Marcus Silcock

From the intro to the Portable Beat Reader: “Earlier in the history of American literature, the novelist Henry James acknowledged in his biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne that “the best things… Read more.

Anyone else feel like they make decisions as all or nothing. I get rid of a lot of books in order to trade for books I want (trying to build… Read more.

This is my first year with March madness even though I have lived in the States for quite some time now. The Air Force/Carolina game last night was great. A… Read more.

My students connected much more to the innovative poetry than the traditional in my Irish Lit. class. I played Seamus Heaney for 20 min. Then some audio of Gabe Gudding… Read more.

For outness is but the feeling of otherness (alterity) rendered intuitive, or alterity visually represented. –Coleridge. Just purchased Tony Tost’s <a href="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-0807129658-0&quot; >Invisible Bride last night. I’m only a little… Read more.

In my Irish lit class I am teaching from the penguin book of contemp. poetry. The usual poets. I am bored. So I logged onto the internet and played some… Read more.

Gotta guest teach an undergrad beginning poetry workshop in half an hour. Not sure what I’m going to say. All the poems are very stale, boring, cliched. Gotta talk about… Read more.

Not sure about TV on the Radio. Some songs were quite interesting. My friends were not impressed. One friend said, “Fishbone meets Grateful Dead.” Another said, “a new and improved… Read more.

Going to see TV on the Radio tonight in Greensboro. I don’t have their cd. Only heard “staring at the sun.” I’ve heard good things about them. Hope they put… Read more.

Just ran across an ad in APR for the new and improved poetry magazine with Pound’s “make it new” a crazy photograph of an electrified woman, and a quote from… Read more.

Aaron McCollough has a very thought provoking response to Ron’s poetry test. The rapid response (myself included) to Ron’s poetry test seemed in part motivated by approval. How smart can… Read more.

I picked up Joshua Clover’s Madonna anno domini. I hope to grab a copy of Joshua Corey’s Selah in the near future. It’s the c and the o. I’ll have… Read more.

Traded in some Pinsky, some Steve Orlen, some Don Delillo, some Stephen Dobyns, some Thomas Lux at The Bookshop in Chapel Hill. In exchange I picked up: Philip Whalen’s Decompressions… Read more.

I was fascinated by the responses on Ron Silliman’s blog to the poetry test. The attempt to focus on the work of a writer is sometimes an attempt to increase… Read more.

We question the gatekeepers and if what they are guarding is worth the entry fee. Can we get rid of the gatekeepers? I’m suspicious of gatekeepers because I am often… Read more.

So far I’ve spent $50 from Mr. Bush’s tax return on small press poetry and indie music. I am very excited by Wild Honey Press Ordered: Blackwards by Rosmarie Waldrop… Read more.

Mini vacation to Chapel Hill yesterday. Art musuem at UNC then The bookshop. Found about 16 books I wanted. Ended up getting: A Paradise of Poets by Jerome Rothenberg Voice… Read more.

Rainy and sticky with lots of birds right now. I slept well. Watched American Splendor. I need to find some underground comics. I haven’t read comics since I was a… Read more.

Returning Bob Hicok. He bored me after six poems. Per the suggestion of Aaron McCollough, I am going to order Shanna Compton’s Down Spooky. Liked the audio of “We the… Read more.

Wondering about the head/intellect. It’s all up there, but is it useful to pretend the ‘ole heart is something else? (All of a sudden I feel like that main character… Read more.

reread Tony Tost’s Disarm the settlers at Typo and thinking about programs. My cousin visitied from Ireland two summers ago and found it really strange we kept introducing people as:… Read more.

I am really digging Berstein’s “Artifice of Absorption.” I read parts of it a while back, but I wasn’t ready. Berstein says/writes: “Antiabsorptive does not necessarily mean nonentertaining . .… Read more.

innovation, difference, and process become part of the machine of capitalism. The new, innovative food processor from GE etc. How can the new get over its specialness? I picked up… Read more.

The local indep. music store (gate city noise) sent out an emergency email. They could go under in less than a month. So a big group of writers spent money… Read more.

