry.<< > > This sounds so reasonable on the face of it, but is revealed as > complete nonsense on any further examination. Complete nonsense, Marcus? > Would the sentence > "Liking laws against rape needn't force one to dislike rape" make any > sense? Would you believe it if you heard it? Of course not. Liking one kind of poetry is not analogous to liking laws against other kinds of poetry. > > The point of laws against rape is that we dislike and disapprove of > rape; the point of burstnorm poetry is to burst the norm because it > is disliked and disapproved of. That's like saying the point of charcoal drawing (using black charcoal only) is to destroy polychromatic painting. > To imagine that one would take > something liked and approved of and deliberately attempt to destroy > it is something nearly everyone would agree is irrational at best, > and probably wrong on the face of it. I can't see that there's anything necessarily irrational in deliberately attempting to destroy something someone else likes. It would depend on what it is. > The point of "burstnorm poetry" is to dislike "norm poetry"; a claim > to like "norm poetry" while trying to burst that norm is like saying > "Liking to break irreplaceable Tiffany windows needn't force one to > value them". Would you believe it if you heard it? Of course not -- > because the irrational people who want to break windows could, > assuming they just had to break windows, break ANY windows -- the > reason, in that claim's context, to break Tiffany windows would be to > destroy the Tiffany windows, not admire them. It's a childish and > narcissistic act to destroy value instead of making value. No burstnorm poet has ever broken anything irreplaceable, Marcus. Some burstnorm poets have re-used conventional poems the way Brahms re-used Haydn, but the original conventional poems remain intact. > What this sentence would have us believe is that to "burstnorm" is > valuable -- that's the central tenet of all of this notion. It argues > that "burstnorm" is good and "norm" is bad because "norm" means > "bland" or "all the same" and the like -- but in poetry a poem that > is said to be "bland" or "all the same as other poems" is a poem for > which someone is looking for euphemisms for "bad". You aren't making sense to me, Marcus. > It's preposterous Humpty-Dumpty-ism to come out with such obvious > nonsense as "Liking burstnorm poetry needn't force one to dislike > conventional poetry" because liking "burstnorm poetry" is exactly > what forces one to dislike conventional poetry -- and, perhaps just > as important, disliking conventional poetry is why one seeks out > "burstnorm" poetry. Calm down and think about this, Marcus: many conventional poets work with several forms of poetry. Writing a sonnet is not an indication one hates ballads. Similarly, composing a burstnorm poem is not an indication one hates ballads. It is true that too many avant gardists do hate "less advanced" poetry. It is also true that no one would try new things, as burstnorm poets do, if he believed that some old way of making his kind of artwork were satisfactory in all possible ways. Why some of us spend most of our creative time on unconventional art is complicated--too much so for me to get into at this time. I will only repeat that I do not hate conventional poetry. I've written it, and my one published book has appreciative chapters on Stevens, Yeats and Keats in it. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 8 11:43:32 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 11:43:32 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3D8@ariel.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <41667D64.7456.EC6053@localhost> Found Poem: Internet Warning The KKK is endorsed by Procter and Gamble whose logo is Satanist and who sold Mrs. Field's cookie recipe to Neiman Marcus for $2,000 after the kiddie tattoos laced with LSD used for satanic ritual abuse at that day care center in Beaufort were mistakenly eaten by the choking doberman who was bitten by the snake that came out of the fur coat that was worn by the escaped homicidal maniac whose hook prosthesis was found hanging from the door of the car of the teenagers who high-tailed it out of a lover's lane when they heard that he had escaped and then went to the pot party where the kids babysitting got high on marijuana and were so stoned they accidentally put the baby in the oven instead of the microwave that was ruined by the exploding poodle that the girl with the beehive hairdo that contained roaches who had gotten an automatic "A" at college because her roommate had committed suicide had put in to dry after it had gotten wet chasing the vanishing hitchhiker who had tried to warn the girl that her insides were cooked because she had stayed too long under the sun lamp at the tanning salon while her dad poured a load of concrete into a new convertible parked outside of the house because he thought it belonged to a guy who was having sex with his wife but was really a prize he had won in a contest at that radio station that played rock records that contained hidden commands and subliminal messages planted by the Jews, the Christian Coalition, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Illuminati, the New World Order, international bankers, multinational corporations, right wing militias, Planned Parenthood, and the spooks at Hanger 18 of Area 51 in Dreamland who performed the autopsies on the aliens who crashed at Roswell while on a mission to abduct people and conduct weird sexual and reproductive experiments because they knew we use only ten percent of our brains and that engineers had proved that bumblebees can't fly and that sugar wakes you up even if you're a CIA agent who has recovered memories about conspiring with organized crime and anti-Castro extremists to kill JFK with a magic bullet and then killed dozens of other people whose odds of all dying within the period in which they died are astronomical like near-death experiences in which an angel guided them to the light before they were called back because it wasn't time for them to die like Mikey from the Life cereal commercials did after eating Pop Rocks candy when his friend Alice Cooper who was Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver woke up after a one night stand in a hotel to find that the girl was gone and "Welcome to the world of AIDS" was written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror because the US government created AIDS to commit genocide against blacks who aren't adversely affected by the minimum wage with the aid of Korean grocers who don't give anything back to the community because Anne Klein had said on the Donahue show that she didn't want blacks buying her clothes because there would be a massive coverup when the poison they put in that fried chicken at Church's like the Philadelphia Experiment or the carburetor that can lets a car get 100 miles per gallon in perpetual motion just like Tesla had done a hundred years ago using the same principle that Uri Geller uses to bend spoons and psychic friends use to give you valuable insights that improve your life for amusement purposes only while smoking a cigarette that has no more been proven to give you cancer than evolution has been proven to occur because it's only a theory and there are no transitional fossils and it violates the second law of thermodynamics unlike creation science which is not religious and fear of irradiated food which is rational because we know it's bad just like assault weapons that are more dangerous than other semi-automatic weapons because they look scary and ugly and they're ok to ban because the second amendment wasn't meant to preserve the rights of individuals against the state like the other first nine amendments because government can improve our lives by suspending the laws of supply and demand to make prices fair and by deciding how many people of each race and sex should be in colleges and jobs Marcus Bales From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 8 11:43:32 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 11:43:32 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry 2 In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3D8@ariel.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <41667D64.32517.EC60FD@localhost> Found Poem: Disclaimers Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Some assembly required. List each check separately by bank number. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. No other warranty expressed or implied. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be paid by addressee. Apply only to affected area. May be too intense for some viewers. See store manager for details. Do not disturb. All models over 18 years of age. For recreational use only. If condition persists, consult your physician. No user- serviceable parts inside. Best if used before date on carton. Subject to change without notification. Simulated picture. No postage necessary if mailed in the United States. Breaking seal constitutes your acceptance of this agreement. For off road use only. As seen on TV. One size fits all. Colors may fade. Slippery when wet. For official use only. Edited for television. Post office will not deliver without postage. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error, or failure to perform. At participating locations only. Penalty for private use. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Do not write below this line. Lost ticket pays maximum rate. Your canceled check is your receipt. Add toner. Place stamp here. Avoid contact with skin. Sanitized for your protection. Slightly higher west of the Mississippi. Employees and their families are not eligible. Contestants have been briefed on some questions before the show. You must be present to win. No passes accepted for this engagement. No purchase necessary. Keep away from fire or flame. Price does not include taxes. Prerecorded for this time zone. Reproduction strictly prohibited. Press here to open. First pull up, then pull down. Call before digging. Driver does not carry cash. Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. Safety sealed for your protection. Actual mileage may vary. Do not use if wrapper is punctured. Refrigerate after opening. Sold by weight, not volume. Contains less than 1% alcohol. Remove before flight. No shirt, no shoes, no service. Prices may vary. Void where prohibited. From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Fri Oct 8 11:47:56 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 08:47:56 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry Message-ID: <30877524.1097250476370.JavaMail.root@bert.psp.pas.earthlink.net> There's this (though not exactly short): you bring out the boring white guy in me - for Christina Acosta the Ward Cleaver in me. The Pat Boone in me. The K-Mart in me. The Slurpee in me. The boiled hotdog in me. The mac and cheese in me. The Tang in me. You bring out the Hamburger Helper in me. You bring out the Twinkie in me. The Cheez Whiz in me. You bring out the bowling trophy in me. The student council in me. The parliamentary procedure in me. The missionary position in me. You bring out the canned vegetables in me. The Jell-o in me. The training wheels in me. You bring out the lawn edger in me. The fast-food drive-thru window in me. The Valu Meal in me. You bring out the white briefs in me. You bring out the cheap beer and weak coffee in me. You bring out the 15% tip chart in me. The sad overweight weekend golfer in me. You bring out the ex-smoker in me. The jumper cables in the trunk with flares and the red flag to tie to the window in me. You bring out the Tony Orlando in me. The canned situation comedy laughter in me. The elevator music in me. You bring out the medley of TV commercial jingles in me. The Up with People in me. I've come to a complete stop at the stop sign. I've got my emergency flashers on. My doors are locked, baby, I'm waiting for you. - Jim Daniels, Indiana Review, Volume 25, Number 1, Summer 2003 -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Newberry Sent: Oct 8, 2004 6:29 AM To: Poetry News and Reviews Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry The literary magazine here on campus has asked me to lead a poetry workshop for its staff. I wanted something simple, something I could explain quickly and possibly lead the staff through a short composition of; so I told them I would talk about list poems--you know, lists of things, like that Christopher Smart poem about his cat Jeoffrey. Can any of you think of any shorter examples--perhaps more contemporary examples. I've put not thought into this just yet, so if you're slapping your forehead and saying, "How could this idiot forget [blank]?" know that I'm still thinking. I'd appreciate any responses. Thanks, Jeff Newberry ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. http://messenger.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org RelativeLinks: http://www.poetserv.com/relativelinks/home.html From halvard at earthlink.net Fri Oct 8 12:01:06 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 12:01:06 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry In-Reply-To: <30877524.1097250476370.JavaMail.root@bert.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Message-ID: The Lists List 1. A list of lists I forgot to make, or lost 2. Ten best books to hide beneath my bed 3. Unfinished symphonies 4. Former wives 5. Wife's former hubbies 6. Cats I once was allowed to live with 7. Fifty best unfinished novels 8. Places where I've at least spent the night 9. Small towns near Boston 10. Eclipsing binaries 11. Ten tunes I once could whistle 12. GM models from the 50s 13. Italian provinces 14. Characters in Tolstoy's War and Peace 15. Justices on the US Supreme Court Hal Today's Special G(e)nome http://www.xpressed.org/fall03/genome.pdf Halvard Johnson halvard at earthlink.net http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From hruggier at localnet.com Fri Oct 8 13:19:59 2004 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 13:19:59 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3D8@ariel.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <006501c4ad5b$0a677cc0$2fdcf63f@Helen> I did one in class one - 50 ways to lose a lover (it was a while ago) - all women - we did it renga style, each one adding a "stanza" and the list was amazing, funny, cruel, daring and unpublishable online the way the FBeye is everywhere these days. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Graham, David" To: "'NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views'" Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 11:06 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry > One of my favorite recent list poems: > > You Can't Have It All > Barbara Ras > > But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands > gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger > on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back. > You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look > of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite > every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August, > you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love, > though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam > that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys > until you realize foam's twin is blood. > You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs, > so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind, > glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness, > never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you > all roads narrow at the border. > You can speak a foreign language, sometimes, > and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave > where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead, > but you can have the words *forgive* and *forget* hold hands > as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful > for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful > for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels > sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts, > for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream, > the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand. > You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed, > at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping > of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise. > You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd > but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump, > how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards, > until you learn about love, about sweet surrender, > and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind > as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you, > you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond > of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas > your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept. > There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's, > it will always whisper, you can't have it all, > but there is this. > > > Barbara Ras. *Bite Every Sorrow*. Louisiana State UP, 1998. > > > > ============================================ > 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: The Old Mole > > Reply To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > > Sent: Friday, October 8, 2004 9:54 AM > > To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] List Poetry > > > > Jeff - one I use is the children's book, "Goodnight Moon," by Margaret > > Wise > > Brown. It's a wonderfully effective list poem. > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Jeff Newberry" > > To: "Poetry News and Reviews" > > Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 9:29 AM > > Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry > > > > > > > The literary magazine here on campus has asked me to > > > lead a poetry workshop for its staff. I wanted > > > something simple, something I could explain quickly > > > and possibly lead the staff through a short > > > composition of; so I told them I would talk about list > > > poems--you know, lists of things, like that > > > Christopher Smart poem about his cat Jeoffrey. > > > > > > Can any of you think of any shorter examples--perhaps > > > more contemporary examples. I've put not thought into > > > this just yet, so if you're slapping your forehead and > > > saying, "How could this idiot forget [blank]?" know > > > that I'm still thinking. > > > > > > I'd appreciate any responses. > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > Jeff Newberry > > > > > > ===== > > > Jeff Newberry > > > > > > "Sometimes it's not so easy, > > > especially when your only friend > > > talks, sees, looks and feels like you, > > > and you do just the same as him." > > > --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________ > > > Do you Yahoo!? > > > Express yourself with Y! Messenger! Free. Download now. > > > http://messenger.yahoo.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 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 8 15:06:59 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 15:06:59 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry/Ammons Message-ID: This is a good example of how a list poem can get very boring, very fast. By about third stanza you're saying to yourself, "I get it, I get it," but then it goes on about 12 more stanzas of 'sh-iterations', so to speak. It get to point you start wishing for 'Mass Extinction Event'. Finnegan Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity A.R. Ammons You'll rejoice at how many kinds of shit there are: gosling shit (which J. Williams said something was as green as), fish shit (the generality), trout shit, rainbow trout shit (for the nice), mullet shit, sand dab shit, casual sloth shit, elephant shit (awesome as process or payload), wildebeest shit, horse shit (a favorite), caterpillar shit (so many dark kinds, neatly pelleted as mint seed), baby rhinoceros shit, splashy jaybird shit, mockingbird shit (dive-bombed with the aim of song), robin shit that oozes white down lawnchairs or down roots under roosts, chicken shit and chicken mite shit, pelican shit, gannet shit (wholesome guano), fly shit (periodic), cockatoo shit, dog shit (past catalog or assimilation), cricket shit, elk (high plains) shit, and tiny scribbled little shrew shit, whale shit (what a sight, deep assumption), mandril shit (blazing blast off), weasel shit (wiles' waste), gazelle shit, magpie shit (total protein), tiger shit (too acid to contemplate), moral eel and manta ray shit, eerie shark shit, earthworm shit (a soilure), crab shit, wolf shit upon the germicidal ice, snake shit, giraffe shit that accelerates, secretary bird shit, turtle shit suspension invites, remora shit slightly in advance of the shark shit, hornet shit (difficult to assess), camel shit that slaps the ghastly dry siliceous, frog shit, beetle shit, bat shit (the marmoreal), contemptible cat shit, penguin shit, hermit crab shit, prairie hen shit, cougar shit, eagle shit (high totem stuff), buffalo shit (hardly less lofty), otter shit, beaver shit (from the animal of alluvial dreams)?a vast ordure is a broken down cloaca?macaw shit, alligator shit (that floats the Nile along), louse shit, macaque, koala, and coati shit, antelope shit, chuck-will's-widow shit, alpaca shit (very high stuff), gooney bird shit, chigger shit, bull shit (the classic), caribou shit, rasbora, python, and razorbill shit, scorpion shit, man shit, laswing fly larva shit, chipmunk shit, other-worldly wallaby shit, gopher shit (or broke), platypus shit, aardvark shit, spider shit, kangaroo and peccary shit, guanaco shit, dolphin shit, aphid shit, baboon shit (that leopards induce), albatross shit, red-headed woodpecker (nine inches long) shit, tern shit, hedgehog shit, panda shit, seahorse shit, and the shit of the wasteful gallinule. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Fri Oct 8 15:23:11 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 21:23:11 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry/Ammons References: Message-ID: <002f01c4ad6c$403fc210$8da93252@yourpk9x5fuc06> It reminds me of Manzoni's canned shit of the Artist, original titles: Merda d'artista Merde d'artiste Here is a link (five pages), and an excerpt: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0425/is_n3_v52/ai_14538994 "Manzoni's Merda d'artista, in its transubstantiation of the dross of defecation into the gold of art, harks back not only to Duchamp's conceptualism but also to his connections with shamanism and alchemy, although Duchamp's ties with these latter ideas have been called into question." even if, there is always an if, there was a moment I thought the idea was brilliant, something like: ... well no comment is needed, cheers, Anny Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome From: JforJames at aol.com Sent: Friday, October 08, 2004 9:06 PM This is a good example of how a list poem can get very boring, very fast. By about third stanza you're saying to yourself, "I get it, I get it," but then it goes on about 12 more stanzas of 'sh-iterations', so to speak. It get to point you start wishing for 'Mass Extinction Event'. Finnegan Shit List; Or, Omnium-gatherum Of Diversity Into Unity A.R. Ammons You'll rejoice at how many kinds of shit there are: gosling shit (which J. Williams said something was as green as), fish shit (the generality), trout shit, rainbow trout shit (for the nice), mullet shit, sand dab shit, casual sloth shit, elephant shit (awesome as process or payload), wildebeest shit, horse shit (a favorite), caterpillar shit (so many dark kinds, neatly pelleted as mint seed), baby rhinoceros shit, splashy jaybird shit, mockingbird shit (dive-bombed with the aim of song), robin shit that oozes white down lawnchairs or down roots under roosts, chicken shit and chicken mite shit, pelican shit, gannet shit (wholesome guano), fly shit (periodic), cockatoo shit, dog shit (past catalog or assimilation), cricket shit, elk (high plains) shit, and tiny scribbled little shrew shit, whale shit (what a sight, deep assumption), mandril shit (blazing blast off), weasel shit (wiles' waste), gazelle shit, magpie shit (total protein), tiger shit (too acid to contemplate), moral eel and manta ray shit, eerie shark shit, earthworm shit (a soilure), crab shit, wolf shit upon the germicidal ice, snake shit, giraffe shit that accelerates, secretary bird shit, turtle shit suspension invites, remora shit slightly in advance of the shark shit, hornet shit (difficult to assess), camel shit that slaps the ghastly dry siliceous, frog shit, beetle shit, bat shit (the marmoreal), contemptible cat shit, penguin shit, hermit crab shit, prairie hen shit, cougar shit, eagle shit (high totem stuff), buffalo shit (hardly less lofty), otter shit, beaver shit (from the animal of alluvial dreams)?a vast ordure is a broken down cloaca?macaw shit, alligator shit (that floats the Nile along), louse shit, macaque, koala, and coati shit, antelope shit, chuck-will's-widow shit, alpaca shit (very high stuff), gooney bird shit, chigger shit, bull shit (the classic), caribou shit, rasbora, python, and razorbill shit, scorpion shit, man shit, laswing fly larva shit, chipmunk shit, other-worldly wallaby shit, gopher shit (or broke), platypus shit, aardvark shit, spider shit, kangaroo and peccary shit, guanaco shit, dolphin shit, aphid shit, baboon shit (that leopards induce), albatross shit, red-headed woodpecker (nine inches long) shit, tern shit, hedgehog shit, panda shit, seahorse shit, and the shit of the wasteful gallinule. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Fri Oct 8 15:25:36 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 21:25:36 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3D8@ariel.ripon.edu> <006501c4ad5b$0a677cc0$2fdcf63f@Helen> Message-ID: <003a01c4ad6c$96ce6b40$8da93252@yourpk9x5fuc06> by yours truly, ANOTHER CROWN Another crown another canvas another cross another poem another book another school another translation another day another night another nightmare another friend another life another job another tax another timetable another meal another week-end another Monday another holiday another poet another wish another prayer another refusal another offer another no another yes another crown another cross From marcus at designerglass.com Fri Oct 8 18:50:41 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2004 18:50:41 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry - All That In-Reply-To: <003a01c4ad6c$96ce6b40$8da93252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <4166E181.22887.33FFD6@localhost> On 8 Oct 2004 at 21:25, Anny Ballardini wrote: > by yours truly, > ANOTHER CROWN Well, then, how about this one: All That Marcus Bales All branch, no bole, All beep, no back, All heel, no sole, All reach, no tack; All hull, no sail, All gee, no haw, All bilge, no bail, All hiss, no claw; All bark, no bite, All boy, no scout, All mail, no knight, All no, no doubt; All plug, no play, All bump, no grind, All straight, no gay, All waste, no mind; All horn, no Satch, All feel, no know, All call, no catch, All catch, no throw; All swing, no hit, All lead, no steal, All measure, no fit, All offer, no deal; All bid, no buy, All leer, no schwing, All spatter, no fry, All prayer, no wing; All mud, no wallow, All chew, no spit, All spit, no swallow, All pot, no shit; All Paris, no Hector, All sign, no road, All thrust, no vector, All booster, no load. From JforJames at aol.com Fri Oct 8 18:51:24 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 18:51:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Forward Prize: Kathleen Jamie Message-ID: <68.4646ad2b.2e9873ec@aol.com> http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/25618.html A SCOT has became only the third woman to win Britain's most prestigious prize for contemporary poetry in its 13-year history. Kathleen Jamie, 42, won the Forward Prize for Poetry for her collection entitled The Tree House,... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Fri Oct 8 19:14:14 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 19:14:14 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] The Poet Game Message-ID: <197.3039e4c7.2e987946@aol.com> http://www.gregbrown.org/gblyrics.html Song lyrics by Greg Brown "The Poet Game" Down by the river junior year walking with my girl, and we came upon a place there in the tall grass where a couple had been making love and left the mark of their embrace. I said to her, "Looks like they had some fun." She said to me, "Let's do the same." and still I taste her kisses and her freckles in the sun when I play the poet game. A young man down in hill country in the year of '22 went to see his future bride. She lived in a rough old shack that poverty blew through. She invited him inside. She'd been cooking, ashamed and feeling sad, she could only offer him bread and her name - Grandpa said that it was the best gift a fella ever had and he taught me the poet game. I had a friend who drank too much and played too much guitar - and we sure got along. Reel-to-reels rolled across the country near and far with letters poems and songs.. but these days he don't talk to me and he won't tell me why. I miss him every time i say his name. I don't know what he's doing or why our friendship died while we played the poet game. The fall rain was pounding down on an old New Hampshire mill and the river wild and high. I was talking to her while leaves blew down like a sudden chill - there was wildness in her eyes. We made love like we'd been waiting all of our lives for this - Strangers know no shame - But she had to leave at dawn and with a sticky farewell kiss left me to play the poet game. I watched my country turn into a coast-to-coast strip mall and I cried out in a song: if we could do all that in thirty years, then please tell me you all - why does good change take so long? Why does the color of your skin or who you choose to love still lead to such anger and pain? And why do I think it's any help for me to still dream of playing the poet game? Sirens wail above the fields - another soul gone down - another Sun about to rise. I've lost track of my mistakes, like birds they fly around and darken half of my skies. To all of those I've hurt - I pray you'll forgive me. I to you will freely do the same. so many things I didn't see, with my eyes turned inside, playing the poet game. I walk out at night to take a leak underneath the stars - oh yeah that's the life for me. There's Orion and the Pleiades and I guess that must be Mars - all as clear as we long to be. I've sung what I was given - some was bad and some was good. I never did know from where it came and if I had it all to do again I am not sure I would play the poet game. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Sat Oct 9 10:56:00 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 07:56:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans Message-ID: <20041009145600.94675.qmail@web52602.mail.yahoo.com> Poet laureate aims for understanding BY JAKE THOMPSON WORLD-HERALD BUREAU (FROM THE OMAHA WORLD-HERALD) WASHINGTON - Nebraskan Ted Kooser, a Great Plains poet who strives to write plainly, is on a mission. The new poet laureate of the United States, a wry observer with a resonant voice, wants to promote poetry that many more people can grasp, enjoy, share and make a part of their daily lives. Kooser was formally inducted Thursday during a luncheon at the Library of Congress in Washington. Thursday night, he gave his inaugural reading, also at the library. He shared his plans in speeches and an interview during his first hectic week in the nation's capital. For years, he said, many American poets, critics and teachers have heralded dense, complicated poems, and some have held that poetry is for the elite. By contrast, he has spent 45 years trying to write toward clarity and away from difficulty, doing his part to dispel a widely held notion that poetry is something to fear. "The really clear and accessible poem that I could sell to a general audience does not get the critical attention, so it never has the reputation of being among the great poems," he said. "I try very hard to write poems that people can understand." He believes that poetry could be useful in these chaotic times, that it could bring a quiet order to the minds of its readers. It's even something that he wishes more people would take up. "What could possibly be wrong with a world in which everybody was trying to write poems?" Kooser said. "Is that not better than watching 'Survivor' or engaging in some sort of nefarious, stupid activity?" Kooser, a retired insurance executive who lives on an acreage outside Lincoln, is a survivor himself. He battled and beat tongue cancer. He's the first Nebraskan and first Great Plains poet named poet laureate for the nation. As he took over as poet laureate Thursday, Kooser said he'll work full time on his mission. This week he has granted interviews and will give another reading Saturday at the National Book Festival on the National Mall. He hopes in his eight-month posting to write a weekly newspaper column distributed for free that would feature a number of poets. In November he'll attend a meeting of the National Council of Teachers in Indianapolis to speak about how poetry is taught in schools. He plans to travel to Boston in January for a meeting of the American Library Association to talk with librarians. Kooser, 65, is the author of 10 books of poetry and a book of essays. In his most recent collection of poems, "Delights & Shadows," he sees a bird singing the dawn into life, old boots that look like abandoned wells, a cemetery feeling relief that a careless mower has left, and a young woman rolling her wheelchair with the grace of a pianist. Many of his poems don't refer specifically to the Great Plains, but any collection of his works is infused with what something readers feel is obviously of Plains life or culture, he said. Still, Kooser, a native of Ames, Iowa, said he aims for universal appeal in his poems. He likened his work to looking through a kaleidoscope, transforming the common into the extraordinary. "We can enhance people's lives by giving them special language for the ordinary," he said. James Billington, the librarian of Congress, noted at Thursday's luncheon that Kooser has written that those who can find something new in an everyday moment never have to leave home. "He discovers anew the familiar for all of us," Billington told about 60 guests. Among those attending was actress Debra Winger, who got to know Kooser in the early 1980s when she dated then-Nebraska Gov. Bob Kerrey, a friend of Kooser's. The actress and the poet have been regular pen pals since. "Ted was my personal national treasure until a couple of weeks ago," she said, "and now I must share him with the world." His poetry, she said, "wakes me up to my own life." jln ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From tad at opus40.org Sat Oct 9 11:32:16 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 11:32:16 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans References: <20041009145600.94675.qmail@web52602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <001401c4ae15$2ecc1750$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> I have no problem with this. He's not the only poet laureate we'll ever have, he's not the only person speaking for poetry, and he's doing what matters for him. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Newberry" To: "Poetry News and Reviews" Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 10:56 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans > Poet laureate aims for understanding > > BY JAKE THOMPSON > > WORLD-HERALD BUREAU > (FROM THE OMAHA WORLD-HERALD) > > WASHINGTON - Nebraskan Ted Kooser, a Great Plains poet > who strives to write plainly, is on a mission. > > The new poet laureate of the United States, a wry > observer with a resonant voice, wants to promote > poetry that many more people can grasp, enjoy, share > and make a part of their daily lives. > > Kooser was formally inducted Thursday during a > luncheon at the Library of Congress in Washington. > Thursday night, he gave his inaugural reading, also at > the library. > > He shared his plans in speeches and an interview > during his first hectic week in the nation's capital. > > For years, he said, many American poets, critics and > teachers have heralded dense, complicated poems, and > some have held that poetry is for the elite. > > By contrast, he has spent 45 years trying to write > toward clarity and away from difficulty, doing his > part to dispel a widely held notion that poetry is > something to fear. > > "The really clear and accessible poem that I could > sell to a general audience does not get the critical > attention, so it never has the reputation of being > among the great poems," he said. "I try very hard to > write poems that people can understand." > > He believes that poetry could be useful in these > chaotic times, that it could bring a quiet order to > the minds of its readers. > > It's even something that he wishes more people would > take up. > > "What could possibly be wrong with a world in which > everybody was trying to write poems?" Kooser said. "Is > that not better than watching 'Survivor' or engaging > in some sort of nefarious, stupid activity?" > > Kooser, a retired insurance executive who lives on an > acreage outside Lincoln, is a survivor himself. He > battled and beat tongue cancer. > > He's the first Nebraskan and first Great Plains poet > named poet laureate for the nation. > > As he took over as poet laureate Thursday, Kooser said > he'll work full time on his mission. > > This week he has granted interviews and will give > another reading Saturday at the National Book Festival > on the National Mall. > > He hopes in his eight-month posting to write a weekly > newspaper column distributed for free that would > feature a number of poets. > > In November he'll attend a meeting of the National > Council of Teachers in Indianapolis to speak about how > poetry is taught in schools. He plans to travel to > Boston in January for a meeting of the American > Library Association to talk with librarians. > > Kooser, 65, is the author of 10 books of poetry and a > book of essays. In his most recent collection of > poems, "Delights & Shadows," he sees a bird singing > the dawn into life, old boots that look like abandoned > wells, a cemetery feeling relief that a careless mower > has left, and a young woman rolling her wheelchair > with the grace of a pianist. > > Many of his poems don't refer specifically to the > Great Plains, but any collection of his works is > infused with what something readers feel is obviously > of Plains life or culture, he said. > > Still, Kooser, a native of Ames, Iowa, said he aims > for universal appeal in his poems. > > He likened his work to looking through a kaleidoscope, > transforming the common into the extraordinary. > > "We can enhance people's lives by giving them special > language for the ordinary," he said. > > James Billington, the librarian of Congress, noted at > Thursday's luncheon that Kooser has written that those > who can find something new in an everyday moment never > have to leave home. > > "He discovers anew the familiar for all of us," > Billington told about 60 guests. > > Among those attending was actress Debra Winger, who > got to know Kooser in the early 1980s when she dated > then-Nebraska Gov. Bob Kerrey, a friend of Kooser's. > The actress and the poet have been regular pen pals > since. > > "Ted was my personal national treasure until a couple > of weeks ago," she said, "and now I must share him > with the world." > > His poetry, she said, "wakes me up to my own life." > > > > jln > > ===== > Jeff Newberry > > "Sometimes it's not so easy, > especially when your only friend > talks, sees, looks and feels like you, > and you do just the same as him." > --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" > > > > _______________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! > http://vote.yahoo.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 Sat Oct 9 12:34:12 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 12:34:12 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans References: <20041009145600.94675.qmail@web52602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <008001c4ae1d$d2d70cd0$55b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> How did this guy beat out McKuen? --Bob From grahamd at ripon.edu Sat Oct 9 12:37:49 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 11:37:49 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Kooser's Plans In-Reply-To: <008001c4ae1d$d2d70cd0$55b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: on 10/9/04 11:34 AM, Bob Grumman at bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net wrote: > How did this guy beat out McKuen? > > --Bob By being a good poet. ==================================================== 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 bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 9 12:43:48 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 12:43:48 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans References: <20041009145600.94675.qmail@web52602.mail.yahoo.com> <001401c4ae15$2ecc1750$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Message-ID: <008701c4ae1f$2a738710$55b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> >I have no problem with this. He's not the only poet laureate we'll ever >have, he's not the only person speaking for poetry, and he's doing what >matters for him. I half-agree. But he does have power and he's using to say something many many people are saying. I don't expect him to use his power to make people aware of MY kind of poetry, but it would be nice if he used it to make people aware of ALL the kinds of poetry that I and others (if not Marcus) think are out there. Yes, I'm back to my schools of poetry dance. Those of you who have been involved with New Poetry for a while know all about that, so I'll end here. --Bob From grahamd at ripon.edu Sat Oct 9 12:47:39 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 11:47:39 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans In-Reply-To: <001401c4ae15$2ecc1750$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Message-ID: I've no problem with Kooser's plan, either, and I think Tad's comment is right on. Kooser is not going to force anyone to read anything they don't want to, after all. No one's going to be pulping Ron Silliman's books as a result of this initiative. And if a few more citizens get turned on to poetry (hey, it could happen) I'm not going to lie awake at night worrying about erosion of standards or whatever it is that people seem to fuss about whenever Kooser's or Collins's names get mentioned. The project to "return" poetry to the common folk is perennial--see *Lyrical Ballads*-- and no doubt perennially doomed for all the usual reasons. But it's hard to see the harm here. on 10/9/04 10:32 AM, The Old Mole at tad at opus40.org wrote: > I have no problem with this. He's not the only poet laureate we'll ever > have, he's not the only person speaking for poetry, and he's doing what > matters for him. > > > ----- Original Message ----- ==================================================== 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 bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 9 15:00:51 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 15:00:51 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans References: Message-ID: <00e701c4ae32$4f59a790$55b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Here's my attempt to be (more or less) temperate about this perennial subject. It's from the entry for 21 August 2004 (but posted today, very late because of Charley) at my blog at http://www.geocities.com/Comprepoetica/Blog/Bloghome.html Our latest poet laureate, Ted Kooser, has just given a talk on his plans for his laureateship. Kooser, who writes the plainest sort of Iowa plaintext poems (effectively, for the most part, wants--according to the newspaper report I read--"to promote poetry that many more people can grasp, enjoy, share and make a part of their daily lives." Is there anything wrong with that? I think so. If he were a private person pushing his particular product, as I push my burstnorm poetry, I'd have no problem with his plans; I'd even commend him for them. But as Poet Laureate, he has clout, and he's only using it to repeat what scores of others, like Dana Gioia, are saying. So I'm annoyed. Here's what I'd like a poet laureate to do: start a website that lists all the schools of American poetry. Get fans of each school to write about it. Perhaps color-code the icons that lead to the schools, one color being for easy-reading poetry, one for hard-to-read conventional poetry, one for language poetry, one for easy pluraesthetic poetry (and some visual poetry, for instance, is as accessible as any poetry), one for hard pluraesthetic poetry, and so on. The simple idea would be not to single out one kind of worthwhile poetry, but present the whole range, to perhaps surprise just one person who has never liked poetry into a kind he was never aware of and discovers he likes. I'd want criticism at the website, too. Much too little is written about poetry at present, and of the little that is written about it, almost none of it gets anywhere near where anyone but a specialist would find it. Once the website is up and running, the laureate should publicize it, maybe even bribe schools to force students to visit it once or twice. And some politicians should be forced to visit it, too--so they could spark interest in it with their diatribes against it. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 9 16:28:41 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 22:28:41 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob Grumman's work Message-ID: <001701c4ae3e$91ac9ab0$752ab750@yourpk9x5fuc06> Compliments for this: http://www.geocities.com/Comprepoetica/Blog/Gallery-A.html Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 9 17:01:07 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 17:01:07 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry Message-ID: <12d.4cb10279.2e99ab93@aol.com> This is a list poem that I think is important. It was written from Gunter Eich's experience in an American internment camp after Germany fell, & it became something of a watershed poem for post-war German poetry. (See Eisensberger's quote below the poem.) I don't know Eich assignment or rank during the war, and I hope he wasn't SS. That would color my judgment of the poem's merits... Inventory This is my cap, this is my coat, here's my shaving gear in a linen sack. A can of rations, my plate, my cup, I've scratched my name in the tin. Scratched it with this valuable nail which I hide from avid eyes. In the foodsack is a pair of wool socks and something else that I show to no one, it all serves as a pillow for my head at night. The cardboard here lies between me and the earth. The lead in my pencil I love most of all: in daytime it writes down the verses I make at night. This is my notebook, this is my tarpaulin, this is my towel, this is my thread. --Gunter Eich translated by David Young, Valuable Nail: Selected Poems, 1981, Field Translation Series Hans Magnus Eisensberger said of this poem that it was the "birth certificate" of post-WWII German literature. David Young, in the introduction, goes on to quoted him: "Eich's poem is as quiet as it is radical. It is written from the situation of a prisoner of war in a camp; but this situation simultaneously stood for the condition of all Germans. The poet is staking a claim to the absolute minimum that remains; to a material, spiritual, and linguistic remnant. His manner of writing corresponds to this. It is stripped down as far as poetry can be stripped. The text sounds like a man learning to speak; it is with such elementary sentences that language courses begin. This was the position of German literature after the war: it had to learn its own language." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MillB at aol.com Sat Oct 9 17:22:16 2004 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 17:22:16 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five Message-ID: <15c.4099b548.2e99b088@aol.com> Is anyone interested in participating in a poll (not about Kerry or Bush). Based on literary reputation, quality of work, consistency, variety, strong editorship, what are the best literary journals and why? Cheers, Mill -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From antrobin at clipper.net Sat Oct 9 17:50:17 2004 From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 14:50:17 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five In-Reply-To: <15c.4099b548.2e99b088@aol.com> Message-ID: <0a1901c4ae49$fe4755b0$bd3e1c40@Emily> I like the Canary and the Northwest Review, but I'm biased. Tony -----Original Message----- From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of MillB at aol.com Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2004 2:22 PM To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five Is anyone interested in participating in a poll (not about Kerry or Bush). Based on literary reputation, quality of work, consistency, variety, strong editorship, what are the best literary journals and why? Cheers, Mill -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 9 18:14:21 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:14:21 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob Grumman's work References: <001701c4ae3e$91ac9ab0$752ab750@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <013701c4ae4d$58426e80$55b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Compliments for this: http://www.geocities.com/Comprepoetica/Blog/Gallery-A.html Anny Ballardini Thanks, Anny. That sequence is probably my favorite among the things I've done. (There may be a little intuition in it!) --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 9 18:24:46 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:24:46 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five References: <15c.4099b548.2e99b088@aol.com> Message-ID: <015201c4ae4e$cc552230$55b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Based on literary reputation, quality of work, consistency, variety, strong editorship, what are the best literary journals and why? Cheers, Mill The ones I'd list would (probably) only get one vote apiece at New-Poetry. Aside from that, it's way too hard to think in terms of "best" with so many different kinds of literary journals out there. The question makes me think of another good project a poet laureate could try to get going: a website the aim of which would be to provide in-depth analyses of all known American literary journals--each journal getting more than one analysis. Possibly, volunteers could be found to list them all, and then the analyses of anyone willing to write two thousand or more words about any of them could be automatically published. Some kind of editorial board might be established to separate the analyses into three groups, worthwhile, subjective but perhaps useful to some people (i.e., standard mainstream reviews), and worthless. --Bob G. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MillB at aol.com Sat Oct 9 18:49:05 2004 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:49:05 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five Message-ID: <99.4f1030a2.2e99c4e1@aol.com> <>> What do you like about them? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MillB at aol.com Sat Oct 9 18:50:29 2004 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:50:29 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five Message-ID: <64.45e66b19.2e99c535@aol.com> In a message dated 10/9/2004 3:25:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time, bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: The ones I'd list would (probably) only get one vote apiece at New-Poetry. Aside from that, it's way too hard to think in terms of "best" with so many different kinds of literary journals out there. The question makes me think of another good project a poet laureate could try to get going: a website the aim of which would be to provide in-depth analyses of all known American literary journals--each journal getting more than one analysis. Possibly, volunteers could be found to list them all, and then the analyses of anyone willing to write two thousand or more words about any of them could be automatically published. Some kind of editorial board might be established to separate the analyses into three groups, worthwhile, subjective but perhaps useful to some people (i.e., standard mainstream reviews), and worthless. What a scathingly brilliant idea! I think such an analysis is long overdue. I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters. Frank Lloyd Wright -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 9 18:55:21 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 18:55:21 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans Message-ID: In a message dated 10/9/2004 10:56:30 AM Eastern Standard Time, jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com writes: > The new poet laureate of the United States, a wry > observer with a resonant voice, wants to promote > poetry that many more people can grasp, enjoy, share > and make a part of their daily lives. > > Kooser was formally inducted Thursday during a > luncheon at the Library of Congress in Washington. > Thursday night, he gave his inaugural reading, also at > the library. > > He shared his plans in speeches and an interview > during his first hectic week in the nation's capital. > > For years, he said, many American poets, critics and > teachers have heralded dense, complicated poems, and > some have held that poetry is for the elite. > > By contrast, he has spent 45 years trying to write > toward clarity and away from difficulty, doing his > part to dispel a widely held notion that poetry is > something to fear. > > "The really clear and accessible poem that I could > sell to a general audience does not get the critical > attention, so it never has the reputation of being > among the great poems," he said. "I try very hard to > write poems that people can understand." > > He believes that poetry could be useful in these > chaotic times, that it could bring a quiet order to > the minds of its readers. > I think Kooser is speaking for another silly 'Can Poetry Matter?' initiative. It assumes that there is some kind of blindspot or vast conspiracy, created one supposes by academia or the critical elites, against plain-spoken, straightforward, down-to-earth, narrative poetry. It's just not so. It's not like that kind of poetry has not been around, or been shunted to the side. It' s all over the place, in classrooms, major anthologies, at poetry open mikes/slams, in bookstores stocking the likes of Willaim Stafford, et al. Such a ridiculous canard to found an initiative on. It makes you wish for do-nothing laureate like Gluck. