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Category: NOMADIC SURREALIST PUNK
Travel writing while living in North Carolina, Utah, South Korea, Poland, Turkey, Italy, London, and Madrid.
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Feeling the Draft By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: October 19, 2004 Columnist Page: Paul Krugman Forum: Discuss This Column E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com TIMES NEWS TRACKER Topics Alerts United States Armament and Defense Military Personnel Those who are worrying about a revived draft are in the same position as those who worried about a return to budget deficits…
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I am not sure why there is sometimes so much build up before writing. It’s usually when I am revising/restructuring. The intial writing phases are no pressure/no problem. But getting the structure! There’s some anxiety. And the perrenial questions. Mostly: why do/make this thing called poetry? Is this making doing anyone or anything any “good?”…
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check it out: Ezra Pound
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I am amazed, blown away. Peter O’Leary’s _Watchfulness_ has changed my landscape. Really fired me up to keep moving with my book length poem Campanology. king Midas Gold, man of light (gnostic light), transfigured light A few of many lines: “is it always a few who reach the edge of the world, where its mirror-…
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Been reading a lot of Nathaniel Mackey and Leslie Scalapino lately. In _How Phenomena Appear to Unfold_ Scalapino writes, “The writing is a mode, not a system.” So mode versus system. When I think system, I think systematic reasoning (and the postmodern critique of such). When I think mode, I think frame. But I am…
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After an amazing first festival, the city of Carrboro has decided NOT to allow another festival next year. Where did the funds go? Another national/international festival? Patrick Heron received this reply: Patrick: I wanted to answer your recent question to Sean Sunkel, Special Events Supervisor about having another Poetry Festival sometime in May 2005. Unfortunately…
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Draft is a really interesting word. As in: rough. As in: cold wind down the hallway. I think Evie is right. A draft might wake more people up.
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I handed out this information to my students in class yesterday. Most of them were surprised. Especially the female students. Not sure if Kerry is all for this or not. POSSIBLE MANDATORY DRAFT for boys and girls (ages 18-26) starting June 15, 2005 There is pending legislation in the house and senate (companion bills: S89…
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I am wondering whether or not to buy the new Interpol? Am also wondering about jobs for next year. Contract runs out. Jobs jobs jobs. Agh. Gotta watch some Godard. Also gotta figure out how to pronounce French words. Took German in high school and college. Wish I knew four or five languages fluently. I…
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I am going to teach a film class in the spring. It’s exciting putting together the syllabus. Going to use Monaco’s How to Read a Film and a selection of articles from Film Quarterly. Still thinking through film selections. It’s interesting to think about the words film, cinema, and movie. Film: art cinema: stage/world movie:…
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In constructing my disruptive narrative of influences, I’ve come full circle. I really came to poetry after leaving the comfortable world of a fundamentlist religion. After the leaving, I studied a lot of world mythology, philosophy of religion, and eastern mysticism. I also got really excited about Joyce and thought I would go to graduate…
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finished Burger’s Theory of the Avant-Garde last night. I’ve been pondering the non-organic versus organic (language as artifact). Burger says, “The organic work intends the impression of wholeness. To the extent its individual elements have significance only as they relate to the whole . . . in the avant-gardiste work, on the other hand, the…
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I just ordered the complete Basil Bunting. I’ve only read/heard a little of Briggflatts. I am excited to sit down with him. Also ordered Watchfulness by Peter O’Leary and John Taggart’s Pastorelles. It’s nice to get this perk with teaching. Books from large publishers (norton, penguin etc.) which I can trade for store credit. I…
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The a Desert City Readng Series kicked off again this past Saturday. James Brasfield and Joe Donahue read. Joe read some hot new poems. Lots and lots of voices. My spine always reacts to Joe’s poems. Mystery, awe etc. Everything moves (mind as body etc.) Real energy transference. His new chapbook, In This Paradise, from…