Reading a Frank Bidart interview from Chicago Review (fall 2001). He talks about how irony can be a kind of “sophicated armored writing.” Bidart says, “I like extreme art. So… Read more.

Is honest searching for difference different than sinister specialness. When does specialness become sinister. Is it possible for extreme individualism to screw up a society? Maybe what I mean is… Read more.

How can we know our victories? I hear a lot of complaints about the Iowa poets (I have participated sometimes) from the 1970’s. A kind of McPoem (ala Mr. Hall)… Read more.

Wondering and worrying audience. The creation of audience versus the packaging of poetry for an audience. Writing for other poets versus writing for????? Sometimes non-readers of poetry (close friends) say… Read more.

Lorca’s “Imagination, Inspiration, Evasion” Reading a little Lorca in Jubilat #7 today. Lorca: “no one should say this is clear, because poetry is obscure. And no one should say this… Read more.

American Poetry acccording to a few hundred students at UNCG: Most students in four different classes had friends who wrote poetry and read at coffee shops. Quite a few thought… Read more.

What is the relationship between retire and tire? For and between also interest me. If I am between Irish nationalism and cosmopolitanism what am I for? or (as the small… Read more.

Swimming underwater today with head cold. I’ve been thinking a lot about period styles (conversational narrative etc.) Sebastian Matthews came last week and read some poems and part of the… Read more.

I am looking at: a nice color plate of Dali’s Night and Day Clothes and listening to: Bonnie Prince Billy’s “wolf among wolves.” The combination is moving me. juxtapositions that… Read more.

Gotta read Yeats “The Twisting of the Rope” and prepare a lesson plan for it. A little Celtic Twilight lecture perhaps. Listening to Czech music. Jaromir Hohavica and Kapela. I… Read more.

Boy with the arab strap is working for me this morning. Been thinking of ways I don’t want to go: 1) Foaming at the mouth 2) With a priest hovering… Read more.

The Boy with the Arab Strap Sleep the clock around kicks in the joy. A cup of coffee. re-reading Palmer’s At Passages. He is so amazing. Going to hear Craig… Read more.

Thin SASE in the mail yesterday. Thought: another rejection. But it was an acceptance from Conduit. happy evening. happy morning. Read more.

So the mac version of blogger is different. Not a split window. Maybe nicer. Watched Lost in Translation last night. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The inaudible whisper near… Read more.

Neck Popping feels good in the morning after a night of gorging on brick oven pizza, Guinness, Genache, coffee. Watched In America last night. Felt quite familiar. I came to… Read more.

Moses and the wine part two. Or Jesus, the camel, and the death of fatherhood. If wavering is to stray then the narrow road requires flexible horses to get through… Read more.

Some Fragments soon to be made whole At the thumbshow my lover parades like a peacock. The minions are swept off their feet. Ash in the throat. Clean wind is… Read more.

Consciousness without reason? If consciousness requires reason, then before the Greeks invented reason, no one was conscious? (William Barrett’s argument in Irrational Man) I am struggling to understand and define… Read more.

So, some great new books for christmas: Allen Grossman, The Long Classroom and How to Do Things with Tears and Of the Great House Joyelle McSweeney, The Red Bird Barbara… Read more.

Dream 1: Stuck in a village in the middle of the desert. The village resembles the salt lake city shopping village. White church in the hills. The village is full… Read more.

Purchased an old imac (233, 160mb ram). I hope it works well when it arrives. Tired of laptops. Pulled in by the marketing/design of the old imacs. The macs are… Read more.

Went to a used bookstore today. I can’t seem to stay away. Almost always overwhelmed by boring poetry section. Then again in the last few weeks I did pick up:… Read more.

Implied narrative. Everything has an implied narrative. That’s what I hear. Some narratives are more implied than others. How do implied narratives within lyric poetry work differently than linear, straightforward… Read more.

“Images are not ideas, they are stiller than that, with less implication outside themselves.” (Robert Hass). Read more.

A t.v. show called “Jim’ll Fix It.” Boys and girls wrote letters to Jim explaining their fantasies like drinking a fresh bottle of milk while riding upside down in a… Read more.