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…

One week from today gonna take an airplane . . . I’m a going (to my second) home. From Greensboro to Boston to Dublin for a few days. Tour the Guinness factory. Walk around St. Stephen’s Green and think of Joyce. Then a train to Portadown to see my family. Maybe look up my biological…

Ruth Dickey, a friend and fellow poet, moved to Seattle recently to help run this program called New Futures. Good things happening. Check it out : New Futures

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& the bell is known in all cultures – but not known when invented mission bells sing from strange halls during the recession of 1890 mission halls overflowed with harmonic convergence bargain bells buy now easy cheap & quick bells at rock bottom big bells now one click away the woman would use her only…

Patrick is discussing some great issues of power/poetry and more specifically next years festival over at his newly created Carrboro blog spot. Check it out. Join the discussion: <a href="http://carrboropoetry.blogspot.com/&quot; >Carrboro Poetry

I used to feel compelled to start and finish one book before starting another. Now I feel compelled to juggle many books (and ideas and languages) at once. Still, there is the residual guilt. Finish what you start. Finish every last morsel on your plate. You can’t leave the table till you finish. Even if…

Head over to Aaron McCollough’s blog and listen to his songs. I love Via Positivia and Fire’s on the Phone. I also like Big Star Cover. Song for Puckheads is my favourite so far. Two great voices. ALL THE SONGS ARE GREAT. Fab lyrics. After waking up with a little angst (a hole in my…

There’s a hot spanking new mag out of Greensboro called Backwards City Review. Comics, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. The first issue should be available soon. I’ve had a sneak peak (in pdf form). It’s very very good! Check out the table of contents for the first issue: EDITOR’S NOTE COMICS Tom Chalkley   Heat Wave Verso…

poets in demand

Just ordered maurice Scully’s Livelihood from Wild Honey and Rosmarie Waldrop’s Blindsight from New Directions. I am really excited to read some more Maurice Scully. check out some of his poems: here and here I am excited to be in Ireland in a few weeks. Also going to England for a few days. Hope to…

Broken glass everywhere People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don’t care I can’t take the smell, I can’t take the noise Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice Rats in the front room, roaches in the back Junkie’s in the alley with a baseball bat I tried…

Just finished Turbulence by Pierre Joris and I am charged. Fully charged. I search and search for the right book at the right time and this is it. The movement (architectonics) of the book is dead-on. First, clouds and the weather, a little groundwork Second, Canto Diurno # 1 (my fav is Noon re:Sobin’s work)…

FIGURES 1 A figure of feeling is not a single tree a set of lines an occasion of words. A figure of feeling is a system of roots, a bloodline, re-invented events. And we know now the clay as first begotten the irrational how(l) of language. And now in-knowing needs be more musical. Less naming.…

The interconnections of blogs. I was just surfing a little and found Josh and Jordan are both talking about audience (as well as Silliman). Josh and Jordan are both very articulate. Their responses full of passion. I especially found Josh’s argument for friends and lovers convincing. And Elvis. Yes, I don’t want to be Elvis.…

Silliman’s post about audience today was very interesting. I’ve noticed the same thing. A lot more people laughed when I read to a mix of poets and non-poets at a coffee shop than when I’ve read to a room full of MFA poets. The funeral audience versus the party audience. Education as the sometimes enemy…

do you know the difference between a camel and a child? A lion and a camel? CLICK HERE FOR ANSWER

I’ve been trying to figure out how one could make a contemporary argument for art as an end in itself (not a cultural production). As in Kant’s notion of personhood. Perhaps the doing of art as an end in itself?

Finally got around to reading Carl Martin’s _Genii Over Saltzburg_. Terrific book. I was really taken back by the elegant surrealism. I felt like I was reading some strange combination of Charles Simic and John Ashberry. I also had to stop a few times to look up words I’d never encountered. This looking up of…

If you haven’t already seen this, take a look. Horrific. Falluja

GOEST, by Cole Swensen, Alice James Books, 63 pp., $13.95 “Cole Swensen leads readers through history as she explores the subject of light, both natural and man-made. The poems in “Goest” travel back and forth through time – from the present-day United States to the streets of Paris in the 1500s and Rome in 50…

Been reading coductors of Chaos for a while (an anthology of outsider/experimental poetry from the U.K.). I am really digging Chris Cheek. His poem “Stranger” got the engine roaring tonight. It’s not reproducable in parts. it’s the total effect of its music. Also finished Leonard Schwartz’s The Tower of Diverse Shores. Amazing book. Especially the…

For the last couple of weeks our cat iris is been in and out of the vet/hospital. Earlier this week she underwent exploratory surgery and they diagnosed her with a severe case of Irritable Bowel Disease. The vet wants to start her on chemo and steriods on Monday. In the meantime we’ve got to watch…

check out the new poem from Joe Donahue over at the verse blog <a href="http://versemag.blogspot.com/2004/08/new-joseph-donahue-poem.html&quot; >Joseph Donahue Poem

Good time reading at Solaris last night. Angie Decola took the photos below. A guy videotaped the reading and is sending the readers a free DVD of the night (he is a local fella that lives off taping and selling readings and other events on DVD). best part of the night: Ezra’s interactive lecture on…

more friendly audience members Blogged via Fotola.com.