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 9 19:02:24 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 19:02:24 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five References: <64.45e66b19.2e99c535@aol.com> Message-ID: <017e01c4ae54$0e511fe0$55b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> In a message dated 10/9/2004 3:25:17 PM Pacific Daylight Time, bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: The ones I'd list would (probably) only get one vote apiece at New-Poetry. Aside from that, it's way too hard to think in terms of "best" with so many different kinds of literary journals out there. The question makes me think of another good project a poet laureate could try to get going: a website the aim of which would be to provide in-depth analyses of all known American literary journals--each journal getting more than one analysis. Possibly, volunteers could be found to list them all, and then the analyses of anyone willing to write two thousand or more words about any of them could be automatically published. Some kind of editorial board might be established to separate the analyses into three groups, worthwhile, subjective but perhaps useful to some people (i.e., standard mainstream reviews), and worthless. What a scathingly brilliant idea! I think such an analysis is long overdue. Thanks. Follow-up idea would be to allow the editors of the magazine to make statements about their magazines. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 9 19:04:10 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 19:04:10 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Oh dear, oh dear: 'Poetry in crisis' everywhere Message-ID: <128.4d172314.2e99c86a@aol.com> 'Poetry in Crisis' up on the Warwick U website at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/undergrad/modules/second/en238/smal l_presses/poetry_in_crisis/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 9 19:14:47 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 19:14:47 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five Message-ID: <82.180ea265.2e99cae7@aol.com> In a message dated 10/9/2004 7:02:50 PM Eastern Standard Time, bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: > What a scathingly brilliant idea! I think such an analysis is long > overdue. > > > Thanks. Follow-up idea would be to allow the editors of the magazine to > make statements about their magazines. > > --Bob > It's a good idea...but a big project. And because of the mecurial and ephemeral nature of literary magazines, one that would require almost constant reappraisal and updating. Even among the old warhorse literary journals, like Poetry, there is change...even if its glacial. To use that as an example, it seems clear that Poetry's new editor Christopher Wiman is trying to use the magazine and its website to stir some debate about the state of the art: By publishing that provocative Epstein piece recently, on the heels of letting Kleinzahler body slam Keillor's corpus in his Good Poems anthology. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 9 20:00:37 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 20:00:37 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Top Five References: <82.180ea265.2e99cae7@aol.com> Message-ID: <01c601c4ae5c$302aebc0$55b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> What a scathingly brilliant idea! I think such an analysis is long overdue. Thanks. Follow-up idea would be to allow the editors of the magazine to make statements about their magazines. --Bob It's a good idea...but a big project. Agreed. But there should be an awful lot of people around who'd be willing to praise or denounce a favorite magazine of theirs. And because of the mecurial and ephemeral nature of literary magazines, one that would require almost constant reappraisal and updating. Haw, I thought of a related problem--the fact that some micro-publishers change the name of their magazine with each issue, and/or give it multiple names. Perhaps to be listed, a magazine should be required to have had three issues published, and lasted two full years, or the like. Even among the old warhorse literary journals, like Poetry, there is change...even if its glacial. To use that as an example, it seems clear that Poetry's new editor Christopher Wiman is trying to use the magazine and its website to stir some debate about the state of the art: By publishing that provocative Epstein piece recently, on the heels of letting Kleinzahler body slam Keillor's corpus in his Good Poems anthology. Finnegan Epstein wrote something provocative about poetry? I find it hard to believe. Did we discuss it here? I remember a Philistine piece he did some time ago, but nothing recent. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 9 21:05:03 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2004 21:05:03 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] RIP Derrida Message-ID: Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/obituaries/10derrida.html?ex=1097985600& en=1c727428c2666837&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd at ripon.edu Sat Oct 9 22:54:58 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 21:54:58 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Kooser's plan was plagiarized: "The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature." Wordsworth, 1802 ==================================================== 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 ==================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd at ripon.edu Sun Oct 10 11:24:41 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 10:24:41 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk Message-ID: In honor of Thelonious Monk's birthday today-- Shore Walk With Monk Whoever lived here is gone, but a slick staircase remains in the broken shell, damaged just enough to suggest secret recesses spiraled inside where *something* slid down to poke out its head, and when a threat appeared, scurried or oozed back along those pearly halls. *Someone* stood catatonic when shaken down by cops, but when he felt safe on the bandstand, he'd step out and dance, flap his elbows like nubby wings, then back to the keyboard to pick up his place, foot kicking the piano's invisible flywheel. Those were the years everyone changed shape, painters squinted, poked their heads outside the frame. Why have frames at all --or canvas, or paint? And why not play the least expected note so the music's a double exposure, what's there and what isn't superimposed, a musical house all fretwork and jut, as if any minute the whole structure might topple. But a house, once you've entered, nothing four-square will do. You want those crooked doors, those circular steps ending in pure misterioso, you need those rooms suspended over a bay where sunlight keeps changing tempo and key-- or so I was thinking when my tape started to chirp like a hip calliope, and I took it out to see if I could rewind, finger holding one reel, pencil turning the other, like one of his visitors fidgeting while Monk sits wordless for hours or grinds his teeth. Funny, how he gets me out of my own head's maze, its slippery hall of mirrors, when he could go so far inside his own, nothing moved but his eyes. Or he'd spend days in constant motion, pacing and spinning till the turbulence inside finally found a room with a bed and laid itself down. Weeks it could take to stumble back out-- which might explain all the doors and tilted balconies in his musical house, Magritte windows with their starry skies painted on glass, while a perilous void expanded inside, I'm off the beach, beside my car by now, unraveling a Mobius strip of Monk, Monk billowing over dune grass and rocks, ringing the car's antenna, Monk in hundreds of tiny accordion pleats I couldn't undo no matter how I try, all spiraling out of their plastic shell, catching the light, pouring a kind of broken music the maker's done with, just slipped out of and left behind. --Betsy Sholl. *Late Psalm*. U Wisconsin Press, 2004. ==================================================== 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 ==================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sun Oct 10 12:15:00 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 18:15:00 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans References: Message-ID: <010d01c4aee4$4c772630$38ab3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Kooser's PlansI sometimes wonder in which Nature I live when I praise it, if it is Wordsworth's and the like one, or if I do have any kind of _my Nature_. Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: David Graham To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 4:54 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] Kooser's Plans Kooser's plan was plagiarized: "The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature." Wordsworth, 1802 ==================================================== 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From grahamd at ripon.edu Sun Oct 10 12:31:42 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 11:31:42 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] "Incidents & situations from common life" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: on 10/9/04 5:55 PM, JforJames at aol.com at JforJames at aol.com wrote: I think Kooser is speaking for another silly 'Can Poetry Matter?' initiative. It assumes that there is some kind of blindspot or vast conspiracy, created one supposes by academia or the critical elites, against plain-spoken, straightforward, down-to-earth, narrative poetry. It's just not so. It's not like that kind of poetry has not been around, or been shunted to the side. It' s all over the place, in classrooms, major anthologies, at poetry open mikes/slams, in bookstores stocking the likes of Willaim Stafford, et al. Such a ridiculous canard to found an initiative on. It makes you wish for do-nothing laureate like Gluck. Finnegan _______________________________________________ The notion of contemporary American poetry as an egghead academic enterprise, an elitist puzzle-palace with No Trespassing signs up against the common reader, is an amazingly persistent one, it's true. And it flies in the face of a vast body of work produced in the past few decades, yes. On the other hand, any reader looking for elitist egghead stuff can easily discover reams of it, too. (Been to an MLA or NCTE conference lately?) A great deal of theory-inflected work of various kinds has been prominent lately in academic circles, it's true, to the extent that it's had a palpable influence on all sorts of poets who are not otherwise conspicuously experimental or theoretical. And to the extent that academic critics are writing articles and books on contemporary poets, they aren't writing on Ted Kooser or Lucille Clifton, for the most part, but poets like Jorie Graham, Robert Duncan, John Ashbery. But at least since the original Romantics, poets are always trying to reclaim poetry for the common folk, aren't they? So Kooser is right to the extent that such laments are *always* right, I think--one reason I posted that little excerpt from Wordsworth yesterday. There's something else going on here aside from (dubious) literary history. It's interesting to me that the notion of recent poetry as overwhelmingly elitist & impenetrable is so unkillable. (As is the equally oversimplified notion that poetry has "lost its audience.") I see it all the time in my students, for example, this notion of poetry's esoteric difficulty --sometimes just after we've read Clifton's "Homage to My Hips" or something equally accessible. It must be a myth that people simply *want* to believe in, no matter how much contrary evidence piles up. Another example: here's a snippet from a review of Philip Levine's new book, from the *Philadelphia Inquirer*: "In the last half-century, American poetry folded in on itself and turned into a reflexive, specialist's art. A poem was not an object of beauty, the thinking went, but rather a crossword puzzle with no clues; it could mean anything. As a result of these developments, poets now attend school to learn how to write, graduate to teach writing, and then construct most of their work for other poets. The reader who wants to be shown something beautiful is simply out of the loop. All this makes Philip Levine a revelation and a rarity. For the past four decades, while poetry indulged in its occult mathematics, Levine honed his voice into a bawdy campfire gravel - a sound that is raw and true and full of authority." --John Freeman http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/books/9853935.htm ----------------- Poetry as "occult mathematics" and as "a crossword puzzle with no clues" could, in fact, be applied fairly to any number of current poets, it's true. But as a generalization about the period that gave us the mature work of prominent poets like Donald Hall, Richard Wilbur, Wendell Berry, Gary Snyder, Louis Simpson, Billy Collins, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maxine Kumin, Mary Oliver, Lucille Clifton, and Sharon Olds--it's downright bizarre. ==================================================== 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 rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu Sun Oct 10 19:40:05 2004 From: rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu (Richard Wilsnack) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 18:40:05 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry for your heart In-Reply-To: <010d01c4aee4$4c772630$38ab3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> References: Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20041010182007.010667c8@medicine.nodak.edu> Medical science comes to the defense of poetry recitation (at least, hexametric poetry) (from the _Scientific American_, October 2004, pp. 29-31): "Reciting the _Iliad_ could have epic effects on your health. German physiologists have recently shown that such poetry can get your heart beating in time with your breaths. This synchronization may improve gas exchange in the lungs as well as the body's sensitivity and responsiveness to blood pressure changes. Cardiovascular and respiratory responses are not normally in synch. Rhythmic fluctuations in blood pressure take place naturally in 10-second long cycles..., whereas spontaneous breathing normally occurs at a rate of approximately 15 breaths per minute. ...to explore the connection between these oscillating mechanisms, ...[Richard] Cysarz and his colleagues [at the University of Witten/Herdecke] ...used Homer's _Odyssey_ translated into German, which maintains the original hexametric pace of the verse... ...healthy subjects practiced three activities: hexameter reading, controlled breathing at six breaths per minute, and spontaneous breathing. They recited while walking, [just] breathing, and lifting their arms. The researchers found increased synchronization between heart rate and breathing during the poetry readings but not during the spontaneous breathing. Controlled breathing also boosted synchronization, though not to the extent of recitation. Also, subjects found poetry reading stimulating but controlled breathing boring." My comments: No doubt someone at Oxbridge is currently hard at work to demonstrate the cardiovascular benefits of iambic pentameter. God knows what will happen when they start measuring effects of different rhyme schemes. Richard W. Wilsnack rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu From JforJames at aol.com Sun Oct 10 20:25:52 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 20:25:52 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Jacket 24: the poetry of J. H. Prynne Message-ID: <15a.4077095f.2e9b2d10@aol.com> Date:? ? Sun, 10 Oct 2004 11:24:45 +0000 Subject: 'Announcing Jacket 24: the poetry of J. H. Prynne, edited by Kevin Nolan' FROM: John Tranter, Editor, Jacket magazine Announcing Jacket 24: the poetry of J. H. Prynne, edited by Kevin Nolan Jacket 24 is now complete, featuring over two hundred pages of responses to the remarkable work of British poet and Cambridge don J H Prynne, edited by Kevin Nolan. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? http://jacketmagazine.com/24/index.html *** Kevin Nolan: ? ? ? ? ? ?? Capital Calves: Undertaking an Overview *** Steve Clark: ? ? ? ? ? ?? Prynne and The Movement *** Andrew Duncan: ? ? ? ? ? ?? Response to Steve Clark=92s =91Prynne and the Movement=92 *** James Keery: =91Sch=F6nheit Apocalyptica=92: ? ? ? ? ? ?? An Approach to The White Stones by J.H. Prynne *** Simon Jarvis: ? ? ? ? ? ?? Clear as mud: J.H. Prynne=92s Of Sanguine Fire *** Neil Reeve: ? ? ? ? ? ?? Twilight Zones: J.H. Prynne=92s The Land of Saint Martin *** Simon Perril: ? ? ? ? ? ?? Hanging on Your Every Word: J.H. Prynne's ? ? ? ? ? ?? Bands Around The Throat *** Simon Jarvis: ? ? ? ? ? ?? The Incommunicable Silhouette ? ?? And don't forget that more than three hundred ? ?? Jacket book reviews and author interviews ? ?? are now gathered in one page of glittering links: ? ?? http://jacketmagazine.com/rev/reviews-a.html ? ?? From John Ashbery to Leslie Scalapino, from Caroline Bergvall to ? ?? Ian Hamilton Finlay, this mass of chatter, lapidation and deep=20 introspection ? ?? mines the ore of literary production and analyses the seat of the so= ul. ? ? ? ? ? (If you would like to be taken off this mailing list, ? ? ? ? ? ? please just ask.) FROM: John Tranter, Editor, Jacket magazine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sun Oct 10 21:05:07 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 21:05:07 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] "Incidents & situations from common life" Message-ID: <102.51377a29.2e9b3643@aol.com> David, only academics attend MLA....& I don't know what the other acronym means, which should tell you something since I'm 'lay person' who gets around. Still it doesn't surprise or dismay me that abstruse and theory-inflected poetry would be of interest to specialists in the academy. I would be surprised if it was otherwise. I hope that in schools of astrophysics they're not studying the constellations: Look, look, there's the Ursa Major, the big bear. Ooooh. Your quote from John Freeman tells it all. He must be going to different readings, different bookstores, etc. Surely there has been ramifying interest in poetries of all kinds, but that not same as saying poetry has become 'occult mathematics'. Kooser, living out there on a farm, must have missed the Billy Collins craze. He must not know that The Rose by Li-Young Lee has sold 30,000 copies. Perhaps he hasn't attended a Dodge Festival event. The TV signal weakening over prairie, probably none of the Bill Moyers poetry specials ever reached his lonely homestead. He's just arrived in the big city from the hinterlands, so everything going on in the world of poetry must be a little strange for him. Finnegan In a message dated 10/10/2004 12:31:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes: > The notion of contemporary American poetry as an egghead academic > enterprise, an elitist puzzle-palace with No Trespassing signs up against > the common reader, is an amazingly persistent one, it's true. And it flies > in the face of a vast body of work produced in the past few decades, yes. > > On the other hand, any reader looking for elitist egghead stuff can easily > discover reams of it, too. (Been to an MLA or NCTE conference lately?) A > great deal of theory-inflected work of various kinds has been prominent > lately in academic circles, it's true, to the extent that it's had a > palpable influence on all sorts of poets who are not otherwise conspicuously > experimental or theoretical. > > And to the extent that academic critics are writing articles and books on > contemporary poets, they aren't writing on Ted Kooser or Lucille Clifton, > for the most part, but poets like Jorie Graham, Robert Duncan, John Ashbery. > > But at least since the original Romantics, poets are always trying to > reclaim poetry for the common folk, aren't they? So Kooser is right to the > extent that such laments are *always* right, I think--one reason I posted > that little excerpt from Wordsworth yesterday. There's something else going > on here aside from (dubious) literary history. > > It's interesting to me that the notion of recent poetry as overwhelmingly > elitist &impenetrable is so unkillable. (As is the equally oversimplified > notion that poetry has "lost its audience.") I see it all the time in my > students, for example, this notion of poetry's esoteric difficulty > --sometimes just after we've read Clifton's "Homage to My Hips" or something > equally accessible. > > It must be a myth that people simply *want* to believe in, no matter how > much contrary evidence piles up. > > Another example: here's a snippet from a review of Philip Levine's new > book, from the *Philadelphia Inquirer*: > > "In the last half-century, American poetry folded in on itself and turned > into a reflexive, specialist's art. A poem was not an object of beauty, the > thinking went, but rather a crossword puzzle with no clues; it could mean > anything. As a result of these developments, poets now attend school to > learn how to write, graduate to teach writing, and then construct most of > their work for other poets. The reader who wants to be shown something > beautiful is simply out of the loop. > > All this makes Philip Levine a revelation and a rarity. For the past four > decades, while poetry indulged in its occult mathematics, Levine honed his > voice into a bawdy campfire gravel - a sound that is raw and true and full > of authority." > --John Freeman > http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/books/9853935.htm > ----------------- > > Poetry as "occult mathematics" and as "a crossword puzzle with no clues" > could, in fact, be applied fairly to any number of current poets, it's true. > But as a generalization about the period that gave us the mature work of > prominent poets like Donald Hall, Richard Wilbur, Wendell Berry, Gary > Snyder, Louis Simpson, Billy Collins, Gwendolyn Brooks, Maxine Kumin, Mary > Oliver, Lucille Clifton, and Sharon Olds--it's downright bizarre. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Sun Oct 10 22:15:00 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 22:15:00 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk Message-ID: In a message dated 10/10/2004 10:24:37 AM Central Daylight Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes: > > In honor of Thelonious Monk's birthday today-- > Why does no one honor Art Monk on his birthday? Sam (in D. C. watching the Redskins vs. Ravens on tv) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jkok at hfa.umass.edu Sun Oct 10 23:51:39 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 23:51:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: more to the point, why has no one figured out that jazz poems NEVER WORK!!!! never, ever how's that for prejudice? (like someone on a bicicyle, hanging on to the handle of an express train, trying to imitate the engine) better to render the bicycle From ron.silliman at verizon.net Mon Oct 11 08:33:28 2004 From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 08:33:28 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog Message-ID: <003c01c4af8e$83fc8dc0$6601a8c0@Dell> http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ RECENT TOPICS: Travel notes: Two dozen thoughts while on the road R.I.P. Jacques Derrida What we think we know when we read a poem - height, race, girth & other variables of the poet Bookstores & the future of poetry distribution Kenneth Irby & a lesson on age differences - "location, location, location" The Free Speech Movement @ 40 - Berkeley celebrates a history of rebellion "Santa Cruz Propositions" - Robert Duncan as topical poet Hats off to C.D. Wright! "Ideas of the Meaning of Form" - Robert Duncan's major statement of poetics Combining theosophy & psychology - Robert Duncan's turn to theory 1-Year-Plan: Barrett Watten's metacritical blog The line in the title - Zukofsky's Test of Poetry's dark brow Rachel Blau DuPlessis & Alan Golding on Zukofsky's Test of Poetry Gender & Zukofsky (this topic has 85 comments) http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ From tad at opus40.org Mon Oct 11 09:07:14 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:07:14 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk References: Message-ID: <001d01c4af93$3bcab450$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Or Adrian Monk? ----- Original Message ----- From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 10:15 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk In a message dated 10/10/2004 10:24:37 AM Central Daylight Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes: In honor of Thelonious Monk's birthday today-- Why does no one honor Art Monk on his birthday? Sam (in D. C. watching the Redskins vs. Ravens on tv) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tad at opus40.org Mon Oct 11 09:20:49 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:20:49 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk References: Message-ID: <002801c4af95$2224ee10$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Billy Collins (I know I should know better than to mention that name here) actually hits this pretty well, in a quote that I can't find, to the effect that you can't recreate what jazz does in a poem, and it's a mistake to try. What you do instead is use jazz pretty much the way you'd use any other human experience, as a metaphor, or as a springboard for getting in touch with something inside yourself that you suspected was there but weren't exactly sure. Come to think of it, that's nothing like what Collins said. I guess I was just using him as a springboard. Or, as my friend Larry the Fluff told me once, "You'll never be a good musician, because you love it too much, and your love for it intimidates you." I think something like that happens to a lot of poems who try to write about jazz. Anyway, I like some of Collins' jazz poems, like the Art Blakey/Three Blind Mice poem. And...probably not the best defense in the world against the theory that there's no such thing as a good jazz poem, but you can find one of mine at http://www.melicreview.com/current/tad%20richards.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kerry O'Keefe" To: Cc: Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 11:51 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk > more to the point, why has no one figured out that jazz poems NEVER > WORK!!!! > > never, ever > > how's that for prejudice? > > (like someone on a bicicyle, hanging on to the handle of an express > train, trying to imitate the engine) > > better to render the bicycle > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Mon Oct 11 10:02:31 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 07:02:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz Poetry Message-ID: <20041011140231.7366.qmail@web52601.mail.yahoo.com> Didn't a pair of jazz poetry anthologies come out a few years back? I think that Kevin Young was an editor, maybe. Or was it Yusef Kumanyakaa? I have a poem about Scott Lafaro, the bassist who played with Bill Evans (an a plethora of others). I'm at work, but I'll try to post it later today if I can go home. New game: poems about jazz musicians? Jeff Newberry ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From grahamd at ripon.edu Mon Oct 11 10:18:21 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:18:21 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz poetry In-Reply-To: <002801c4af95$2224ee10$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Message-ID: Good heavens, jazz is no harder to write "about" than love, faith, timor mortis, or anything else. . . . Which is to say, it's hard! Tad's remarks are very much to the point. You don't necessarily aim to *reproduce* another art form in your poem; you simply write about it as one aspect of experience. Lots of jazz poems work just fine, to my ears. The anthologies Jeff mentioned are edited by Yusef Komunyakaa & Sascha Feinstein, *Jazz Poetry* and *Second Set*, both from U Indiana Press. Feinstein also edits *Brilliant Corners*, a journal of jazz literature, which is quite fine. http://www.lycoming.edu/BrilliantCorners/ I'm very fond of William Matthews's jazz poems, along with Betsy Sholl's. And go read Tad's Lester Young poem, too! Here's one by Matthews, followed by one of Collins's. Bmp Bmp for James McGarrell Lugubriously enough they're playing *Yes We Have No Bananas* at deadpan half-tempo, and Bechet's beginning to climb like a fakir's snake, as if that boulevard-broad vibrato of his could claim space in the air, out of the low register. Here comes a spurious growl from the trombone, and here comes a flutter of tourist barrelhouse from the pianist's left hand. Life is fun when you're good at something good. Soon they'll do the *Tin Roof Blues* and use their 246 years of habit and convention hard. Now they're headed out and everyone stops to let Bechet inveigle his way through eight bars unaccompanied and then they'll doo dah doo dah doo bmp bmp. Bechet's in mid-surge as usual by his first note, which he holds, wobbles and then pinches off to a staccato spat with the melody. For a moment this stupid, lumpy and cynically composed little money- magnet of a song is played poor and bare as it is, then he begins to urge it out from itself First a shimmering gulp from the tubular waters of the soprano sax, in Bechet's mouth the most metallic woodwind and the most fluid, and then with that dank air and airborne tone he punches three quarter-notes that don't appear in the song but should. >From the last of them he seems to droop, the way in World War II movies planes leaving the decks of aircraft carriers would dip off the lip, then catch the right resistance from wet air and strain up, except he's playing against the regular disasters of the melody his love for flight and flight's need for gravity. And then he's up, loop and slur and spiral, and a long, drifting note at the top, from which, like a child decided to come home before he's called, he begins to drift back down, insouciant and exact, and ambles in the door of the joyous and tacky chorus just on time for the band to leave together, headed for the *Tin Roof Blues*. William Matthews *Search Party: Collected Poems of William Matthews* ================================== Nightclub You are so beautiful and I am a fool to be in love with you is a theme that keeps coming up in songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful and you are a fool to be in love with me, even though this notion has surely crossed the minds of women and men alike. You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool is another one you don't hear. Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful. That one you will never hear, guaranteed. For no particular reason this afternoon I am listening to Johnny Hartman whose dark voice can curl around the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness like no one else's can. It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette someone left burning on a baby grand piano around three o'clock in the morning; smoke that billows up into the bright lights while out there in the darkness some of the beautiful fools have gathered around little tables to listen, some with their eyes closed, others leaning forward into the music as if it were holding them up, or twirling the loose ice in a glass, slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream. Yes, there is all this foolish beauty, borne beyond midnight, that has no desire to go home, especially now when everyone in the room is watching the large man with the tenor sax that hangs from his neck like a golden fish. He moves forward to the edge of the stage and hands the instrument down to me and nods that I should play. So I put the mouthpiece to my lips and blow into it with all my living breath. We are all so foolish, my long bebop solo begins by saying, so damn foolish we have become beautiful without even knowing it. --Billy Collins. *Sailing Alone Around the Room* ========================== ==================================================== 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 ==================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Thom424 at aol.com Mon Oct 11 10:16:46 2004 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 10:16:46 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz Poetry Message-ID: <89.1715da66.2e9befce@aol.com> jeff, yes, you're correct. the two anthologies are: *The Jazz Poetry Anthology* (1991) and *The Second Set* (1996), both edited by Sascha Feinstein & Yusef Komunyakaa, and published by Indiana University Press. Got to be at least one poem among the hundreds therein that gets it right! thom tammaro moorhead, mn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tad at opus40.org Mon Oct 11 11:26:22 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:26:22 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz poetry References: Message-ID: <001a01c4afa6$ac29d0b0$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Jazz poetryI tend to find that I read Matthews as jazz criticism, and I like what he has to say, but I don't always see the poetry in his jazz poems. ----- Original Message ----- From: David Graham To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 10:18 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz poetry Good heavens, jazz is no harder to write "about" than love, faith, timor mortis, or anything else. . . . Which is to say, it's hard! Tad's remarks are very much to the point. You don't necessarily aim to *reproduce* another art form in your poem; you simply write about it as one aspect of experience. Lots of jazz poems work just fine, to my ears. The anthologies Jeff mentioned are edited by Yusef Komunyakaa & Sascha Feinstein, *Jazz Poetry* and *Second Set*, both from U Indiana Press. Feinstein also edits *Brilliant Corners*, a journal of jazz literature, which is quite fine. http://www.lycoming.edu/BrilliantCorners/ I'm very fond of William Matthews's jazz poems, along with Betsy Sholl's. And go read Tad's Lester Young poem, too! Here's one by Matthews, followed by one of Collins's. Bmp Bmp for James McGarrell Lugubriously enough they're playing *Yes We Have No Bananas* at deadpan half-tempo, and Bechet's beginning to climb like a fakir's snake, as if that boulevard-broad vibrato of his could claim space in the air, out of the low register. Here comes a spurious growl from the trombone, and here comes a flutter of tourist barrelhouse from the pianist's left hand. Life is fun when you're good at something good. Soon they'll do the *Tin Roof Blues* and use their 246 years of habit and convention hard. Now they're headed out and everyone stops to let Bechet inveigle his way through eight bars unaccompanied and then they'll doo dah doo dah doo bmp bmp. Bechet's in mid-surge as usual by his first note, which he holds, wobbles and then pinches off to a staccato spat with the melody. For a moment this stupid, lumpy and cynically composed little money- magnet of a song is played poor and bare as it is, then he begins to urge it out from itself First a shimmering gulp from the tubular waters of the soprano sax, in Bechet's mouth the most metallic woodwind and the most fluid, and then with that dank air and airborne tone he punches three quarter-notes that don't appear in the song but should. >From the last of them he seems to droop, the way in World War II movies planes leaving the decks of aircraft carriers would dip off the lip, then catch the right resistance from wet air and strain up, except he's playing against the regular disasters of the melody his love for flight and flight's need for gravity. And then he's up, loop and slur and spiral, and a long, drifting note at the top, from which, like a child decided to come home before he's called, he begins to drift back down, insouciant and exact, and ambles in the door of the joyous and tacky chorus just on time for the band to leave together, headed for the *Tin Roof Blues*. William Matthews *Search Party: Collected Poems of William Matthews* ================================== Nightclub You are so beautiful and I am a fool to be in love with you is a theme that keeps coming up in songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful and you are a fool to be in love with me, even though this notion has surely crossed the minds of women and men alike. You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool is another one you don't hear. Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful. That one you will never hear, guaranteed. For no particular reason this afternoon I am listening to Johnny Hartman whose dark voice can curl around the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness like no one else's can. It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette someone left burning on a baby grand piano around three o'clock in the morning; smoke that billows up into the bright lights while out there in the darkness some of the beautiful fools have gathered around little tables to listen, some with their eyes closed, others leaning forward into the music as if it were holding them up, or twirling the loose ice in a glass, slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream. Yes, there is all this foolish beauty, borne beyond midnight, that has no desire to go home, especially now when everyone in the room is watching the large man with the tenor sax that hangs from his neck like a golden fish. He moves forward to the edge of the stage and hands the instrument down to me and nods that I should play. So I put the mouthpiece to my lips and blow into it with all my living breath. We are all so foolish, my long bebop solo begins by saying, so damn foolish we have become beautiful without even knowing it. --Billy Collins. *Sailing Alone Around the Room* ========================== ==================================================== 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tad at opus40.org Mon Oct 11 11:28:01 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:28:01 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz poetry References: Message-ID: <002901c4afa6$e70939f0$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Jazz poetryAnd on that same theme...when Collins gets into lines like whose dark voice can curl around the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness like no one else's can. ...he's forgetting his own rule, and slipping into a realm where it becomes more important to write what one thinks/feels/believes about jazz than to write poetry. ----- Original Message ----- From: David Graham To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 10:18 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz poetry Good heavens, jazz is no harder to write "about" than love, faith, timor mortis, or anything else. . . . Which is to say, it's hard! Tad's remarks are very much to the point. You don't necessarily aim to *reproduce* another art form in your poem; you simply write about it as one aspect of experience. Lots of jazz poems work just fine, to my ears. The anthologies Jeff mentioned are edited by Yusef Komunyakaa & Sascha Feinstein, *Jazz Poetry* and *Second Set*, both from U Indiana Press. Feinstein also edits *Brilliant Corners*, a journal of jazz literature, which is quite fine. http://www.lycoming.edu/BrilliantCorners/ I'm very fond of William Matthews's jazz poems, along with Betsy Sholl's. And go read Tad's Lester Young poem, too! Here's one by Matthews, followed by one of Collins's. Bmp Bmp for James McGarrell Lugubriously enough they're playing *Yes We Have No Bananas* at deadpan half-tempo, and Bechet's beginning to climb like a fakir's snake, as if that boulevard-broad vibrato of his could claim space in the air, out of the low register. Here comes a spurious growl from the trombone, and here comes a flutter of tourist barrelhouse from the pianist's left hand. Life is fun when you're good at something good. Soon they'll do the *Tin Roof Blues* and use their 246 years of habit and convention hard. Now they're headed out and everyone stops to let Bechet inveigle his way through eight bars unaccompanied and then they'll doo dah doo dah doo bmp bmp. Bechet's in mid-surge as usual by his first note, which he holds, wobbles and then pinches off to a staccato spat with the melody. For a moment this stupid, lumpy and cynically composed little money- magnet of a song is played poor and bare as it is, then he begins to urge it out from itself First a shimmering gulp from the tubular waters of the soprano sax, in Bechet's mouth the most metallic woodwind and the most fluid, and then with that dank air and airborne tone he punches three quarter-notes that don't appear in the song but should. >From the last of them he seems to droop, the way in World War II movies planes leaving the decks of aircraft carriers would dip off the lip, then catch the right resistance from wet air and strain up, except he's playing against the regular disasters of the melody his love for flight and flight's need for gravity. And then he's up, loop and slur and spiral, and a long, drifting note at the top, from which, like a child decided to come home before he's called, he begins to drift back down, insouciant and exact, and ambles in the door of the joyous and tacky chorus just on time for the band to leave together, headed for the *Tin Roof Blues*. William Matthews *Search Party: Collected Poems of William Matthews* ================================== Nightclub You are so beautiful and I am a fool to be in love with you is a theme that keeps coming up in songs and poems. There seems to be no room for variation. I have never heard anyone sing I am so beautiful and you are a fool to be in love with me, even though this notion has surely crossed the minds of women and men alike. You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool is another one you don't hear. Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful. That one you will never hear, guaranteed. For no particular reason this afternoon I am listening to Johnny Hartman whose dark voice can curl around the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness like no one else's can. It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette someone left burning on a baby grand piano around three o'clock in the morning; smoke that billows up into the bright lights while out there in the darkness some of the beautiful fools have gathered around little tables to listen, some with their eyes closed, others leaning forward into the music as if it were holding them up, or twirling the loose ice in a glass, slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream. Yes, there is all this foolish beauty, borne beyond midnight, that has no desire to go home, especially now when everyone in the room is watching the large man with the tenor sax that hangs from his neck like a golden fish. He moves forward to the edge of the stage and hands the instrument down to me and nods that I should play. So I put the mouthpiece to my lips and blow into it with all my living breath. We are all so foolish, my long bebop solo begins by saying, so damn foolish we have become beautiful without even knowing it. --Billy Collins. *Sailing Alone Around the Room* ========================== ==================================================== 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wjbat at conncoll.edu Mon Oct 11 11:35:05 2004 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:35:05 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz poetry In-Reply-To: <001a01c4afa6$ac29d0b0$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> References: <001a01c4afa6$ac29d0b0$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Message-ID: <1FD6C281-1B9B-11D9-A1C3-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> If you can find a copy of Charles O. Hartman's _Glass Enclosure_, look at the title poem on Bud Powell. It's too long and too challenging, typographically, for email, but it seems a real jazz poem in method and effect. Wendy Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html If your beard's on fire, others will light their pipes on it. Turkish From GrahamD at ripon.edu Mon Oct 11 12:09:24 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:09:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Collins on jazz Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3E8@ariel.ripon.edu> This may be the quote Tad was thinking of. From *Rattle*15 (7.1): http://www.rattle.com/rattle15/poetry/bcollinsinterview.html FOX: Do you find any particular theme in your work? COLLINS: Just life and death. I think someone put it that all poems are just about either how great it is to be alive or how lousy it's going to be when you're dead. Well, I can see a little obsession, maybe not themes, but a lot of poems I've written are about books and about reading and about teaching, and about just allowing things that are part of my life into the poems, like jazz. People say, "Well, gee, you have a lot of jazz in your poems," but it's not a subject matter, really, it's just that jazz is just in my life the way the weather is, so I include the weather, I include jazz. I let my dog come into my poems. ============================================ 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: The Old Mole > Reply To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 8:20 AM > To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk > > Billy Collins (I know I should know better than to mention that name here) > > actually hits this pretty well, in a quote that I can't find, to the > effect > that you can't recreate what jazz does in a poem, and it's a mistake to > try. > What you do instead is use jazz pretty much the way you'd use any other > human experience, as a metaphor, or as a springboard for getting in touch > with something inside yourself that you suspected was there but weren't > exactly sure. > > Come to think of it, that's nothing like what Collins said. I guess I was > just using him as a springboard. > > Or, as my friend Larry the Fluff told me once, "You'll never be a good > musician, because you love it too much, and your love for it intimidates > you." I think something like that happens to a lot of poems who try to > write > about jazz. > > Anyway, I like some of Collins' jazz poems, like the Art Blakey/Three > Blind > Mice poem. > > And...probably not the best defense in the world against the theory that > there's no such thing as a good jazz poem, but you can find one of mine at > > http://www.melicreview.com/current/tad%20richards.htm > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Kerry O'Keefe" > To: > Cc: > Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2004 11:51 PM > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Sholl on Monk > > > > more to the point, why has no one figured out that jazz poems NEVER > > WORK!!!! > > > > never, ever > > > > how's that for prejudice? > > > > (like someone on a bicicyle, hanging on to the handle of an express > > train, trying to imitate the engine) > > > > better to render the bicycle > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 Mon Oct 11 12:12:52 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 12:12:52 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Mario Rivero, The Moon and New York Message-ID: The Moon and New York We met every day in the same place we shared poems, cigarettes and sometimes an adventure novel. We threw small stones from the bridge where the workers from the glass factory took their lunch. I told her that the earth was round my aunt a witch and the moon a piece of copper. That one day I would go to New York, the city where outlandish things happen all the time where vagabond cats sleep under the automobiles where there are a million beggars a million lights a million diamonds . . . New York where it takes ants centuries to climb the Empire State building and where the blacks stroll around Harlem wearing gaudy clothes selling shoe polish in summer I would go from restaurant to restaurant until I found a small sign: ?Boy wanted to wash dishes. No college degree required.? Sometimes I would eat a sandwich I would pick apples in California I would think about her riding on the elevator and I would buy her a dress like a neon light . . . she about to kiss me when the factory whistle blew. --Mario Rivero Tr. Nicol?s Suesc?n (with Wendy Davies) Poem of the week: http://colombia.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/23942 Mario Rivero page: http://colombia.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/23936 Hal Serving the tri-state area. Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From GrahamD at ripon.edu Mon Oct 11 12:19:33 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 11:19:33 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Another Collins quote Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3E9@ariel.ripon.edu> I found this pretty interesting. From the same interview in *Rattle*. As probably everyone knows, Collins published a couple books (chapbooks?) in the 1970s, then had a very long dry spell. As far as I know, he's completely disavowed the early work (many poems published in *Rolling Stone* as filler, as I recall). So it wasn't until *The Apple That Astonished Paris* appeared in 1988, when Collins was 47, that his career really took off. Surprising how recent has been his fame, really. Here's the passage: ----------------------- I sent a group of poems down to Miller Williams, the Clinton second Inaugural Poet, and he was then the editor of University of Arkansas Press. He had published a book by my friend, Ron Koertge, with whom I'm reading with tomorrow, actually, here in L.A. And Ron said, "Well, try Miller Williams. He's published my book, maybe he'll go for yours." I think Ron felt that we were kind of poetic cousins in some way, which we are. So I sent Miller Williams down about 45 or so poems, and after a while he sent them back, and he had put a paperclip around about 17 of them. And in his letter, he said, "You have 17 really good poems here, and the others do not live up to them." And he didn't explain why, he just put them in two piles. But having performed that act of discrimination, that was enough to point out to me what I had going for myself, what was really good about the good parts of my writing. So I threw the other poems away, and I spent the next year or two, hard to say, trying to write poems up to that group of 17. And that became my goal. Psychologically, I guess, I was trying to please this guy, Miller Williams, because he said, "If you can write 30 more poems or so that are as good as this little group, I'll publish your book." So I wrote and I wrote, and I sent the results down to him in a couple of years, and he gave me a call and said, "I'm going to publish your book." ------------------------------ ============================================ 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 JforJames at aol.com Mon Oct 11 13:09:20 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:09:20 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz Poetry Message-ID: <83.185fddbd.2e9c1840@aol.com> In a message dated 10/11/2004 10:17:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Thom424 at aol.com writes: yes, you're correct. the two anthologies are: *The Jazz Poetry Anthology* (1991) and *The Second Set* (1996), both edited by Sascha Feinstein & Yusef Komunyakaa, and published by Indiana University Press. Got to be at least one poem among the hundreds therein that gets it right! thom tammaro Thom, you seem to know about a great number of poetry anthologies... Are you a collector of them? Have you compiled some kind of master list? Connected to some big poetry library? Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Thom424 at aol.com Mon Oct 11 13:32:58 2004 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:32:58 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz Poetry Message-ID: <127.4cac5fb1.2e9c1dca@aol.com> finnegan-- well, not a collector by design. it just seems like i've collected a couple of shelves full many over the years. i usually get them when they're remaindered. i think they go to the great remaindered burying grounds much quicker than, say, slim volumes of poetry by single authors. also great resources for teaching. and i suspect it also might have something to do with my having edited five university press anthologies in the last ten years (and a few more in the works). always interested in what my editor-colleagues are up to. the whole idea of anthology making strikes me as a rather odd business--here you have under one roof 100 or more poems never meant to occupy the same space, but here they are, nonetheless, all tenents in the same housing project, bumping into each other, making friends, people arguing who should be living there and who shouldn't...at times, there is interesting combustion (i think i better stop as i'm mixing metaphors here).... greetings to you from a gorgeous autumnal day on the edge of western minnesota looking into fargo, thom tammaro moorhead, mn -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu Mon Oct 11 13:41:13 2004 From: rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu (Richard Wilsnack) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 12:41:13 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Jazz poetry Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20041011123029.01c3d480@medicine.nodak.edu> Worth repeating, perhaps to illustrate that it is as difficult an accomplishment to write *about* experiencing jazz as it is to try to recreate that experience in words: Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey Scrambled eggs and whiskey in the false-dawn light. Chicago, a sweet town, bleak, God knows, but sweet. Sometimes. And weren't we fine tonight? When Hank set up that limping treble roll behind me my horn just growled and I thought my heart would burst. And Brad M. pressing with the soft stick and Joe-Anne singing low. Here we are now in the White Tower, leaning on one another, too tired to go home. But don't say a word, don't tell a soul, they wouldn't understand, they couldn't, never in a million years, how fine, how magnificent we were in that old club tonight. -- Hayden Carruth Richard W. Wilsnack rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu From GrahamD at ripon.edu Mon Oct 11 14:37:18 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 13:37:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] More Collins Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3EB@ariel.ripon.edu> Here's another Billy Collins poem. In this one he takes the risk not only of writing about his experience of music, but also trying to suggest/mimic the formal structure of the music at the same time. It works for me, anyway. . . . The Blues Much of what is said here must be said twiice, a reminder that no one takes an immediate interest in the pain of others. Nobody will listen, it would seem, if you simply admit your baby left you early this morning she didn't even stop to say good-bye. But if you sing it again with the help of the band which will now lift you to a higher, more ardent and beseeching key, people will not only listen; they will shift to the sympathetic edges of their chairs, moved to such acute anticipation by that chord and the delay that follows, they will not be able to sleep unless you release with one finger a scream from the throat of your guitar and turn your head back to the microphone to let them know you're a hard-hearted man but that woman's sure going to make you cry. --Billy Collins. *The Art of Drowning*. (U Pittsburg, 1995) ============================================ 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 bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Mon Oct 11 16:10:10 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 16:10:10 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] More Collins References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3EB@ariel.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <014301c4afce$671527e0$57b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Umphf. Well, I did like the "twiice." --Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Graham, David" To: "'New-Poetry'" Sent: Monday, October 11, 2004 2:37 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] More Collins > Here's another Billy Collins poem. In this one he takes the risk not only > of writing about his experience of music, but also trying to suggest/mimic > the formal structure of the music at the same time. > > It works for me, anyway. . . . > > > The Blues > > Much of what is said here > must be said twiice, > a reminder that no one > takes an immediate interest in the pain of others. > > Nobody will listen, it would seem, > if you simply admit > your baby left you early this morning > she didn't even stop to say good-bye. > > But if you sing it again > with the help of the band > which will now lift you to a higher, > more ardent and beseeching key, > > people will not only listen; > they will shift to the sympathetic > edges of their chairs, > moved to such acute anticipation > > by that chord and the delay that follows, > they will not be able to sleep > unless you release with one finger > a scream from the throat of your guitar > > and turn your head back to the microphone > to let them know > you're a hard-hearted man > but that woman's sure going to make you cry. > > --Billy Collins. *The Art of Drowning*. (U Pittsburg, 1995) > > ============================================ > 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 JforJames at aol.com Mon Oct 11 18:58:29 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 18:58:29 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Derrida is Dead Message-ID: <196.30b77d56.2e9c6a15@aol.com> Derrida is Dead Deride dada died, a ride indeed, rid of derriere in doubt, dead on, old Dad, it's de rigor (mortis). The "difference," indifference, in deference to a dream deferred in dread, by dominance or doom, so that, so long, so late, sojourn or so jaunty, that now thy "myth of presence" be ex posed in death? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wjbat at conncoll.edu Mon Oct 11 22:07:40 2004 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 22:07:40 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Derrida is Dead In-Reply-To: <196.30b77d56.2e9c6a15@aol.com> References: <196.30b77d56.2e9c6a15@aol.com> Message-ID: <7EAAD26A-1BF3-11D9-A1C3-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> Our local NPR announcer read his brief obit and pronounced him "daREEDa," perhaps as in da READa has travelled where da Writa never dreamt. I wouldn't wish the bad karma of American academics on him. May he travel more lightly than we do. Wendy On Oct 11, 2004, at 6:58 PM, JforJames at aol.com wrote: > Derrida is Dead > > Deride dada died, > a ride indeed, rid of > derriere in doubt, > dead on, old Dad, > it's de rigor (mortis). > > The "difference," > indifference, in > deference to > a dream deferred > in dread, by dominance > or doom, so that, > > so long, so late, > sojourn or so jaunty, > that now thy "myth > of presence" be ex > posed in death? > ______________________________________ Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html Hold short services for minor gods. Nepalese From anny.ballardini at tin.it Tue Oct 12 02:01:30 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 08:01:30 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Derrida is Dead References: <196.30b77d56.2e9c6a15@aol.com> <7EAAD26A-1BF3-11D9-A1C3-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> Message-ID: <002201c4b020$eb823e80$7ea93452@yourpk9x5fuc06> On the Buffalo list the article on The New York Times was heavily criticized. I don't agree because when I read it (once) I was able to depict a Derrida with good human qualities -and this is enough for me, but I won't engage in any arguments, not because I am an hypocrite but because I do not have time enough to go through it as the question would require. I am sending here another link that appeared on the list: http://medias.lemonde.fr/medias/pdf_obj/sup_pdf_derrida_111004.pdf maybe tonight I will be able to read this collection of tributes, take care, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wendy Battin" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 4:07 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Derrida is Dead > Our local NPR announcer read his brief obit and pronounced him > "daREEDa," perhaps as in > da READa has travelled where da Writa never dreamt. > > I wouldn't wish the bad karma of American academics on him. May he > travel more lightly than we do. > > Wendy > > On Oct 11, 2004, at 6:58 PM, JforJames at aol.com wrote: > > > Derrida is Dead > > > > Deride dada died, > > a ride indeed, rid of > > derriere in doubt, > > dead on, old Dad, > > it's de rigor (mortis). > > > > The "difference," > > indifference, in > > deference to > > a dream deferred > > in dread, by dominance > > or doom, so that, > > > > so long, so late, > > sojourn or so jaunty, > > that now thy "myth > > of presence" be ex > > posed in death? > > > ______________________________________ > Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu > http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html > > Hold short services for minor gods. > Nepalese > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Tue Oct 12 09:18:34 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:18:34 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Meeting of frontiers Message-ID: <004001c4b05d$fa6ab200$1ce83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> > Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:57:09 -0400 > From: "Laura Gottesman" The Library of Congress has completed a major expansion of the "Meeting of Frontiers" Web site http://frontiers.loc.gov, the seventh since the site was first launched in December 1999. "Meeting of Frontiers" is a bilingual, English-Russian collaborative project that chronicles the parallel experiences of the United States and Russia in exploring, developing and settling their frontiers, and the meeting of those frontiers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. It features rare books, maps, manuscripts, photographs, sheet music and other materials from libraries in the United States and Russia, and is widely used in schools and libraries throughout the United States and Russia. The latest expansion includes 24 collections from 14 different libraries and archives in Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoiarsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, and other Siberian cities, as well as additional collections from the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg, the Russian State Library in Moscow, and the Library of Congress. Digitization of materials in Siberia was undertaken by a mobile scanning team based in Novosibirsk that worked in cooperation with the Library of Congress to identify rare materials of special interest to American and Russian scholars, teachers, and students. Among the items included in the latest expansion are photographs of the indigenous peoples of eastern Siberia taken by scientific expeditions to remote regions of Siberia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; photographs depicting the life of the Russian ?migr? community in Harbin, China in the 1920s -1940s; albums and photograph collections relating to icebreaking on Lake Baikal and to fire-fighting in Irkutsk; manuscripts and photographs that document the persecution of Russian Old Believer religious communities under the communist authorities; sketches, drawings, and watercolors of the Siberian landscape by several local artists; and documents and photographs relating to the Cheliuskin, a Soviet scientific research vessel that sank in February 1934 while attempting to sail the Northern Sea route from Murmansk to Vladivostok. With the most recent additions, the "Meeting of Frontiers" Web site includes more than 580,000 digital images relating to the history of Siberia, Alaska, and the American West. "Meeting of Frontiers" is funded by Congressional appropriations in the Library's FY 1999 and FY 2004 budgets. Additional support for development of the project in Russia has been provided by the Open Society Institute of Russia. This online presentation joins other collections from around the world available through the Global Gateway Web site. These collections can be seen at http://www.loc.gov/international. In the "Collaborative Digital Libraries" section are materials from Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain. The "Digital Collections" section provides links to thematic presentations, including "Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age," "The Spanish-American War in Motion Pictures" and the extraordinary "Prokudin-Gorskii Collection" of photographs of Russia taken just before the revolution. Please direct any questions regarding this collection to the Global Gateway inquiry form: http://www.loc.gov/help/contact-international.html. Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Tue Oct 12 09:22:51 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 15:22:51 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Anne Sexton and Middle Generation Poetry : The Geography of Grief Message-ID: <004b01c4b05e$93d300f0$1ce83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> > Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 11:30:02 +0100 > From: Philip McGowan To coincide with the 30th anniversary of Anne Sexton's death (4 October), Praeger announce the publication of the following study of her poetry: Anne Sexton and Middle Generation Poetry : The Geography of Grief by Philip McGowan Hardcover: 168 pages Publisher: Praeger Publishers; London & Connecticut (September 30, 2004) ISBN: 0313315140 Focusing on Sexton's poems rather than on the life she led, this fresh critique of her work restarts the debate about her poetry thirty years after her death, arguing that Sexton's poetry collections develop a three-way investigation into the possibilities of language to convey an individual's response to her own existence, to the project of defining love (by physical, human, and divine standards) and to the purpose of the aesthetic in our understanding of these entities. The book charts the chronological development of Sexton's poetic aesthetic and provides a new interpretation of this major poet's work. -- ========================================== Dr Philip McGowan Department of English & Comparative Literature Goldsmiths' College University Of London New Cross SE14 6NW. UK Ph: 020 7919 7432 Fax: 020 7919 7453 Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Tue Oct 12 10:14:46 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 10:14:46 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe In-Reply-To: <192.301d83f3.2e96ee7f@cs.com> Message-ID: Sam, I asked a friend who also knows Samuel Menashe (and, in fact, had dinner with him last night), and he doesn't know how he supports himself either. He suggests that Social Security (he's 80 now) and "mini patronage" may be his income sources, along, perhaps, with some proofreading. Hal I know Samuel slightly, and I like the poems of his I've seen, which are short and witty in the Kay Ryan manner. I don't know how he's supported himself all these years, but he has. There was a nice profile on him in the New York Times a couple of years ago. I think he's a worthy recipient who surely can use the money. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clitophon at yahoo.com Tue Oct 12 10:58:58 2004 From: clitophon at yahoo.com (Paul Murphy) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 07:58:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Derrida is Dead In-Reply-To: <7EAAD26A-1BF3-11D9-A1C3-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> Message-ID: <20041012145858.86082.qmail@web40424.mail.yahoo.com> I wondered at the blatant fact: Derrida is not around to deconstruct his own obituary... has now found the ultimate signified and has understood the dichotomy that Nietzsche debated, good or evil or hereness and beyondness if you are quaffing a pint of stout with Lacan and Foucault, I wonder if it was brewed in Dublin or some other lesser centre of Guinness brewing? that is the only question of importance and that is the only central or latent fact to deduct (although deduction itself needs deconstructing) of the entire oeuvre of the late but debatedly great, Jacques Derrida... PM --- Wendy Battin wrote: > Our local NPR announcer read his brief obit and > pronounced him > "daREEDa," perhaps as in > da READa has travelled where da Writa never dreamt. > > I wouldn't wish the bad karma of American academics > on him. May he > travel more lightly than we do. > > Wendy > > On Oct 11, 2004, at 6:58 PM, JforJames at aol.com > wrote: > > > Derrida is Dead > > > > Deride dada died, > > a ride indeed, rid of > > derriere in doubt, > > dead on, old Dad, > > it's de rigor (mortis). > > > > The "difference," > > indifference, in > > deference to > > a dream deferred > > in dread, by dominance > > or doom, so that, > > > > so long, so late, > > sojourn or so jaunty, > > that now thy "myth > > of presence" be ex > > posed in death? > > > ______________________________________ > Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu > http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html > > Hold short services for minor gods. > Nepalese > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Tue Oct 12 04:32:04 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2004 03:32:04 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Derrida is Dead In-Reply-To: <196.30b77d56.2e9c6a15@aol.com> Message-ID: On 10/11/04 5:58 PM, "JforJames at aol.com" wrote: > Derrida is Dead > > Deride dada died, > a ride indeed, rid of > derriere in doubt, > dead on, old Dad, > it's de rigor (mortis). > > The "difference," > indifference, in > deference to > a dream deferred > in dread, by dominance > or doom, so that, > > so long, so late, > sojourn or so jaunty, > that now thy "myth > of presence" be ex > posed in death? > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > Good one, Jim. Paul -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Wed Oct 13 12:53:51 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 12:53:51 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: William Bronk, "I Thought It Was Harry" Message-ID: I Thought It Was Harry Excuse me. I thought for a moment you were someone I know. It happens to me. One time at *The Circle in the Square* when it *was* still in the Square, I turned my head when the lights went up and saw me there with a girl and another couple. Out in the lobby, I looked right at him and he looked away. I was no one he knew. Well, it takes two, as they say, and I don't know what it would prove anyway. Do we know who we are, do you think? Kids seem to know. One time I asked a little girl. She said she'd been sick. She said she'd looked different and felt different. I said, "Maybe it wasn't you. How do you know?" "Oh, I was me," she said, "I know I was." That part doesn't bother me anymore or not the way it did. I'm nobody else and nobody anyway. It's all the rest I don't know. I don't know anything. It hit me. I thought it was Harry when I saw you and thought, "I'll ask Harry." I don't suppose he knows, though. It's not that I get confused. I don't mean that. If someone appeared and said, "Ask me some questions," I wouldn't know where to start. I don't have questions even. It's the way I fade as though I were someone's snapshot left in the light. And the background fades the way it might if we woke in the wrong twilight and things got dim and grey while we waited for them to sharpen. Less and less is real. No fixed point. Questions fix a point, as answers do. Things move again and the only place to move is away. It was wrong: questions and answers are what to be without and all we learn is how sound our ignorance is. That's what I wanted to talk to Harry about. You looked like him. Thank you anyway. --William Bronk fr. *Life Supports: New and Collected Poems* [San Francisco: North Point, 1981] Hal Serving the tri-state area. Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Wed Oct 13 13:39:43 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 12:39:43 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? Message-ID: This quote appeared on Ron Silliman's blog the other day. Curious what others might think of it. Kent : "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" From antrobin at clipper.net Wed Oct 13 13:46:39 2004 From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 10:46:39 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <004e01c4b14c$9e435460$69361c40@Emily> I'm still having enough trouble mastering the old sentence. So for now, I'll be staying inside. Tony -----Original Message----- From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Kent Johnson Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 10:40 AM To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? This quote appeared on Ron Silliman's blog the other day. Curious what others might think of it. Kent : "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" _______________________________________________ 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 Wed Oct 13 06:51:35 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 05:51:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 10/13/04 12:39 PM, "Kent Johnson" wrote: > This quote appeared on Ron Silliman's blog the other day. Curious what > others might think of it. > > Kent > > : > > "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the > New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of > the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its > many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is > the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its > surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not > necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" > > > _______________________________________________ > 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] > > Po-mo gibberish? --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] From anny.ballardini at tin.it Wed Oct 13 14:01:31 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 20:01:31 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? References: Message-ID: <00ec01c4b14e$aba66230$dee83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> I am lost right there at the beginning with ... the Other, the non-rational Thus no comments from me. Anny From: "Paul Lake" Views" Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? > On 10/13/04 12:39 PM, "Kent Johnson" wrote: > > > This quote appeared on Ron Silliman's blog the other day. Curious what > > others might think of it. > > > > Kent > > > > : > > > > "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the > > New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of > > the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its > > many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is > > the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its > > surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not > > necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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] > > > > > Po-mo gibberish? > > --- > [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 jkok at hfa.umass.edu Wed Oct 13 14:38:28 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:38:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I just dissociate. Rapidement. K. On Wed, 13 Oct 2004, Paul Lake wrote: > On 10/13/04 12:39 PM, "Kent Johnson" wrote: > > > This quote appeared on Ron Silliman's blog the other day. Curious what > > others might think of it. > > > > Kent > > > > : > > > > "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the > > New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of > > the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its > > many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is > > the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its > > surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not > > necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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] > > > > > Po-mo gibberish? > > --- > [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 wjbat at conncoll.edu Wed Oct 13 14:40:22 2004 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 14:40:22 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? In-Reply-To: <00ec01c4b14e$aba66230$dee83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> References: <00ec01c4b14e$aba66230$dee83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <575A1CF8-1D47-11D9-8C5E-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> On Oct 13, 2004, at 2:01 PM, Anny Ballardini wrote: > I am lost right there at the beginning with > > ... the Other, the non-rational > > Thus no comments from me. Brava, Anny. Wendy Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html When you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he had some help. From GrahamD at ripon.edu Wed Oct 13 14:57:26 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 13:57:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3FE@ariel.ripon.edu> And here's Ron Silliman's entry for yesterday, which perhaps touches on another sense of The Other: "Tuesday, October 12, 2004 Both Deborah Ager and P.J. Taylor chronicled the Mabel Dodge Poetry Festival. I don't think either intends their commentary to be read as satire, but it's difficult not to read them that way. At least until one stops to think about just how much manipulative malpractice is being carried out on stage by people who - in every sense of the word - never get their own feet muddy." To which I think the proper response is No Comment. ============================================ 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: Anny Ballardini > Reply To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 1:01 PM > To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? > > I am lost right there at the beginning with > > ... the Other, the non-rational > > Thus no comments from me. > Anny > > From anny.ballardini at tin.it Wed Oct 13 15:01:13 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:01:13 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? References: <00ec01c4b14e$aba66230$dee83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> <575A1CF8-1D47-11D9-8C5E-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> Message-ID: <013801c4b157$02c34800$dee83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> Thank you Wendy, and let me compliment you for your quote on the turtle! Ciao, Anny From: "Wendy Battin" Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 8:40 PM > On Oct 13, 2004, at 2:01 PM, Anny Ballardini wrote: > > I am lost right there at the beginning with > > > > ... the Other, the non-rational > > > > Thus no comments from me. > > Brava, Anny. > > Wendy > > Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu > http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html > > When you see a turtle on top of a fence post, you know he had some > help. > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Wed Oct 13 17:44:07 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 16:44:07 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other Message-ID: The responses so far seem rather snippy and hostile (mind you, I am aware RS has also been quite hostile toward what he calls the School of Quietude, and hostility feeds hostility, surely). I myself disagree with him quite often, and I've openly stated those disagreements on numerous occasions (seldom answered, which is another hallmark of Langpo group, to greet those who offer serious counterviews with a passive aggressive silence. They are masters at it, though the tactic has become quite transparent to most, by now, and weakened their general reputation). But these quip-like answers here in response don't seem all that useful: Whatever you may think about RS's poetics or the sometimes arrogant ways he states them, he is (unarguably, I think) one of the liveliest, most intelligent, and most committed voices in poetry today. And he also has done a great deal to change the "landscape," as it were, of American poetry since his publication of The New Sentence. I'd say, as well, that quite a bit of his poetry, in manner similar to renga, frankly, achieves the kind of "darkness" and mystery he alludes to, though Langpo precepts up to now have been for the most part dismssive of such fuzzy reception. Waht struck me as interesting--and perhaps a departure for Silliman in this quote from him-- is the quasi-metaphysical language of the formulation, not to mention the very curious and unclear imperative to young poets that they "look inside." Look to *what* inside? So I think there is something interesting here, if we can get past the sticking out of tongues-- which has been going on from both sides for quite some time! dizzy and incoherent from sinus medication, Kent From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed Oct 13 18:01:22 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 15:01:22 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A3FE@ariel.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <416DA5B2.D6B850B1@earthlink.net> "Graham, David" wrote: > > And here's Ron Silliman's entry for yesterday, which perhaps touches on > another sense of The Other: > > "Tuesday, October 12, 2004 > Both Deborah Ager and P.J. Taylor chronicled the Mabel Dodge Poetry Festival. > I don't think either intends their commentary to be read as satire, but it's > difficult not to read them that way. At least until one stops to think about > just how much manipulative malpractice is being carried out on stage by > people who - in every sense of the word - never get their own feet muddy." > > To which I think the proper response is No Comment. "manipulative malpractice"? Did someone prescribe poezac? - Jim From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Wed Oct 13 18:06:43 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 15:06:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry Message-ID: <20041013220643.51822.qmail@web52609.mail.yahoo.com> Thanks to everyone for your imput about list poetry. Who posted that one by Jim Daniels? My workshop went so well. Everyone was very interested. We actually all wrote imitations of the Daniels piece. I'll try to post mine: "You Bring out the Pretentious Poet in Me." Thanks again to everyone who offered advice. Jeff Newberry ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Wed Oct 13 18:10:59 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 15:10:59 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] List Poetry References: <20041013220643.51822.qmail@web52609.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <416DA7F3.D5361BAA@earthlink.net> Jeff Newberry wrote: > > Thanks to everyone for your imput about list poetry. > Who posted that one by Jim Daniels? Guilty. - Jim From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Wed Oct 13 18:30:15 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 17:30:15 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Book contest Message-ID: I'm involved with this, as you will see, so am passing along. Geoffrey Gatza, of Buffalo, NY, is doing some exciting things with BlazeVOX, and his books are very nice looking. And dig those balloons... (prize info) http://www.blazevox.org/books/Prize.htm home page www.blazevox.org Kent From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Wed Oct 13 21:18:19 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:18:19 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? References: Message-ID: <028d01c4b18b$b5177380$45b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Not that sure what he's saying and haven't had time to read the full passage, but it all sounds very Cummingsy to me. And infraverbal. (I'm aware I'm probably as far off as I can be, but I don't let things like that stop me!) --Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kent Johnson" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 1:39 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? > This quote appeared on Ron Silliman's blog the other day. Curious what > others might think of it. > > Kent > > : > > "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the > New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of > the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its > many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is > the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its > surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not > necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 13 21:23:25 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 21:23:25 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? References: Message-ID: <029d01c4b18c$6af5d4d0$45b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> >> : >> >> "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the >> New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of >> the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its >> many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is >> the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its >> surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not >> necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" > Po-mo gibberish? I'm sure not. Silliman is a leader in thoughtful discussion of the sentence as a poetic device. I think here he got rushed, though, so lost clarity. --Bob From wjbat at conncoll.edu Wed Oct 13 22:05:18 2004 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 22:05:18 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7F1C896F-1D85-11D9-8C5E-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> I didn't take Anny's response to be snippy or hostile, Kent, and I don't think mine was; she went to the heart of it, as I saw it, and I applauded her for that. Silliman might be ill-served by the excerpt; we could use more context. But it's hard to justify anyone positioning himself so firmly in the rational that the non-rational becomes "Other." (This comes from Duncan, yes?) The rational is a precious but very small territory, and any rhetoric that pretends we live there most of the time borders on the delusional. (I'm phrasing this as politely as I can.) What's not rational isn't necessarily dark. We're well-equipped to observe and record all kinds of experience, the more the better, and the more accurate the better. Wendy Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html Nobody gathers firewood to roast a thin goat. Kenyan On Oct 13, 2004, at 5:44 PM, Kent Johnson wrote: > The responses so far seem rather snippy and hostile (mind you, I am > aware RS has also been quite hostile toward what he calls the School of > Quietude, and hostility feeds hostility, surely). > > I myself disagree with him quite often, and I've openly stated those > disagreements on numerous occasions (seldom answered, which is another > hallmark of Langpo group, to greet those who offer serious counterviews > with a passive aggressive silence. They are masters at it, though the > tactic has become quite transparent to most, by now, and weakened their > general reputation). But these quip-like answers here in response don't > seem all that useful: Whatever you may think about RS's poetics or the > sometimes arrogant ways he states them, he is (unarguably, I think) one > of the liveliest, most intelligent, and most committed voices in poetry > today. And he also has done a great deal to change the "landscape," as > it were, of American poetry since his publication of The New Sentence. > I'd say, as well, that quite a bit of his poetry, in manner similar to > renga, frankly, achieves the kind of "darkness" and mystery he alludes > to, though Langpo precepts up to now have been for the most part > dismssive of such fuzzy reception. > > Waht struck me as interesting--and perhaps a departure for Silliman in > this quote from him-- is the quasi-metaphysical language of the > formulation, not to mention the very curious and unclear imperative to > young poets that they "look inside." Look to *what* inside? > > So I think there is something interesting here, if we can get past the > sticking out of tongues-- which has been going on from both sides for > quite some time! > > dizzy and incoherent from sinus medication, > > Kent > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk Thu Oct 14 05:26:58 2004 From: m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk (m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:26:58 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1097746018.416e466230caa@webmail.ukonline.net> Quoting Kent Johnson : Absolutely agree with you Kent, I am a massive fan of Ron's writing. But I don't want to "look inside" this construct myself (though I'll look out for the poems of those who do). This kind of artschool way of writing about "language" as if it is something static and visual (compare Prynne's "the aquarium of language") doesn't seem very rigorous and talking watchwords into existence like "The New Sentence" is just journalism. But much more importantly, I have no fellow feeling towards projects that conceptualize "language" as if it was somehow something other than what we live through, a component in speaking, living, communicating... A monoglot culture, I am sure, has a lot to do with this obsessive picking at the cell walls ...- a language (English) , instead of being valued and not talked about, is subjected to a mixture of high-flown praise and beatings, like a partner in a destructive relationship. That's only one way of looking at it. Silliman's perceptions reflect real , dreadful and exciting cultural changes, and the poetry he wants is what needs to be written. Everyone's looking for signs of a loss of vigour in the US post- avant, a soft-focus, New Age, spiritual values, kind of weakening; but that's just journalistic thinking, too, all about image. Anyway, I'm off to read his blog. ---------------------------------------------- This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 14 06:55:48 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 06:55:48 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other References: <1097746018.416e466230caa@webmail.ukonline.net> Message-ID: <008b01c4b1dc$602c3d50$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Talk about "artschool way of writing." What is more artschoolish than this kind of nihistic blather about not "conceptualizing" language, or poetry, or anything else the writer thinks is just too ooo-ooo for words? --Bob > Quoting Kent Johnson : > > > Absolutely agree with you Kent, I am a massive fan of Ron's writing. But I > don't want to "look inside" this construct myself (though I'll look out > for > the poems of those who do). This kind of artschool way of writing > about "language" as if it is something static and visual (compare > Prynne's "the aquarium of language") doesn't seem very rigorous and > talking > watchwords into existence like "The New Sentence" is just journalism. But > much > more importantly, I have no fellow feeling towards projects that > conceptualize "language" as if it was somehow something other than what we > live through, a component in speaking, living, communicating... A monoglot > culture, I am sure, has a lot to do with this obsessive picking at the > cell > walls ...- a language (English) , instead of being valued and not talked > about, is subjected to a mixture of high-flown praise and beatings, like a > partner in a destructive relationship. > > That's only one way of looking at it. Silliman's perceptions reflect real > , > dreadful and exciting cultural changes, and the poetry he wants is what > needs > to be written. Everyone's looking for signs of a loss of vigour in the US > post- > avant, a soft-focus, New Age, spiritual values, kind of weakening; but > that's > just journalistic thinking, too, all about image. Anyway, I'm off to read > his > blog. > > ---------------------------------------------- > This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net > _______________________________________________ > 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 14 08:00:37 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:00:37 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other References: <7F1C896F-1D85-11D9-8C5E-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> Message-ID: <002501c4b1e5$6b6e89d0$71e83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> Once again we are facing the dreaded question of what is poetry. I know it is not analitical philosophy or logic. That is why I abhor quotations like the one Kent sent in, which actually misled me. I did think he was speaking of the Other, someone like _Harry_, John, Smith, and after the comma he puts, the non-rational, and it did chill me down. My assumption (isn't that a good word?) of poetry (and of arts in general) is that it conveys the non-rational, around which you will have to weave a rational frame. Which frame? Which non-rational aspect of life or of the being /society you might face, these are questions that interest me, and the many different answers interest me as well. I mentioned intuition, and B. Grumann remembered what I said a while back. Wendy speaks of observing and recording - what is non-rational (let's avoid the term irrational lest we all seem mad, funny by the way that irrational has become a synonym for silly, useless, hysterical when referred to women...) Let me rationally go to school again, and then rationally have a break, and rationally go to school again, and rationally to sleep tonight, today is a marvelous rationally built day, a true nightmare if you consider that I already had four hours this morning, and if you do not consider that within this scheme I have so many non-rational inputs that keep nourishing me, Cheers, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wendy Battin" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 4:05 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other > I didn't take Anny's response to be snippy or hostile, Kent, and I > don't think mine was; she went to the heart of it, as I saw it, and I > applauded her for that. Silliman might be ill-served by the excerpt; > we could use more context. But it's hard to justify anyone positioning > himself so firmly in the rational that the non-rational becomes > "Other." (This comes from Duncan, yes?) The rational is a precious > but very small territory, and any rhetoric that pretends we live there > most of the time borders on the delusional. (I'm phrasing this as > politely as I can.) What's not rational isn't necessarily dark. We're > well-equipped to observe and record all kinds of experience, the more > the better, and the more accurate the better. > > Wendy > > Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu > http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html > > Nobody gathers firewood to roast a thin goat. > Kenyan > > On Oct 13, 2004, at 5:44 PM, Kent Johnson wrote: > > > The responses so far seem rather snippy and hostile (mind you, I am > > aware RS has also been quite hostile toward what he calls the School of > > Quietude, and hostility feeds hostility, surely). > > > > I myself disagree with him quite often, and I've openly stated those > > disagreements on numerous occasions (seldom answered, which is another > > hallmark of Langpo group, to greet those who offer serious counterviews > > with a passive aggressive silence. They are masters at it, though the > > tactic has become quite transparent to most, by now, and weakened their > > general reputation). But these quip-like answers here in response don't > > seem all that useful: Whatever you may think about RS's poetics or the > > sometimes arrogant ways he states them, he is (unarguably, I think) one > > of the liveliest, most intelligent, and most committed voices in poetry > > today. And he also has done a great deal to change the "landscape," as > > it were, of American poetry since his publication of The New Sentence. > > I'd say, as well, that quite a bit of his poetry, in manner similar to > > renga, frankly, achieves the kind of "darkness" and mystery he alludes > > to, though Langpo precepts up to now have been for the most part > > dismssive of such fuzzy reception. > > > > Waht struck me as interesting--and perhaps a departure for Silliman in > > this quote from him-- is the quasi-metaphysical language of the > > formulation, not to mention the very curious and unclear imperative to > > young poets that they "look inside." Look to *what* inside? > > > > So I think there is something interesting here, if we can get past the > > sticking out of tongues-- which has been going on from both sides for > > quite some time! > > > > dizzy and incoherent from sinus medication, > > > > Kent > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 14 09:12:23 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:12:23 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other References: <7F1C896F-1D85-11D9-8C5E-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <002501c4b1e5$6b6e89d0$71e83652@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <009a01c4b1ef$759585d0$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > > Once again we are facing the dreaded question of what is poetry. I know it > is not analytical philosophy or logic. Sure it is, among other things. But I think you're still talking about some essence of the most moving poetry (which I've decided to call poectsy) rather than of the concrete thing that poetry, like everything else, finally is. --Bob G. From lattaj at umich.edu Thu Oct 14 09:29:52 2004 From: lattaj at umich.edu (John Latta) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:29:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Kent, and "others," I spent a little industry in monkeying with Silliman's points here. And just post'd the results at my blog, Hotel Point. The direct link (broken after "archive." in order to fit): http://hotelpoint.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_hotelpoint_archive. html#109775996659823719 Hotel Point is at: http://hotelpoint.blogspot.com/ John On Wed, 13 Oct 2004, Kent Johnson wrote: > This quote appeared on Ron Silliman's blog the other day. Curious what > others might think of it. > > Kent > > : > > "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the > New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of > the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its > many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is > the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its > surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not > necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > From jkok at hfa.umass.edu Thu Oct 14 09:42:41 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:42:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, okay, my response was snippy and hostile. And ill-conceived because as I re-read this sentence attentively, it is pretty damned interesting. As much as one part of me loathes a kind of hugely analytical stance, another part of me doesn't AT ALL. It strikes me that the domain between the punctuation and the next capital is where possibility lives. Inspiration. The unconscious or subconscious mind attempting to take shape. But what the hell do I know, little feral poet that I am, I better go read the blog. Get my terminology straight. On Wed, 13 Oct 2004, Kent Johnson wrote: > This quote appeared on Ron Silliman's blog the other day. Curious what > others might think of it. > > Kent > > : > > "At the same time, Robert (Duncan) did not get the degree to which the > New Sentence, if I may indulge in caps, figures precisely the role of > the Other, the non-rational, the dark side (which is not without its > many colors). The blank space between punctuation & the next capital is > the X-file of language & we have just begun to scratch at its > surface...For a young poet today, replicating those scratches is not > necessarily a step in the right direction. Time to look inside!" > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From mandolin at mac.com Thu Oct 14 10:25:34 2004 From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 10:25:34 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <12643733.1097763934056.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com> On Thursday, October 14, 2004, at 09:34AM, John Latta wrote: >Kent, and "others," > >I spent a little industry in monkeying with Silliman's points here. >And just post'd the results at my blog, Hotel Point. > >The direct link (broken after "archive." in order to fit): > >http://hotelpoint.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_hotelpoint_archive. >html#109775996659823719 > Quite wonderful, John. ----- Sent from webmail, so I'm not at my computer. http://radio.weblogs.com/0113501/ for the Sonnetarium From m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk Thu Oct 14 12:05:57 2004 From: m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk (m.peverett at ukonline.co.uk) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 17:05:57 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other In-Reply-To: <008b01c4b1dc$602c3d50$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> References: <1097746018.416e466230caa@webmail.ukonline.net> <008b01c4b1dc$602c3d50$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <1097769957.416ea3e586ec4@webmail.ukonline.net> I might be way off Silliman's subject, but that's no excuse for you to be way off mine. I'm not referring to your Compropoetica categories now. I'm not "against" conceptualizing "language" full stop. - Shouldn't you have read the rest of the sentence? Sloppy as I may have been, I think the context makes it clear that I'm talking about inappropriate picture thinking of the "Look inside" variety. Associating that with art school is of course terribly unfair. Quoting Bob Grumman : > > Talk about "artschool way of writing." What is more artschoolish than this > kind of nihistic blather about not "conceptualizing" language, or poetry, or > > anything else the writer thinks is just too ooo-ooo for words? > > --Bob > > > Quoting Kent Johnson : > > > > > > Absolutely agree with you Kent, I am a massive fan of Ron's writing. But I > > don't want to "look inside" this construct myself (though I'll look out > > for > > the poems of those who do). This kind of artschool way of writing > > about "language" as if it is something static and visual (compare > > Prynne's "the aquarium of language") doesn't seem very rigorous and > > talking > > watchwords into existence like "The New Sentence" is just journalism. But > > much > > more importantly, I have no fellow feeling towards projects that > > conceptualize "language" as if it was somehow something other than what we > > live through, a component in speaking, living, communicating... A monoglot > > culture, I am sure, has a lot to do with this obsessive picking at the > > cell > > walls ...- a language (English) , instead of being valued and not talked > > about, is subjected to a mixture of high-flown praise and beatings, like a > > partner in a destructive relationship. > > > > That's only one way of looking at it. Silliman's perceptions reflect real > > , > > dreadful and exciting cultural changes, and the poetry he wants is what > > needs > > to be written. Everyone's looking for signs of a loss of vigour in the US > > post- > > avant, a soft-focus, New Age, spiritual values, kind of weakening; but > > that's > > just journalistic thinking, too, all about image. Anyway, I'm off to read > > his > > blog. > > > > ---------------------------------------------- > > This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net From jsafdie at comcast.net Thu Oct 14 12:38:21 2004 From: jsafdie at comcast.net (Joe Safdie) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 09:38:21 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? References: Message-ID: <004401c4b20c$37f26280$56001118@D6T95L21> Pretty funny stuff, John -- and was glad to see too that there was some other "work" to which you were going to apply yourself after all that. That is, I've long since concluded that it was a waste of my time to mess too much with Ron's and other langpo theories; I devoted way too many hours to that (see various archival posts on the Buffalo List) and now feel liberated to simply pursue my own work. Actually, I see the somewhat snippy responses (since corrected) to Kent's original question as more troubling than anything Ron says or has said -- it's a bit of a yahoo approach to poetry and poetics. Don't we get enough of that from listening to the President? In the same way, I've had lots of troubles with Derrida over the years, but very much appreciated a piece in today's NYT op-ed page that presented him in a better light -- more generous and humane -- than did the original obituary. As the article said, these are the intellectual streams (his, and Wittgenstein's, and Heidigger's*) in which we guppies swim, and we don't have any more choice about that than the average goldfish in a cellophane bag. I mean . . . are we supposed to somehow celebrate the Mabel Dodge poetry festival, or something? *(Or as Ed Dorn had it in *Slinger* -- Hi! Digger) Here's a journal sonnet I wrote last night after the debates . . . (one a month, right?) talked about extroverts and introverts in today's English class but the inner man and the outer man are the same the commentator is his character and why can't Jacob Boehme be invited to the party? What would the sixteenth century say about Bush and Kerry? Is that a masculine or feminine rhyme? The integrated Self: not just a sixties idea From mandolin at mac.com Thu Oct 14 14:42:33 2004 From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:42:33 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other? In-Reply-To: <004401c4b20c$37f26280$56001118@D6T95L21> References: <004401c4b20c$37f26280$56001118@D6T95L21> Message-ID: <5069348.1097779353698.