While examining dildos and butt plugs and books on the female orgasm at Adam and Eve’s, I met a colon cleansing salesman. He claimed a lot for his kit. The price was steep. The colon was an obsession growing up. Quite regular analysis/discussion of the consistency, length, and color of stools to indicate health. Lots…

A message from Aaron McCollough: Dear Kind Hearted Readers of GutCult: I’m pleased to announce the release of the Summer 2005 issue of GutCult (www.gutcult.com). I hope you will come by and spend some of your psychic capital on getting to know the poems and poets that make up this new edition. Also, please distribute…

This just in from Del Ray Cross: SHAMPOO issue 24, the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY EXTRAVAGANZA, is now hot off the shelf and ready for your shower. Rinse and repeat and repeat with poetry by Alli Warren, Amanda Laughtland, Anselm Berrigan, Beth Woodcome, Bill Berkson, Brent Cunningham, C. S. Carrier, Carolyn Gregory, Cassie Lewis, Catherine Meng,…

Polyurethane vs. Ester 1. Greater stability in humid environments. Dampness promotes ester foam disintegration. 2. The different raw materials used to manufacture Polyurethane foam usually cost less than those used to manufacture Ester foam. 3. Ester foam’s rough, scratchy surface is usually less desirable than the smoother, softly polyurethane surface. 4. Although both materials are…

I know one of the arguments against avant garde (and post-avant) poetics is when it’s disjointed or fragmented or mucks with syntax it’s all surface or the poet is a misunderstood genius. I’ve thought it was a silly argument. I mean what is surface? How do we determine depth? But lately I’ve begun to question…

You are Percy Bysshe Shelley! Famous for yourdreamy abstraction and your quirky verse,you’re the model “sensitive poet.” Avegetarian socialist with great personal charmand a definite way with the love poem, youremain an idol for female readers. There aredozens of cute anecdotes about you, and I loveyou. Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You…

Doing a three step process with a new ms (with the tentative title of Narcoleptic Lawn). 1st step: Moleskin notes. Phrasings. collages, diagrams, and quotes 2nd step: organizing the notes, fragments into tentative lines on an old PC laptop 3rd step: transferring the tentative lines via usb flash drive onto my powermac and adding them…

Electronic ink is a new material that will have far-reaching impact on how society receives its information. Electronic ink is a proprietary material that is processed into a film for integration into electronic displays. Although revolutionary in concept, electronic ink is a straightforward fusion of chemistry, physics and electronics to create this new material. The…

Three Cheers for Patrick Hero(n), The Internationalist, Carrboro parks and Recreation, Open Eye Cafe etc. So amazing people at THE poetry Festival. Philip Nikolayev was funny and gorgeous. Lyric in an interesting and strange way. It was really nice to finally meet Gabe Gudding and Allyssa Wolf and Amy King and Christian Bok among so…

Here’s a nice little write-up about the NC poetry scene by Ken Rumble. Although there is an inaccurate lumping of: Black Mountain poets, Randell Jarrell, UNC Greensboro’s MFA program, Jargon Society. I think the rhetorical strategy of the piece is dead-on, but not sure about placing all these people and scenes together as part of…

When does the use of advertising language, for example, simply reinforce the advertising culture? Or, to go back a bit, did our man Andy W. challenge the status of low/high art via soup cans etc. or reinforce those distinctions? Performance artist Mark McGowan, 37, has rolled along the streets of London to promote kindness to…

This program looks amazing. Just what interests me: writing in the context of the arts (mixed media, performance etc.) check out the quicktime video: Performance Writing

Reading some great essays on Tom Raworth (Removed for Further Study from The Gig) and some really amazing performance/sound/shamanistic poems of Maggie O’Sullivan (Palace of Reptiles also from The Gig). Recently heard Redell Olsen on the Penn Sound site. I am really interested in the various reconfigurations of Objectivism in England and Ireland. There is…

Historians claim that the holiday of Mother’s Day emerged from the ancient festivals dedicated to mother goddess. In the ancient Greek empire, Rhea, the wife of Cronus, and mother of Gods and Goddesses, was worshipped. In Rome too, Cybele, a mother Goddesses, was worshipped, as early as 250 BC. It was known as Hilaria, and…

Just got back from Durham with some goodies. Picked up: 1) Ed Dorn’s Gunslinger Book III The Winterbook (Frontier Press) 2) Rodrigo Toscano’s The Disparities (Green Integer) 3) Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee 4) Lauren Fairbanks’ Muzzle Thyself (Dalkey Archive Press) 5) Clark Coolidge’s Mesh also recently acquired: 1)Bruce Andew’s Give Em Enough Rope 2)…