Tom Christopher Blogged via Fotola.com.

Ezra and Fay (lovers galore) Blogged via Fotola.com.

Rhett (the third poet of the night) and Marcus not sure what we are looking at Blogged via Fotola.com.

Jake and Angie (the photographer) Jake's lucky hat is also in display in this photo Blogged via Fotola.com.

marcus reading a few poems Blogged via Fotola.com.

marcus and ezra relaxing before reading Blogged via Fotola.com.

Marcus Slease Blogged via Fotola.com.

ezra explaining the etymology of world(s) Blogged via Fotola.com.

some of the crew an audience of friendly friends Blogged via Fotola.com.

ezra reading Blogged via Fotola.com.

someone's cool red shoe Blogged via Fotola.com.

From: Judith Barrington Date: 2004/11/10 Wed PM 08:35:38 CST To: WOM-PO@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU Subject: POL: THIS SEEMS VERY IMPORTANT: Will Kerry Un-conceed? Please forward to all who have specifics on vote fraud. The send-to address below is John Kerry’s brother at his law firm. Kerry will unconcede if there is solid evidence of fraud. We need first…

I stumbled on a book of Beverly Dahlen’s _A Reading 1-7_. So far, I am really enjoying it. I just finished reading Leslie Scalapino’s: 1) Way 2) How Phenomena Appear to Unfold 3) New Time. I’ve also listened to the Kenning cd of Scalapino reading Way quite a few times. For some reason I hear…

If anyone is free and lives near Greensboro, I am reading with two excellent poets (Don Ezra Cruz and Rhett) at Solaris (a restaurant/night club in downtown Greensboro) at 9PM Wed Nov. 10th. I guess a band is going to play after our reading. Don’t how late I’ll stay though. Also, one of students turned…

“And cast down me wretched / sinner unto thee I am / slightly different from / a corpse at a funeral / in that I am less made up / but made up worse.” “The spaces between the aura / and the jolt are shorter / like some epileptic thunderstorm / waiting for the eye.”…

It’s hard to even begin today. My friend Gerry helped me to feel a little better if only to express my own shock, disbelief, horror, and fear: LONG ROAD

had to get my mind off the big countdown. Worked for a few hours on Campanology. Refound my pace. I’ve felt for about a month (after trying it out on an audience) something was amiss. More than amiss. Way off for my satisfaction. I realized it was very abstract. I mean I am all for…

Many of you’all may have already read this over at Possum Pouch, but in case you haven’t: Freedom is on the March by Eliot Weinberger Among the things the second term of the Bush junta will bring is the New Freedom Initiative. This is a proposal, barely reported in the press, to give all Americans-…

Untitled 2004-Oct-31 Blogged via Fotola.com.

Untitled 2004-Oct-31 Blogged via Fotola.com.

Untitled 2004-Oct-31 Blogged via Fotola.com.

Untitled 2004-Oct-31 Blogged via Fotola.com.

Just finished Angelus Bell by Edward Foster and it reminded me in some ways of Daniel Zimmerman’s Post-Avant with its formal density. I was really drawn into Angelus Bell by the reflexive gestures and overarching themes and links from poem to poem (aloneness, sound, eyes, and dry landscapes). It makes me realize how new formalism…

Just watched a new release DVD called How to Draw a Bunny. It’s a documentary on the pop artist Ray Jonhson. Really fascinating and eerie. for some reason I can’t get the visual of two Ray Johnson performance piecesout of my head: 1) running around a room in various ways with a chalkboard on wheels…

Another great reading on Saturday. Ken Rumble really brings the heat to town. Tony Tost read some great prose poems. Dense in the sense of including various lives (reading life, dreaming life, love life etc.). Maximalist. funny. Profound. I especially loved the Complex Sleep series (in the tradition of Duncan’s Strucure of Rime series). Tony…

Randall Williams in the act of it Blogged via Fotola.com.

Randall Williams waterworks performance piece I am still processing this performance. Tiffany loved it as well. Blogged via Fotola.com.