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com> On Thursday, October 14, 2004, at 12:40PM, Joe Safdie wrote: >Pretty funny stuff, John -- and was glad to see too that there was some >other "work" to which you were going to apply yourself after all that. That >is, I've long since concluded that it was a waste of my time to mess too >much with Ron's and other langpo theories; I devoted way too many hours to >that (see various archival posts on the Buffalo List) and now feel liberated >to simply pursue my own work. > Up to here, I'm with you. >Actually, I see the somewhat snippy responses (since corrected) to Kent's >original question as more troubling than anything Ron says or has said -- >it's a bit of a yahoo approach to poetry and poetics. Don't we get enough of >that from listening to the President? In the same way, I've had lots of >troubles with Derrida over the years, but very much appreciated a piece in >today's NYT op-ed page that presented him in a better light -- more generous >and humane -- than did the original obituary. As the article said, these are >the intellectual streams (his, and Wittgenstein's, and Heidigger's*) in >which we guppies swim, and we don't have any more choice about that than the >average goldfish in a cellophane bag. I mean . . . are we supposed to >somehow celebrate the Mabel Dodge poetry festival, or something? But I don't think that particular aquarium (hardly a stream) is big enough even for guppies. It's more like one of those sad bowls for betas at WalMart and is astonishingly abiological. Several of the Derrida obits ( a nice collection of them from sevceral perspectives at www.aldaily.com, near the top in the left hand column) mention the beginnings of Derrida's work in a disagreement with Husserl about the nature of mathematics, which Derrida claimed could not be both "out there" and a product of intuition. He was simply wrong, since intuition is itself shaped through evolution by the world "out there" which embodies (some of) the principles of matematics.The same class of error permeates Derrida's work and much of the rest of post-modern thought, incudling the absurd linguistics of langpo. Paul Lake's quite right -- po-mo gibberish. > >*(Or as Ed Dorn had it in *Slinger* -- Hi! Digger) > >Here's a journal sonnet I wrote last night after the debates . . . (one a >month, right?) > > talked about extroverts > and introverts >in today's English class > but the inner man and the outer man > are the same > >the commentator > is his character >and why can't Jacob Boehme > be invited to the party? >What would the sixteenth century > > say about Bush and Kerry? >Is that a masculine > or feminine rhyme? >The integrated Self: not just a sixties idea > > Whatever its merits may be, if this is a sonnet, Humty-Dumpy was right. ----- Sent from webmail, so I'm not at my computer. http://radio.weblogs.com/0113501/ for the Sonnetarium From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 14 14:56:18 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 13:56:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other Message-ID: Mike, On the below, could you please elaborate? What do you mean, exactly, by "the absurd linguistics of Langpo"? And how do you see Paul Lake's ideas (I assume you are referring to his essay on postmodernism and science) as dispensing with "Langpo linguistics"? Kent Mike Snider said: But I don't think that particular aquarium (hardly a stream) is big enough even for guppies. It's more like one of those sad bowls for betas at WalMart and is astonishingly abiological. Several of the Derrida obits ( a nice collection of them from sevceral perspectives at www.aldaily.com, near the top in the left hand column) mention the beginnings of Derrida's work in a disagreement with Husserl about the nature of mathematics, which Derrida claimed could not be both "out there" and a product of intuition. He was simply wrong, since intuition is itself shaped through evolution by the world "out there" which embodies (some of) the principles of matematics.The same class of error permeates Derrida's work and much of the rest of post-modern thought, incudling the absurd linguistics of langpo. Paul Lake's quite right -- po-mo gibberish. From MillB at aol.com Thu Oct 14 15:00:44 2004 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 15:00:44 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: The Dorothy Sargent Rosenburg Annual Poetry Prizes Message-ID: <13c.3b57906.2ea026dc@aol.com> FYI Mill -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Poetry Center" Subject: The Dorothy Sargent Rosenburg Annual Poetry Prizes Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:49:45 -0400 Size: 41491 URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 14 15:01:32 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 15:01:32 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other References: <1097746018.416e466230caa@webmail.ukonline.net><008b01c4b1dc$602c3d50$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <1097769957.416ea3e586ec4@webmail.ukonline.net> Message-ID: <00f901c4b220$3d95edb0$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> >I might be way off Silliman's subject, but that's no excuse for you to be >way > off mine. I'm not referring to your Compropoetica categories now. > > I'm not "against" conceptualizing "language" full stop. - Shouldn't you > have > read the rest of the sentence? I read your whole post. I was reacting mainly against your comment about language's being picked at "instead of being valued and not talked about." Hard to take that as not meaning that valuing language is the opposite of talking about it--which is a form of conceptualizing about it. I did note that your early sentence was against only certain kinds of conceptualizing, but felt you forgot that later. I'm willing to grant that we're all stumbling in this thread, mainly because Ron's passage was stumbly, so each of us is probably getting everyone else wrong. And I grabbed a chance to inveigh against anti-analyticality--whether appropriately or inappropriately, who knows. --Bob > about, Sloppy as I may have been, I think the context > makes it clear that I'm talking about inappropriate picture thinking of > the "Look inside" variety. Associating that with art school is of course > terribly unfair. > > > > > > > > > > > Quoting Bob Grumman : > >> >> Talk about "artschool way of writing." What is more artschoolish than >> this >> kind of nihistic blather about not "conceptualizing" language, or poetry, >> or >> >> anything else the writer thinks is just too ooo-ooo for words? >> >> --Bob >> >> > Quoting Kent Johnson : >> > >> > >> > Absolutely agree with you Kent, I am a massive fan of Ron's writing. >> > But I >> > don't want to "look inside" this construct myself (though I'll look out >> > for >> > the poems of those who do). This kind of artschool way of writing >> > about "language" as if it is something static and visual (compare >> > Prynne's "the aquarium of language") doesn't seem very rigorous and >> > talking >> > watchwords into existence like "The New Sentence" is just journalism. >> > But >> > much >> > more importantly, I have no fellow feeling towards projects that >> > conceptualize "language" as if it was somehow something other than what >> > we >> > live through, a component in speaking, living, communicating... A >> > monoglot >> > culture, I am sure, has a lot to do with this obsessive picking at the >> > cell >> > walls ...- a language (English) , instead of being valued and not >> > talked >> > about, is subjected to a mixture of high-flown praise and beatings, >> > like a >> > partner in a destructive relationship. >> > >> > That's only one way of looking at it. Silliman's perceptions reflect >> > real >> > , >> > dreadful and exciting cultural changes, and the poetry he wants is what >> > needs >> > to be written. Everyone's looking for signs of a loss of vigour in the >> > US >> > post- >> > avant, a soft-focus, New Age, spiritual values, kind of weakening; but >> > that's >> > just journalistic thinking, too, all about image. Anyway, I'm off to >> > read >> > his >> > blog. >> > >> > ---------------------------------------------- >> > This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net >> > _______________________________________________ >> > 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 mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net > _______________________________________________ > 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 14 15:06:35 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:06:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Get out of Dodge Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A402@mail.ripon.edu> > From: Joe Safdie > I mean . . . are we supposed to somehow celebrate the Mabel Dodge poetry festival, or something? -------------- OK, I'll bite. Apparently it's obvious to many that the Dodge festival deserves nothing but scorn. The mere mention of the name is apparently sufficient argument. But it's not obvious to me, and perhaps someone who finds the event ludicrous or an example of "manipulative malpractice" might care to say why? Extra points, of course, if said critics might have actually attended the event they critique. . . . ============================================ 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 gmguddi at ilstu.edu Thu Oct 14 16:17:47 2004 From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 15:17:47 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] the NEA funds writing project by US soldiers Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20041014151656.031f6588@mail.ilstu.edu> Today's SLATE magazine bears an article on explaining how Dana Gioia has moved to partner the NEA with the Department of Defense and the Boeing Corporation. The purpose? The idea is to fund US soldiers to write about their wartime experiences. The rationale for this, Gioia says, is that "[o]ne cannot tell a story of our nation without also telling the story of our wars." Althusser, where are you now? http://slate.msn.com/id/2108158/ From anny.ballardini at tin.it Thu Oct 14 17:19:58 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 23:19:58 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other References: <1097746018.416e466230caa@webmail.ukonline.net><008b01c4b1dc$602c3d50$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><1097769957.416ea3e586ec4@webmail.ukonline.net> <00f901c4b220$3d95edb0$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <002f01c4b233$8f2db4b0$14ae3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> re.: And I grabbed a chance > to inveigh against anti-analyticality--whether appropriately or > inappropriately, who knows. Oh if you refer to me, that is fine, my shoulders are bullet- & ballot- proof, and you also gave me some thoughts to think upon during the day, and since I am here, can you send a couple of links to analytical concrete poetry? you would spare me some work, thanks, Anny ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Grumman" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 9:01 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other > > > >I might be way off Silliman's subject, but that's no excuse for you to be > >way > > off mine. I'm not referring to your Compropoetica categories now. > > > > I'm not "against" conceptualizing "language" full stop. - Shouldn't you > > have > > read the rest of the sentence? > > I read your whole post. I was reacting mainly against your comment about > language's being picked at "instead of being valued and not talked about." > Hard to take that as not meaning that valuing language is the opposite of > talking about it--which is a form of conceptualizing about it. I did note > that your early sentence was against only certain kinds of conceptualizing, > but felt you forgot that later. > > I'm willing to grant that we're all stumbling in this thread, mainly because > Ron's passage was stumbly, so > each of us is probably getting everyone else wrong. And I grabbed a chance > to inveigh against anti-analyticality--whether appropriately or > inappropriately, who knows. > > --Bob > > > > about, > > > Sloppy as I may have been, I think the context > > makes it clear that I'm talking about inappropriate picture thinking of > > the "Look inside" variety. Associating that with art school is of course > > terribly unfair. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Quoting Bob Grumman : > > > >> > >> Talk about "artschool way of writing." What is more artschoolish than > >> this > >> kind of nihistic blather about not "conceptualizing" language, or poetry, > >> or > >> > >> anything else the writer thinks is just too ooo-ooo for words? > >> > >> --Bob > >> > >> > Quoting Kent Johnson : > >> > > >> > > >> > Absolutely agree with you Kent, I am a massive fan of Ron's writing. > >> > But I > >> > don't want to "look inside" this construct myself (though I'll look out > >> > for > >> > the poems of those who do). This kind of artschool way of writing > >> > about "language" as if it is something static and visual (compare > >> > Prynne's "the aquarium of language") doesn't seem very rigorous and > >> > talking > >> > watchwords into existence like "The New Sentence" is just journalism. > >> > But > >> > much > >> > more importantly, I have no fellow feeling towards projects that > >> > conceptualize "language" as if it was somehow something other than what > >> > we > >> > live through, a component in speaking, living, communicating... A > >> > monoglot > >> > culture, I am sure, has a lot to do with this obsessive picking at the > >> > cell > >> > walls ...- a language (English) , instead of being valued and not > >> > talked > >> > about, is subjected to a mixture of high-flown praise and beatings, > >> > like a > >> > partner in a destructive relationship. > >> > > >> > That's only one way of looking at it. Silliman's perceptions reflect > >> > real > >> > , > >> > dreadful and exciting cultural changes, and the poetry he wants is what > >> > needs > >> > to be written. Everyone's looking for signs of a loss of vigour in the > >> > US > >> > post- > >> > avant, a soft-focus, New Age, spiritual values, kind of weakening; but > >> > that's > >> > just journalistic thinking, too, all about image. Anyway, I'm off to > >> > read > >> > his > >> > blog. > >> > > >> > ---------------------------------------------- > >> > This mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > 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 mail sent through http://www.ukonline.net > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 14 17:43:32 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 17:43:32 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other References: <1097746018.416e466230caa@webmail.ukonline.net><008b01c4b1dc$602c3d50$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><1097769957.416ea3e586ec4@webmail.ukonline.net><00f901c4b220$3d95edb0$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <002f01c4b233$8f2db4b0$14ae3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <016f01c4b236$e048c4e0$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > re.: And I grabbed a chance >> to inveigh against anti-analyticality--whether appropriately or >> inappropriately, who knows. > > > Oh if you refer to me, that is fine, my shoulders are bullet- & ballot- > proof, > and you also gave me some thoughts to think upon during the day, Wasn't thinking of you at the time, Anny. > and since I am here, can you send a couple of links to analytical concrete > poetry? > you would spare me some work, thanks, > > Anny Don't know of anything called analytical concrete poetry. But I'm sure analyticality is behind much of the best concrete and related poetry. I don't push analysis for poets (although they should have some sort of critical mind), but for those who would discuss poetry. --Bob From jsafdie at comcast.net Thu Oct 14 18:33:19 2004 From: jsafdie at comcast.net (Joe Safdie) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 15:33:19 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] Get out of Dodge References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A402@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <00a701c4b23d$ce5e1d00$56001118@D6T95L21> David, I have never attended the Mabel Dodge poetry festival, but still consider myself eminently qualified to pronounce upon it. There are, after all, limits to the experiential model. Must we really have experienced everything we write about? That would seem to eliminate, for example, most of Robert Browning's work. And then, there's this paragraph, from the story in *Slate* that Gabe directed us to earlier . . . "Operation Homecoming wants its participants to write the story of the war that produces almost as many casualties as lies. 'And these often harrowing tales are best told by the men and women who lived them,' writes Gioia poetically. As a matter of fact, the story would be much better told by those who died in Iraq, but they do not get to tell any stories, to participate in workshops, or to come home-except in the coffins that under a Pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains are not to be seen on television or in newspapers." But I digress. From my limited experience with said festival (on various public broadcasting stations), it seems to be a congregation of people who, ummm, aren't very talented; at least, I've cringed at almost every poem I've heard that's been read and/or produced there. The idea behind such a festival is equivalent, in my mind, to the one that produced "National Poetry Month" -- these are the folks who would share the same podium as Paul Wolfowitz without some weapon of minor destruction in their pocket. Are they sincere practitioners of the art? Yes, I believe they are. But sincerity, too, doesn't seem to be the most valuable quality about poets or their poems. Extended conceits regarding one's grandparents, sweet and syrupy domestic concerns, earnest expressions of one's personal voice . . . that's what I heard. Were they really "manipulative malpractice"? Such poems as I've described are manipulative, I think, and aren't the model I'd recommend. How many graduates of poetry workshops does it take to screw in a lightbulb? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Graham, David" To: "'NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views'" Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 12:06 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Get out of Dodge >> From: Joe Safdie >> > I mean . . . are we supposed to > somehow celebrate the Mabel Dodge poetry festival, or something? > -------------- > > OK, I'll bite. Apparently it's obvious to many that the Dodge festival > deserves nothing but scorn. The mere mention of the name is apparently > sufficient argument. > > But it's not obvious to me, and perhaps someone who finds the event > ludicrous or an example of "manipulative malpractice" might care to say > why? > > Extra points, of course, if said critics might have actually attended the > event they critique. . . . > ============================================ > 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 jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 14 21:03:57 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 18:03:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Get out of Dodge In-Reply-To: <00a701c4b23d$ce5e1d00$56001118@D6T95L21> Message-ID: <20041015010357.18843.qmail@web52610.mail.yahoo.com> Three: One to develop the luminosity of his genuinely unique and individual way of screwing in the lightbulb. One to appreciate the luminosity of said individual way in the form of an extended workshop, wherein said individual way is compared to other lumious said said individual lightbulb screwers throughout the history of lightbulbdom, particularly noting the post-postmodern sensibility of someone like say Carolyn Forche while balancing the understated sublimity of an early Ezra Pound or perhaps the more tame poems of John Ashbery. Then perhaps the workshop leader will publish a small anthology of lightbulb screwing techniques--call it the Acme Younger Lightbulb Screwers Series, Volume 9999999.99, with an introduction by Lang Pomoron, lightbulb screwer extraordinare who challenged the standard lightbulb screwing methods with his before-then unheard of focus on the actual process of screwing, not the light that emits from the bulb. And one to say "I like the flow." A graduate of a poetry workshop, Jeff Newberry --- Joe Safdie wrote: > How many graduates of poetry workshops > does it take to screw in a > lightbulb? > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Graham, David" > To: "'NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & > Views'" > > Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 12:06 PM > Subject: [New-Poetry] Get out of Dodge > > > >> From: Joe Safdie > >> > > I mean . . . are we supposed to > > somehow celebrate the Mabel Dodge poetry festival, > or something? > > -------------- > > > > OK, I'll bite. Apparently it's obvious to many > that the Dodge festival > > deserves nothing but scorn. The mere mention of > the name is apparently > > sufficient argument. > > > > But it's not obvious to me, and perhaps someone > who finds the event > > ludicrous or an example of "manipulative > malpractice" might care to say > > why? > > > > Extra points, of course, if said critics might > have actually attended the > > event they critique. . . . > > ============================================ > > 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 > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu Oct 14 21:52:19 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 21:52:19 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] the NEA funds writing project by US soldiers Message-ID: <159.41b838bd.2ea08753@cs.com> In a message dated 10/14/2004 3:18:37 PM Central Daylight Time, gmguddi at ilstu.edu writes: > > X-INFO: INVALID TO LINE > Today's SLATE magazine bears an article on explaining how Dana Gioia has > moved to partner the NEA with the Department of Defense and the Boeing > Corporation. The purpose? The idea is to fund US soldiers to write about > their wartime experiences. The rationale for this, Gioia says, is that > "[o]ne cannot tell a story of our nation without also telling the story of > our wars." > > Althusser, where are you now? > > http://slate.msn.com/id/2108158/ > I have it from Andrew Hudgins, who was one of the participants, that the workshops, most of them held this summer, were basically one-day affairs in which the writers, ranging from Tom Clancy to the pacifist poet Marilyn Nelson, basically discussed war literature in general and encouraged the soldiers to record and preserve their memories in journals--a total of about 4 hrs. of contact time. The project has already released a cd, which has some impressive readings on it by poets like Wilbur and Simpson, and the anthology will be a future project. According the the NEA site on Operation Homecoming, the main purpose of the project will be archival, preserving these firsthand accounts. Any notion that this is some kind of "therapeutic" program is off the mark. The total cost to taxpayers was $50,000. This whole matter was discussed from many points of view on the Wom-Po listserv a month or so ago. http://www.nea.gov/national/homecoming/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mandolin at mac.com Thu Oct 14 21:53:30 2004 From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 21:53:30 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03C2A07F-1E4D-11D9-8921-000A95E985A4@mac.com> On Oct 14, 2004, at 2:56 PM, Kent Johnson wrote: > Mike, > > On the below, could you please elaborate? What do you mean, exactly, by > "the absurd linguistics of Langpo"? And how do you see Paul Lake's > ideas > (I assume you are referring to his essay on postmodernism and science) > as dispensing with "Langpo linguistics"? > > Kent > > Mike Snider said: > > But I don't think that particular aquarium (hardly a stream) is big > enough even for guppies. It's more like one of those sad bowls for > betas > at WalMart and is astonishingly abiological. Several of the Derrida > obits ( a nice collection of them from sevceral perspectives at > www.aldaily.com, near the top in the left hand column) mention the > beginnings of Derrida's work in a disagreement with Husserl about the > nature of mathematics, which Derrida claimed could not be both "out > there" and a product of intuition. He was simply wrong, since intuition > is itself shaped through evolution by the world "out there" which > embodies (some of) the principles of matematics.The same class of error > permeates Derrida's work and much of the rest of post-modern thought, > incudling the absurd linguistics of langpo. Paul Lake's quite right -- > po-mo gibberish. > Kent, I can try, though a real job of it would mean writing a pretty lengthy essay. And though I wasn't thinking particularly of Paul's essay, it's certainly apropos. I've been wrong before, but it seems to me that the general project of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, at least in regard to linguistics, is based on the assumption that the ordinary use of language, in poetry as well as in everyday speech, is based on relatively arbitrary and politically manipulable correspondences, that even syntax is a vehicle for the suppression of original perception and thought. Through systematic and often ferociously formal derangement of ordinary language they seek to expose that arbitrariness, that vulnerability to manipulation. But it's a doomed project. Syntax, metaphor, and narrative are not arbitrary -- they are products of a long evolutionary history; they are part of how we are in the world (early Chomsky, George Lakoff, Mark Turner, Antonio Damasio for sources). Of course they can be used to manipulate others -- that is one of the primary functions of language -- but exploding them, far from being a liberation, leaves us with no tools to understand the world or each other (and is immensely boring after the first few big bangs). And the world, and other people, /are/ understandable, though not completely, of course. The Scholastics didn't believe that being made in the image of God allowed them to completely understand the mind of God, and the new cognitive sciences don't promise that because our senses and minds are formed by interaction with a real world that we can completely understand that world. From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 14 22:39:18 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:39:18 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other References: <03C2A07F-1E4D-11D9-8921-000A95E985A4@mac.com> Message-ID: <01d701c4b260$2f3ce120$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> I just want to point out that while I agree with Michael about the deluded philosophy behind language poetry, what is important is the result, and I feel language poetry has importantly extended the possibilities of poetry--for aesthetic expression, regardless of the silly rationale many of its practititioners have put forward. Something similar happened with abstract painting, I feel. --Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Snider" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 9:53 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other > > On Oct 14, 2004, at 2:56 PM, Kent Johnson wrote: > >> Mike, >> >> On the below, could you please elaborate? What do you mean, exactly, by >> "the absurd linguistics of Langpo"? And how do you see Paul Lake's ideas >> (I assume you are referring to his essay on postmodernism and science) >> as dispensing with "Langpo linguistics"? >> >> Kent >> >> Mike Snider said: >> >> But I don't think that particular aquarium (hardly a stream) is big >> enough even for guppies. It's more like one of those sad bowls for betas >> at WalMart and is astonishingly abiological. Several of the Derrida >> obits ( a nice collection of them from sevceral perspectives at >> www.aldaily.com, near the top in the left hand column) mention the >> beginnings of Derrida's work in a disagreement with Husserl about the >> nature of mathematics, which Derrida claimed could not be both "out >> there" and a product of intuition. He was simply wrong, since intuition >> is itself shaped through evolution by the world "out there" which >> embodies (some of) the principles of matematics.The same class of error >> permeates Derrida's work and much of the rest of post-modern thought, >> incudling the absurd linguistics of langpo. Paul Lake's quite right -- >> po-mo gibberish. >> > > Kent, I can try, though a real job of it would mean writing a pretty > lengthy essay. And though I wasn't thinking particularly of Paul's essay, > it's certainly apropos. > > I've been wrong before, but it seems to me that the general project of > L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, at least in regard to linguistics, is based on the > assumption that the ordinary use of language, in poetry as well as in > everyday speech, is based on relatively arbitrary and politically > manipulable correspondences, that even syntax is a vehicle for the > suppression of original perception and thought. Through systematic and > often ferociously formal derangement of ordinary language they seek to > expose that arbitrariness, that vulnerability to manipulation. But it's a > doomed project. Syntax, metaphor, and narrative are not arbitrary -- > they are products of a long evolutionary history; they are part of how we > are in the world (early Chomsky, George Lakoff, Mark Turner, Antonio > Damasio for sources). Of course they can be used to manipulate others -- > that is one of the primary functions of language -- but exploding them, > far from being a liberation, leaves us with no tools to understand the > world or each other (and is immensely boring after the first few big > bangs). And the world, and other people, /are/ understandable, though not > completely, of course. The Scholastics didn't believe that being made in > the image of God allowed them to completely understand the mind of God, > and the new cognitive sciences don't promise that because our senses and > minds are formed by interaction with a real world that we can completely > understand that world. > > _______________________________________________ > 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 14 23:48:15 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2004 22:48:15 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Get out of Dodge In-Reply-To: <00a701c4b23d$ce5e1d00$56001118@D6T95L21> Message-ID: OK, my mistake, Joe. I thought you referred to the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, not the Mabel Dodge poetry festival, which I confess I've not heard of. Apparently that festival brings together a congregation of the untalented. Featured poets on the program at the Geraldine R. Dodge festival this year, on the other hand, included Rita Dove, Lucille Clifton, Marilyn Hacker, Donald Hall, Stanley Kunitz, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Paul Muldoon, C.K. Williams, Billy Collins, Yusef Komunyakaa, Marilyn Chin, and Stephen Dunn. on 10/14/04 5:33 PM, Joe Safdie at jsafdie at comcast.net wrote: > David, I have never attended the Mabel Dodge poetry festival, but still > consider myself eminently qualified to pronounce upon it. There are, after > all, limits to the experiential model. Must we really have experienced > everything we write about? That would seem to eliminate, for example, most > of Robert Browning's work. > > And then, there's this paragraph, from the story in *Slate* that Gabe > directed us to earlier . . . > > "Operation Homecoming wants its participants to write the story of the war > that produces almost as many casualties as lies. 'And these often harrowing > tales are best told by the men and women who lived them,' writes Gioia > poetically. As a matter of fact, the story would be much better told by > those who died in Iraq, but they do not get to tell any stories, to > participate in workshops, or to come home-except in the coffins that under a > Pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains are not to be > seen on television or in newspapers." > > But I digress. From my limited experience with said festival (on various > public broadcasting stations), it seems to be a congregation of people who, > ummm, aren't very talented; at least, I've cringed at almost every poem I've > heard that's been read and/or produced there. The idea behind such a > festival is equivalent, in my mind, to the one that produced "National > Poetry Month" -- these are the folks who would share the same podium as Paul > Wolfowitz without some weapon of minor destruction in their pocket. Are they > sincere practitioners of the art? Yes, I believe they are. But sincerity, > too, doesn't seem to be the most valuable quality about poets or their > poems. Extended conceits regarding one's grandparents, sweet and syrupy > domestic concerns, earnest expressions of one's personal voice . . . that's > what I heard. Were they really "manipulative malpractice"? Such poems as > I've described are manipulative, I think, and aren't the model I'd > recommend. How many graduates of poetry workshops does it take to screw in a > lightbulb? > > ==================================================== 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 jkok at hfa.umass.edu Fri Oct 15 10:33:42 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 10:33:42 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other In-Reply-To: <01d701c4b260$2f3ce120$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> References: <03C2A07F-1E4D-11D9-8921-000A95E985A4@mac.com> <01d701c4b260$2f3ce120$3eb831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: Bob, This is not a trick questions, or an attempt to enlarge any thoughts of my own. For once, just a straight shot of curiosity: How do you think the philosphy behind Langpo is deluded? Again, I don't have a big agenda here - I was pushing a double stroller and reading very straight ahead poets during the heyday of Langpo - I missed some basic theory and when I ask questions, no one ever seems to have such a clear answer. So I proceed ignorantly onward reading who I love, hating who I hate, etc. etc. and making ungrounded pronouncements - a beloved vice... K. > I just want to point out that while I agree with Michael about the deluded > philosophy behind language poetry, what is important is the result, and I > feel language poetry has importantly extended the possibilities of > poetry--for aesthetic expression, regardless of the silly rationale many of > its practititioners have put forward. Something similar happened with > abstract painting, I feel. > > --Bob > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Michael Snider" > To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" > > Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 9:53 PM > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other > > > > > > On Oct 14, 2004, at 2:56 PM, Kent Johnson wrote: > > > >> Mike, > >> > >> On the below, could you please elaborate? What do you mean, exactly, by > >> "the absurd linguistics of Langpo"? And how do you see Paul Lake's ideas > >> (I assume you are referring to his essay on postmodernism and science) > >> as dispensing with "Langpo linguistics"? > >> > >> Kent > >> > >> Mike Snider said: > >> > >> But I don't think that particular aquarium (hardly a stream) is big > >> enough even for guppies. It's more like one of those sad bowls for betas > >> at WalMart and is astonishingly abiological. Several of the Derrida > >> obits ( a nice collection of them from sevceral perspectives at > >> www.aldaily.com, near the top in the left hand column) mention the > >> beginnings of Derrida's work in a disagreement with Husserl about the > >> nature of mathematics, which Derrida claimed could not be both "out > >> there" and a product of intuition. He was simply wrong, since intuition > >> is itself shaped through evolution by the world "out there" which > >> embodies (some of) the principles of matematics.The same class of error > >> permeates Derrida's work and much of the rest of post-modern thought, > >> incudling the absurd linguistics of langpo. Paul Lake's quite right -- > >> po-mo gibberish. > >> > > > > Kent, I can try, though a real job of it would mean writing a pretty > > lengthy essay. And though I wasn't thinking particularly of Paul's essay, > > it's certainly apropos. > > > > I've been wrong before, but it seems to me that the general project of > > L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, at least in regard to linguistics, is based on the > > assumption that the ordinary use of language, in poetry as well as in > > everyday speech, is based on relatively arbitrary and politically > > manipulable correspondences, that even syntax is a vehicle for the > > suppression of original perception and thought. Through systematic and > > often ferociously formal derangement of ordinary language they seek to > > expose that arbitrariness, that vulnerability to manipulation. But it's a > > doomed project. Syntax, metaphor, and narrative are not arbitrary -- > > they are products of a long evolutionary history; they are part of how we > > are in the world (early Chomsky, George Lakoff, Mark Turner, Antonio > > Damasio for sources). Of course they can be used to manipulate others -- > > that is one of the primary functions of language -- but exploding them, > > far from being a liberation, leaves us with no tools to understand the > > world or each other (and is immensely boring after the first few big > > bangs). And the world, and other people, /are/ understandable, though not > > completely, of course. The Scholastics didn't believe that being made in > > the image of God allowed them to completely understand the mind of God, > > and the new cognitive sciences don't promise that because our senses and > > minds are formed by interaction with a real world that we can completely > > understand that world. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 Fri Oct 15 04:47:41 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 03:47:41 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other In-Reply-To: <03C2A07F-1E4D-11D9-8921-000A95E985A4@mac.com> Message-ID: I've posted this on the list once before, but it seems apposite to Mike's point below. Paul * A Lesson in Hermeneutics In Kenya, vervet monkeys take the ground Until a sentry gives a chattering bark, Which in the simple vervet lexicon Means snake, and connotes evil, death and dark. Or else the sentry makes a guttural sound That translates in our own more complex tongue To hawk or eagle circling for prey, And sends the monkeys scampering. Either way, The monkeys must take action--jump or flee Across the ground or to a sheltering tree. Should one, instead, hearing a sentry speak, Decide to deconstruct the fellow's meaning And prove all urgent chattering oblique, A python's fang or hawk's cruel curving beak Will punctuate the monkey's idle preening, Ending his dissertation in mid-squeak. On 10/14/04 8:53 PM, "Michael Snider" wrote: > > On Oct 14, 2004, at 2:56 PM, Kent Johnson wrote: > >> Mike, >> >> On the below, could you please elaborate? What do you mean, exactly, by >> "the absurd linguistics of Langpo"? And how do you see Paul Lake's >> ideas >> (I assume you are referring to his essay on postmodernism and science) >> as dispensing with "Langpo linguistics"? >> >> Kent >> >> Mike Snider said: >> >> But I don't think that particular aquarium (hardly a stream) is big >> enough even for guppies. It's more like one of those sad bowls for >> betas >> at WalMart and is astonishingly abiological. Several of the Derrida >> obits ( a nice collection of them from sevceral perspectives at >> www.aldaily.com, near the top in the left hand column) mention the >> beginnings of Derrida's work in a disagreement with Husserl about the >> nature of mathematics, which Derrida claimed could not be both "out >> there" and a product of intuition. He was simply wrong, since intuition >> is itself shaped through evolution by the world "out there" which >> embodies (some of) the principles of matematics.The same class of error >> permeates Derrida's work and much of the rest of post-modern thought, >> incudling the absurd linguistics of langpo. Paul Lake's quite right -- >> po-mo gibberish. >> > > Kent, I can try, though a real job of it would mean writing a pretty > lengthy essay. And though I wasn't thinking particularly of Paul's > essay, it's certainly apropos. > > I've been wrong before, but it seems to me that the general project of > L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, at least in regard to linguistics, is based on > the assumption that the ordinary use of language, in poetry as well as > in everyday speech, is based on relatively arbitrary and politically > manipulable correspondences, that even syntax is a vehicle for the > suppression of original perception and thought. Through systematic and > often ferociously formal derangement of ordinary language they seek to > expose that arbitrariness, that vulnerability to manipulation. But it's > a doomed project. Syntax, metaphor, and narrative are not arbitrary -- > they are products of a long evolutionary history; they are part of how > we are in the world (early Chomsky, George Lakoff, Mark Turner, Antonio > Damasio for sources). Of course they can be used to manipulate others > -- that is one of the primary functions of language -- but exploding > them, far from being a liberation, leaves us with no tools to > understand the world or each other (and is immensely boring after the > first few big bangs). And the world, and other people, /are/ > understandable, though not completely, of course. The Scholastics > didn't believe that being made in the image of God allowed them to > completely understand the mind of God, and the new cognitive sciences > don't promise that because our senses and minds are formed by > interaction with a real world that we can completely understand that > world. > > _______________________________________________ > 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 anny.ballardini at tin.it Fri Oct 15 12:16:59 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 18:16:59 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Wonderful Shawls Message-ID: <007e01c4b2d2$661c1810$f08f3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> I am forwarding this message by Maria Demon that appeared on the Buffalo Poetry List: From: Maria Damon Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 11:58:09 -0500 Subject: poets in need shawl auction To: poetics at listserv.buffalo.edu hi all, i'm making another shawl sort of like the one visible at http://www.sheilashawl.umn.edu/shawls-Ebay-02.html (scroll down to "Flower Sunset", click on images to see in greater detail). This is to be auctioned off to benefit Poets in Need. Two other similar shawls have been bought by poets from this and the wompo list, benefiting Poets in Need and/or Silent Witness Initiative (Sheila Wellstone's favorite charity, a domestic homicide awareness and prevention program). Contact me to bid. The "sell-now" price is $200. Also if you have poetic charities you want items for silent auctions, let me know. If i've got enough advance notice i'll try to make a shawl or scarf for the event. They tend to be textual types of garments. mIEKAL aND, susan firgils park, chris funkhouser and petra backonja can let you know about recipient satisfaction. -- Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD at ripon.edu Fri Oct 15 12:59:09 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 11:59:09 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] National Book Awards Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A405@mail.ripon.edu> And the nominees in poetry are: William Heyen, "Shoah Train"; Donald Justice, "Collected Poems"; Carl Phillips, "The Rest of Love"; Cole Swensen, "Goest"; and Jean Valentine, "Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003." ============================================ 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 mandolin at mac.com Fri Oct 15 12:59:36 2004 From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:59:36 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9866D72A-1ECB-11D9-8921-000A95E985A4@mac.com> On Oct 15, 2004, at 4:47 AM, Paul Lake wrote: > I've posted this on the list once before, but it seems apposite to > Mike's > point below. > > Paul > * > > A Lesson in Hermeneutics > > > > > > > > In Kenya, vervet monkeys take the ground > > Until a sentry gives a chattering bark, > > Which in the simple vervet lexicon > > Means snake, and connotes evil, death and dark. > > Or else the sentry makes a guttural sound > > That translates in our own more complex tongue > > To hawk or eagle circling for prey, > > And sends the monkeys scampering. Either way, > > The monkeys must take action--jump or flee > > Across the ground or to a sheltering tree. > > Should one, instead, hearing a sentry speak, > > Decide to deconstruct the fellow's meaning > > And prove all urgent chattering oblique, > > A python's fang or hawk's cruel curving beak > > Will punctuate the monkey's idle preening, > Ending his dissertation in mid-squeak. > > Not as pointed as Paul's and preachier than I really like, here's one of mine on the same theme: We Are A Kind Of Map A buzzer-beating three-point shot reveals We're born to know our truths about this world, And so is everything: a fly conceals Itself till it's grown wings and they've unfurled; A virus has the key for just the cell Where it can flourish; that same cell, in dying, Creates an army ready to repel Precisely that invader or die in trying. Of course that's metaphor, but not a lie, Not just a way of trying to impose Some sense on senselessness, a useless "Why?" We answer till we like what we suppose. We'll make mistakes -- but make them unafraid: We see the world with eyes the world has made. From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Fri Oct 15 14:36:18 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 11:36:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] National Book Awards Nominees Short Anthology In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A405@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <20041015183618.19722.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> A sampling of poems from National Book Award nominees: Catbird William Heyen Another thick book of testimonies? I knew I could not remember them all. It was as though the survivors were moving past me in a line, & I were choosing among them: that way to oblivion, this way into a poem with my rhythmic baton. But this spring morning a catbird sang outside my door while I was reading, while Rabbi Solomon H. remembered his son, a nine-year-old who had, Solomon tells us, half the book of Psalms by heart. When he was taken to be slaughtered, he was saying the Psalms from memory. Just before being gassed, the boy said, ?I am still going to pray to God. Maybe at the last moment we will still be saved,? & I looked up, &, as catbirds will, this one kept singing like crazy, its song losing track of its beginning, never the melodies of final meanings, but going on as though nothing within its own singing could ever not remember everything. __________________________________ Ode to a Dressmaker's Dummy Donald Justice Papier-mache body; blue-and-black cotton jersey cover. Metal stand. Instructions included. -- Sears, Roebuck Catalogue O my coy darling, still You wear for me the scent Of those long afternoons we spent, The two of us together, Safe in the attic from the jealous eyes Of household spies And the remote buffooneries of the weather; So high, Our sole remaining neighbor was the sky, Which, often enough, at dusk, Leaning its cloudy shoulders on the sill, Used to regard us with a bored and cynical eye. How like the terrified, Shy figure of a bride You stood there then, without your clothes, Drawn up into So classic and so strict a pose Almost, it seemed, our little attic grew Dark with the first charmed night of the honeymoon. Or was it only some obscure Shape of my mother's youth I saw in you, There where the rude shadows of the afternoon Crept up your ankles and you stood Hiding your sex as best you could?-- Prim ghost the evening light shone through. _____________________________________ Leda, After the Swan Carl Phillips Leda, After the Swan Perhaps, in the exaggerated grace of his weight settling, the wings raised, held in strike-or-embrace position, I recognized something more than swan, I can't say. There was just this barely defined shoulder, whose feathers came away in my hands, and the bit of world left beyond it, coming down to the heat-crippled field, ravens the precise color of sorrow in good light, neither black nor blue, like fallen stitches upon it, and the hour forever, it seemed, half-stepping its way elsewhere-- then everything, I remember, began happening more quickly. _______________________________________ The Anatomy of Trees Cole Swenson Note the singular. Has endless fingers, filters senses, running its appendages through the sky, distracted, if you hold up the hand in bright daylight, it is well-known that if you hold a flashlight behind the hand, palmar view, in the dull red you can see for miles and things don't get smaller in the distance. ________________________________________ The River at Wolf Jean Valentine Coming east we left the animals pelican beaver osprey muskrat and snake their hair and skin and feathers their eyes in the dark: red and green. Your finger drawing my mouth. Blessed are they who remember that what they now have they once longed for. A day a year ago last summer God filled me with himself, like gold, inside, deeper inside than marrow. This close to God this close to you: walking into the river at Wolf with the animals. The snake's green skin, lit from inside. Our second life. Which is the most suprising choice by the list above? My favorite of the above is the Justice poem, but I'm a fan of Justice and have been for a while. I like the Valentine poem's language, the repetition, the reference to the Beatitudes--but I'm a bit lost as to what it's purpose could be. I guess I'd like to know more about the "you" being addressed and more about why this particular incident. Nonetheless, I think I'll pull a Grumman here and say that they all look the same . . . Just kidding, Bob ;-) Jeff Newberry --- "Graham, David" wrote: > And the nominees in poetry are: > > William Heyen, "Shoah Train"; Donald Justice, > "Collected Poems"; Carl > Phillips, "The Rest of Love"; Cole Swensen, "Goest"; > and Jean Valentine, > "Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, > 1965-2003." > > ============================================ > 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 > ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 15 14:55:38 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 14:55:38 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] National Book Awards Nominees Short Anthology References: <20041015183618.19722.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00f501c4b2e8$94565860$51b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > Nonetheless, I think I'll pull a Grumman here and say > that they all look the same . . . > > Just kidding, Bob ;-) > > > Jeff Newberry Well, they ARE all Iowa Plaintext Lyrics, Jeff. But that was no surprise. --Bob From MillB at aol.com Fri Oct 15 18:46:24 2004 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 18:46:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Carl Dennis Message-ID: Greetings, This goes out to anyone who is interested! Here's an article I wrote for my local paper about Carl Dennis' New and Selected Poems. _http://www.topangamessenger.com/articles.asp?SectionID=2&ArticleID=996_ (http://www.topangamessenger.com/articles.asp?SectionID=2&ArticleID=996) Cheers, Mill -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jkok at hfa.umass.edu Sat Oct 16 00:05:02 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 00:05:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] A PROPOS OF NOT EXACTLY ANYTHING In-Reply-To: <20041015183618.19722.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041015183618.19722.qmail@web52607.