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Strange connections. The conversation over at Tony’s blog really picked up with the issue of responsibility. Over at Smartish Place (http://www.smartishpace.com/home/poetsqa/graham_answers.html) I asked Jorie Graham a question about influence and responsibility (after reading Tost’s piece in Typo about the mongrols). Here’s the question and the answer: marcus slease, N. Ireland: How do you feel about…
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If you haven’t checked it out already, click on over to Tony Tost’s blog. A very interesting, provocative conversation happening. Process and product, canons, cult of the author, art that aspires for the eternal . . . So far, 26 comments. Movin on up to Silliman scale responses. I am still thinking through a lot…
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The memory of last Saturday feels foggy, eerie. Did it really happen? Lots of glazed donuts (one dollar each). The Krispy Creme poetry tent was a wierd revival type setting. Galway Kinnell read next tent to Maya Angelou (the official poet of Krispy Creme)? I was most excited to see his new G4 titanium powerbook.…
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all sorts of stuff is leaking into my long poem. Such as Mormon doctrine and early mysticism (the mysticism was quickly abandoned for corporation/institutional reasons). But Joseph Smith’s spectacles amaze me. I am still working on this part of the long poem. It’s just “factual info.” The lines will be off with blogger, but here…
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A little while back a few Lucipo folks (Tony and Ken perhaps?) mentioned how quite a few younger poets are attempting long poems. I’ve been dipping and out of Olson’s The Maximus Poems and the sheer maximalist quality (energy transference) makes me dizzy. I am working on a long poem called Campanology ( which is…
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We started discussing poetry section in my intro to literature class. I am using individual collections for all the genres, but for poetry I am using an anthology (Allen’s New American Poetry) and we will read Lisa jarnot’s Ring of Fire in a few weeks. Class participation was really quite good today. The students responded…
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Just traded in a collected Milosz and a collected Wright (I like them both but don’t love ’em) for: 1) The geography of the imagination (essays by Guy Davenport) 2) Theater of the Avant-Garde (1890-1950. Has essays and plays arranged by movements. Expressionism, surrealism etc.) Right now, I am finally reading _The Descent of Alette_.…
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sometimes a little alcohol (or little a lot) helps moisten my mind. Had a good time at a part last night at one of the editors of the new journal Backwards City (see links to the right). In particular, Gerry Canavanand I talked about death, existentialism, consciousness, time. It was a good talk. Helped clear…
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I’ve decided to 5 contemporary books of poetry in my intro to poetry class in the spring. I think I am going to create a blog for the class to allow for informal discussion and supplemental readings. I’m still trying to decide on the 5 books. Four of the five possible books: 1) Jeff Clark,…
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Finally got the ariel. My head is all squirm. It feels good to rework some of the abstractions (i.e. my head banging against a padded cell) in the second MS. I realized after the reading yesterday my antiabsorption killed off my absorption. Now they are on speaking terms. The transmissions return.
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Good times last night at the open eye reading ( a series run by Mr. Tony Tost). A real mix. Chris Vitiello read from Nouns Swarm a Verb and Evie Shockley read a powerful poem (“A Thousand Words”) about torture. The repitition of torture and the mix of humor were powerful. Both were perfect timing…
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I have some recent poems in the latest issue of Diagram. The second poem “Multitide and Miracle” is actually in my current MS Diagram
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Just got a poem accepted by Forklift, Ohio. It’s strange. My last three acceptances have been for poem I cut from my MS (Columbia Poetry Review, Conduit, and now Forklift, Ohio). I’ve decided to reinsert the poems accepted by those journals. Perhaps I get too carried away with new projects and think the old projects…
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I am teaching two sections of intro to poetry in the spring. I’ve taught with a lot of the Norton/Vendler/Gioia anthologies (etc.) in the past and I am very tired of them. I was thinking of just using five books of contemporary poetry. It is a general education class. They don’t need to know the…
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So there is American surrealism of the deep image and pastoral variety (perhaps Matthew Rohrer is a good example of this tendency although he sometimes moves away from deep image and the pastoral to some kind cyber erotics.) There is also the surrealism of Eastern Europe with its folklorish qualities (Simic etc.) And French surrealism…
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I am teaching Jesus’ Son in my intro to lit class and the students often want to know if such and such really happened. The narrator is not reliable, but he is very aware. Oftentimes lucid via drugs. Other times he thinks he is lucid and is just fucked up. The surrealist moments of the…