Before I went home to Ireland last Christmas I had a recurring dream/nightmare that Ireland had been coopted by Las Vegas. All the green fields changed into a desert of neon lights. While the dream was certainly personal in its manifestation of the anxiety of identity ( emigrated to Las Vegas from Ireland in 1985…

I’ve been thinking over my thoughts about why writing matters. Publication and ego boosts and smoozing are all part of it. But perhaps, at least for me, not the core. The large claims of syntactic disruption advocated by some of the language writers (Charles Bernstein in particular) in order to confront and unseam the structural…

Lee Ann Brown and Carl Martin read last night to wrap the 2005 Desert City reading series. Carl Martin read first: rich sounds, density, surrealist touches, a head well squared on the body. I am was really impressed with the consistent quality of Carl Martin’s work. He read from his first book (the title of…

I am really fascinated by the intense relationship between Olson/Creeley and how they created an institution for the reception of their work. Not quite traditional marketing but perhaps marketing nonetheless. In thinking about why I write (poetry or whatever) I’ve often thought about the relationship between the substanceless emphasis of the new in the wider…

I am reading a book right now called _Career Moves_ by Libbie Rifkin. Rifkin analyzes the making of an American Avant Garde community via Creeley, Olson, Berrigan, and Zukofsky. I am only a little ways into the book, but it is fascinating so far. Rifkin has a chapter where she focuses on the homoerotic and…

I am really amazed by the output of Clark Coolidge. I read Own Face, Alien Tatters and I just finished The Crystal Text. I loved these books so much I want to read everything Coolidge has ever written. But that’s a lot of books and my assumption (where did I get it) is that if…

The soon to be knighted Sir Rumble braught Lisa Jarnot to my intro to poetry class yesterday. The class was standing room only (word got around) and most of the students were a tad shy. Lisa was friendly and intimate. She contextualized her work by talking about influences such as Bob Dylan and the Objectivist…

My friend Adam sent me this link (we need more of this reporting): Bedtime Story

This review really hit it for me. I recently read Maurice Scully’s _Livelihood_ and Geofrey Squires _Untitled and Other Poems_ is on deck (I love that baseball term. It is baseball, right?) I think this is from The Nortre Dame review, but I found it via goofle (I mean google). Another Ireland: Part Two Maurice…

I’ve been reading Poetry On & Off The Page by Marjorie Perloff and I am really enjoying it. Perloff is so lucid and engaging. One of the essays in her book, The Music of Verbal Space, really got me thinking about source texts. In this essay she discusses John Cage’s “What You Say. . .…

Announcing the Second Carrboro (International) Poetry Festival May 21 & 22 The 2005 Carrboro Poetry Festival will feature readings from 40 poets during the two day event Saturday May 21 and Sunday May 22. Hundreds of people attended the first annual fest in 2004, and many more are expected to turn out this year. Festival…

some interesting experiments with s+7 in my intro to poetry class: intro to poetry

Lester sent a great link to a music video celebrating the wonders of America. Check it out: America You Must Go ON Lester also sent this quote: “Of course we welcome, and I welcome, dissent and debate,” [CondosleezaRice] added.  “I welcome it privately. The United States government isof course a single entity and when decisions…

This hot new journal sounds very very promising. A focused eclectic (much needed as opposed to so many unfocused eclectics like Fence etc.) Here’s the notice (and open call) from editor Tony Tost: Here’s an open call I’m hoping to spread like good butter. Feel free to forward to any lists or post on any…

some really fresh cod and cold Stella last night at Fishbones. A nice little birthday celebration with some Greensboro buddies. My good friend Dan got me a gift certificate to Gate City Noise and returned from AWP with some books from Apogee Press. Angie and Jake got me a nice card with a racecar from…

The second airing of My Vocabulary this Sunday. Last week’s show was great. Some wonderful Robert Creeley poems and tributes. Check it out this Sunday. Here’s the message from one of the hosts Matthew Shindell: This Sunday on My Vocabulary we will be featuring a full-lengthreading by Jordan Davis (delivered and recorded here in San…

Wow. Tiffany surprised me with a 20gb ipod for my birthday today. I’ve never used an ipod. It’s charging right now. Can’t wait to load it up with some tunes (and maybe a few pics). Those things are bloody expensive. I had no idea this was coming. Yeehaw. Now I will really resemble my students!