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: My offering for the month of October - an older poem recently submitted to an anthology. Da's Last Day The sight of you dead a hole in your chest. Your false teeth crisply bubble in the bathroom glass. Quiet falls like drizzle upon your yellowed feet. Then the sun comes out in a rowdy show. Another soul gone to God or the dogs. Tongith we will, each of us, sleep like logs. Kerry O'Keefe From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 16 06:45:58 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 12:45:58 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] clips and clips Message-ID: <00a201c4b36d$5284d260$dcd93052@yourpk9x5fuc06> About clips some mails arrive with clips, and someone once asked why (maybe me), anyhow here is the answer by Martin J. Walker on Poetryetc: It's a certificate that the mail is virus-free - Notepad will open it. Quite harmless Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 16 08:25:34 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 14:25:34 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Christina Georgina Rossetti Message-ID: <00da01c4b37b$3c9abe20$dcd93052@yourpk9x5fuc06> And I find this beautiful, just received from PoemHunter: A Study (A Soul) She stands as pale as Parian statues stand; Like Cleopatra when she turned at bay, And felt her strength above the Roman sway, And felt the aspic writhing in her hand. Her face is steadfast toward the shadowy land, For dim beyond it looms the light of day; Her feet are steadfast; all the arduous way That foot-track hath not wavered on the sand. She stands there like a beacon thro' the night, A pale clear beacon where the storm-drift is; She stands alone, a wonder deathly white; She stands there patient, nerved with inner might, Indomitable in her feebleness, Her face and will athirst against the light. Christina Georgina Rossetti Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Sat Oct 16 10:22:13 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 10:22:13 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Pia Tafdrup, "We Are Not Creatures of a Single Day" Message-ID: We Are Not Creatures of a Single Day In the darkness the moon keeps watch concavely. Your eyes are closed-- everyone has seen something, but not the same. What the face conceals, the night notices and the door stands open. Your eyes are closed-- your face is near to mine. A power rises and rises from the moment we are born, --and we are not creatures of a single day. Our brains are not constructed to guide wings but to build languages and navigate in a different way: to think is to try to see in a new way, with polar clarity --which also means to grasp the limitation. Your eyes are closed-- your body is a leap forward into that saffron-glowing radiance. Sleep has overturned the Rosetta stone of your brain; it shows a script we have not deciphered before . . . Our place is time, and we read, as though we are trying to remember what has not yet happened to us. What we do not do is not forgiven. One hand grips hard, the other protects, a third blesses. Your eyes are closed-- the soul is drawn by that infinite space, built from the pauses in the music. I have your cry in my mouth. --Pia Tafdrup fr. *The Whales in Paris* tr. David McDuff [Copenhagen: Gyldendal Publishers, 2002] Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Sat Oct 16 14:43:34 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 13:43:34 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other at Silliman's Message-ID: I assume some have seen Ron Silliman's commentary at his blog yesterday on the discussion here at New Poetry. He apparently took my posting of the excerpt from his blog as some kind of indirect attack. Man, now I almost want to join the Anti-Pomo Brigades (Red Flag Tendency), under the command of Mike Snider and Paul Lake! :~ ) Kent From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 16 16:30:13 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 22:30:13 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other at Silliman's References: Message-ID: <000b01c4b3be$f1399f20$3ad93052@yourpk9x5fuc06> Ron Silliman is right. There was no context, god knows what he meant. I cannot keep up with reading all his posts. I will shut up next time. Take care, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky From: "Kent Johnson" Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 8:43 PM > I assume some have seen Ron Silliman's commentary at his blog yesterday > on the discussion here at New Poetry. He apparently took my posting of > the excerpt from his blog as some kind of indirect attack. > > Man, now I almost want to join the Anti-Pomo Brigades (Red Flag > Tendency), under the command of Mike Snider and Paul Lake! > > :~ ) > > Kent > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sat Oct 16 17:02:53 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 23:02:53 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other at Silliman's References: <000b01c4b3be$f1399f20$3ad93052@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <001701c4b3c3$80f94170$3ad93052@yourpk9x5fuc06> On the other hand Kent is also right, the quotation he posted is inserted in a series of other paragraphs that have nothing to do with those 10,000 words Ron Silliman has written on Robert Duncan and the H.D. Book. I therefore apologize to Kent. And to Silliman. And I will observe 15 days silence. Adios, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anny Ballardini" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 10:30 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other at Silliman's > Ron Silliman is right. There was no context, god knows what he meant. I > cannot keep up with reading all his posts. I will shut up next time. > > Take care, > > Anny Ballardini > http://annyballardini.blogspot.com > http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome > The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather > admirers. > Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky > > > From: "Kent Johnson" > Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2004 8:43 PM > > > > I assume some have seen Ron Silliman's commentary at his blog yesterday > > on the discussion here at New Poetry. He apparently took my posting of > > the excerpt from his blog as some kind of indirect attack. > > > > Man, now I almost want to join the Anti-Pomo Brigades (Red Flag > > Tendency), under the command of Mike Snider and Paul Lake! > > > > :~ ) > > > > Kent > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Sun Oct 17 14:28:26 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 13:28:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] to Anny and Mike and Paul Message-ID: Anny, This is funny. No need to apologize, of course. And I sure hope you don't keep fifteen days of silence! And I wanted to say, too, that while my poetics are quite different from those of Michael Snider and Paul Lake, that I certainly admire the energy and eloquence with which they present their positions. So that remark about the "Anti-Pomo Brigade" was just a little bit of silly jocularity. By the way, Mike, I appreciated your response to my question. I may try to write something in response if I can get the time this week! Midterms and all that... Kent From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sun Oct 17 15:32:38 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 21:32:38 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] to Anny and Mike and Paul References: Message-ID: <000e01c4b480$1023c610$e38d3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> :-) dank you, :-) I am listening to Michael Basinski, and wanted to share this incredible link, maybe not all of you know it: http://factoryschool.org/content/sounds/havanaglen.html Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome From: "Kent Johnson" Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2004 8:28 PM > Anny, > > This is funny. No need to apologize, of course. And I sure hope you > don't keep fifteen days of silence! > > And I wanted to say, too, that while my poetics are quite different > from those of Michael Snider and Paul Lake, that I certainly admire the > energy and eloquence with which they present their positions. So that > remark about the "Anti-Pomo Brigade" was just a little bit of silly > jocularity. > > By the way, Mike, I appreciated your response to my question. I may try > to write something in response if I can get the time this week! Midterms > and all that... > > Kent > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From ron.silliman at verizon.net Mon Oct 18 07:44:25 2004 From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 07:44:25 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog -- 200, 000th visitor arrives this week Message-ID: <000001c4b507$d1f0bc30$6501a8c0@Dell> http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ RECENT TOPICS: A new bookcase - what it says about what I'm reading The best review I've had in years thanks to Magdalena Zurawski A prize this week for the blog's 200,000th visitor Quoting out of context as a mode of close reading Cole Swensen's Goest nominated for the National Book Award Travel notes: Two dozen thoughts while on the road R.I.P. Jacques Derrida What we think we know when we read a poem - height, race, girth & other variables of the poet Bookstores & the future of poetry distribution Kenneth Irby & a lesson on age differences - "location, location, location" The Free Speech Movement @ 40 - Berkeley celebrates a history of rebellion "Santa Cruz Propositions" - Robert Duncan as topical poet Hats off to C.D. Wright! http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ From lattaj at umich.edu Mon Oct 18 10:08:41 2004 From: lattaj at umich.edu (John Latta) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:08:41 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poppycock In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For anyone interested, I put up a consideration of Ron Silliman's poppycock about responses to the Kent Johnson-posed question (and Silliman quotation) here of a few days ago. http://hotelpoint.blogspot.com/ HOTEL POINT: No counters. Where a "hit" is _still_ a tab of acid. John From grahamd at ripon.edu Mon Oct 18 11:18:35 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:18:35 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Ashbery shortage Message-ID: I'm not a very regular explorer of the blogosphere, which strikes me as a rather spectacular way to avoid all sorts of work--even worse than listservs!--but occasionally I am sucked in by various hints and fragments that appear on my radar screen from elsewhere. Along those lines, I wanted to share this gem from what turns out to be a very interesting blog by Jonathan Mayhew: CRITICAL SHORTAGE OF ASHBERY POEMS PROJECTED UPI, New York, NY John Ashbery has not published a book of poetry in slightly over two years. The normally prolific New York City poet published his last book of poetry, Chinese Whispers, in May of 2002. It has been reported that most of his regular readers have already finished the book, and are growing increasingly restive while waiting for the next book to come out. While this might not seem to be cause for concern, many experts believe that the days of cheap, plentiful Ashbery poems are past.. "The stockpile of poems from collections of the 1980s and 1990s once seemed inexhaustible," stated Ashbery expert Garbo Suleiman, "but most of us have re-read these volumes to the point of exhaustion. If Ashbery continues to withold his poems from the market, we could see a return to the day of the early 1970s, when demand far outpaced demand." Ashbery could not be reached for comment. posted by Jonathan Mayhew at 1:14 PM Bemsha Swing http://jonathanmayhew.blogspot.com/ ==================================================== 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.lake at mail.atu.edu Mon Oct 18 04:29:10 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:29:10 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Other at Silliman's In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Kent, I quote you in an essay I have coming out online in Contemporary Poetry Review soon. If Ron Silliman sees your remarks there, his inclusion of you in the anti-po-mo conspiracy will be clinched for sure. Paul Lake On 10/16/04 1:43 PM, "Kent Johnson" wrote: > I assume some have seen Ron Silliman's commentary at his blog yesterday > on the discussion here at New Poetry. He apparently took my posting of > the excerpt from his blog as some kind of indirect attack. > > Man, now I almost want to join the Anti-Pomo Brigades (Red Flag > Tendency), under the command of Mike Snider and Paul Lake! > > :~ ) > > Kent > _______________________________________________ > 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 paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Mon Oct 18 04:39:59 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:39:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog -- 200, 000th visitor arrives this week In-Reply-To: <000001c4b507$d1f0bc30$6501a8c0@Dell> Message-ID: On 10/18/04 6:44 AM, "Ron" wrote: > What we think we know when we read a poem - > height, race, girth & other variables of the poet A recent topic from Silliman's blog. Or Monty Python's, I'm not sure which. --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] From clitophon at yahoo.com Mon Oct 18 11:44:41 2004 From: clitophon at yahoo.com (Paul Murphy) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 08:44:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] website In-Reply-To: <000e01c4b480$1023c610$e38d3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <20041018154441.45635.qmail@web40414.mail.yahoo.com> does anyone know of anywhere offering free web space, I mean somewhere reliable? as for the earlier dialogue I don't particularly want to be involved in an academic mailbase (or whatever you call this). I am a writer and want to explore the issues that matter to creative writers not to academics. Of course, in academic terms my thread was nonsense but that doesn't explain why so many creative writers, physicists and innovaters and visionaries in other fields departed from the xyz graph of logic depicted by Marcus. I also thought that Marcus was being pompous and clearly has more than a strand of misanthropy however pertinent his remarks were. And I don't apologise for using the word fuck or for regarding this mailbase as small and rather insignificant. It was, after all, you who invited me onto it not vice versa. And before you argue that point, I have evidence. Paul Murphy _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From grahamd at ripon.edu Mon Oct 18 11:56:12 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:56:12 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Great moments in blurbage Message-ID: Spotted on Poetry Daily today-- "If T. S. Eliot was right, that a new work of art alters all works that precede it, then Anne Winters's *The Displaced of Capital* will change American poetry just as deeply as *The Key to the City* did in 1986. . . ." --Stephen Cramer Did I miss something? *Another* memo I missed? Were you altered deeply in 1986? Now I am a firm admirer of Anne Winters's poems, and think *The Key to the City* is a fine book, but hoo-boy, this kind of hyperbole will probably put off as many potential readers as it attracts, I suspect. I still cherish a blurb I saw years back, by Galway Kinnell as I recall, who called a book by Jared Carter "agreeable." It was, and I enjoyed it all the more without the threat of any Road-to-Damascus life-alteration. ==================================================== 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 clitophon at yahoo.com Mon Oct 18 13:17:54 2004 From: clitophon at yahoo.com (Paul Murphy) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 10:17:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] pome In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041018171754.13089.qmail@web40402.mail.yahoo.com> WHO IS BETSY KINGSMITH? who you are, a mirage on a motorway a get rich quick scam something too good to be true and naked on a car bumper, an imitation of something sexual: hooker, policewoman, spy. deep Southern drawl; a woman?s name, a Confederate balloon hoisted to rouse the vicinity, empty pants, vacant chair. a photo reversed lidless eyes. images of Sheridan, broken shaking, an upside down ironclad, line of bayonets or tattered flags, Southern cross. Antietam, Potomac ? names that seemed just as many pink or white spots: host of pixels or manic pointillism penumbra, iron shavings, tumbleweed emptied barns, fields torn by the wind. Paul Murphy www.theengine.net _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Mon Oct 18 07:56:32 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 06:56:32 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Great moments in blurbage In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 10/18/04 10:56 AM, "David Graham" wrote: > Spotted on Poetry Daily today-- > > "If T. S. Eliot was right, that a new work of art alters all works that > precede it, then Anne Winters's *The Displaced of Capital* will change > American poetry just as deeply as *The Key to the City* did in 1986. . . ." > > --Stephen Cramer > > Did I miss something? *Another* memo I missed? Were you altered deeply in > 1986? > > Now I am a firm admirer of Anne Winters's poems, and think *The Key to the > City* is a fine book, but hoo-boy, this kind of hyperbole will probably put > off as many potential readers as it attracts, I suspect. > > I still cherish a blurb I saw years back, by Galway Kinnell as I recall, who > called a book by Jared Carter "agreeable." It was, and I enjoyed it all the > more without the threat of any Road-to-Damascus life-alteration. > > ==================================================== > 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 > --- > [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] > > I read--and own--Key to the City. Somehow, I missed the transformation experience. Paul Lake --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] From anny.ballardini at tin.it Mon Oct 18 15:32:47 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 21:32:47 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Slavery & Cultural Resistance in Havana & N.Orleans Message-ID: <005001c4b549$3fa34040$17ec3652@yourpk9x5fuc06> >Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 09:59:43 -0500 >From: Stacy Zellmann An illuminating look at the festival performances of slaves in Havana and New Orleans. NO MORE, NO MORE: Slavery and Cultural Resistance in Havana and New Orleans Daniel E. Walker University of Minnesota Press | 294 pages | 2004 ISBN 0-8166-4326-1 | hardcover | $59.95 ISBN 0-8166-4327-X | paperback | $19.95 This ambitious book looks at how people of African descent in two societies?Havana and New Orleans in the nineteenth century?created their own forms of cultural resistance to the slave regime's assault. No More, No More elucidates the economic, social, cultural, and demographic operations at work in two cities and the efforts at cultural resistance embodied in public performances. "No More, No More is a refreshing approach to understanding the cultural history of African slaves and freed blacks in Cuba and Louisiana." ?Philip Howard For more information, visit the book's webpage: http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/W/walker_nomore.html Sign up to receive news on the latest releases from University of Minnesota Press: http://www.upress.umn.edu/eform.html Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Thom424 at aol.com Mon Oct 18 16:54:33 2004 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 16:54:33 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Great moments in blurbage Message-ID: <19B3EE18.44E3CD59.001A46F6@aol.com> one of my favorites: tom wolfe on ken kesey's *one flew over the cuckoo's nest*: "more mr. kesey, more!" thom tammaro more (head), mn. From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Mon Oct 18 17:24:06 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 17:24:06 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Great moments in blurbage Message-ID: <144.36256f43.2ea58e76@cs.com> In a message dated 10/18/2004 3:55:24 PM Central Daylight Time, Thom424 at aol.com writes: > > X-INFO: INVALID TO LINE > one of my favorites: tom wolfe on ken kesey's *one flew over the cuckoo's > nest*: > > "more mr. kesey, more!" > > thom tammaro > more (head), mn. And he got "less, mr. wolfe, less"! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Mon Oct 18 17:34:26 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 16:34:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurbage Message-ID: Since we're on this subject, here is the blurb I wrote for Alan Sondheim's new book, VEL. You can order it through BlazeVox. Sondheim is a force of nature: "One might think of Alan Sondheim as the Joyce of our time. Too big while he's here among us, or while we're here among him, to get our heads around what he's done and is doing*On the other hand, it's clear he doesn't want to be our Joyce at all, in deliberate, un-scrolling process as he is of immolating himself, incinerating any last trace of canonical identity in a stupendous bonfire of poetry, code, and secret philosophy. What "Joyce" shall be left? What "Sondheim"? A monk burns in full view and the blaze refuses to go out. We're here watching, startled and baffled, contemptuous and titillated. That we don't quite know what fuels the seemingly mystical act renders the transfiguration all the more unsettling and marvelous. --Kent Johnson" From tad at opus40.org Mon Oct 18 17:42:07 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 17:42:07 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Great moments in blurbage References: <19B3EE18.44E3CD59.001A46F6@aol.com> Message-ID: <006501c4b55b$534c57a0$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> My favorite was on a WWII novel I wrote, and fortunately was able to see the cover copy before it was too late. One line revealed that the heroine "slips into a dangerous liaison with an enemy spy." I called the publisher and yelled, "Jim! That's supposed to be a surprise! It's one of big shockers of the novel!" They changed it to "slips into a dangerous liaison," which was bad enough, given that the character was supposed to seem innocent and trustworthy. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: ""NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views"" Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 4:54 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Great moments in blurbage > one of my favorites: tom wolfe on ken kesey's *one flew over the cuckoo's > nest*: > > "more mr. kesey, more!" > > thom tammaro > more (head), mn. > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Mon Oct 18 19:39:04 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:39:04 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Great moments in blurbage References: Message-ID: <007301c4b56b$ac31a7c0$89b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> >> Spotted on Poetry Daily today-- >> >> "If T. S. Eliot was right, that a new work of art alters all works that >> precede it, then Anne Winters's *The Displaced of Capital* will change >> American poetry just as deeply as *The Key to the City* did in 1986. . . >> ." >> >> --Stephen Cramer >> >> Did I miss something? *Another* memo I missed? Were you altered deeply >> in >> 1986? Isn't that the point? This book will alter American Poetry as deeply as the previous one--to wit, .00000000001% --Bob G. From anny.ballardini at tin.it Tue Oct 19 17:06:33 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 14:06:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] NarcissusWorks: On Beauty Message-ID: <2549271.1098219860188.JavaMail.root@bla13.blogger.com> Anny Ballardini has sent you a link to a weblog: Maybe someone has something to say : On Beauty? Here is my post today . Blog: NarcissusWorks Post: On Beauty Link: http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/2004/10/on-beauty.html -- Powered by Blogger http://www.blogger.com/ From halvard at earthlink.net Tue Oct 19 09:45:56 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 09:45:56 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] FYRP: Hell freezing over? Message-ID: <004801c4b5e1$f5a1b0a0$ef6fec04@computer> This was in my inbox yesterday morning. Enjoy. Hal "The thing to remember is that each time of life has its appropriate rewards, whereas when you're dead it's hard to find the light switch." --Woody Allen Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ >The following is an actual question given on a University of Washington >chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the >professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is of course, >why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well. > > >BONUS QUESTION: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs >heat)? > > > >Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas >cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. > > > >One student, however, wrote the following: > > First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. > So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and >the rate at which they are leaving. > I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it >will not leave. > Therefore, no souls are leaving. > As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different >religions that exist in the world today. > Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their >religion, you will go to Hell. > Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do >not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to >Hell. > > With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of >souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change >of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the >temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to >expand proportionately as souls are added. > > This gives two possibilities: > 1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which >souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase >until all Hell breaks loose. > > 2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls >in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes >over. > > So which is it? > > If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman >year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you," and take >into account the fact that I still have not succeeded in having an affair >with her, then number 2 above cannot be true, and thus I am sure that Hell >is endothermic and will not freeze over. > > > > THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY " A " From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Wed Oct 20 14:20:12 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 11:20:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Frost Message-ID: <20041020182012.23123.qmail@web52605.mail.yahoo.com> Howdy all, I've been asked to give a short "informance" about the Robert Frost poem "Death of the Hired Man" here on campus. The theater group is performing a live-action version of the poem; I'm not sure who the playwright is. Nonetheless, the drama head has asked me to read the poem and offer a little talk about Frost and the poem itself. I know what I want to say about the poem--I'll probably talk about the nature of family and kinship. However, I'm wondering if anyone has any good anecdotes or stories or anything about Frost that might make for a good introduction to "Death of the Hired Man." Anything at all would do, but I'm looking specifically for anything Frost might have said about that particular poem. Thanks for any response. I really appreciate it. Jeff ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From mandolin at mac.com Wed Oct 20 17:36:12 2004 From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:36:12 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Frost In-Reply-To: <20041020182012.23123.qmail@web52605.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20041020182012.23123.qmail@web52605.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3230005.1098308172578.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com> On Wednesday, October 20, 2004, at 05:08PM, Jeff Newberry wrote: >Howdy all, > >I've been asked to give a short "informance" about the >Robert Frost poem "Death of the Hired Man" here on >campus. The theater group is performing a live-action >version of the poem; I'm not sure who the playwright >is. Nonetheless, the drama head has asked me to read >the poem and offer a little talk about Frost and the >poem itself. > >I know what I want to say about the poem--I'll >probably talk about the nature of family and kinship. >However, I'm wondering if anyone has any good >anecdotes or stories or anything about Frost that >might make for a good introduction to "Death of the >Hired Man." Anything at all would do, but I'm looking >specifically for anything Frost might have said about >that particular poem. > >Thanks for any response. I really appreciate it. > >Jeff There's that extra foot in the first line, which Frost didn't recognize till it was pointed out to him after publishing. ----- Sent from webmail, so I'm not at my computer. http://radio.weblogs.com/0113501/ for the Sonnetarium From grahamd at ripon.edu Wed Oct 20 11:37:38 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 10:37:38 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Having wrecked my whole life Message-ID: On the Birth of his Son Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister. Su Tung-p'o (1036-1101 CE), trans. Arthur Waley ==================================================== 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 Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Wed Oct 20 18:35:13 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:35:13 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Having wrecked my life Message-ID: ."Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister." Rexroth's version in the ending is much better--or at least works better in English, I think. Not that Waley was a bad translator, obviously! : I only want a brave and simple boy Who will rise without impediment or effort to the highest offices. (I think I got that right, the line breaks are probably different. The Waley makes me think too much of George Bush!) Kent From kpaul at mallasch.com Wed Oct 20 20:54:07 2004 From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 19:54:07 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Frost Connections In-Reply-To: <3230005.1098308172578.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com> References: <20041020182012.23123.qmail@web52605.mail.yahoo.com> <3230005.1098308172578.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com> Message-ID: <20041020195340.D77526@kpaul.spinweb.net> "I see you're looking at my feet," he said to her when the car was in motion. it's an easy one. ;) -kpaul mallasch.com/mug/ On Wed, 20 Oct 2004, Michael Snider wrote: > > On Wednesday, October 20, 2004, at 05:08PM, Jeff Newberry wrote: > >> Howdy all, >> >> I've been asked to give a short "informance" about the >> Robert Frost poem "Death of the Hired Man" here on >> campus. The theater group is performing a live-action >> version of the poem; I'm not sure who the playwright >> is. Nonetheless, the drama head has asked me to read >> the poem and offer a little talk about Frost and the >> poem itself. >> >> I know what I want to say about the poem--I'll >> probably talk about the nature of family and kinship. >> However, I'm wondering if anyone has any good >> anecdotes or stories or anything about Frost that >> might make for a good introduction to "Death of the >> Hired Man." Anything at all would do, but I'm looking >> specifically for anything Frost might have said about >> that particular poem. >> >> Thanks for any response. I really appreciate it. >> >> Jeff > > There's that extra foot in the first line, which Frost didn't recognize till it was pointed out to him after publishing. > > > > ----- > Sent from webmail, so I'm not at my computer. > http://radio.weblogs.com/0113501/ for the Sonnetarium > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Oct 20 23:08:24 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 22:08:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Rexroth vs. Waley In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I don't know the language, so I can't speak to the accuracy of the translations. Rexroth, as always, does read very well in English, and I guess I do like it better as a poem in English. But I think I miss in it the sharpness of the political point that Waley's pushes home, the equation of success with stupidity. "Brave and simple" isn't quite as pointed as "ignorant and stupid," to my ears. Maybe Rexroth was trying to match some subtlety of the tone in the original? I can't believe he'd miss any opportunity to call officialdom stupid! Anyone around here read Chinese? Here are the two versions-- At the Washing of my Son Everybody wants an intelligent son. My intelligence only got me into difficulties. I want only a brave and simple boy, Who, without trouble or resistance, Will rise to the highest offices. --Su Tung-p'o, translated by Kenneth Rexroth ------------------------------ On the Birth of his Son Families, when a child is born Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life By becoming a Cabinet Minister. Su Tung-p'o, trans. Arthur Waley on 10/20/04 5:35 PM, Kent Johnson at Kent.Johnson at highland.edu wrote: > ."Only hope the baby will prove > Ignorant and stupid. > Then he will crown a tranquil life > By becoming a Cabinet Minister." > > Rexroth's version in the ending is much better--or at least works > better in English, I think. Not that Waley was a bad translator, > obviously! : > > I only want a brave and simple boy > Who will rise without impediment or effort > to the highest offices. > > (I think I got that right, the line breaks are probably different. The > Waley makes me think too much of George Bush!) > > Kent > ==================================================== 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 Wed Oct 20 23:48:26 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 23:48:26 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Frost Message-ID: <156.41eb7c80.2ea88b8a@cs.com> There is a film version of this, which I saw as a filler on AMC some years ago. It worked pretty well as a two-character mini-play. I've never been able to track down any biographical basis for this poem, though it's doubtless something Frost heard and enlarged on. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com Thu Oct 21 11:15:36 2004 From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 11:15:36 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Antony Hecht Message-ID: <148.367c05cf.2ea92c98@cs.com> Anthony Hecht died yesterday of complications from lymphoma. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Thu Oct 21 04:30:01 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 03:30:01 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Antony Hecht In-Reply-To: <148.367c05cf.2ea92c98@cs.com> Message-ID: On 10/21/04 10:15 AM, "Rsgwynn1 at cs.com" wrote: > Anthony Hecht died yesterday of complications from lymphoma. > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > Very sad news. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 21 11:52:45 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:52:45 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Translation/ Cipher/ Chinese Message-ID: Speaking of translation (and also specifically of the translation of Chinese poetry, Rexroth vs. Waley, etc), check out Cipher Journal, edited by Lucas Klein out of Yale, a PhD student in Translation Studies, with focus on Chinese poetry. It's one of the most interesting poetry projects on the web. The most recent materials are in tribute to Cid Corman. Here is link to the contents page: http://www.cipherjournal.com/html/contents.html Kent From grahamd at ripon.edu Thu Oct 21 12:19:22 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 11:19:22 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Antony Hecht In-Reply-To: <148.367c05cf.2ea92c98@cs.com> Message-ID: on 10/21/04 10:15 AM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com at Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote: Anthony Hecht died yesterday of complications from lymphoma. _______________________________________________ It will be interesting to see what happens to Hecht's reputation now that he's gone. I admire his work, but it strikes me that there is no general consensus yet about it--not only about whether he's a major figure, but also about which are his most lasting poems. The anthologies do tend, as they often do, to feature older poems, "The Dover Bitch," "More Light!," etc. (Sam Gwynn's recent *Contemporary American Poetry* does include "The Book of Yolek," from 1990.) So here's a query for the experts: what are Hecht's best poems? And what are his best recent ones? ==================================================== 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 JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 21 12:27:11 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 12:27:11 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Rexroth vs. Waley Message-ID: <1d5.2d3b9fa3.2ea93d5f@aol.com> In a message dated 10/20/2004 11:08:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, grahamd at ripon.edu writes: Anyone around here read Chinese? Nary a character of it, I'm afraid. I can't even make out those tattoos on the basketball players' deltoids. But I want to take this opportunity to remind people of a lovely little book called 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei....nineteen different translations of a single poem ("Deer Park" or "Deer Enclsoure"...) with comments on each version by Eliot Weinberger and intro contributed by the late great Octavio Paz. This slim volume makes for a well-received little gift at a mere $7.95. http://www.moyerbellbooks.com/mbcatAUTHORSq-z.html#0918825148 Jim F -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clitophon at yahoo.com Thu Oct 21 12:39:04 2004 From: clitophon at yahoo.com (Paul Murphy) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 09:39:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Translation/ Cipher/ Chinese In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20041021163904.57126.qmail@web40409.mail.yahoo.com> do you know Carlos Fleitas? --- Kent Johnson wrote: > Speaking of translation (and also specifically of > the translation of > Chinese poetry, Rexroth vs. Waley, etc), check out > Cipher Journal, > edited by Lucas Klein out of Yale, a PhD student in > Translation Studies, > with focus on Chinese poetry. It's one of the most > interesting poetry > projects on the web. The most recent materials are > in tribute to Cid > Corman. Here is link to the contents page: > > http://www.cipherjournal.com/html/contents.html > > Kent > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 21 12:52:07 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 12:52:07 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Get out of Dodge Message-ID: <196.31e38bb0.2ea94337@aol.com> This didn't go thru yesterday due to server problems... In a message dated 10/14/2004 6:34:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, jsafdie at comcast.net writes: Mabel Dodge poetry festival, but still consider myself eminently qualified to pronounce upon it. There are, after all, limits to the experiential model. Must we really have experienced everything we write about? That would seem to eliminate, for example, most of Robert Browning's work. And then, there's this paragraph, from the story in *Slate* that Gabe directed us to earlier . . . But I digress. From my limited experience with said festival (on various public broadcasting stations), it seems to be a congregation of people who, ummm, aren't very talented; at least, I've cringed at almost every poem I've heard that's been read and/or produced there. The idea behind such a festival is equivalent, in my mind, to the one that produced "National Poetry Month" -- these are the folks who would share the same podium as Paul Wolfowitz without some weapon of minor destruction in their pocket. Are they sincere practitioners of the art? Yes, I believe they are. But sincerity, too, doesn't seem to be the most valuable quality about poets or their poems. Extended conceits regarding one's grandparents, sweet and syrupy domestic concerns, earnest expressions of one's personal voice . . . that's what I heard. Were they really "manipulative malpractice"? Such poems as I've described are manipulative, I think, and aren't the model I'd recommend. How many graduates of poetry workshops does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Joe, Or one could ask, with insouciance, 'How many pseudo-avant's does it take to screw in a lighghtbulb?' I admit I missed some this thread but the poetry festival Silliman slights is actually the Geraldine Dodge... Tuesday, October 12, 2004 Both Deborah Ager and P.J. Taylor chronicled the Mabel Dodge Poetry Festival. I don?t think either intends their commentary to be read as satire, but it?s difficult not to read them that way. At least until one stops to think about just how much manipulative malpractice is being carried out on stage by people who ? in every sense of the word ? never get their own feet muddy. -- It's a blog, so I guess we have take it on faith that Silliman does have some dirt embedded in his bootsoles, 'feet cred', I guess they call that... I didn't go to the Dodge fest. Never been. But I've met Jane Hirshfield and Galway Kinnell. Neither strike me as manipulative by nature. Are post- modernist's as suspicious of sincerity in there own family relationships, friendships and marriages? It must be disconcerting to say "I love you," to someone whose first response is to cock an eyebrow. If you go thru those blog links above you can get a sense of what the panel discussion in question was all about. Finnegan BTW, if memory serves, Mabel Dodge was a lover of both DH Lawrence and Robinson Jeffers (brief affair). So she had pretty good taste in poets...but I don't know if she's related to Geraldine or not. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 21 13:15:27 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 12:15:27 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fleitas Message-ID: do you know Carlos Fleitas? No, Paul, I don't. What about him? Kent From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 21 14:51:54 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 11:51:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Derrida Addendum Message-ID: <20041021185154.93631.qmail@web52603.mail.yahoo.com> We all know that Derrida's dead, so I wish I'd posted this a couple of weeks ago: http://www.storysouth.com/summer2003/kirby-feature.html About halfway down the page is a poem entitled "Dear Derrida." Jeff ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" _______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com From grahamd at ripon.edu Thu Oct 21 16:14:11 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 15:14:11 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Derrida Addendum In-Reply-To: <20041021185154.93631.qmail@web52603.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: on 10/21/04 1:51 PM, Jeff Newberry at jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com wrote: > We all know that Derrida's dead, so I wish I'd posted > this a couple of weeks ago: > > http://www.storysouth.com/summer2003/kirby-feature.html > > About halfway down the page is a poem entitled "Dear > Derrida." > > Jeff > And while visiting the StorySouth web site, I recommend that you go take a look at a couple poems by a certain Jeff Newberry: http://www.storysouth.com/summer2004/newberry.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 anny.ballardini at tin.it Thu Oct 21 16:32:08 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 22:32:08 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] forwarding a mail Message-ID: <003201c4b7ad$0989af60$d18d3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> I find this mail sent by Mary Jo Malo to the Buffalo list quite interesting, : Poetry was originally both prophetic and eerie and has been elucidated as such by Robert Graves in his controversial tome, The White Goddess. The ancient Hebrew prophets and psalmists were poets in this tradition, and even Thomas Paine tried to explain this to a fledgling but Puritan America. Epic warrior and religious poetry in many cultures was often prophetic, and later converted to the romance cycle or perverted into secular law. I'm particularly prejudiced to Grave's work regarding the ancient oracle traditions, but I'm completely sympathetic with his recognition of the poet's (druid or whatever) indebtedness to a woman's dreams and intuition in their unconscious environment. In the finest Celtic tradition of the 'hywl', poetry is often a trance, a spontaneous pouring forth, an automatic writing if you will. Poets teach themselves and by extension anyone else who wants to know. Yes, we can craft and perfect, but the content is 'inspired' and most often reflects the poetic theme: life, death and what remains of the beloved. Poets make connections, and that they can transcend time shouldn't surprise us. ___________________________________________ Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 21 21:26:37 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:26:37 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Call for Submissions: "'Export: Writing the Midwest'" Message-ID: <8e.180759e9.2ea9bbcd@aol.com> Date:? ? Thu, 21 Oct 2004 21:19:38 +0100 From:? ? Andrew Lundwall Subject: REMINDER: Call for Submissions: "'Export: Writing the Midwest'" dear midwestern friends + colleagues... currently i am putting together an e-anthology for january issue of michael rothenberg's fine electronic literary journal Big Bridge www.bigbridge.org the e-anthology "Export: Writing the Midwest" aims to highlight the work of writers either currently living in or who have a very relevant and personal relation with the midwest... i am looking for submissions of poetry...fiction...essays...memoirs...whatever quality material you should decide to send... **** GUIDELINES: Poetry...Submit no more than 4 poems at a time in either .doc, .txt, or in the body of an email... Fiction/Non-Fiction...Should not exceed 4 pages preferably sent as a .doc file... Contact: Andrew Lundwall (andrew at poeticinhalation.com) Deadline: December 1st Subject line of emailed submission should read: "Big Bridge Submission/'Export: Writing the Midwest'"... Please include with submissions a short descriptive biographical note and (if you've one to share) an author's photo... best... andrew lundwall -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Fri Oct 22 05:34:33 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (anny.ballardini at tin.it) Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 05:34:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] NYTimes.com Article: Art Review: Those Witty, Mocking Germans Message-ID: <20041022093433.4904635040@web38t.prvt.nytimes.com> The article below from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by anny.ballardini at tin.it. Interesting is the slide show, till soon, Anny anny.ballardini at tin.it /--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\ SIDEWAYS - OPENS IN NEW YORK AND LOS ANGELES OCT. 22 An official selection of the New York Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, SIDEWAYS is the new comedy from Alexander Payne, director of ELECTION and ABOUT SCHMIDT. Starring Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Sandra Oh and Virginia Madsen, SIDEWAYS opens in NY & LA October 22 and will expand across North America in November. Watch the trailer at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/sideways/index_nyt.html \----------------------------------------------------------/ Art Review: Those Witty, Mocking Germans October 22, 2004 By ROBERTA SMITH New York City's big museums account for French modernism in unstinting detail. But the German variety? That narrative has been broached but hardly mastered, much less remastered as will be the case with French art in the next incarnation of the Museum of Modern Art. Relatively speaking, the ferment of German art from the turn of the last century to the eve of World War II, and its often excoriating mirroring of German society, remains terra incognita in this country. Its fabulous topography is only intermittently charted. At the moment that cartography is being extended by two modest, yet revelatory exhibitions, one in a museum, the other in a commercial gallery. Foremost of the two is "Comic Grotesque: Wit and Mockery in German Art, 1870-1940,'' a splendidly multimedia revisionist show at the three-year-old Neue Galerie, New York's first museum for German and Austrian culture. This show is a little engine that can. At once spare and richly suggestive, it has been organized by Pamela Kort, an independent curator based in Berlin. It represents fewer than two dozen artists, writers and entertainers, both famous (Hannah H?ch and Max Ernst) and not so famous (the satiric illustrator Thomas Theodor Heine and the great Karl Valentin, the star of stage, screen and cabaret who was Germany's Charlie Chaplin). Dr. Kort's show considers early modern German culture from a new angle: the comic grotesque, followed through painting, graphic design, poetry and film. The exhibition suggests that this penchant for distorted, if not invented, bodies and beings that merge satire, horror and beauty in varying ratios is an essential ingredient in German modernism. It may be overt in the work of the German Expressionists and the Dadaists who emerged in Germany around World War I, but it is implicit in the Neue Sachlichkeit, or the New Objectivity, which sprang up in the Weimar Republic in the 1920's. The second show, at the Ubu Gallery, concentrates on the Neue Sachlichkeit style itself, and in many regards provides a suitable foil for "Comic Grotesque.'' At Ubu, the focus is exclusively on orthodox art objects (more than 80 works on canvas and paper) and a fairly consistent visual style based on closely observed reality, not fantasy. But the Ubu show rightly stretches Neue Sachlichkeit to its limits, until it incorporates both the majestic factuality of the photographs of August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt and Albert Renger-Patzsch, and the grotesque. The two shows have three artists in common: George Grosz, Rudolf Schlichter and the imposing but little-known Georg Scholz, whose fastidiously unruly paintings stand out in both installations. The Neue Galerie show suggests that while the horrors and hardships of World War I and its aftermath radicalized many artists, one of their most useful tools - the comic grotesque - had been in active use for decades. Here it is traced back to the 1870's paintings of the idiosyncratic Swiss Symbolist Arnold B?cklin (1827-1901), who treated classical themes in less than ideal terms, with results that were vigorously debated in Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany. Indeed, B?cklin's 1875 "Sirens'' at the show's entrance still seems worth arguing about: lolling on a rocky coast, the seaside seductresses merge women's heads and torsos with vividly detailed bird's feathers and clawed feet, creating a creepiness that is both cartoonish and real. (It brings to mind the equally bizarre yet realistic hybrids of the contemporary painter Mark Greenwold.) >From B?cklin, "Comic Grotesque'' unfolds in three very different galleries, each of which might be expanded into a separate show. Lightness prevails; the walls are painted decidedly ungrotesque shades of what Martha Stewart might call butter, lavender, mint and peach. In addition, there is a pint-size cinema featuring Valentin's hilarious films, some of them made with the help of the young Bertold Brecht. Valentine is also represented by a vitrine plastered with photographs of the comedian decked out in an encyclopedic array of identities, like Claude Cahun or Cindy Sherman, along with playbills and handouts printed with jokes that are, unfortunately, not translated. Everything here is either unfamiliar or recontextualized. In the company of the B?cklin works, Alfred Kubin's Seussian sea monsters and the fleshy demonic creatures of Paul Klee's early years make new sense. Startling is the only word for the little-seen late 1890's works of the German Expressionist Emil Nolde, an ardent admirer of B?cklin. These include images of snub-nosed mountain giants and a series of postcards that turn various Alps into friendly monsters not unlike the talking trees in the second Harry Potter movie. In the second gallery, Lionel Feininger's exquisite drawings of malevolent steam engines and underwater gluttons find sympathetic company with the elaborate fusions of plant, animal and insect visible in the finely stippled lithographs of the poet Paul Scheerbart; Heine's less well known characters, most notably a black doglike devil; and an early gouache that shows Heine's influence, by John Heartfield. The mature Heartfields here include an image of an iconic tannenbaum shaped into a swastika. New influences and relationships are diagrammed and several expertly reconstructed puppets, made and used in performance by H?ch and Grosz, add to the liveliness. Also on hand is a reconstruction of the well-documented effigy of a German soldier that Heartfield and Schlichter made for the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920. (It looks something like a prototype for the Nazi rats in Art Spiegelman's "Maus.'') Collages and collage-paintings by H?ch, Raoul Hausmann and Grosz confirm their brilliance. Meanwhile, Scholz remained true to the oil medium in his painting "Industrial Farmers'' (give or take a touch of collage). But his Frankensteinesque family suggests a photograph by Sander seen through the distorting lens of Hausman's photomontage. In contrast to the hand-picked excellence of "Comic Grotesque,'' the Neue Sachlichkeit exhibition at Ubu feels a bit like an old-fashioned Whitney annual, up and down, all over the place, but highly informative. With works by several dozen artists, many completely unknown in this country, we get an inkling of the popularity of the German return to realism, or to what the Expressionist Ludwig Meidner heralded as "a fanatical, fervent naturalism." Fanatical and fervent, often. But naturalistic? Only occasionally. Christian Schad is here, represented by a chilly double portrait of two women in profile and the photograph it was based on. So is a work by an unknown artist named Ernest Neuschul, much more conventionally realistic, and also, it seems, based on a photograph. One sees the influences of both Grosz and Otto Dix on lesser artists. Dix is represented here by an interesting if uncharacteristic work: a loosely rendered painting of a woman in a Renoir-like pose; Grosz by a muscular image of a fist called "Ideas of the Time.'' Other outstanding works include Scholz's still life of cactuses, which he turns into another family of malformed mutants; Franz Lenk's "Still Life With Potatoes, Cup, Onion,'' which has the serenity of a Photo Realist Morandi; Hans Bellmer's refreshingly uneroticized portrait of a young girl, in pencil on rose-colored paper; and Anton R?derscheidt's muscular tempera drawing of a man on the street whose bow tie and hat give him the stylishness of an Alex Katz self-portrait from the 1950's. Finally, small meticulous drawings by Eddy Smith, another little-known artist, show how the fastidious, fanatical study of nature can push on through to the grotesque. This is especially evident in his rendering of a man with a Neanderthal brow titled "Killer With a Dove.'' In what they encompass and what they allude to, these exhibitions go beyond comic grotesque or the new objectivity. They suggest that despite its immense diversity, German modernism before World War II is united by a relentless scrutiny of the world on one level or another. Its results could range from scathing social commentary, as is the case with these two exhibitions, or the stripped down designs of the Bauhaus. But on all scores it was an attention that was more confrontational than contemplative, bent on increasing society's ability to seek itself at a time when such vision was in short supply. "Comic Grotesque: Wit and Mockery in German Art, 1870-1940'' is at the Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street, (212)628-6200, through Feb. 14. "Neue Sachlichkeit: New Objectivity in Weimar Germany'' is at the Ubu Gallery, 416East 59th Street, (212)753-4444, through Dec. 18. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/arts/design/22smit.html?ex=1099437673&ei=1&en=3b8793eac57df3e6 --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! Click here: http://homedelivery.nytimes.com/HDS/SubscriptionT1.do?mode=SubscriptionT1&ExternalMediaCode=W24AF HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales at nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help at nytimes.com. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company From JforJames at aol.com Fri Oct 22 10:27:43 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:27:43 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan gives poetry a try Message-ID: <193.31b7c2dd.2eaa72df@aol.com> http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2004/10/22/10816 Poems are made by fools like me Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan gives poetry a try By Keri Carlson Since Bob Dylan, we have come to accept the belief that songwriters are poets. Lyrics (the good ones) have form, rhythm, wordplay, imagery and often rhyme ? all the makings of a poem. It?s hard to deny that a song is really a musical poem. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wwmorgan at ilstu.edu Fri Oct 22 10:38:24 2004 From: wwmorgan at ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan) Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 09:38:24 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Question about Publishing Protocol Message-ID: <6.0.2.0.2.20041022093313.01b14eb0@mail.ilstu.edu> Living as I do in Central Illinois, and writing as I often do about the local landscape, I was attracted to yesterday's call for submissions on "Export: Writing the Midwest." But here's the problem: most of my eligible poems are part of a collection that has just been accepted for publication as a chapbook. If a poem has not been published in a journal but is part of an accepted (but not yet published) collection, is it bad form to submit that poem elsewhere during the period between acceptance and publication in book form? Can anybody advise? tight lines, Bill Morgan From lattaj at umich.edu Fri Oct 22 12:45:44 2004 From: lattaj at umich.edu (John Latta) Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 12:45:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems at Verse In-Reply-To: <154.422b982b.2eaa8f0f@aol.com> References: <154.422b982b.2eaa8f0f@aol.com> Message-ID: Just to note: three new John Latta poems up at _Verse_: "Gap," "Loud," and "Kudos and Xyster," all out of a new manuscript call'd _Some Alphabets._ That last one's for Donald "Fangs" Rumsfeld. http://versemag.blogspot.com/ http://versemag.blogspot.com/2004/10/new-john-latta-poems.html Cheers, John From anny.ballardini at tin.it Fri Oct 22 14:08:03 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:08:03 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Question about Publishing Protocol References: <6.0.2.0.2.20041022093313.01b14eb0@mail.ilstu.edu> Message-ID: <007101c4b862$138ed4d0$74a83252@yourpk9x5fuc06> This is a problem you should solve with your publisher. Some see the acceptance of your work by others as a good advertisement of their choices, others ask for the privelege of being the only publishers. Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Morgan" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 4:38 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Question about Publishing Protocol > Living as I do in Central Illinois, and writing as I often do about the > local landscape, I was attracted to yesterday's call for submissions on > "Export: Writing the Midwest." But here's the problem: most of my eligible > poems are part of a collection that has just been accepted for publication > as a chapbook. If a poem has not been published in a journal but is part > of an accepted (but not yet published) collection, is it bad form to submit > that poem elsewhere during the period between acceptance and publication in > book form? Can anybody advise? > > tight lines, > > Bill Morgan > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 22 17:54:28 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 17:54:28 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: Anthony Hecht, 1923-2004 Message-ID: <27.6474a921.2eaadb94@aol.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Timothy Materer Subject: Anthony Hecht, 1923-2004 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:52:43 -0500 Size: 8063 URL: From wwmorgan at ilstu.edu Fri Oct 22 21:00:47 2004 From: wwmorgan at ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan) Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:00:47 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Question about Publishing Protocol In-Reply-To: <007101c4b862$138ed4d0$74a83252@yourpk9x5fuc06> References: <6.0.2.0.2.20041022093313.01b14eb0@mail.ilstu.edu> <007101c4b862$138ed4d0$74a83252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <6.0.2.0.2.20041022195956.01b2feb0@mail.ilstu.edu> Thanks for the sensible suggestion, Anny. I'll just ask the publisher. Duh. Bill At 01:08 PM 10/22/2004, you wrote: >This is a problem you should solve with your publisher. Some see the >acceptance of your work by others as a good advertisement of their choices, >others ask for the privelege of being the only publishers. > >Anny Ballardini >http://annyballardini.blogspot.com >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome >The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather >admirers. >Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Bill Morgan" >To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" > >Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 4:38 PM >Subject: [New-Poetry] Question about Publishing Protocol > > > > Living as I do in Central Illinois, and writing as I often do about the > > local landscape, I was attracted to yesterday's call for submissions on > > "Export: Writing the Midwest." But here's the problem: most of my >eligible > > poems are part of a collection that has just been accepted for publication > > as a chapbook. If a poem has not been published in a journal but is part > > of an accepted (but not yet published) collection, is it bad form to >submit > > that poem elsewhere during the period between acceptance and publication >in > > book form? Can anybody advise? > > > > tight lines, > > > > Bill Morgan > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 23 12:18:07 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 12:18:07 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] ns Message-ID: <8e.18390fc1.2eabde3f@aol.com> Sally Ball sallyball at az.rmci.net Four ways -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tad at opus40.org Sat Oct 23 17:13:14 2004 From: tad at opus40.org (The Old Mole) Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 17:13:14 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] ns References: <8e.18390fc1.2eabde3f@aol.com> Message-ID: <001801c4b945$1e0591e0$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> At least. ----- Original Message ----- From: JforJames at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 12:18 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] ns Sally Ball sallyball at az.rmci.net Four ways ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Sat Oct 23 17:54:40 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 14:54:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] ns In-Reply-To: <001801c4b945$1e0591e0$6401a8c0@MoleHQ> Message-ID: <20041023215440.9238.qmail@web52605.mail.yahoo.com> >From next Tuesday? --- The Old Mole wrote: > At least. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: JforJames at aol.com > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2004 12:18 PM > Subject: [New-Poetry] ns > > > Sally Ball > sallyball at az.rmci.net > > Four ways > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 > ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 23 21:41:08 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 21:41:08 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] ns Message-ID: <27.64905c5a.2eac6234@aol.com> Just daft on my part. I was trying to forward an email address to another computer. That note to myself meant Four Way Books. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sun Oct 24 06:35:01 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2004 12:35:01 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] ns References: <27.64905c5a.2eac6234@aol.com> Message-ID: <004201c4b9b5$1e2a6310$3fec3652@yourpk9x5fuc06> You are lucky James that you send only tiny notes. Once taken by the story of a lady on Poetryetc. I wrote the beauty of words and words talking of my _spiritual (?)_ extra-ordinary (?)_ invented (but believed? -at the moment)_ experiences, I changed the subject to b/c and sent it to the List! Thus showing everybody how Mad a simple person can be. After similar events, I meticulously check for about 15 days if I am sending f/ or b/c, and then for the peace of my mind, it just goes down to the next fault. Last time I did something similar I first received a mail by my friend Rebecca Seiferle by which she was telling me of my mistaken address, and not to worry because there was practically nothing personal in the mail, I think she had felt at a distance my sudden pull-back when all that religious outlet stuffed out... Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: JforJames at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Sunday, October 24, 2004 3:41 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] ns Just daft on my part. I was trying to forward an email address to another computer. That note to myself meant Four Way Books. Finnegan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ron.silliman at verizon.net Mon Oct 25 07:06:50 2004 From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 07:06:50 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog - Where Goest Cole Swensen? Message-ID: <002b01c4ba82$ba693b70$6401a8c0@Dell> http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ RECENT TOPICS: So where Goest Cole Swensen? Joe Safdie on names, poetry & the redbirds of St. Louis Our 200,000th visitor is. . . "They were tamed by pitchers who, in an era when arms are more delicate than orchids, worked like Iditarod dogs." Writing as an activity vs. writing as a process How different generations handle the plethora of new poetry A new bookcase - what it says about what I'm reading The best review I've had in years thanks to Magdalena Zurawski A prize this week for the blog's 200,000th visitor Quoting out of context as a mode of close reading Cole Swensen's Goest nominated for the National Book Award Travel notes: Two dozen thoughts while on the road R.I.P. Jacques Derrida What we think we know when we read a poem - height, race, girth & other variables of the poet http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ From JforJames at aol.com Mon Oct 25 14:02:57 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 14:02:57 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poem of consolation Message-ID: <75.36812364.2eae99d1@aol.com> Do any poems come to mind that might be suitable for a memorial service for a 17-year old girl (our neighbor's daughter) who died in a car accident this weekend. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Mon Oct 25 15:31:22 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 21:31:22 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] poem of consolation References: <75.36812364.2eae99d1@aol.com> Message-ID: <002601c4bac9$36382ae0$a5d63152@yourpk9x5fuc06> I thought of Ophelia, as soon as I read your message, but it might be out of order, maybe only a couple of chosen passages would do, http://www.mag4.net/Rimbaud/poesies/Ophelia.html I just put on my blog my friend Kenneth Hirst's Eulogy for his mother, sad circumstances, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: JforJames at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 8:02 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] poem of consolation Do any poems come to mind that might be suitable for a memorial service for a 17-year old girl (our neighbor's daughter) who died in a car accident this weekend. Finnegan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Mon Oct 25 21:12:59 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 21:12:59 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Karen Alkalay-Gut's Thin Lips Message-ID: <20.363fd343.2eaefe9b@aol.com> She was a part of this list at one point or maybe that was CAP-L... http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull& cid=1098677407827 JPost.com " Living " Music " Article Oct. 25, 2004 6:56 Progressive poetry By ATIRA WINCHESTER Tel Aviv poet Karen Alkalay-Gut is astounded by the success of her progressive rock album. No one was more surprised than Tel Aviv poet Karen Alkalay-Gut, 59, to find her progressive rock album Thin Lips on the shelves last summer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Tue Oct 26 06:46:49 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 12:46:49 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Serfaty: The Mirror and the Veil Message-ID: <004b01c4bb49$19e548c0$54a83452@yourpk9x5fuc06> Editions Rodopi BV is pleased to announce the following new publication(s) in American Studies: Viviane Serfaty: The Mirror and the Veil. An Overview of American Online Diaries and Blogs. Amsterdam/New York, NY 2004. X, 144 pp. (Amsterdam Monographs in American Studies 11) ISBN: 90-420-1803-8 ? 32,- The Mirror and the Veil offers a unique perspective on the phenomenon of online personal diaries and blogs. Blending insights from literary criticism, from psychoanalytical theory and from social sciences, Viviane Serfaty identifies the historical roots of self-representational writing in America and studies the original features it has developed on the Internet. She perceptively analyzes the motivations of bloggers and the repercussions their writings may have on themselves and on American society at large. This book will be of interest to specialists in American Studies, to students in literature, communication, psychology and sociology, as well as to anyone endeavoring to understand the new set of practises created by Internet users in America. ---------- For more information please refer to our website at http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?BookId=AMAS+11 or send an email to info at rodopi.nl or subscriptions at rodopi.nl (for subscriptions only). ---------- Free Electronic newsletter and online titles: www.rodopi.nl Rodopi Tijnmuiden 7 1046 AK Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel. ++ 31 (0)20 611 48 21 Fax. ++ 31 (0)20 447 29 79 North America: Rodopi One Rockefeller Plaza, Suite 1420 New York, NY 10020 USA Tel. 212-265-6360 Fax. 212-265-6402 Call toll-free: 1-800-225-3998 (USA only) Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Tue Oct 26 06:49:33 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 12:49:33 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] New Developments in Intermedia Message-ID: <005601c4bb49$7ae6f6a0$54a83452@yourpk9x5fuc06> > Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 12:20:10 +0200 > From: Bernd Herzogenrath ReBlurring the Boundaries: New Developments in Intermedia Over the past decades, the subject of intermedia has leant itself to countless studies. Still, the ongoing and accelerating development and global convergence of technologies call for perpetual re-assessment. Our workshop invites contributors to join in an attempt to trace new developments in a realm of fluctuating and competing discourses. The issues discussed can be exemplified as follows: What is so techno about techno, and how can Jazz be noir? What are the fictional and narrative strategies of computer games? What is so Hindu about the virtual avatar? In how far is Bret Easton Ellis cinematic, and how punk is Kathy Acker? In general: How do fiction, film, music, internet, plastic, performative, and fine arts negotiate their shapes, formats, and contents? How does their interaction shape their techniques of representation, strategies of communication, and forms of reception? What is the role of technology in the assimilation or authenticity of cultures? The contributors are encouraged to address the local implications of global change. A central aspect will be the hybridity of various forms of representation, genres, and formats. Since the majority of the essays will somehow have to deal with the (impossibility of the) description of their medial object of research, an additional CD-ROM (with links, examples, and - maybe - short film/music/etc. clips) would be a highly welcomed ,supplement' to this volume. We are currently looking for contributions for this volume - a European/American publisher has already expressed interest in the project. Abstracts and/or finished papers can be sent any time - contact me NOW if you're interested. Contributors should mail their suggestions (as Word-Attachments) to: Dr. phil. Bernd Herzogenrath English Department/American Studies University of Cologne Albertus-Magnus Platz 50923 Cologne Germany email: Brundlefly at web.de http: www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/englisch/berressem/herzogenrath/ Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Tue Oct 26 09:06:11 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 06:06:11 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] politics, but poetry Message-ID: <417E4BC2.80410788@earthlink.net> "Tribe," by Edward Dorn, today at http://www.poems.com/today.htm A damn fine and appropriate poem. - Jim From jsafdie at comcast.net Tue Oct 26 11:33:05 2004 From: jsafdie at comcast.net (Joe Safdie) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 08:33:05 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] politics, but poetry References: <417E4BC2.80410788@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <017b01c4bb71$168a2fb0$56001118@D6T95L21> Any ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Cervantes" To: "new-poetry" Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 6:06 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] politics, but poetry > "Tribe," by Edward Dorn, today at http://www.poems.com/today.htm > > A damn fine and appropriate poem. > > - Jim > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From jsafdie at comcast.net Tue Oct 26 11:34:51 2004 From: jsafdie at comcast.net (Joe Safdie) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 08:34:51 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] politics, but poetry References: <417E4BC2.80410788@earthlink.net> Message-ID: <018101c4bb71$55bd62b0$56001118@D6T95L21> Sorry about that! I was going to say . . . Anyone interested in another view of Ed Dorn's political poems might see my piece about them in *Jacket* . . . it's at http://jacketmagazine.com/25/safdie-dorn.html Joe ----- Original Message ----- From: "James Cervantes" To: "new-poetry" Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2004 6:06 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] politics, but poetry > "Tribe," by Edward Dorn, today at http://www.poems.com/today.htm > > A damn fine and appropriate poem. > > - Jim From jkotin at uchicago.edu Tue Oct 26 13:07:55 2004 From: jkotin at uchicago.edu (Joshua Kotin) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 12:07:55 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Edward Dorn, poems.com, and the Chicago Review Message-ID: <1098810475.417e846b1393e@webmail.uchicago.edu> On behalf of the Chicago Review: Dear Friend -- "Democracy literally has to be cracked on the head -all the time- to keep it in good fashion," the late poet Edward Dorn pronounced in one interview. In another, when asked whether he considered his poetry to be "political poetry," he replied, "Absolutely. It's my way of voting early and often." Just in time to make us think twice about how we vote in a week, Dorn's late poem "Tribe," reprinted from the current issue of CHICAGO REVIEW, is today's poem of the day at Poetry Daily (http://www.poems.com). And just to drive the point home, the preface to this special issue of CR, called "Edward Dorn, American Heretic," appears on Poetry Daily's site as a prose feature (it's linked at http://poems.com/essastei.htm). Spread the word far and wide! Now seems as good a time as any to invite you to subscribe to CHICAGO REVIEW, or to renew your subscription (be sure to let us know if you already have the Dorn issue, wch is already in limited supply). To sweeten the deal, if you subscribe or renew for two years by Election Day (November 2), we'll throw in the book of your choice from Flood Editions or The Gig Editions, two sparky new North American presses. Full details on the books on offer can be found below, along with other increasingly promiscuous deals. Over the years CHICAGO REVIEW has specialized in special issues -- whether those are omnibus anthologies in translation such as "New Writing in German" and "New Polish Writing," or constellations of archival and critical materials on neglected twentieth-century artists, such as this Dorn issue, "Stan Brakhage: Correspondences" (now out of print), and "On Robert Duncan," to name just a few recent examples. These special issues are complemented by our commitment to publishing some of today's best writing in poetry and prose, along with critical essays, interviews, and reviews. Our website (http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review) has a complete archive of recent and past issues, and describes some of the forthcoming material we're working on, including special issues on Louis Zukofsky and Christopher Middleton. We like to think we've maintained a responsible balance between taking risks and remaining relevant, and hope you agree. Support an excellent magazine and a magnificent press in one fell swoop: subscribe (or renew) today! And don't forget to pay Poetry Daily a visit at http://www.poems.com. Best wishes from Chicago, Eirik Steinhoff Editor + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + CHICAGO REVIEW | Flood | Gig special subscription/renewal offer (good through 11/2/04) __ Yes! Subscribe me to CR for the term indicated below __ Yes! Renew my subscription to CR for the term indicated below ______________________________ name ______________________________ address ______________________________ city | state | zip [circle one / overseas subs add $25 per year for postage] $18 | one year $36 | two years + book of your choice: ___________________ $50 | three years + two books of your choice: ____________________________ $75 | five years + two books of your choice: ____________________________ + gift subscription to: ______________________________name ______________________________address ______________________________city | state | zip gift card should read: "from___________________" Please add $25 for overseas subscriptions. Mail this form with your check to Subscriptions Chicago Review 5801 South Kenwood Avenue Chicago Il 60637 - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - F L O O D E D I T I O N S JOHN TIPTON, SURFACES SURFACES is John Tipton's first full-length collection of poems. Here is a world of Cartesian precision, where matrices and Markov chains are revealed by the lattice of snowfall and the improbable order of ants. Yet the irrational and the absurd are not exiled from these poems, warping and defining their contours instead: "here the geography is the horizon here / Oklahoma moves him in ways he regrets." JOHN TAGGART, PASTORELLES In PASTORELLES, John Taggart draws on the local culture of rural Pennsylvania to consider the permutations of the human mark. An abandoned one-room schoolhouse, a page from an accounting ledger, a covered bridge still in use: each offers a "glance / perhaps all that was ever possible" into what persists. With wry humor, these poems attend to the ecology of language in a season of drought. TOM PICKARD, THE DARK MONTHS OF MAY In part a chronicle of misfortune and heartbreak, THE DARK MONTHS OF MAY tells of life on the run. With his characteristic bawdiness and sonic aplomb, Pickard seeks refuge in the geography of British border ballads, accompanied by eighteenth-century horse thieves and "desperate reprobates." There, he finds only cold consolation: "leave me now and let me sleep / your thieving words are all I'll keep." for more information on Flood Editions: http://www.floodeditions.com T H E G I G E D I T I O N S REMOVED FOR FURTHER STUDY: THE POETRY OF TOM RAWORTH REMOVED FOR FURTHER STUDY brings together new writing on the British poet Tom Raworth by 24 poets and critics from both sides of the Atlantic, four previously uncollected texts by the poet, and a detailed bibliography. The contributors are: David Ball, cris cheek, Ian Davidson, Nate Dorward, Ken Edwards, Gunnar Harding, Anselm Hollo, Fanny Howe, Doug Lang, J. C. C. Mays, Peter Middleton, Alan Munton, Tom Orange, Marjorie Perloff, Simon Perril, Joan Retallack, Peter Robinson, Claude Royet-Journoud, Robert Sheppard, Ron Silliman, Jonathan Skinner, Keith Tuma, Ben Watson and John Wilkinson. REMOVED FOR FURTHER STUDY provides a fresh and engaging set of responses to the work of one of the major poets of our time. MAGGIE O'SULLIVAN, PALACE OF REPTILES The long-awaited followup to O'Sullivan's IN THE HOUSE OF THE SHAMAN (1993), PALACE OF REPTILES is a dance and a ritual conducted in language, a plumbing and sounding-out of buried histories and vocabularies. Ranging from the brief and beautiful "Ellen's Lament" to the central long poem "DOUBTLESS," the eight poems of this book touch on multiple genres--elegy, celebration, performance art, poetics talk-in order to transform them. ALLEN FISHER, ENTANGLEMENT This is the first book-length showing of Allen Fisher's work of the 1990s and 2000s, drawing together previously uncollected work from the ongoing project GRAVITY AS A CONSEQUENCE OF SHAPE. ENTANGLEMENT is a meditation on loss, damage and noise, as sources of harm and as sites of unpredictability and creativity. For Fisher, art is transformation, and in these poems-clashing, combining, recombining, moving restlessly from Piers Plowman to Kurt Cobain to genetic engineering-such transformation is ultimately a form of healing. for more information on The Gig Editions: http://www.geocities.com/ndorward * * * apologies for cross-posting; if you'd rather not receive any (infrequent) subsequent mailings, pls let us know and we'll take you off the list * * * * * * * * * CHICAGO REVIEW 5801 South Kenwood Avenue Chicago IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review/ From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Tue Oct 26 15:16:37 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 12:16:37 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [New-Poetry] Edward Dorn, poems.com, and the Chicago Review Message-ID: <12524575.1098818197723.JavaMail.root@daisy.psp.pas.earthlink.net> Hey, that feels like a back door draft. - Jim -----Original Message----- From: Joshua Kotin Sent: Oct 26, 2004 10:07 AM To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: [New-Poetry] Edward Dorn, poems.com, and the Chicago Review On behalf of the Chicago Review: Dear Friend -- "Democracy literally has to be cracked on the head -all the time- to keep it in good fashion," the late poet Edward Dorn pronounced in one interview. In another, when asked whether he considered his poetry to be "political poetry," he replied, "Absolutely. It's my way of voting early and often." Just in time to make us think twice about how we vote in a week, Dorn's late poem "Tribe," reprinted from the current issue of CHICAGO REVIEW, is today's poem of the day at Poetry Daily (http://www.poems.com). And just to drive the point home, the preface to this special issue of CR, called "Edward Dorn, American Heretic," appears on Poetry Daily's site as a prose feature (it's linked at http://poems.com/essastei.htm). Spread the word far and wide! Now seems as good a time as any to invite you to subscribe to CHICAGO REVIEW, or to renew your subscription (be sure to let us know if you already have the Dorn issue, wch is already in limited supply). To sweeten the deal, if you subscribe or renew for two years by Election Day (November 2), we'll throw in the book of your choice from Flood Editions or The Gig Editions, two sparky new North American presses. Full details on the books on offer can be found below, along with other increasingly promiscuous deals. Over the years CHICAGO REVIEW has specialized in special issues -- whether those are omnibus anthologies in translation such as "New Writing in German" and "New Polish Writing," or constellations of archival and critical materials on neglected twentieth-century artists, such as this Dorn issue, "Stan Brakhage: Correspondences" (now out of print), and "On Robert Duncan," to name just a few recent examples. These special issues are complemented by our commitment to publishing some of today's best writing in poetry and prose, along with critical essays, interviews, and reviews. Our website (http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review) has a complete archive of recent and past issues, and describes some of the forthcoming material we're working on, including special issues on Louis Zukofsky and Christopher Middleton. We like to think we've maintained a responsible balance between taking risks and remaining relevant, and hope you agree. Support an excellent magazine and a magnificent press in one fell swoop: subscribe (or renew) today! And don't forget to pay Poetry Daily a visit at http://www.poems.com. Best wishes from Chicago, Eirik Steinhoff Editor + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + | + CHICAGO REVIEW | Flood | Gig special subscription/renewal offer (good through 11/2/04) __ Yes! Subscribe me to CR for the term indicated below __ Yes! Renew my subscription to CR for the term indicated below ______________________________ name ______________________________ address ______________________________ city | state | zip [circle one / overseas subs add $25 per year for postage] $18 | one year $36 | two years + book of your choice: ___________________ $50 | three years + two books of your choice: ____________________________ $75 | five years + two books of your choice: ____________________________ + gift subscription to: ______________________________name ______________________________address ______________________________city | state | zip gift card should read: "from___________________" Please add $25 for overseas subscriptions. Mail this form with your check to Subscriptions Chicago Review 5801 South Kenwood Avenue Chicago Il 60637 - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - F L O O D E D I T I O N S JOHN TIPTON, SURFACES SURFACES is John Tipton's first full-length collection of poems. Here is a world of Cartesian precision, where matrices and Markov chains are revealed by the lattice of snowfall and the improbable order of ants. Yet the irrational and the absurd are not exiled from these poems, warping and defining their contours instead: "here the geography is the horizon here / Oklahoma moves him in ways he regrets." JOHN TAGGART, PASTORELLES In PASTORELLES, John Taggart draws on the local culture of rural Pennsylvania to consider the permutations of the human mark. An abandoned one-room schoolhouse, a page from an accounting ledger, a covered bridge still in use: each offers a "glance / perhaps all that was ever possible" into what persists. With wry humor, these poems attend to the ecology of language in a season of drought. TOM PICKARD, THE DARK MONTHS OF MAY In part a chronicle of misfortune and heartbreak, THE DARK MONTHS OF MAY tells of life on the run. With his characteristic bawdiness and sonic aplomb, Pickard seeks refuge in the geography of British border ballads, accompanied by eighteenth-century horse thieves and "desperate reprobates." There, he finds only cold consolation: "leave me now and let me sleep / your thieving words are all I'll keep." for more information on Flood Editions: http://www.floodeditions.com T H E G I G E D I T I O N S REMOVED FOR FURTHER STUDY: THE POETRY OF TOM RAWORTH REMOVED FOR FURTHER STUDY brings together new writing on the British poet Tom Raworth by 24 poets and critics from both sides of the Atlantic, four previously uncollected texts by the poet, and a detailed bibliography. The contributors are: David Ball, cris cheek, Ian Davidson, Nate Dorward, Ken Edwards, Gunnar Harding, Anselm Hollo, Fanny Howe, Doug Lang, J. C. C. Mays, Peter Middleton, Alan Munton, Tom Orange, Marjorie Perloff, Simon Perril, Joan Retallack, Peter Robinson, Claude Royet-Journoud, Robert Sheppard, Ron Silliman, Jonathan Skinner, Keith Tuma, Ben Watson and John Wilkinson. REMOVED FOR FURTHER STUDY provides a fresh and engaging set of responses to the work of one of the major poets of our time. MAGGIE O'SULLIVAN, PALACE OF REPTILES The long-awaited followup to O'Sullivan's IN THE HOUSE OF THE SHAMAN (1993), PALACE OF REPTILES is a dance and a ritual conducted in language, a plumbing and sounding-out of buried histories and vocabularies. Ranging from the brief and beautiful "Ellen's Lament" to the central long poem "DOUBTLESS," the eight poems of this book touch on multiple genres--elegy, celebration, performance art, poetics talk-in order to transform them. ALLEN FISHER, ENTANGLEMENT This is the first book-length showing of Allen Fisher's work of the 1990s and 2000s, drawing together previously uncollected work from the ongoing project GRAVITY AS A CONSEQUENCE OF SHAPE. ENTANGLEMENT is a meditation on loss, damage and noise, as sources of harm and as sites of unpredictability and creativity. For Fisher, art is transformation, and in these poems-clashing, combining, recombining, moving restlessly from Piers Plowman to Kurt Cobain to genetic engineering-such transformation is ultimately a form of healing. for more information on The Gig Editions: http://www.geocities.com/ndorward * * * apologies for cross-posting; if you'd rather not receive any (infrequent) subsequent mailings, pls let us know and we'll take you off the list * * * * * * * * * CHICAGO REVIEW 5801 South Kenwood Avenue Chicago IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review/ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org RelativeLinks: http://www.poetserv.com/relativelinks/home.html From GrahamD at ripon.edu Wed Oct 27 14:56:43 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 13:56:43 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry about? Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A427@mail.ripon.edu> Cynthia Ozick takes this warhorse once around the old track: http://www.poets.org/poems/prose.cfm?45442B7C000C04050874 ============================================ 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 MillB at aol.com Wed Oct 27 15:33:26 2004 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:33:26 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry about? Message-ID: <20.367571c0.2eb15206@aol.com> Charles Harper Webb has an interesting article about poetics in the latest AWP Chronicle: "Apples and Orangutans: Competing Values in Contemporary Poetry." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Wed Oct 27 17:34:37 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 16:34:37 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: FW: Freedom is on the March Message-ID: Eliot Weinberger's latest. One of the great commentators on contemporary poetry--and one of the great commentators on the current nightmare we are living. Highly recommended. Kent -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: "Eliot Weinberger" Subject: FW: Freedom is on the March Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 18:25:19 -0400 Size: 10031 URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Wed Oct 27 17:51:40 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 17:51:40 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry about? References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A427@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <00bc01c4bc6f$28b0be80$99b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > Cynthia Ozick takes this warhorse once around the old track: > > http://www.poets.org/poems/prose.cfm?45442B7C000C04050874 I skimmed the article, but bookmarked it, so will probably read it. Seems just gush--but with good stuff in it. I liked very much the excerpt from a Charles Wright poem (which seemed very Wallace Stevens to me). --Bob G. From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Wed Oct 27 19:07:42 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 19:07:42 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: FW: Freedom is on the March References: Message-ID: <010f01c4bc79$c72c9930$99b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > Eliot Weinberger's latest. One of the great commentators on contemporary > poetry--and one of the great commentators on the current nightmare we > are living. > > Highly recommended. Eliot Weinberger actually knows almost nothing about contemporary poetry, Kent. Check out the anthology he edited. There's hardly anything contemporary in it, though much in it is by contemporaries. I have to add that I'm not living in any nightmare that I know of. But I live in the world, not the crap the media puts out. --Bob G. From anny.ballardini at tin.it Wed Oct 27 19:21:34 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:21:34 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] the Poets' Corner Message-ID: <012c01c4bc7b$b3312c00$75a93252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Dear All, here are some updates of the work going on at the Poets' Corner: Victor Sosa http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=129 Michael Rothenberg http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=130 kari edwards http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=131 Michael Snider http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=132 Jukka-Pekka Kervinen http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=133 Lina Salvi http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=134 Mark Young http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=136 Joseph Safdie http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=137 Pam Brown http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=138 _________________________ Some new answers were added under the link: Quotations to : What is Poetry - from the New-Poetry Mailing List with the addition of an interesting explanation by James Finnegan: http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=62 _________________________ New contributions by Alan Sondheim: Shelling - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=745 Suicidal Thoughts - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=764 the uselessness of poems - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=778 my terror night dream - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=780 of J-D and of - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=789 Derrida's shoes and voice - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=790 Adonis - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=811 Travis and stately Clara - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=812 tripups - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=813 Barry Alpert: BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=769 Douglas Clark: Trobador - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=777 __________________________ and a page dedicated to transart04 - http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=135 http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=781 with interviews in English and in Italian by me to: Mary de Rachewiltz - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=791 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=792 Peter Ablinger - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=793 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=794 Susanna Niedermayr - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=795 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=796 Scanner - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=797 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=798 Miguel Azguime - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=799 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=800 Martina Schullian - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=801 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=802 Nives Simonetti - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=803 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=804 Peter Paul Kainrath - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=814 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=815 Eduard Demetz - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=817 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=818 Nicolas Hodges - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=819 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=820 Antonio Lampis - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=830 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=831 The order I followed is chronological exception made for Nicolas Hodges whose answers I recently received. The latter interviews are with people who are directly responsible for transart04, and /or have collaborated. ________________________________ The main index of the featured poets can be found at: http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content Thank you all for your incredible work, I am most grateful for the quality and the highly valuable comments and thoughts, my best, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Wed Oct 27 19:41:04 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 19:41:04 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Guernica: a Magazine of Art and Politics Message-ID: <7b.36ba9b85.2eb18c10@aol.com> Subj: Fordham's New Online Magazine Date: 10/27/2004 10:49:20 AM Eastern Standard Time From: guernicamag at fordham.edu Fordham University Proudly Present's Guernica: a Magazine of Art and Politics We are at once a political blog cum literary review, an international art museum with no suggested donation, a travel journal, a Thomas Paine pamphlet, a group of non-partisan dissidents without a forum, an unauthorized biography of the times, a gang of well meaning writers and editors with a working knowledge of HTML. Check out our premiere issue : Featuring work from the Czech Republic, Cuba, Spain, Iran, Brazil, and Ohio Interviews with the historian Howard Zinn and the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Stephen Dunn Non-Fiction by Stephen Elliott Fiction by Alimorad Fadie Nia and Germ?n Sierra Poetry by Virgil Su?rez, Flavia Rocha, and Lilah Hegnauer Photography by Jesse Chehak Art by David Barnes Political Cartoons by Miguel Cardenas and much more. Guernicamag.