so I am turning 31 tomorrow. it’s a strange number. the only significance being 10 years older than 21 (the age of drinking in the U.S.). In other news, I am fully enjoying Alien Tatters by Clark Coolidge. I tried to read Mesh and Own Face about a year ago and couldn’t make a go…

Patrick Heron sent this link to the Lucipo folks recently. A really well done music video. Here’s the synopsis: Protesting U.S. foreign policy, the Norwegian rap group Gatas Parlament created this video entitled “Kill Him Now.” Under pressure from the U.S., this was banned by the Norwegian government who claim that the video advocates direct…

re-read _Pieces_ last night and it moved me greatly. There’s so much packed into the book. Philosophical meditation on the “I” and death and the world body. This book really enacts the old “form is never more than an extension of content.” Multiple poems per page. A great range of diction. Some distinct Creeley uses…

I am excited to check out Stockholder’s work at the Weatherspoon. Just came across this brief interview and it perked (peaked) my interest: Klaus Ottmann: What are the most important issues in your work? Jessica Stockholder: My work developed through the process of making site-specific installations—site-specific sometimes in very specific ways but also just by…

A very intense dream the other night. don’t know if any of you out there ever feels a bit of despair over becoming wormfood, but lately the cycle has been a bit on the downside. Hence a dream to release my anxiety. Quite a few of friends in this one: Angie and Jake Decola, Ezra…

In case you don’t know already there’s a great new mag in town. Adam Good (of DC poet fame) has organized a very impressive first issue. Editorial vision (this is not a Fence mag) check it out: YOUR BLACK EYE

I am laughing and gasping and all in all envious of Mayer’s Midwinter Day. The “NY School” has so much boundless and boldness. What generation is Bernadette Mayer anyway? She mentions Ted and Alice so I am assume that’s Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley (2nd generation?). This is my first encounter with Mayer and I…

great st. paddy’s day party last night. some pics of noses and mouths. soon I will get inside the ear.

The idea of audience and language has been on my mind for quite a few years (perhaps always but I talking consciously here). Quite a few of my professors over the years have spoken of “limiting your audience” via the type of language you employ. In other words, big words. Abstract concepts. This goes with…

Chris Vitiello instigated a great discussion on the Lucipo listserv. He asked about our conception of open/closed text while composing/writing. His bloghas some fascinating talk of late (audience, plays etc.) I am still thinking through this issue. But here is a simplified version of my conception of open/closed:

Just picked up Medeski Martin and Wood’s Notes From The Underground. I am liking it a lot so far. What a range! I have found music without words works best when I am writing. Or perhaps words in another language (I’ll see about that when I try out some opera). Also just finished reading _Rome,…

Dry spells hurt. Resurrections are good (poetry doesn’t want immortality but ressurection) or insurrection? It’s good to plug back in. Listening to Jazz contemplating, dancing, and writing with IT. I really dig Brian Parker’s All That Jazz. Really gets me moving. So, I have three quick questions, if anyone cares to answer: 1) What are…

If you like sound (birds, dialects, Princess Elizabeth talking to children during WWII) check outThe British Library Sound Archive

If you’re ever in Chapel Hill, NC you must visit The Bookshop. I have yet to find a better used bookshop for poetry. Turned in a small box of poetry books and got $86 in credit. Picked up: 1) North of Intention by Steve McCaffery (essays) 2) Poetry on and off the page by Marjorie…

Red Juice by Hoa Nguyen Originally uploaded by postpran. Handsome, well-made chap. Demotic and personal and eliptical and chiseled. Music that stays fresh all year. Lot’s of interesting poems about/around motherhood. I now know about FAM and I want to look into it further. Get a hold of this one while it’s available. Smells and…

Etruscan Reader VI Originally uploaded by postpran. These Etruscan Readers really rock. I want them all!

tom raworth essays Originally uploaded by postpran. Ordering this soon from The Gig Editions.

tom raworth’s collected Originally uploaded by postpran. This is my true reading project. He is in my top five poets of all time.

lew daly’s nemesis Originally uploaded by postpran. about to try and read this Apex of the M fella again. I’ve read parts and put it away.

maggie o’sullivan’s palace of reptiles Originally uploaded by postpran. Can’t wait to get this in the mail

This article makes me want to re-read some Ashbery. I often give up on him. I didn’t make it through Three Poems or Flow Chart. There is so much Ashbery. I need someone to recommend certain books. Or perhaps I should just pick up his selected. I am not usually a big fan of Vendler,…

1) when is the new commodified: a) at the moment of its conception b) when air enters its lungs c) after it leaves the hospital 2) which best describes your view of the sun: a) there is nothing new under the sun b) the sun is always new c) there is no sun 3) The…

PART ONE: HOW TO RECLAIM AGENCY IN LANGUAGE? 1) break the language to see what’s underneath. Allow for paradox and competing representations. 2) speak clearly and efficiently. Less clouded than political speech. less abstract than academic discourse. While both propositions are too simplified, it seems they are variations of the “experimental” and “conventional” approaches to…

I taught a little Kamu Brathwaite in my intro to poetry class today. Mostly we listened to to Kamu Brathwaite on Leonard Schwartz’s Cross Cultural Poetics. I was especially fascinated in hearing words as percussive. Some notes from listening: – god created the islands with a stone skip. – “it” as percussive – find vocabulary…

My good friend Jake DeCola will be showing fifteen new sculptures in steel and bronze at the Durham Art Guild (120 Morris Street, Durham, NC) beginning this Thursday, February 24. The opening at the gallery is from 5-7 this Thursday. The work will be on display until April 10. Questions? contact the Guild at http://www.durhamartguild.org…

Hugo Ball

Cole Swensen and Joe Donahue Originally uploaded by postpran. Joe reads to Cole from his palm (reopen pic with a photo editing program. zoom/isolate Joe’s palm to read his poem)

Laura and kathryn Originally uploaded by postpran. At the Blue Door. Smiles all around.

Another very interesting reading last night at the Internationalist. Chris Vitiello projected live fish swimming on an overhead projector and slides and ran a text loop with a film projector. In other words, a collage with real live animals. He also made a great chapbook for the occassion (a gamebook for the perplexed). He opened…

Ken Rumble’s Desert City Reading Series kicks ass! Here’s the annoucement from Mr. Rumble: Cole Swensen & Chris Vitiello This Saturday, February 19th Please spread far and wide……… Who: Cole Swensen, Finalist for the 2004 National Book Award in Poetry for her book Goest, author of 9 other collections of poetry, translator of some of…

while the energy of words are difficult to measure, I do find myself drawn toward the fast-paced, high energy performances of Miles Champion, Rod Smith, and most of all Tom Raworth. I just ordered Tom Raworth’s collected poems. I am excited to read it from cover to cover. I am wondering about speed and energy…

todd and laura Originally uploaded by postpran.

todd at the Irish monument in Philly Originally uploaded by postpran.

1) Ken Rumble dropped Tessa Joseph on her head three times. However, he is one hell of a swing dancer. Tessa didn’t mind. It was part of the dance. 2) Ken Rumble took us well into the night sampling Philly Cheesesteaks. As a result, I had a bit of meat gas (and meat sweat). Those…

fab time last night. fun lucipo (lucifer poetics) reading at the flea last night. Todd sold some Lucifer Poetics t-shirts. 3 sets of 3 readers with two breaks after… The reading went like this, near as I can recall… After Adam Good’s outstanding intro, in which he whipped the partisan crowd into a flea-bitten frenzy,…

Publishing venture to seek profit in poetry By Sheila Farr Seattle Times art critic Charlie Wright, son of art patrons Virginia and Bagley Wright, is starting a new venture. Seattleites already know Wright as chairman of the family business: timber and development company R.D. Merrill. Art aficionados around the country see Wright as more of…

*** INSTITUTE FOR ANARCHIST STUDIES’ SOAPBOX SOCIAL *** Dear Friends and Supporters, old and new, The Institute for Anarchist Studies warmly invites you to our Soapbox Social, to be held at the al-Alwan Center for the Arts, just a stone’s throw away from the beating heart of Capital (the New York Stock Exchange!)* Please come…

Just finished reading Antidotes for an Alibi by Amy King. Lots of surprising twists and turns that often reminded me of Tomaz Salamun. Certainly there are a lot of young poets influenced by Tomaz Salamun (just look at all those young poets associated with Verse Press). However, I think Amy King’s associative/surrealist leaps are much…

when people say personal in relation to poetry they often say: “the use of the personal” how can we know if the personal is using us? By this I mean to make a distinction between the personal and us. or me and the personal. or then again is the personal all that is the case?…