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Wed Oct 27 21:02:09 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:02:09 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob G. vs. Eliot W. Message-ID: >Eliot Weinberger actually knows almost nothing about contemporary poetry, Of course, Bob. What a dunce I am. You are completely right, and I don't know what on earth I could have been thinking: Eliot Weinberger knows almost nothing about contemporary poetry... But I am glad you know one thousand times more about it than he does. Thank goodness for that! From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Wed Oct 27 22:57:49 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 22:57:49 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob G. vs. Eliot W. References: Message-ID: <018201c4bc99$ed02ac10$99b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kent Johnson" To: Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 9:02 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob G. vs. Eliot W. > >Eliot Weinberger actually knows almost nothing about contemporary > poetry, > > Of course, Bob. What a dunce I am. You are completely right, and I > don't know what on earth I could have been thinking: Eliot Weinberger > knows almost nothing about contemporary poetry... But I am glad you know > one thousand times more about it than he does. Thank goodness for that! A better response would have been to show examples of contemporary poetry in the anthology he edited that counter my point, Kent. He probably knows almost as much about contemporary poetry as Marjorie Perloff, but--like her--he hasn't gotten beyond the language poetry of the seventies. Unless his essay is a lot better than I suspect it is. --Bob From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Wed Oct 27 23:00:10 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 23:00:10 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob G. vs. Eliot W. References: Message-ID: <018b01c4bc9a$40159c00$99b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Good grief, I just read his rant. It has nothing to do with poetry. It's just cliched anti-Bushism at the level of his cliched comments on his brand of "contemporary" poetry. --Bob G. From paul at tbhinc.com Thu Oct 28 06:52:29 2004 From: paul at tbhinc.com (Paul C. Howell) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 06:52:29 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poet's Corner In-Reply-To: <200410272320.i9RNKaAm024382@wiz.cath.vt.edu> References: <200410272320.i9RNKaAm024382@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20041028065112.01e70fc0@tbhinc.com> Ballardini, this is terriffic! >Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:21:34 +0200 >From: "Anny Ballardini" >Subject: [New-Poetry] the Poets' Corner >To: "New Poetry" >Message-ID: <012c01c4bc7b$b3312c00$75a93252 at yourpk9x5fuc06> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > >Dear All, > > > > >here are some updates of the work going on at the Poets' Corner: > > > >Victor Sosa > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=129 > > > >Michael Rothenberg > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=130 > > > >kari edwards > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=131 > > > >Michael Snider > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=132 > > > >Jukka-Pekka Kervinen > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=133 > > > >Lina Salvi > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=134 > > > >Mark Young > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=136 > > > >Joseph Safdie > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=137 > > > >Pam Brown > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=138 > > > >_________________________ > > > > > >Some new answers were added under the link: Quotations to : What is >Poetry - from the New-Poetry Mailing List with the addition of an >interesting explanation by James Finnegan: > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=62 > > > >_________________________ > > > >New contributions by > > > >Alan Sondheim: > > > >Shelling - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=745 > >Suicidal Thoughts - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=764 > >the uselessness of poems - >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=778 > >my terror night dream - >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=780 > >of J-D and of - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=789 > >Derrida's shoes and voice - >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=790 > >Adonis - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=811 > >Travis and stately Clara - >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=812 > >tripups - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=813 > > > >Barry Alpert: > > > >BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS - >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=769 > > > >Douglas Clark: > > > >Trobador - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=777 > > > >__________________________ > > > >and a page dedicated to transart04 - >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=135 > >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=781 > > > >with interviews in English and in Italian by me to: > > > >Mary de Rachewiltz - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=791 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=792 > > > >Peter Ablinger - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=793 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=794 > > > >Susanna Niedermayr - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=795 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=796 > > > >Scanner - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=797 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=798 > > > >Miguel Azguime - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=799 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=800 > > > >Martina Schullian - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=801 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=802 > > > >Nives Simonetti - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=803 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=804 > > > >Peter Paul Kainrath - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=814 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=815 > > > >Eduard Demetz - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=817 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=818 > > > >Nicolas Hodges - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=819 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=820 > > > >Antonio Lampis - > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=830 > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=831 > > > >The order I followed is chronological exception made for Nicolas Hodges >whose answers I recently received. The latter interviews are with people >who are directly responsible for transart04, and /or have collaborated. > > > >________________________________ > > > > > >The main index of the featured poets can be found at: > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content > > > > > >Thank you all for your incredible work, I am most grateful for the quality >and the highly valuable comments and thoughts, > >my best, > > > >Anny Ballardini >http://annyballardini.blogspot.com >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome >The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. >Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky > >-------------- next part -------------- >An HTML attachment was scrubbed... >URL: >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20041028/4eac6c76/attachment.html > >------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >New-Poetry mailing list >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > >End of New-Poetry Digest, Vol 4, Issue 55 >***************************************** From anny.ballardini at tin.it Thu Oct 28 07:37:25 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:37:25 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poet's Corner References: <200410272320.i9RNKaAm024382@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <6.1.2.0.0.20041028065112.01e70fc0@tbhinc.com> Message-ID: <001e01c4bce2$7f338490$3aab3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Thank you very very much! Anny Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul C. Howell" To: Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 12:52 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Poet's Corner > Ballardini, this is terriffic! > > > >Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 01:21:34 +0200 > >From: "Anny Ballardini" > >Subject: [New-Poetry] the Poets' Corner > >To: "New Poetry" > >Message-ID: <012c01c4bc7b$b3312c00$75a93252 at yourpk9x5fuc06> > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > > >Dear All, > > > > > > > > > >here are some updates of the work going on at the Poets' Corner: > > > > > > > >Victor Sosa > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=129 > > > > > > > >Michael Rothenberg > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=130 > > > > > > > >kari edwards > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=131 > > > > > > > >Michael Snider > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=132 > > > > > > > >Jukka-Pekka Kervinen > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=133 > > > > > > > >Lina Salvi > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=134 > > > > > > > >Mark Young > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=136 > > > > > > > >Joseph Safdie > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=137 > > > > > > > >Pam Brown > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=138 > > > > > > > >_________________________ > > > > > > > > > > > >Some new answers were added under the link: Quotations to : What is > >Poetry - from the New-Poetry Mailing List with the addition of an > >interesting explanation by James Finnegan: > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=62 > > > > > > > >_________________________ > > > > > > > >New contributions by > > > > > > > >Alan Sondheim: > > > > > > > >Shelling - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=745 > > > >Suicidal Thoughts - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=764 > > > >the uselessness of poems - > >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=778 > > > >my terror night dream - > >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=780 > > > >of J-D and of - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=789 > > > >Derrida's shoes and voice - > >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=790 > > > >Adonis - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=811 > > > >Travis and stately Clara - > >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=812 > > > >tripups - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=813 > > > > > > > >Barry Alpert: > > > > > > > >BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS - > >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=769 > > > > > > > >Douglas Clark: > > > > > > > >Trobador - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=777 > > > > > > > >__________________________ > > > > > > > >and a page dedicated to transart04 - > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories &cid=135 > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=781 > > > > > > > >with interviews in English and in Italian by me to: > > > > > > > >Mary de Rachewiltz - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=791 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=792 > > > > > > > >Peter Ablinger - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=793 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=794 > > > > > > > >Susanna Niedermayr - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=795 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=796 > > > > > > > >Scanner - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=797 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=798 > > > > > > > >Miguel Azguime - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=799 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=800 > > > > > > > >Martina Schullian - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=801 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=802 > > > > > > > >Nives Simonetti - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=803 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=804 > > > > > > > >Peter Paul Kainrath - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=814 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=815 > > > > > > > >Eduard Demetz - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=817 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=818 > > > > > > > >Nicolas Hodges - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=819 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=820 > > > > > > > >Antonio Lampis - > > > > > > > >in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=830 > > > >in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=831 > > > > > > > >The order I followed is chronological exception made for Nicolas Hodges > >whose answers I recently received. The latter interviews are with people > >who are directly responsible for transart04, and /or have collaborated. > > > > > > > >________________________________ > > > > > > > > > > > >The main index of the featured poets can be found at: > > > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content > > > > > > > > > > > >Thank you all for your incredible work, I am most grateful for the quality > >and the highly valuable comments and thoughts, > > > >my best, > > > > > > > >Anny Ballardini > >http://annyballardini.blogspot.com > >http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome > >The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. > >Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky > > > >-------------- next part -------------- > >An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > >URL: > >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20041028/4eac6c76/a ttachment.html > > > >------------------------------ > > > >_______________________________________________ > >New-Poetry mailing list > >New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > >http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > > > >End of New-Poetry Digest, Vol 4, Issue 55 > >***************************************** > > _______________________________________________ > 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 28 10:50:26 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 10:50:26 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] My Latest Blog Entry References: Message-ID: <008501c4bcfd$7a79ffe0$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Any comments on the following would be appreciated--as they might give me something I can use in my next blog entry. Daily Notes on Poetry 28 October 2004. Recently Anthony Hecht died. I loved his parody of Arnold's "Dover Beach" (a poem I also love), and a few other things he did but didn't think much of his hyper-traditionalist view that only strict formalism can yield poetry of value, and found the few unanthologized poems of his I came across too ascetic for my taste. I bring him up here not to say anything very worthwhile about him but because David Graham wondered aloud at New-Poetry about his final rank as a poet. That got me thinking, as I frequently do, about levels of accomplishment in poetry. I'm sure I'll be repeating myself, but probably in slightly different words, but I can't think of anything else to write about today, so will give my views about that subject. I think there are two levels each of major and minor poet. A major (lyric) poet of the first rank is one who achieves more than one of the following: (a) writes a handful or more of unbetterable poems of consequence; (b) adds something of importance to the poet's tool kit; (c) effectively captures a world most people would consider a reasonably full one. A major poet of the second rank would be one who can lay claim to only one of these achievements. I would tentatively rate Hecht a major poet of the second rank because of (a). He certainly didn't add anything to the poet's tool kit--in fact, tried to take from it (but I probably shouldn't reduce a poet's rank for his misdeeds . . . or should I?) He may have achieved (c); my impression is that he didn't come close to doing that but I haven't read much of his work. I would consider a minor poet of the first rank to be someone who has (a)composed a handful or more of highly effective, if not unbetterable poems, or (b) effectively used new poetic devices he did not create but few others were using at the time. (A poet can use a device effectively in an ineffective poem, I might add.) A minor poet of the second rank would be a poet who managed only one or two highly effective poems, but also compose a fair number of okay ones, and a handful or more of highly effective passages. Leigh Hunt comes to mind. --Bob G. From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 28 11:41:54 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 08:41:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz Message-ID: <20041028154154.90845.qmail@web52606.mail.yahoo.com> Can anyone help me with a really stupid question? I don't know how to pronounce "Czeslaw Milosz." Is it "CHESS-low mee-LOZE?" Or is it "ze-SLAW mi-LOWS?" Thanks, Jeff ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From terzarima at earthlink.net Thu Oct 28 11:47:41 2004 From: terzarima at earthlink.net (Suzanne Burns) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 08:47:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz Message-ID: <19164015.1098978461452.JavaMail.root@misspiggy.psp.pas.earthlink.net> A polish friend told me "Chehz-lav Mee-wosh" . I am really not sure about the "L" in the first name. -----Original Message----- From: Jeff Newberry Sent: Oct 28, 2004 8:41 AM To: Poetry News and Reviews Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz Can anyone help me with a really stupid question? I don't know how to pronounce "Czeslaw Milosz." Is it "CHESS-low mee-LOZE?" Or is it "ze-SLAW mi-LOWS?" Thanks, Jeff ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail _______________________________________________ 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 Thu Oct 28 04:48:53 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 03:48:53 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Fwd: FW: Freedom is on the March In-Reply-To: Message-ID: On 10/27/04 4:34 PM, "Kent Johnson" wrote: > Eliot Weinberger's latest. One of the great commentators on contemporary > poetry--and one of the great commentators on the current nightmare we > are living. > > Highly recommended. > > Kent > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > I quit reading this after the word junta in the first sentence and the bizarre charge that finished the first paragraph. Paul Lake --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] From anny.ballardini at tin.it Thu Oct 28 11:50:56 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 17:50:56 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz References: <20041028154154.90845.qmail@web52606.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006301c4bd05$ea5cc150$348d3052@yourpk9x5fuc06> I am almost sure you have to avoid the LOWS, and rather prefer the Loze me-loze I would also accentuate the C as a K (kzeslove) something like that, but there are people more competent than me, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Newberry" To: "Poetry News and Reviews" Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 5:41 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz > Can anyone help me with a really stupid question? I > don't know how to pronounce "Czeslaw Milosz." > > Is it "CHESS-low mee-LOZE?" Or is it "ze-SLAW > mi-LOWS?" > > Thanks, > > Jeff > > ===== > Jeff Newberry > > "Sometimes it's not so easy, > especially when your only friend > talks, sees, looks and feels like you, > and you do just the same as him." > --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" > > > > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we. > http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail > _______________________________________________ > 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 Thu Oct 28 12:33:16 2004 From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:33:16 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz Message-ID: <69F1FF1C.6AD430D6.001A46F6@aol.com> Czeslaw Milosz [ches?wAf mE?wosh] Also, go to: http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entries/53/m0305300.html for an audio pronunciation of Milosz. From GrahamD at ripon.edu Thu Oct 28 13:00:51 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:00:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A42F@mail.ripon.edu> > Can anyone help me with a really stupid question? I > don't know how to pronounce "Czeslaw Milosz." > > Is it "CHESS-low mee-LOZE?" Or is it "ze-SLAW > mi-LOWS?" > > Thanks, > > Jeff ------ I just say Coleslaw Mouthwash, myself. > ===== > ============================================ 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 Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 28 13:10:13 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:10:13 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: My Latest Blog Entry Message-ID: At last! Such a breath of fresh air to finally have in poetry some *empirically measurable* axiological criteria... We've been relying on useless subjective benchmarks for way too long, I say. A major advance, Bob. And Poetry thanks you. :~ ) Bob Grumman said: I think there are two levels each of major and minor poet. A major (lyric) poet of the first rank is one who achieves more than one of the following: (a) writes a handful or more of unbetterable poems of consequence; (b) adds something of importance to the poet's tool kit; (c) effectively captures a world most people would consider a reasonably full one. A major poet of the second rank would be one who can lay claim to only one of these achievements. I would tentatively rate Hecht a major poet of the second rank because of (a). He certainly didn't add anything to the poet's tool kit--in fact, tried to take from it (but I probably shouldn't reduce a poet's rank for his misdeeds . . . or should I?) He may have achieved (c); my impression is that he didn't come close to doing that but I haven't read much of his work. I would consider a minor poet of the first rank to be someone who has (a)composed a handful or more of highly effective, if not unbetterable poems, or (b) effectively used new poetic devices he did not create but few others were using at the time. (A poet can use a device effectively in an ineffective poem, I might add.) A minor poet of the second rank would be a poet who managed only one or two highly effective poems, but also compose a fair number of okay ones, and a handful or more of highly effective passages. Leigh Hunt comes to mind. --Bob G. From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 28 14:01:20 2004 From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:01:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A42F@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <20041028180120.24462.qmail@web52602.mail.yahoo.com> David, My old man used to pronounce "Gorbachev" as "Garbagemouth." And I used to say "Philip Le-VINE," as in "le vine climbs up le fence." Then there was the guy in a philosophy seminar I took one semester who pronounced Soren Kierkegaard as "Shuren KEE KEE Gore." Hmm... Sart or Sartr-ah? Nietz-chee or Nietzch? Plato or Plahto? Socrateez or So-crates? Newberry or NEW-berry or new-BERRY or, as one student wrote, Nubury? What's the worst murdering of a name that you've ever seen? Jeff --- "Graham, David" wrote: > > > Can anyone help me with a really stupid question? > I > > don't know how to pronounce "Czeslaw Milosz." > > > > Is it "CHESS-low mee-LOZE?" Or is it "ze-SLAW > > mi-LOWS?" > > > > Thanks, > > > > Jeff > ------ > > I just say Coleslaw Mouthwash, myself. > > > > ===== > > > ============================================ > 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 > ===== Jeff Newberry "Sometimes it's not so easy, especially when your only friend talks, sees, looks and feels like you, and you do just the same as him." --Jimi Hendrix, "My Friend" __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail From halvard at earthlink.net Thu Oct 28 14:36:13 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:36:13 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz In-Reply-To: <20041028180120.24462.qmail@web52602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: { What's the worst murdering of a name that you've ever { seen? { { Jeff Translator David Magarschack's insistence that Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov's nickname be Roddy. Hal "Those who cast the ballots decide nothing. Those who count the ballots decide everything." --Joseph Stalin Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From jvcervantes at earthlink.net Thu Oct 28 15:11:23 2004 From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 12:11:23 -0700 (GMT-07:00) Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz Message-ID: <22645806.1098990683916.JavaMail.root@huey.psp.pas.earthlink.net> -----Original Message----- From: "Graham, David" Sent: Oct 28, 2004 10:00 AM To: "'NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views'" Subject: [New-Poetry] Milosz > Can anyone help me with a really stupid question? I > don't know how to pronounce "Czeslaw Milosz." > > Is it "CHESS-low mee-LOZE?" Or is it "ze-SLAW > mi-LOWS?" > > Thanks, > > Jeff ------ I just say Coleslaw Mouthwash, myself. > ===== That shows good scents. - Jim ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ James Cervantes: http://www.poetserv.net/jvchome/index.html Salt River Review: http://www.poetserv.org RelativeLinks: http://www.poetserv.com/relativelinks/home.html From JforJames at aol.com Thu Oct 28 16:52:24 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:52:24 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] poet lariat really ropes 'em in Message-ID: <1e8.2c77d719.2eb2b608@aol.com> http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=57&u_sid=1243035 New poet laureate draws a crowd BY JOHN KEENAN WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER Ted Kooser, U.S. poet laureate and Nebraska resident, had what he called "the largest crowd that I've ever read to" Wednesday night at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser mimics students walking with backpacks before reading his poem "Backpack" at UNO Wednesday night. Kooser, who was selected as the nation's new poet laureate in August, drew a reporter-estimated crowd of about 375 to the 275-seat auditorium in UNO's Eppley Administration Building. By 7:15 p.m., 15 minutes before the scheduled start of the reading, people were standing along the sides and back of the room. It was Kooser's first Omaha reading since being named poet laureate. Omaha poet Matt Mason, who attended with his family, said the turnout was gratifying. "I saw him read before he became poet laureate, and there were maybe 20 to 25 people there," he said. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GrahamD at ripon.edu Thu Oct 28 17:03:26 2004 From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:03:26 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Major Major Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A432@mail.ripon.edu> Whenever I encounter discussions of the dividing line between major and minor poets, I think of Robert Francis's little essay, "Either Or," which satirizes those who "[put] all the poets into their respective hemispheres separated by a line as inexorable and as imaginary as the equator." Of course, it's hard to top Robert Benchley, who divided the world into two kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and those who don't. ============================================ 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: Bob Grumman > Reply To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 9:50 AM > To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News & Views > Subject: [New-Poetry] My Latest Blog Entry > > Any comments on the following would be appreciated--as they might give me > something I can use in my next blog entry. > > Daily Notes on Poetry > > 28 October 2004. Recently Anthony Hecht died. I loved his parody of > Arnold's "Dover Beach" (a poem I also love), and a few other things he did > > but didn't think much of his hyper-traditionalist view that only strict > formalism can yield poetry of value, and found the few unanthologized > poems > of his I came across too ascetic for my taste. > > > I bring him up here not to say anything very worthwhile about him > but > because David Graham wondered aloud at New-Poetry about his final rank as > a > poet. That got me thinking, as I frequently do, about levels of > accomplishment in poetry. I'm sure I'll be repeating myself, but probably > in > slightly different words, but I can't think of anything else to write > about > today, so will give my views about that subject. > > > I think there are two levels each of major and minor poet. A major > (lyric) poet of the first rank is one who achieves more than one of the > following: (a) writes a handful or more of unbetterable poems of > consequence; (b) adds something of importance to the poet's tool kit; (c) > effectively captures a world most people would consider a reasonably full > one. A major poet of the second rank would be one who can lay claim to > only > one of these achievements. From halvard at earthlink.net Thu Oct 28 16:52:10 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:52:10 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" Message-ID: Trying to Sleep The girl shepherd on the farm beyond has been taken from school now she is twelve, and her life is over. I got my genius brother a summer job in the mills and he stayed all his life. I lived with a woman four years who went crazy later, escaped from the hospital, hitchhiked across America terrified and in the snow without a coat, and was raped by most men who gave her a ride. I crank my heart even so and it turns over. Ranges high in the sun over continents and eruptions of mortality, through winds and immensities of rain falling for miles. Until all the world is overcome by what goes up and up in us, singing and dancing and throwing down flowers as we continue north taking the maimed with us, keeping the sad parts carefully. --Jack Gilbert fr. New Yorker, Aug. 2, 2004 Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 28 17:17:38 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:17:38 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] note on credibility for Bob Grumman Message-ID: "A better response would have been to show examples of contemporary poetry in the anthology he edited that counter my point, Kent." Bob, This is frankly humorous. An accounting of "examples" is hardly necessary. Weinberger has been a prolific writer on the contemporary scene and on its sources. He has written prominently (and controversially, to be sure) on recent poetry: many of these essays can be found in his various books from New Directions and in issues of the venerable Sulfur-- among the central avant-garde magazines of 70's through 90's, and to which Weinberger was a long-time contributing editor. Before this, he edited Montemora, which not a few poets believe was one of the great journals of the past fifty years, way ahead of its time, publishing many of the key "outsider" writers of the time, championing what were then little-known names, and which now are central to any understanding of American poetry. Aside from being one of the most distinguished translators of the literature, he is also among the most expertly informed writers in the U.S. on 20th century Latin American poetry, particularly its avant-garde tradition-- but perhaps this doesn't fit with what you count as "contemporary poetry." Yes, his anthology American Poetry Since 1950: Innovators and Outsiders, bristled some feathers big-time, and I guess yours, too. But this is another matter, entirely, and has nothing to do with how much Weinberger "knows" about "contemporary poetry"--though his brief intro to that book, I'd argue, is one of the clearest and most concisely useful overviews of the historical dynamics of post-war U.S. poetics, hardly penned by someone who knows little about the topic! And it sounds like you think Marjorie Perloff knows "little" about contemporary poetry as well? (By the way, she and Weinberger are completely at odds on the value of Langpo, which you don't seem to realize.) My goodness, man... You may not agree with the views of your critical betters, but this kind of sophomoric arrogance doesn't do much for your street cred. avanti, in any case. Kent From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 28 17:21:04 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 16:21:04 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Jack Gilbert Message-ID: Thanks for posting that, Halvard. Gilbert is one of my favorites. Monolithos for many years now one of my favorite books. Kent From antrobin at clipper.net Thu Oct 28 17:33:42 2004 From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:33:42 -0700 Subject: [New-Poetry] note on credibility for Bob Grumman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <024f01c4bd35$d3082820$be3e1c40@Emily> KENT, Are you kidding? How many mathemaku are in Weinberger's anthology? Puh-leeeze! Any anthologist who ignores such a basic (and important!) form is clearly not an important writer. That's like claiming to cook but not knowing how to prepare a proper Moroccan b'stilla. That's like claiming you like music, but not being able to hum any 3rd century Tibetan work hymns by heart. TONY -----Original Message----- From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Kent Johnson Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 2:18 PM To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Subject: [New-Poetry] note on credibility for Bob Grumman "A better response would have been to show examples of contemporary poetry in the anthology he edited that counter my point, Kent." Bob, This is frankly humorous. An accounting of "examples" is hardly necessary. Weinberger has been a prolific writer on the contemporary scene and on its sources. He has written prominently (and controversially, to be sure) on recent poetry: many of these essays can be found in his various books from New Directions and in issues of the venerable Sulfur-- among the central avant-garde magazines of 70's through 90's, and to which Weinberger was a long-time contributing editor. Before this, he edited Montemora, which not a few poets believe was one of the great journals of the past fifty years, way ahead of its time, publishing many of the key "outsider" writers of the time, championing what were then little-known names, and which now are central to any understanding of American poetry. Aside from being one of the most distinguished translators of the literature, he is also among the most expertly informed writers in the U.S. on 20th century Latin American poetry, particularly its avant-garde tradition-- but perhaps this doesn't fit with what you count as "contemporary poetry." Yes, his anthology American Poetry Since 1950: Innovators and Outsiders, bristled some feathers big-time, and I guess yours, too. But this is another matter, entirely, and has nothing to do with how much Weinberger "knows" about "contemporary poetry"--though his brief intro to that book, I'd argue, is one of the clearest and most concisely useful overviews of the historical dynamics of post-war U.S. poetics, hardly penned by someone who knows little about the topic! And it sounds like you think Marjorie Perloff knows "little" about contemporary poetry as well? (By the way, she and Weinberger are completely at odds on the value of Langpo, which you don't seem to realize.) My goodness, man... You may not agree with the views of your critical betters, but this kind of sophomoric arrogance doesn't do much for your street cred. avanti, in any case. Kent _______________________________________________ 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 Thu Oct 28 17:10:40 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 17:10:40 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Major Major In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A432@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: { Of course, it's hard to top Robert Benchley, who divided the world into two { kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and { those who don't. I've always thought that if we adopt Benchley's principle of division we ought to add a third for people who don't fit into either of the others. Hal "A poet is someone from whom nothing must be taken and to whom nothing must be given." --Anna Akhmatova Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com Thu Oct 28 17:41:58 2004 From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 04 17:41:58 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" Message-ID: <200410282145.i9SLjDgZ003692@d01av01.pok.ibm.com> >>Trying to Sleep >> >>The girl shepherd on the farm beyond has been >>taken from school now she is twelve, and her life is over. >>I got my genius brother a summer job in the mills >>and he stayed all his life. I lived with a woman four >>years who went crazy later, escaped from the hospital, >>hitchhiked across America terrified and in the snow >>without a coat, and was raped by most men who gave her >>a ride. I crank my heart even so and it turns over. >>Ranges high in the sun over continents and eruptions >>of mortality, through winds and immensities of rain >>falling for miles. Until all the world is overcome >>by what goes up and up in us, singing and dancing >>and throwing down flowers as we continue north taking >>the maimed with us, keeping the sad parts carefully. >> >>--Jack Gilbert >> One nice line: "... I crank my heart even so and it turns over." The rest seems painted in cheap acrylic. Richard From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com Thu Oct 28 18:18:17 2004 From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 04 18:18:17 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Freedom is on the March Message-ID: <200410282223.i9SMN5gZ007384@d01av01.pok.ibm.com> >> >>I quit reading this after the word junta in the first sentence and the >>bizarre charge that finished the first paragraph. >> >>Paul Lake How far did you get in the NY Times' editorial endorsing John Kerry in the election, Paul? Richard From marcus at designerglass.com Thu Oct 28 18:45:17 2004 From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:45:17 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Major Major In-Reply-To: References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A432@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <41813E3D.30627.816E8F@localhost> > { Of course, it's hard to top Robert Benchley, who divided the > world into two { kinds of people: those who divide the world into > two kinds of people, and { those who don't. Well, I've long said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those with short-term memory loss and ... hey! How about those Red Sox! Marcus From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 28 18:48:59 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 18:48:59 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: My Latest Blog Entry References: Message-ID: <00da01c4bd40$544151a0$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > At last! Such a breath of fresh air to finally have in poetry some > *empirically measurable* axiological criteria... We've been relying on > useless subjective benchmarks for way too long, I say. > > A major advance, Bob. And Poetry thanks you. > Gosh, thanks, Kent. Only the approval of Eliot Weinberger would mean as much to me as yours. --Bob G. From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 28 20:51:50 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 19:51:50 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Sulfur know-nothings Message-ID: I wrote: "...the venerable Sulfur-- among the central avant-garde magazines of 70's through 90's..." For accuracy's sake: Sulfur was founded in 1981. Its forerunner, Caterpillar, also edited by Clayton Eshleman, was published into the 70's. Of course, Clayton Eshleman, as well, I'm sure, knew "almost nothing contemporary poetry," so these details hardly matter, I suppose. Kent From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 28 21:09:51 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:09:51 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] please O let me be unbetterable Message-ID: Bob Grumman said: "Gosh, thanks, Kent. Only the approval of Eliot Weinberger would mean as much to me as yours." You're welcome, Bob. In the meantime, I'm closely following your visionary scheme, working away here trying to write my major, "unbetterable poem of consequence," or, well, at least a minor, but first-order "highly effective" one. Or, failing that, at least an "okay" one, you know... Alas, if even that doesn't work (which it probably won't, because I can write worth shit), I hope to achieve a poem that is colorful and exciting to the sensitive and intelligent eye owned by the great majority of Bush voters: one that seems "painted in cheap acrylic." Kent From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 28 21:29:28 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 21:29:28 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Major Major References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A432@mail.ripon.edu> Message-ID: <014e01c4bd56$bf36c010$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > Whenever I encounter discussions of the dividing line between major and > minor poets, I think of Robert Francis's little essay, "Either Or," which > satirizes those who "[put] all the poets into their respective > hemispheres > separated by a line as inexorable and as imaginary as the equator." > Of course, it's hard to top Robert Benchley, who divided the world into > two > kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people, and > those who don't. Actually, the two kinds of people are those who divide people into two categories and realize it, and those who divide people into two categories but are too stupid to realize that's what they are doing. To use words is to divide the world continually into two things, some x and some all that is not x. Anyway, David, I was merely taking off from your, " . . . but it strikes me that there is no general consensus yet about (Hecht's work)--not only about whether he's a major figure . . ." --Bob From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 28 21:34:39 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 21:34:39 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] note on credibility for Bob Grumman References: <024f01c4bd35$d3082820$be3e1c40@Emily> Message-ID: <015e01c4bd57$78fe6980$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > KENT, > > Are you kidding? How many mathemaku are in Weinberger's anthology? > Puh-leeeze! > > Any anthologist who ignores such a basic (and important!) form is > clearly not an important writer. > > That's like claiming to cook but not knowing how to prepare a proper > Moroccan b'stilla. > > That's like claiming you like music, but not being able to hum any 3rd > century Tibetan work hymns by heart. > TONY Actually, Weinberger left out a great many other kinds of contemporary poems than mathemaku, Tony. Ignoring my mathemaku was only the worst example of his indifference to contemporary poetry. --Bob From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Thu Oct 28 22:03:16 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 22:03:16 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Sulfur know-nothings References: Message-ID: <01f401c4bd5b$78500440$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > For accuracy's sake: Sulfur was founded in 1981. Its forerunner, > Caterpillar, also edited by Clayton Eshleman, was published into the > 70's. > > Of course, Clayton Eshleman, as well, I'm sure, knew "almost nothing > contemporary poetry," so these details hardly matter, I suppose. Oh, no, Kent--he knew about your kind of poetry, so knew all that it's important to know about poetry, like Weinberger and Perloff. --Bob From Kent.Johnson at highland.edu Thu Oct 28 22:09:59 2004 From: Kent.Johnson at highland.edu (Kent Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 21:09:59 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] My kind of poetry Message-ID: Bob Grumman said: "Oh, no, Kent--he knew about your kind of poetry, so knew all that it's important to know about poetry, like Weinberger and Perloff." Bob! Please tell me waht my "KIND OF POETRY" is. Because I honestly don't know! Puhleeease? Hopeful in Freeport, Kent From jkok at hfa.umass.edu Thu Oct 28 22:43:56 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 22:43:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" In-Reply-To: <200410282145.i9SLjDgZ003692@d01av01.pok.ibm.com> References: <200410282145.i9SLjDgZ003692@d01av01.pok.ibm.com> Message-ID: Well, I humbly submit the fact that I typed numerous copies of this poem, and all the others that went into the manuscript that Knopf will be releasing this coming march. Spent about 8 months last year doing it - as a part-time job/remarkable privilege/labor of love. There are piles of versions and photocopies sitting a few feet from this computer even as we speak. This particular poem is not one of my favorites, but the most recent one in the New Yorker, "Transgressions," is. I told Jack The Great Fires should have a "Marital Advisory" on it. Subtext: Do Not Read If Your Marriage Is In Trouble... K. From cstroffo at earthlink.net Fri Oct 29 00:21:18 2004 From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino ) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 20:21:18 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" Message-ID: <200410290301.i9T31mpq439712@pimout2-ext.prodigy.net> Kerry--- Why would that be truer of Jack's book than others? Isn't it possible it could go the other way? (to me, reading happy relationship poems are often more devastating when in a bad relationship....) Chris ---------- >From: "Kerry O'Keefe" >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" >Date: Thu, Oct 28, 2004, 6:43 PM > > I told Jack The Great Fires should have a "Marital Advisory" on it. > Subtext: Do Not Read If Your Marriage Is In Trouble... > > K. From halvard at earthlink.net Thu Oct 28 23:45:43 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 23:45:43 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" In-Reply-To: <200410282145.i9SLjDgZ003692@d01av01.pok.ibm.com> Message-ID: { One nice line: "... I crank my heart even so and it turns over." { { The rest seems painted in cheap acrylic. { { Richard Wasn't it Schoenberg's old buddy Kandinsky who once said something like "There's a lot of fine painting still to be done in cheap acrylic" Hal "Those who cast the ballots decide nothing. Those who count the ballots decide everything." --Joseph Stalin Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From anny.ballardini at tin.it Fri Oct 29 02:17:21 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:17:21 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Jack Gilbert References: Message-ID: <005a01c4bd7e$f363cef0$d7ae3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Hal can witness it, probably while Kent was writing this message I was asking Hal permission to publish the poem by Gilbert on my blog, and it is online now, just click under my signature, take care, and thanks p.s.: I spent a fortune in acrylic colors since I always preferred both in Italy and in the States the French Liquitex, refined _beautiful (repeated twice, thrice) pigments used to do the colors, to discover that cheaper acrylics can do just the same, but anyhow still now when and if I buy any, I head for the Liquitex. Something very similar to my habit of smoking. Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kent Johnson" To: Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 11:21 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Jack Gilbert > Thanks for posting that, Halvard. > > Gilbert is one of my favorites. Monolithos for many years now one of my > favorite books. > > Kent > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From anny.ballardini at tin.it Fri Oct 29 02:25:40 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:25:40 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] the Poets' Corner References: <012c01c4bc7b$b3312c00$75a93252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <008701c4bd80$1d118ed0$d7ae3252@yourpk9x5fuc06> And with my apologies to Jeff Harrison, his new poem: *Raphael Bristle* was added: http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=821 Anny Ballardini ----- Original Message ----- From: Anny Ballardini To: New Poetry Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2004 1:21 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] the Poets' Corner Dear All, here are some updates of the work going on at the Poets' Corner: Victor Sosa http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=129 Michael Rothenberg http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=130 kari edwards http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=131 Michael Snider http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=132 Jukka-Pekka Kervinen http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=133 Lina Salvi http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=134 Mark Young http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=136 Joseph Safdie http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=137 Pam Brown http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=138 _________________________ Some new answers were added under the link: Quotations to : What is Poetry - from the New-Poetry Mailing List with the addition of an interesting explanation by James Finnegan: http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=62 _________________________ New contributions by Alan Sondheim: Shelling - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=745 Suicidal Thoughts - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=764 the uselessness of poems - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=778 my terror night dream - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=780 of J-D and of - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=789 Derrida's shoes and voice - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=790 Adonis - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=811 Travis and stately Clara - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=812 tripups - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=813 Barry Alpert: BY THE BLUEST OF SEAS - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=769 Douglas Clark: Trobador - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=777 __________________________ and a page dedicated to transart04 - http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=135 http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=781 with interviews in English and in Italian by me to: Mary de Rachewiltz - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=791 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=792 Peter Ablinger - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=793 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=794 Susanna Niedermayr - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=795 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=796 Scanner - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=797 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=798 Miguel Azguime - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=799 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=800 Martina Schullian - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=801 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=802 Nives Simonetti - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=803 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=804 Peter Paul Kainrath - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=814 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=815 Eduard Demetz - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=817 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=818 Nicolas Hodges - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=819 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=820 Antonio Lampis - in English - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=830 in Italian - http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=831 The order I followed is chronological exception made for Nicolas Hodges whose answers I recently received. The latter interviews are with people who are directly responsible for transart04, and /or have collaborated. ________________________________ The main index of the featured poets can be found at: http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content Thank you all for your incredible work, I am most grateful for the quality and the highly valuable comments and thoughts, my best, Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 29 07:01:51 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 07:01:51 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] My kind of poetry References: Message-ID: <004001c4bda6$dd75eb50$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > Bob Grumman said: > > "Oh, no, Kent--he knew about your kind of poetry, so knew all that it's > > important to know about poetry, like Weinberger and Perloff." > > Bob! > > Please tell me waht my "KIND OF POETRY" is. > > Because I honestly don't know! > > Puhleeease? > > Hopeful in Freeport, > > Kent Sorry, Kent, I wouldn't know. YOu'd have to go to an expert like Weinberger, Eshleman or Perloff to find out. --Bob > _______________________________________________ > 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 29 08:47:15 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:47:15 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet References: Message-ID: <008c01c4bdb5$6e300eb0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Won't any of you chip in some thoughts about how you would decide whether Hecht or anyone else is a major poet or not? Or poet who will likely be taken very seriously a hundred years from now if you don't like the term, "major poet?" --Bob From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com Fri Oct 29 09:18:42 2004 From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 04 09:18:42 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Acrylic Message-ID: <200410291320.i9TDKugZ001352@d01av01.pok.ibm.com> >> >>Wasn't it Schoenberg's old buddy Kandinsky who once said >>something like "There's a lot of fine painting still to be done in >>cheap acrylic" >> >>Hal Wasn't it - the sage of Delancey St. - who said, "cheap is cheap." Richard From jkok at hfa.umass.edu Fri Oct 29 09:47:09 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:47:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" In-Reply-To: <200410290301.i9T31mpq439712@pimout2-ext.prodigy.net> References: <200410290301.i9T31mpq439712@pimout2-ext.prodigy.net> Message-ID: Chris: He presents at times a vision of love, romantic love, that can make what one has seem like not enough. I have seen those poems make people... restless. I don't know that what he presents is "the truth" of love - there are so many forms. And he does write about romantic love. I don't know that the kind of love he writes about is is made to last or function in our workaday worlds - he didn't live in a workaday world - he doesn't know about love in the daily grind. All he can do is report back from his own vistas. Islands in Greece, etc. Nice work if you can get it... K. On Thu, 28 Oct 2004, Chris Stroffolino wrote: > Kerry--- > > Why would that be truer of Jack's book than others? > Isn't it possible it could go the other way? > (to me, reading happy relationship poems are often more devastating > when in a bad relationship....) > > Chris > > ---------- > >From: "Kerry O'Keefe" > >To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" > >Date: Thu, Oct 28, 2004, 6:43 PM > > > > > I told Jack The Great Fires should have a "Marital Advisory" on it. > > Subtext: Do Not Read If Your Marriage Is In Trouble... > > > > K. > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From jkok at hfa.umass.edu Fri Oct 29 10:01:34 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:01:34 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" In-Reply-To: References: <200410290301.i9T31mpq439712@pimout2-ext.prodigy.net> Message-ID: I know that those poems force me, however workaday my world is, to "raise the bar" for myself, my expectations. They fuel an insistence already there, on extracting a level of intensity and importance from the day, from my relationships - all of them. The vision in those poems helps me go into my world and find more - even though my world, from the outside, is not an exceptional place aside from the fact of my own consciousness of it. Not Copenhagen, or Paros, but, you know, Stop & Shop. Dave's Soda and Pet Store, etc. But so what...with a little stubborness... Those poems changed what I look for in a poem, for better or worse. Maybe foolishly, I want to find out something I can use, not just in my thinking about how words get put together, but in how I live. From grahamd at ripon.edu Fri Oct 29 10:46:38 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 09:46:38 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet In-Reply-To: <008c01c4bdb5$6e300eb0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: on 10/29/04 7:47 AM, Bob Grumman at bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net wrote: > Won't any of you chip in some thoughts about how you would decide whether > Hecht or anyone else is a major poet or not? Or poet who will likely be > taken very seriously a hundred years from now if you don't like the term, > "major poet?" > > --Bob I mentioned the inimitable Robert Francis on this topic yesterday. Here's one of his "Satirical Rogue" essays, complete: MAJOR "Can you tell me," I asked, "precisely what a major poet is?" "That's easy," he replied. "A major poet is any poet of major importance." "What gives a major poet his major importance?" I pursued. "Is it a question of quality only, or does quantity enter in?" "It's mostly a matter of quality," he said. "Then why do people speak of a very fine minor poet?" "That would be a poet who wrote only very brief poems." "Oh, so quantity does enter in," I exclaimed, "quantity as to the individual poems if not as to the poet's total output. I suppose a fine poet who wrote only brief poems would have to be very fine indeed to be a major poet. " He looked at me with just a trace of irritation. "Now that you've made clear to me the difference between major and minor, I'd like to know where you draw the line between them. The line, say, between a grade-A poet who writes brief poems and a grade-B poet who writes long ones?" He cleared his throat. "You're making things too complicated." "But I thought things were complicated to start with!" I cried. --Robert Francis. *Pot Shots at Poetry*. U Michigan Press, 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 bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 29 10:54:10 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:54:10 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet References: Message-ID: <00c701c4bdc7$29c9f760$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> I get it, David. Because morons can't come up with a useful way of distinguishing major poets from lesser poets, as demonstrated by the "inimitable" Robert Francis, no one at New-Poetry (myself excluded) can. Thanks. --Bob G. From grahamd at ripon.edu Fri Oct 29 11:02:48 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 10:02:48 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet In-Reply-To: <00c701c4bdc7$29c9f760$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: on 10/29/04 9:54 AM, Bob Grumman at bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net wrote: > I get it, David. Because morons can't come up with a useful way of > distinguishing major poets from lesser poets, as demonstrated by the > "inimitable" Robert Francis, no one at New-Poetry (myself excluded) can. > Thanks. > > --Bob G. > I get it, too, Bob: people who "chip in" opinions that you don't like are all morons. Sure is a mystery why people don't take your requests for help with your taxonomic schemes more seriously, isn't it? ==================================================== 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 anny.ballardini at tin.it Fri Oct 29 11:07:25 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:07:25 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet References: <00c701c4bdc7$29c9f760$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <002e01c4bdc9$001b6cd0$1fad3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> buBBBooooooooooooMmmmm Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Grumman" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 4:54 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet > I get it, David. Because morons can't come up with a useful way of > distinguishing major poets from lesser poets, as demonstrated by the > "inimitable" Robert Francis, no one at New-Poetry (myself excluded) can. > Thanks. > > --Bob G. > > > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 29 11:35:08 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:35:08 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet References: Message-ID: <00d201c4bdcc$e2e3e260$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> >> I get it, David. Because morons can't come up with a useful way of >> distinguishing major poets from lesser poets, as demonstrated by the >> "inimitable" Robert Francis, no one at New-Poetry (myself excluded) can. >> Thanks. >> >> --Bob G. >> > > I get it, too, Bob: people who "chip in" opinions that you don't like are > all morons. Sure is a mystery why people don't take your requests for help > with your taxonomic schemes more seriously, isn't it? > No, someone who chips in an essay that implies that trying to define a major poet is stupid because the moron the essayist writes about can't do it is a moron. --Bob G. From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu Fri Oct 29 04:36:12 2004 From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 03:36:12 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Freedom is on the March In-Reply-To: <200410282223.i9SMN5gZ007384@d01av01.pok.ibm.com> Message-ID: On 10/28/04 5:18 PM, "DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com" wrote: >>> >>> I quit reading this after the word junta in the first sentence and the >>> bizarre charge that finished the first paragraph. >>> >>> Paul Lake > > How far did you get in the NY Times' editorial endorsing John Kerry > in the election, Paul? > > Richard > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > --- > [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] > > Haven't seen that one, Richard--not that it matters. The NYT has turned its front page into a Kerry campaign ad. Paul --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus] From hruggier at localnet.com Fri Oct 29 11:49:36 2004 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 11:49:36 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry about? References: <20.367571c0.2eb15206@aol.com> Message-ID: <01af01c4bdce$e4e0b1e0$170a9942@Helen> I agree - it was doncrete, made sense, no academese - probably every mag. out there should be required to post what they're about. h ----- Original Message ----- From: MillB at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 3:33 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is poetry about? Charles Harper Webb has an interesting article about poetics in the latest AWP Chronicle: "Apples and Orangutans: Competing Values in Contemporary Poetry." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Fri Oct 29 12:07:15 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 12:07:15 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet In-Reply-To: <008c01c4bdb5$6e300eb0$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: { Won't any of you chip in some thoughts about how you would decide whether { Hecht or anyone else is a major poet or not? Or poet who will likely be { taken very seriously a hundred years from now if you don't like the term, { "major poet?" { { --Bob As for me, I'll just wait and see. Hal "Those who cast the ballots decide nothing. Those who count the ballots decide everything." --Joseph Stalin Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From JforJames at aol.com Fri Oct 29 13:00:33 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 13:00:33 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" Message-ID: <9e.18462952.2eb3d131@aol.com> In a message dated 10/28/2004 10:44:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, jkok at hfa.umass.edu writes: There are piles of versions and photocopies sitting a few feet from this computer even as we speak. This particular poem is not one of my favorites, but the most recent one in the New Yorker, "Transgressions," is. Kerry, as you know, I've probably lost all objectivity where Jack is concerned as a poet or a person. Those who have come to love Gilbert's poetry, love it with an almost cultish adoration, and I'm afraid I'm no exception. This poem may not be his best, but to disagree with Richard, I must aver that Jack never uses acrylic, his medium is oil of the Old Masters, and as Auden has told us, about suffering they were never wrong. Ken praised the poems in Monolithos. I can remember first reading some of those poems in APR shortly before the book came out (I didn't know Jack or his poetry at the time), and just being knocked over by the simplicity of language, that yet carried within it the great weight of emotional intensity and a sense of grandeur, without losing the existential, the factual, the experiential. Anyway, we recently talked about list poems, and I think this poem fits into one of the "sub-types" of Jack Gilbert's poetry. It starts with Jack's structural use of the list. He builds up a list of sentences, often leaping across years, continents and cultures, involving incidents of history or his experience and memories, pushing forward, fitfully, toward a theme: The girl shepherd on the farm beyond has been >>taken from school now she is twelve, and her life is over. >>I got my genius brother a summer job in the mills >>and he stayed all his life. I lived with a woman four >>years who went crazy later, escaped from the hospital, >>hitchhiked across America terrified and in the snow >>without a coat, and was raped by most men who gave her >>a ride. I crank my heart even so and it turns over. He then puts a capstone on top of those piled lines with a larger rhetorical statement or grand notion... Ranges high in the sun over continents and eruptions >>of mortality, through winds and immensities of rain >>falling for miles. Until all the world is overcome But he doesn't let the poem rest there; as others might, he seques from the grand into a more poetic realm (in some cases closing on a specific image), or, as in this case, twisting and turning the expected diction and introducing an unexpected word or phrasing ... by what goes up and up in us, singing and dancing >>and throwing down flowers as we continue north taking >>the maimed with us, keeping the sad parts carefully. Finnegan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com Fri Oct 29 14:14:49 2004 From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 19:14:49 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] Major Major References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A432@mail.ripon.edu> <014e01c4bd56$bf36c010$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <008b01c4bde6$475f6b60$3b9f9951@Robin> From: "Bob Grumman" > To use words is to divide the world continually into two things, some x and > some all that is not x. Isn't that less to do with the use of words and everything to do with Aristotelian (Formal) Logic? Aristotelian Logic maps accurately neither semantics nor "the world" -- unless, I suppose, you're George W. Bush and if you ain't with us, you're against us. The enduring power of Aristoelian Logic is its beautiful and powerful (over)simplification. Anyway, interesting to know that Dubya isn't the only living exponent. Robin Hamilton From jkok at hfa.umass.edu Fri Oct 29 17:14:14 2004 From: jkok at hfa.umass.edu (Kerry O'Keefe) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:14:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" In-Reply-To: <9e.18462952.2eb3d131@aol.com> References: <9e.18462952.2eb3d131@aol.com> Message-ID: Beautifully said, Jim. Those lists, like stacks of polished marble slab. He is a master of the crescendo that just keeps going - like a Mahler adagio - when you don't think it can go a minute more, when it would be nearly indecent, downright immoral to keep going, it keeps going. And then the ambition of the endings. Yes indeed. But difficult, perhaps, when one has been up close like Suzanne. Hard to seperate the man from the work from the relationship... Which is why I never read Miles Davis' autobiography... On Fri, 29 Oct 2004 JforJames at aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 10/28/2004 10:44:11 PM Eastern Daylight Time, > jkok at hfa.umass.edu writes: > There are > piles of versions and photocopies sitting a few feet from this computer > even as we speak. This particular poem is not one of my favorites, but > the most recent one in the New Yorker, "Transgressions," is. > Kerry, as you know, I've probably lost all objectivity > where Jack is concerned as a poet or a person. Those who > have come to love Gilbert's poetry, love it with an almost > cultish adoration, and I'm afraid I'm no exception. > This poem may not be his best, but to disagree with Richard, > I must aver that Jack never uses acrylic, his medium is > oil of the Old Masters, and as Auden has told us, about > suffering they were never wrong. > > Ken praised the poems in Monolithos. I can remember > first reading some of those poems in APR shortly before > the book came out (I didn't know Jack or his poetry at the time), > and just being knocked over by the simplicity of language, > that yet carried within it the great weight of emotional > intensity and a sense of grandeur, without losing > the existential, the factual, the experiential. > > Anyway, we recently talked about list poems, and I > think this poem fits into one of the "sub-types" of > Jack Gilbert's poetry. It starts with Jack's structural > use of the list. He builds up a list of sentences, > often leaping across years, continents and cultures, > involving incidents of history or his experience and > memories, pushing forward, fitfully, toward a theme: > > The girl shepherd on the farm beyond has been > >>taken from school now she is twelve, and her life is over. > >>I got my genius brother a summer job in the mills > >>and he stayed all his life. I lived with a woman four > >>years who went crazy later, escaped from the hospital, > >>hitchhiked across America terrified and in the snow > >>without a coat, and was raped by most men who gave her > >>a ride. I crank my heart even so and it turns over. > > He then puts a capstone on top of those piled lines > with a larger rhetorical statement or grand notion... > > Ranges high in the sun over continents and eruptions > >>of mortality, through winds and immensities of rain > >>falling for miles. Until all the world is overcome > > But he doesn't let the poem rest there; as others might, > he seques from the grand into a more poetic realm > (in some cases closing on a specific image), or, as in > this case, twisting and turning the expected diction > and introducing an unexpected word or phrasing ... > > by what goes up and up in us, singing and dancing > >>and throwing down flowers as we continue north taking > >>the maimed with us, keeping the sad parts carefully. > > Finnegan > -------------- next part -------------- _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry From MillB at aol.com Fri Oct 29 17:19:20 2004 From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 17:19:20 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Jack Gilbert, "Trying to Sleep" Message-ID: <20.36ad7872.2eb40dd8@aol.com> Note: Miles' autobiography was not exactly that. Although it has been many years since I read it, as I recall, it was written WITH Quincy Troupe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mandolin at mac.com Fri Oct 29 18:28:58 2004 From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 18:28:58 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Oct 29, 2004, at 12:07 PM, Halvard Johnson wrote: > { Won't any of you chip in some thoughts about how you would decide > whether > { Hecht or anyone else is a major poet or not? Or poet who will > likely be > { taken very seriously a hundred years from now if you don't like > the term, > { "major poet?" > { > { --Bob > > As for me, I'll just wait and see. > Yup. Yeats thought his competition was Swinburne. Now I just have to figure out how to live to 151 ... From eeksypeeksy at gmail.com Fri Oct 29 19:10:54 2004 From: eeksypeeksy at gmail.com (Malcolm Davidson) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 01:10:54 +0200 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: how to pronounce "Czeslaw Milosz." In-Reply-To: <200410281600.i9SG03Am028668@wiz.cath.vt.edu> References: <200410281600.i9SG03Am028668@wiz.cath.vt.edu> Message-ID: <3dfe832304102916105924ec10@mail.gmail.com> > Can anyone help me with a really stupid question? I > don't know how to pronounce "Czeslaw Milosz." > > Is it "CHESS-low mee-LOZE?" Or is it "ze-SLAW > mi-LOWS?" It's CHEH-swahv MEE-wohsh. So, yes, it starts a lot like "chess" but shift the S sound more to the second syllable. The two W sounds where you would expect L sounds are there because there should be a diagonal line through those two Ls, which makes them the Polish equivalent of an English W. The Z often acts like an H in Polish, so you get Polish CZ = English CH, Polish SZ = English SH. And that's why "Wislawa Szymborska" sounds like vee-SWAH-vah shim-BOHR-ska. See also: http://www.ziemiecki.com/polish/default.html Malcolm (I'm not Polish but I live there) http://eeksypeeksy.blogspot.com/ http://dumbfoundry.blogspot.com/ http://zotz.blogspot.com/ etc. From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 29 19:17:20 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 19:17:20 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet References: Message-ID: <005101c4be0d$76c9b780$98b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Major Poet > > { Won't any of you chip in some thoughts about how you would decide > whether > { Hecht or anyone else is a major poet or not? Or poet who will likely > be > { taken very seriously a hundred years from now if you don't like the > term, > { "major poet?" > { > { --Bob > > As for me, I'll just wait and see. No, you won't (I don't think). You'll distinguish major from minor and minor from so-so and so-so from not worth reading right now, and prefer the first to the others. But you'll be shirking your responsibility to posterity to argue for the first against the ones people like me are arguing for, so there's a chance posterity will be stuck with mine since loudness tends to sway the academics who choose the contents of anthologies and textbooks more than silence. --Bob From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 29 19:19:42 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 19:19:42 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] How Would You Define A Major Poet References: <00c701c4bdc7$29c9f760$a5b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <002e01c4bdc9$001b6cd0$1fad3452@yourpk9x5fuc06> Message-ID: <005901c4be0d$ca91c6a0$98b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > buBBBooooooooooooMmmmm > I wasn't saying the people at New-Poetry are morons but that that was what David's post implied. I'm willing to admit that I may not have expressed that with perfect clarity. (I sometimes expect readers to fill in more than may be reasonable when reading me.) --Bob From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 29 19:22:06 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 19:22:06 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry about? References: <20.367571c0.2eb15206@aol.com> <01af01c4bdce$e4e0b1e0$170a9942@Helen> Message-ID: <006701c4be0e$20260a40$98b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> I agree - it was concrete, made sense, no academese - probably every mag. out there should be required to post what they're about. h Most of them do: they prefer the very best poetry. Now, about this article, is there anywhere on the Internet one can read it? Or can someone back-channel me a copy. --Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: MillB at aol.com To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 3:33 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is poetry about? Charles Harper Webb has an interesting article about poetics in the latest AWP Chronicle: "Apples and Orangutans: Competing Values in Contemporary Poetry." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Fri Oct 29 19:36:01 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 19:36:01 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Major Major References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A432@mail.ripon.edu><014e01c4bd56$bf36c010$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <008b01c4bde6$475f6b60$3b9f9951@Robin> Message-ID: <007a01c4be10$121e0d10$98b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> > From: "Bob Grumman" > >> To use words is to divide the world continually into two things, some x > and >> some all that is not x. > > Isn't that less to do with the use of words and everything to do with > Aristotelian (Formal) Logic? No. You think I'm saying something like there's white and black. I'm actually saying there's white, and not-white. The anti-continuumist will assume "not-white" equals "black." For him, it does. For me, it equals many shades of grey, and one black. I'[m saying something very simple--perhaps too simple to readily grasp. I'm saying that using the term, "apple," is to distinguish everything that is "apple" from everything that is "not-apple." It isn't to divide the contents of the world into just two things in any practical, non-semantic sense. --Bob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From halvard at earthlink.net Fri Oct 29 22:57:57 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 22:57:57 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: William Carlos Williams, a last-weekend-before-election jamboree Message-ID: The Approaching Hour You Communists and Republicans! all you Germans and Frenchmen! you corpses and quickeners! The stars are about to melt and fall on you in tears. Get ready! Get ready! you Papists and Protestants! you whores and you virtuous! The moon will be bread and drop presently into your baskets. Friends and those who despise and detest us! Adventists and those who believe nothing! Get ready for the awakening. Convivio We forget sometimes that no matter what our quarrels we are the same brotherhood: the rain falling or the rain withheld, --berated by women, barroom smells or breath of Persian roses! our wealth is words. And when we go down to defeat, before the words, it is still within and the concern of, first, the brotherhood. Which should quiet us, warm and arm us besides to attack, always attack--but to reserve our worst blows for the enemy, those who despise the word, flout it, stem, leaves and root; the liars who decree laws with no purpose other than to make a screen of them for larceny, murder--for our murder, we who salute the word and would have it clean, full of sharp movement. New Mexico Anger can be transformed to a kitten--as love may become a mountain in the disturbed mind, the mind that prances like a horse or nibbles, starts and stares in the parched sage of the triple world--of stone, stone layered and beaten under the confessed brilliance of this desert noon. The Mind's Games If a man can say of his life or any moment of his life, There is nothing more to be desired! his state becomes like that told in the famous double sonnet--but without the sonnet's restrictions. Let him go look at the river flowing or the bank of late flowers, there will be one small fly still among the petals in whose gauzy wings raised above its back a rainbow shines. The world to him is radiant and even the fact of poverty is wholly without despair. So it seems until these rouse to him pictures of the systematically starved--for a purpose, at the mind's proposal. What good then the light winged fly, the flower or the river--too foul to drink of or even to bathe in? The 90 story building beyond the ocean that a rocket will span for destruction in a matter of minutes but will not bring him, in a century, food or relief of any sort from his suffering. The world too much with us? Rot! the world is not half enough with us-- the rot of a potato with a healthy skin, a rot that is never revealed till we are about to eat--and it revolts us. Beauty? Beauty should make us paupers, should blind us, rob us--for it does not feed the sufferer but makes his suffering a fly-blown putrescence and ourselves decay--unless the ecstasy be general. Election Day Warm sun, quiet air an old man sits in the doorway of a broken house-- boards for windows plaster falling from between the stones and strokes the head of a spotted dog --William Carlos Williams all fr. *The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams Volume II: 1939-1962* [New York: New Directions, 1986] Hal Halvard Johnson ============ email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com Sat Oct 30 11:06:20 2004 From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 16:06:20 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] Major Major References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A432@mail.ripon.edu><014e01c4bd56$bf36c010$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><008b01c4bde6$475f6b60$3b9f9951@Robin> <007a01c4be10$121e0d10$98b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: <004801c4be93$1afa7cb0$2f9f9951@Robin> Bob: << >> To use words is to divide the world continually into two things, some x > and >> some all that is not x. > > Isn't that less to do with the use of words and everything to do with > Aristotelian (Formal) Logic? No. You think I'm saying something like there's white and black. I'm actually saying there's white, and not-white. The anti-continuumist will assume "not-white" equals "black." For him, it does. For me, it equals many shades of grey, and one black. I'[m saying something very simple--perhaps too simple to readily grasp. I'm saying that using the term, "apple," is to distinguish everything that is "apple" from everything that is "not-apple." It isn't to divide the contents of the world into just two things in any practical, non-semantic sense. >> I'm not sure that this really meats {meets!!!} my objections. With white/not-white(shades of grey), mibee there's a case there as white and black are "absolutes". [Except what about the case of transparent/translucent colours? And cream vs. matt vs. *varieties* of white? Ditto with "black".] As to apples vs not-apples, this falls down on both sides of the equation and in terms of both semantics and "reality". Apples as uncontentious? What about Coxes, Granny Smiths, Pippins, etc.? And on the other side, pears as not-apples bear a different relation to "apples" than do oranges, carrots, or Kalashnikov rifles. [It's easier to deal with this with Venn diagrams, but bugger me if I can work-out how to include one in a plain-text email.] Aristotelian binary logic was (and is) a bloody powerful tool -- well, it would have to be to hold the stage in the West for over 2000 years -- but it's been severely challenged, at least since the fifities, in math (Set Theory), logic (Symbolic Logic), and semantics (Korzybski explicitly and de Saussure in the _Course_ implicitly) ... The shift from a Yes/No universe-of-discourse to a Yes/No/Perhaps one ... {Analogically, illustrating the overlap of mathematics and philosophy, Zeno's Paradox remained a problem until the advent of calculus, whereupon it simply faded away.} Yes/No -- EITHER you've stopped beating your wife OR you haven't stopped beating your wife. Do you still beat your wife, Bob? Robin From grahamd at ripon.edu Sat Oct 30 14:10:08 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:10:08 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Pound Message-ID: On the occasion of Ezra Pound's birthday.... These fought in any case, and some believing, pro domo, in any case . . . Some quick to arm, some for adventure, some from fear of weakness, some from fear of censure, some for love of slaughter, in imagination, learning later . . . some in fear, learning love of slaughter; Died some, pro patria, non "dulce" non "et decor" . . . walked eye-deep in hell believing in old men's lies, then unbelieving came home, home to a lie, home to many deceits, home to old lies and new infamy; usury age-old and age-thick and liars in public places. Daring as never before, wastage as never before. Young blood and high blood, fair cheeks, and fine bodies; fortitude as never before frankness as never before, disillusions as never told in the old days, hysterias, trench confessions, laughter out of dead bellies. --from "Hugh Selwyn Mauberly" ==================================================== 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 bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 30 14:14:59 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 14:14:59 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Major Major References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A432@mail.ripon.edu><014e01c4bd56$bf36c010$86b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc><008b01c4bde6$475f6b60$3b9f9951@Robin><007a01c4be10$121e0d10$98b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> <004801c4be93$1afa7cb0$2f9f9951@Robin> Message-ID: <00c901c4beac$626c17c0$a4b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> You miss my point, Robin. I'll have to think of some better way to make it. Meanwhile, I'll just re-use my previous way and say that if I say "apples," I am making two bins; into one go all objects I think of as apples, into the other everything else in the universe. With a few I'm not sure of that are too trivial generally to bother with. I'm not saying we can treat all the items in bin #2 similarly in any sane way--except as not-apples. This is much different from black&white thinking. And it is inescapable. No time to keep going. --Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robin Hamilton" To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views" Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 11:06 AM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Major Major > Bob: > > << >>> To use words is to divide the world continually into two things, some x >> and >>> some all that is not x. >> >> Isn't that less to do with the use of words and everything to do with >> Aristotelian (Formal) Logic? > > No. You think I'm saying something like there's white and black. I'm > actually saying there's white, and not-white. The anti-continuumist will > assume "not-white" equals "black." For him, it does. For me, it equals > many shades of grey, and one black. > > I'[m saying something very simple--perhaps too simple to readily grasp. > I'm > saying that using the term, "apple," is to distinguish everything that is > "apple" from everything that is "not-apple." It isn't to divide the > contents of the world into just two things in any practical, non-semantic > sense. >>> > > I'm not sure that this really meats {meets!!!} my objections. > > With white/not-white(shades of grey), mibee there's a case there as white > and black are "absolutes". [Except what about the case of > transparent/translucent colours? And cream vs. matt vs. *varieties* of > white? Ditto with "black".] > > As to apples vs not-apples, this falls down on both sides of the equation > and in terms of both semantics and "reality". > > Apples as uncontentious? What about Coxes, Granny Smiths, Pippins, etc.? > > And on the other side, pears as not-apples bear a different relation to > "apples" than do oranges, carrots, or Kalashnikov rifles. > > [It's easier to deal with this with Venn diagrams, but bugger me if I can > work-out how to include one in a plain-text email.] > > Aristotelian binary logic was (and is) a bloody powerful tool -- well, it > would have to be to hold the stage in the West for over 2000 years -- but > it's been severely challenged, at least since the fifities, in math (Set > Theory), logic (Symbolic Logic), and semantics (Korzybski explicitly and > de > Saussure in the _Course_ implicitly) ... > > The shift from a Yes/No universe-of-discourse to a Yes/No/Perhaps one ... > > {Analogically, illustrating the overlap of mathematics and philosophy, > Zeno's Paradox remained a problem until the advent of calculus, whereupon > it > simply faded away.} > > Yes/No -- EITHER you've stopped beating your wife OR you haven't stopped > beating your wife. > > Do you still beat your wife, Bob? > > > > Robin > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 30 14:24:18 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:24:18 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] ImPounded In-Reply-To: <00c901c4beac$626c17c0$a4b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Message-ID: And speaking of major minor poets as well as Ezra Pound, here is the final paragraph of a provocative little essay from *The New Criterion*, by Donald Lyons: As a figure in the early history of modernism, Pound is central, inspiring, intriguing. He edited The Waste Land; he serialized some chapters of Ulysses: and responded generously to much of it?-calling ?Circe? Joyce?s Hell chapter, ?a new Inferno in full sail ? megaloscrumptious-mastondonic.? As a modernist poet, he accomplished some amazingly original work in his English decade?-above all, in my judgment, in the more or less achieved wholes of Cathay and Propertius. But even his best verse does not have major weight. Next to Eliot and Stevens and Frost, next to even his friend Williams, he is a minor poet, a major minor but a minor. He will always appeal to cultists and decipherers seduced by the allure of a master cryptographer; in this sense, he resembles George Chapman or William Blake. As a versifier, he has inspired some verse wiser and sweeter (I do not say better) than his own, for example, ?Black Zodiac? by Charles Wright. --from "A major minor: Ezra Pound?s poetry" by Donald Lyons ? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >From The New Criterion Vol. 17, No. 10, June 1999 ?1999 The New Criterion | | www.newcriterion.com ==================================================== 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 hruggier at localnet.com Sat Oct 30 14:52:28 2004 From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 14:52:28 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: William Carlos Williams, a last-weekend-before-election jamboree References: Message-ID: <003101c4beb1$9b132af0$1b0c9942@Helen> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Halvard Johnson" To: "New-Poetry" Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 10:57 PM Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: William Carlos Williams,a last-weekend-before-election jamboree > > The Approaching Hour > > You Communists and Republicans! > all you Germans and Frenchmen! > you corpses and quickeners! > The stars are about to melt > and fall on you in tears. > > Get ready! Get ready! > you Papists and Protestants! > you whores and you virtuous! > The moon will be bread > and drop presently into your baskets. > > Friends and those who despise > and detest us! > Adventists and those who believe > nothing! > Get ready for the awakening. > > > Convivio > > We forget sometimes that no matter what > our quarrels we are the same brotherhood: > the rain falling or the rain withheld, > --berated by women, barroom smells > or breath of Persian roses! our wealth > is words. And when we go down to defeat, > before the words, it is still within and > the concern of, first, the brotherhood. > Which should quiet us, warm and arm us > besides to attack, always attack--but to > reserve our worst blows for the enemy, those > who despise the word, flout it, stem, > leaves and root; the liars who decree laws > with no purpose other than to make a screen > of them for larceny, murder--for our > murder, we who salute the word and would > have it clean, full of sharp movement. > > > New Mexico > > Anger can be transformed > to a kitten--as love > may become a mountain in > the disturbed mind, the > mind that prances like > a horse or nibbles, starts > and stares in the parched > sage of the triple > world--of stone, stone > layered and beaten under > the confessed brilliance > of this desert noon. > > > The Mind's Games > > If a man can say of his life or > any moment of his life, There is > nothing more to be desired! his state > becomes like that told in the famous > double sonnet--but without the > sonnet's restrictions. Let him go look > at the river flowing or the bank > of late flowers, there will be one > small fly still among the petals > in whose gauzy wings raised above > its back a rainbow shines. The world > to him is radiant and even the fact > of poverty is wholly without despair. > > So it seems until these rouse > to him pictures of the systematically > starved--for a purpose, at the mind's > proposal. What good then the > light winged fly, the flower or > the river--too foul to drink of or > even to bathe in? The 90 story building > beyond the ocean that a rocket > will span for destruction in a matter > of minutes but will not > bring him, in a century, food or > relief of any sort from his suffering. > > The world too much with us? Rot! > the world is not half enough with us-- > the rot of a potato with > a healthy skin, a rot that is > never revealed till we are about to > eat--and it revolts us. Beauty? > Beauty should make us paupers, > should blind us, rob us--for it > does not feed the sufferer but makes > his suffering a fly-blown putrescence > and ourselves decay--unless > the ecstasy be general. > > > Election Day > > Warm sun, quiet air > an old man sits > > in the doorway of > a broken house-- > > boards for windows > plaster falling > > from between the stones > and strokes the head > > of a spotted dog > > --William Carlos Williams > > all fr. *The Collected Poems of William Carlos > Williams Volume II: 1939-1962* > [New York: New Directions, 1986] > > > Hal > > Halvard Johnson > ============ > email: halvard at earthlink.net > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard > blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 30 16:34:13 2004 From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 15:34:13 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Hitler's First Photograph Message-ID: Hitler's First Photograph And who's this little fellow in his itty-bitty robe? That's tiny baby Adolf, the Hitlers' little boy! Will he grow up to be an LL.D? Or a tenor in Vienna's Opera House? Whose teensy hand is this, whose little ear and eye and nose? Whose tummy full of milk, we just don't know: printer's, doctor's, merchant's, priest's? Where will those tootsy-wootsies finally wander? To a garden, to a school, to an office, to a bride? Maybe to the B?rgermeister's daughter? Precious little angel, mommy's sunshine, honey bun. While he was being born, a year ago, there was no dearth of signs on the earth and in the sky: spring sun, geraniums in windows, the organ-grinder's music in the yard, a lucky fortune wrapped in rosy paper. Then just before the labor his mother's fateful dream. A dove seen in a dream means joyful news-- if it is caught, a long-awaited guest will come. Knock knock, who's there, it's Adolf's heartchen knocking. A little pacifier, diaper, rattle, bib, our bouncing boy, thank God and knock on wood, is well, looks just like his folks, like a kitten in a basket, like the tots in every other family album. Sh-h-h, let's not start crying, sugar. The camera will click from under that black hood. The Klinger Atelier, Grabenstrasse, Braunau. And Braunau is a small, but worthy town-- honest businesses, obliging neighbors, smell of yeast dough, of gray soap. No one hears howling dogs, or fate's footsteps. A history teacher loosens his collar and yawns over homework. --Wislawa Szymborska. Trans. Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanagh. *Poems New & Collected: 1957-1997*. 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 bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sat Oct 30 17:40:04 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 17:40:04 -0400 Subject: [New-Poetry] ImPounded References: Message-ID: <00f301c4bec9$26473000$a4b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> For me, the question is only whether Pound is a major poet of the first rank or a major poet of the second rank. I rank Stevens higher, but Williams lower, and Eliot lower still. Not being a New Criterion writer, though, I give him credit for introducing new tools. Even aside from that, though, my subjective opinion is that his best verse has major weight. --Bob G. From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 30 18:06:33 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 18:06:33 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] First Annual Stephen Crane Festival of the Short Poem Message-ID: <140.36386467.2eb56a69@aol.com> The First Annual Stephen Crane Festival of the Short Poem In the desert. I saw a creature, baked, bestial, who, squatting on the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, "Is it good, friend?" " It is bitter bitter," he answered; "But I like it ... it. Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart." ? ? -Stephen Crane Sunday, November 7th, 3:30pm-6:00pm The Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery Admission: $6 Further Information: Steve at 212-529-1955 "Not the short poem. I would call it ?The Concise Poem.'" ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? -Samuel Menashe Join us in celebrating what is distinctive about the short poem ? its brevitas.? Loosely defined as "longer than a haiku and shorter than a sonnet," the best short poems can -- in performance -- be apprehended as a single thought, and - on the page -- communicate their meaning visually as well as verbally.? The way a short poem is lined out on a page, its form, can be understood simultaneously with its meaning in a single moment or epiphany.? A beautiful, short poem can almost be held in one's hand, as if one could inspect it from all sides. And, as a fleeting two hours slips through your fingers, you'll hold an armful of poems! 3:30 pm?? Introduction by host Steve Zeitlin 3:40 pm?? Poet Bob Holman reading Stephen Crane (1871-1900) 3:50 pm?? Samuel Menashe, winner of the Neglected Masters Award from the Poetry Foundation 4:00 pm?? Bob Hershon 4:10 pm?? Alice Quinn and other poets from the Poetry Society of America, reading favorite poems from? the "Poetry in Motion" series on the New York City subways 4:20 pm?? Intermission and Book Sales 4:30 pm?? Hal Sirowitz 4:40 pm?? Sparrow 4:50 pm?? Mike Topp 5:00 pm?? Poets: Alicia Vasquez, Hope Cullinan, Meg Daniel, Jim Pignetti, Annie Lanzillotto, Ed Smith, Stephanie Nilva 5:15 pm?? Open Mic Readers 5:30 pm?? Dance party and celebration -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From JforJames at aol.com Sat Oct 30 18:56:11 2004 From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 18:56:11 EDT Subject: [New-Poetry] ImPounded Message-ID: <19c.2afdd6f2.2eb5760b@aol.com> In a message dated 10/30/2004 6:07:22 PM Eastern Standard Time, JforJames at aol.com writes: Re: [New-Poetry] First Annual Stephen Crane Festival of the Short Poem > 5:00 pm Poets: Alicia Vasquez, Hope Cullinan, Meg Daniel, Jim Pignetti, > Annie Lanzillotto, Ed Smith, Stephanie Nilva > 5:15 pm Open Mic Readers > 5:30 pm Dance party and celebration Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music. says DJ Ez -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anny.ballardini at tin.it Sun Oct 31 06:36:26 2004 From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 12:36:26 +0100 Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry? Answer to Tad Richards References: <19c.2afdd6f2.2eb5760b@aol.com> Message-ID: <012a01c4bf3d$dbb885f0$f2a83252@yourpk9x5fuc06> Hi, I am referring specifically to the mail of Tad Richards regarding the quotation on poetry taken from Italo Calvino. I read _Under The Jaguar Sun_, published posthumous, the title should have been _The Five Senses_. In this collection we have only three stories: - The name, the nose - Under the Jaguar Sun (taste) - A king listening Since I was at the library, I also picked up his _American Lectures_, another collection, this time of narrated essays he was supposed to read at Harvard University for the "Norton Lectures" that began in 1926, guests were: Eliot, Stravinsky, Borges, Northrop Frye, Octavio Paz, among others. Calvino was invited to hold them in the year 1985-86. Here is the list of his _Six Memos for the next millennium_ as he called them: 1 - Lightness 2 - Quickness 3 - Exactitude 4 - Visibility 5 - Multiplicity 6 - Consistency He didn't have time enough to deal with Consistency that was going to be centered on Melville's Bartleby, which he was planning to write at Harvard. He died in September 1985, and his notes were collected as _American Lectures_ and published. I cannot remember the exact quote Tad Richards sent (please can you send it again to the list?), but I think that more than in _Under the Jaguar Sun_, those words have to be looked for in these lectures, and the concept of a frame including a text or a text included into a frame is fundamental in Calvino's observations. Where frame and text can also be referred to as finite and infinite, topic he tried to analyze under Multiplicity by starting out with one of my favorite Italian writers: Carlo Emilio Gadda (an engineer who is over-concrete in his descriptions...) and compares him with Joyce (of the latter he lacks playful inventiveness for inventiveness (I think)); to go to Robert Musil and both his mathematical exactness and approximation of human events in his _Man without Quality_; to Proust and quotations are taken from la _Prisonni?re_; to Goethe and Lichtenberg, and of the latter quoted are these words: "I think that a poem on the empty space could be sublime"; Blumenberg. He speaks of when Flaubert was thinking of _Bouvard et P?cuchet_, and wrote to Zola to let him know that "Mes lectures sont finies et je n'ouvre aucun bouquin jusqu'? la terminaison de mon roman" (my readings have ended and I won't open another book until the end of my novel), but the writing required more precise information and in January 1880 he wrote again: "Savez-vous ? combien se montent les volumes qu'il m'a fallu absorber pour mes deux bonhommes? A plus de 1500! (Do you have an idea of how many volumes I had to absorb for my two gentlemen? Over 1500!)". And thus Calvino comments, "The encyclopedic epopea of the two self-taught authors (Flaubert and Zola) is therefore doubled by a parallel unfinished titanic enterprise actually carried out, it was Flaubert in person to be transformed into a universal encyclopedia." He finally speaks of _Der Zauberberg_ by Thomas Mann as "the book with the most complete introduction to the culture of our century". Through Dante he reaches Eliot and Joyce, and finally Alfred Jarry with his _L'amour absolu_ novel that can be read in three ways. He gives vent to his absolute preference for Paul Val?ry by quoting: "J'ai cherch?, je cherche et chercherai pour ce que je nomme le Ph?nom?ne Total, c'est ? dire le Tout de la conscience, des relations, des conditions, des possibilit?s, des impossibilit?s..." (I have looked for and will look for what I define as the Total Phenomenon, that is, the Whole of consciousness, relationships, conditions, possibilities, impossibilities...) And Calvino says: "Among what I would like the new millennium to inherit from us, above all I wish a literature that has made its own : mental order, exactitude, intelligence of poetry, and at the same time science and philosophy, as Val?ry, essayist and writer, did". Finally we have Jorge Luis Borges and his: _El jard?n de los senderos que se bifurcan_; and as an example of what Calvino calls the "hyper-text" here is _La vie mode d'emploi_ by Georges Perec, friend of the author. Again we have the image of a container and of a content, an escape from the arbitrariness of existence, where a poetics that could be defined as affected and mechanical gives instead inexhaustible and inventive freedom and richness (Georges Perec's writing). The concluding paragraph talks of his apology of the novel seen as a great net. Someone could say that the more the work follows a multiplication of "possibles", the more it distances itself from the _self_. The opposite, he answers, we are nothing but a combination of experiences, information, reading, and imaginations. He also says, and here I am translating: "But maybe the answer I most wish to give is another one; hopefully could we reach a work conceived outside the self, a work that could get out of the limited perspective of an individual I, not only to enter other similar I's, but to let what does not have the word - talk, the bird on the gutter, the tree in spring and the tree in autumn, the stone, cement, plastic... Was not this the point of arrival aimed to by Ovid in narrating the continuity of forms, the point to which Lucretius aimed when he identified himself with the common nature of all things?" I will also post this mail on my Narcissus Works, and whenever I have time, complete it with the list of books mentioned by Calvino in these 120 pages. Have a great Halloween, Anny Anny Ballardini http://annyballardini.blogspot.com http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome The aim of the poet is to awaken emotions in the soul, not to gather admirers. Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From martinstannard at ntlworld.com Sun Oct 31 10:07:43 2004 From: martinstannard at ntlworld.com (Martin Stannard) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 15:07:43 -0000 Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK Message-ID: <000a01c4bf5b$5f560aa0$0fa80252@SPARKLE100> Hello I just wanted to say Hello, having joined the list a day or so ago. I'm a British poet, and you can find out about me at my Home Page - www.martinstannard.co.uk. I also run a Blog which publishes poems and reviews (so it's half-blog/half-zine, kind of) at www.exultationsanddifficulties.blogspot.com I used to edit a magazine called joe soap's canoe and have some pretty close links with a number of American poets - people like Paul Violi and Mark Halliday. I tend to watch lists rather than engage in a lot of debate - there never seems enough hours in the day to do as much as I'd like to. But it's nice to be here and to see what you are doing. Martin Stannard -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kpaul at mallasch.com Sun Oct 31 14:21:12 2004 From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 14:21:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK In-Reply-To: <000a01c4bf5b$5f560aa0$0fa80252@SPARKLE100> References: <000a01c4bf5b$5f560aa0$0fa80252@SPARKLE100> Message-ID: <20041031142105.V26717@kpaul.spinweb.net> Welcome. ;) -kpaul mallasch.com/mug/ On Sun, 31 Oct 2004, Martin Stannard wrote: > Hello > > > > I just wanted to say Hello, having joined the list a day or so ago. > > > > I'm a British poet, and you can find out about me at my Home Page - www.martinstannard.co.uk. > > > > I also run a Blog which publishes poems and reviews (so it's half-blog/half-zine, kind of) at www.exultationsanddifficulties.blogspot.com > > > > I used to edit a magazine called joe soap's canoe and have some pretty close links with a number of American poets - people like Paul Violi and Mark Halliday. > > > > I tend to watch lists rather than engage in a lot of debate - there never seems enough hours in the day to do as much as I'd like to. But it's nice to be here and to see what you are doing. > > > > > > Martin Stannard > > > > > From jsafdie at comcast.net Sun Oct 31 16:07:45 2004 From: jsafdie at comcast.net (Joe Safdie) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 13:07:45 -0800 Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK References: <000a01c4bf5b$5f560aa0$0fa80252@SPARKLE100> Message-ID: <00dd01c4bf8d$ab7a9d10$56001118@D6T95L21> Yes, welcome Martin. Now tell us . . . England . . . is that a major or a minor country? Proper categories are essential, because without classification . . . why, everything would be a blooming, buzzing confusion . . . just imagine: people could be living in this country and thinking the current administration hasn't been a nightmare. Joe Safdie ----- Original Message ----- From: Martin Stannard To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 7:07 AM Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK Hello I just wanted to say Hello, having joined the list a day or so ago. I'm a British poet, and you can find out about me at my Home Page - www.martinstannard.co.uk. I also run a Blog which publishes poems and reviews (so it's half-blog/half-zine, kind of) at www.exultationsanddifficulties.blogspot.com I used to edit a magazine called joe soap's canoe and have some pretty close links with a number of American poets - people like Paul Violi and Mark Halliday. I tend to watch lists rather than engage in a lot of debate - there never seems enough hours in the day to do as much as I'd like to. But it's nice to be here and to see what you are doing. Martin Stannard ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ New-Poetry mailing list New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kpaul at mallasch.com Sun Oct 31 16:10:57 2004 From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 16:10:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK In-Reply-To: <00dd01c4bf8d$ab7a9d10$56001118@D6T95L21> References: <000a01c4bf5b$5f560aa0$0fa80252@SPARKLE100> <00dd01c4bf8d$ab7a9d10$56001118@D6T95L21> Message-ID: <20041031161036.I26717@kpaul.spinweb.net> England is our mum... -kpaul On Sun, 31 Oct 2004, Joe Safdie wrote: > Yes, welcome Martin. Now tell us . . . England . . . is that a major or a minor country? > > Proper categories are essential, because without classification . . . why, everything would be a blooming, buzzing confusion . . . just imagine: people could be living in this country and thinking the current administration hasn't been a nightmare. > > Joe Safdie > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Martin Stannard > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu > Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 7:07 AM > Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK > > > Hello > > > > I just wanted to say Hello, having joined the list a day or so ago. > > > > I'm a British poet, and you can find out about me at my Home Page - www.martinstannard.co.uk. > > > > I also run a Blog which publishes poems and reviews (so it's half-blog/half-zine, kind of) at www.exultationsanddifficulties.blogspot.com > > > > I used to edit a magazine called joe soap's canoe and have some pretty close links with a number of American poets - people like Paul Violi and Mark Halliday. > > > > I tend to watch lists rather than engage in a lot of debate - there never seems enough hours in the day to do as much as I'd like to. But it's nice to be here and to see what you are doing. > > > > > > Martin Stannard > > > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 31 16:35:11 2004 From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 16:35:11 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK In-Reply-To: <20041031161036.I26717@kpaul.spinweb.net> Message-ID: { England is our mum... { { -kpaul And, as we all know, mum's the word. Hal "America loves a successful sociopath." --Gary Indiana, *Three Month Fever* Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard at earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard blog: http://entropyandme.blogspot.com/ From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net Sun Oct 31 18:57:03 2004 From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 18:57:03 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK References: <000a01c4bf5b$5f560aa0$0fa80252@SPARKLE100> <00dd01c4bf8d$ab7a9d10$56001118@D6T95L21> Message-ID: <01f501c4bfa5$5c1007c0$43b831d0@youro0kwkw9jwc> Right, Joe--if anyone is interested in classifying poets as major or minor or neither, he must want to classify everything. --Bob G. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wjbat at conncoll.edu Sun Oct 31 22:34:00 2004 From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 22:34:00 -0500 Subject: [New-Poetry] Hello from the UK In-Reply-To: <20041031161036.I26717@kpaul.spinweb.net> References: <000a01c4bf5b$5f560aa0$0fa80252@SPARKLE100> <00dd01c4bf8d$ab7a9d10$56001118@D6T95L21> <20041031161036.I26717@kpaul.spinweb.net> Message-ID: On Oct 31, 2004, at 4:10 PM, kpaul mallasch wrote: > England is our mum... And America is our rue. Welcome, Martin. Wendy Wendy Battin wjbat at conncoll.edu http://www.upwardcat.com/home.html The spirit goes on foot. Chinese