( +speaking+) a voice reading neither film nor mirror. the lake a question. the gift a symbol. among the sparks. with thick eyes descending. fascination for fools. of dried apples. a sack in the woods. with thick eyes descending. on the march. cowbell. speaking in mutation. a palladium. mechanic on call. slogan raw. with thick…

a good start to the semester. Some interesting and intelligent responses to Mallarme on the class blog. check it out: intro to poetry blog

II. SHEMSHAM “It is only a few who reach the edge of the world where its mirror /image begins” (Peter O’Leary) “shem was a sham and a low sham and his lowness creeped out first via foodstuffs” the sniffers were hired to find illicit fish. the sniffers were invisible but the ghosts were not. the…

Another great Desert City reading on Saturday. Poems by Marcos Canteli (read in Spanish then translated by Rachel Price into English). A very refreshing bestiary from Mr. Standard Schaefer. Great intros by Ken Rumble. Blue door reading/performance by Tanya Olsen. She performed some very funny, wit-filled poems. No pages anywhere in sight. Impressive presence. Also…

Standard Schaefer and Kathryn Standard read some great bestiary poems. In this pic, he is saying some very naughty things to poor wee Kathryn. Blogged via Fotola.com.

some bloody drink Blogged via Fotola.com.

patrick Heron LOOK INTO MY EYES!!!!! Blogged via Fotola.com.

three of the evenings readers/performers Rachel Price, Marcos Canteli, and Tanya Olson Blogged via Fotola.com.

the rumble Mr. Rumble's own private disco after some great desert city and blue door readings Blogged via Fotola.com.

at Belfast city hall the cold alters the relation between rain and puddle.the heart fills with hellium. voice a soggy pitch. in this place the pattern is meager but the means whistle. a three-legged dog chasing its tail.and therefore memory is muscled. thick in feeling. slag spite:his toe my toe. to see inhabits forgetting.an entire…

I just received my copies of Backwards City Review. Some cool poems and comics (I haven’t looked at the fiction yet). Tony Tost does some complex sleep, Kent Jonhson does some strangeness with “poetry blogs in Zurich,” Kasey Mohammad does some Demoral chillout and illegal cars (kicks ass as always). So many very interesting poems…

Most people are tired of paramilitaries. And the militaries. Us versus them everywhere. In Portadown. In Belfast. The murals are everywhere. How about a new story now.

I received some genuine sheepskin slippers in the mail today. I just wish it were cold around these parts. Ah well, it does make me feel cozy. It’ll be damp sheepskin most of the time with the humidy around here. Speaking of cozy. when I write about “my life” on this blog is it self-expression?…

at the Buffs in Belfast. after twenty-four years. no ark for flood. no balm for ear. (liquid filling into liquid). horses on the telly. lust of memory. and the larynx of that place. at the table his hand on my leg. his toe my toe. and afterwards the _____ of that place twisted syntax we…

Picked up some Peter Riley while I was in London. Haven’t read much of him except Untitled Sequence (a chapbook from Wild Honey Press) It’s strange being back. It took me ten years to get back to Ireland for a holiday and it felt like I never left. I think Tiffany was excited to come…

Reading a little James Monaco for the class I will be teaching on film a week from today. He has a little chart. The spectrum from least abstraction to most: 1) practical: design 2)Environmental:architecture, sculpture 3) Pictoral: painting, drawing, graphics 4)Dramatic: stage drama 5) narrative: novel, story, non-fiction 6) Musical: poetry, dance, music He argues…

strange being back in America. Got back late last night. My body says it’s 1:38AM and I want to sleep, but must push through the jet lag. Great time in Dublin, London, and Belfast. Met my biological father (Reggie). Haven’t seen him in 24 years. It was a good meeting. He had the same glasses,…

leaving in 1 hour to fly to Boston then on to Dublin. 5 hour layover in the Boston airport however. Printed out Silliman’s Demo and Rod Smith’s Protective Immediacy to read. Also some Art in America mags and a lots of cds. Just picked up GBV’s MAG EARWHIG. Hope it’s good. Also finally got The…

never listened to Matmos before. really working me good this morning. sounds of old elizabeth with some serious drums and creative electronica (an eerie base giving me the chills) These fellas are the cream all right: Matmos is M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, aided and abetted by many others. In their recordings and live performances…

Just returned from my pilgrimage to The Bookshop in Chapel Hill. Turned in Paul Hoover’s _Postmodern American Poetry_, some Derrida and Frederic Jameson. Used my in store credit and spent $29 from turning in college textbooks and got: 1) paradise and method by Bruce Andrews 2) Aerial 9 (Bruce Andrews) 3) Rondeaux by Laura Moriarty…