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I am in awe. I just sat down and read Combo Winter/Spring 2004 from start to finish and I honestly loved every god damn poem (and interview and letter). I have never enjoyed reading a literary journal so much. The feel of the magazine (simple, exact, crisp). The quality of the poetry, HOLY SHIT! There’s…
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some poems I wrote about two years ago are in the current issue of Spork. Spork Mag
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Inspired by the comments of Ken Rumble, I just re-read My Life and read Chris Vitiello’s Nouns Swarm A Verb. It was a very interesting experience to read those two books back to back. I found Nouns Swarm A Verb much more “self-contained” than My Life. What I mean is the gestures (language) are often…
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Yes U2 currently sucks. In the past they might not have sucked. I think there is a difference between sucks and sucked. It’s sad when something that didn’t suck now sucks. If something sucked and still sucks it is neither sad nor tragic. Brittany Spears sucks and still sucks so to say Brittany Spears sucks…
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So many strange dreams. An orgy last night. I was ordered to do certain things. I was also ordered to try the new and improved Mormon filter (for Camels only). The filter left a strong minty residue. Then I had to run through the snow barefoot in Bountiful Utah in search of a secret house…
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a collective blog featuring some of the folks of Lucipo poetics is linked to the right. I’ve been reading about Bean News in the Chicago Review. Sounded like an interesting project. A newspaper run mostly by poets. A group blog could certainly function in a similar fashion to Bean News. Hodge podge (I need to…
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I am still concerned about the conversion narrative (from school of quietude to avant garde). The problem is the narrative is too simplistic. But knowing where you’re coming from doesn’t have to be a bad thing does it? I am really enjoying the latest Chicago Review. The letters between Dorn and Jones (Baraka) are really…
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Chicago Review has some interesting letters between Ed Dorn and Tom Raworth and Dorn and Olson in 1961. So far they are really interesting. Raworth is really funny. I did not realize he had such a complex family background. He says his mother was Irish “from a Dublin family of anti-British bomb throwers” and his…
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Just got the latest issue of Chicago Review from my mailbox. It’s a special issue on Ed Dorn. I am really excited to read it. I love Chicago Review Chicago Review
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The reading took place at Todd and Laura Sandvik’s home. They are amazing hosts. Always great food, liquid, sound, art. I borrowed Chao Manhattan from Todd. Looking forward to watching it later today. Passed around a little notebook and asked some fellow Lucipo poets to create a quick list of artists to check out. The…
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Read an essay by Marjorie Perloff last night called “After language Poetry: Innovation and its Theoretical Discontents.” It’s a really interesting essay. She begins by talking about the semantic history of innovation. Innovation as sedition and treason esp. in 14th and 15th century. She then gives a short but good background on the innovations and…
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If you live anywhere near North Carolina you gotta check out Ken Rumble’s Desert City Reading Series The upcoming season (keep checking Ken’s blog for details) is going to be nothing short of spectacular. I mean he’s bringing in the big ones (guns). If I lived hundred miles away, I would make the drive for…
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John Taggart’s _When the Saints_ is blowing me away. Stunning. Really. I am rolling. Flying. My head’s on fire. Don’t need a pond. I read a few pages and feel compelled to write. I am really really digging this shit. This man knows how to use repeition unlike anyone I’ve read. Listening to “Brilliant Corners”…
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I can’t believe summer is almost over. Time to read the books I am gonna teach. Which is gonna be hard since I just picked up a few cool books from Chapel Hill: 1) David Bromige _Birds of the West_ 2) Peter Gizzi _Some Values of Landscape and Weather_ 3) Lewis Warsh -Methods of Birth…
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Night one: characters: a girl named Cami (ex-gilfriend of main character. Lived with main character after he left the Mormon church.) Cami visits the main character and gives him chocolates. They both attend a Mormon service and the main character walks out with his fist in the air and she follows. They run away from…
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There seems to be a difference between death and ceasing to be. I sometimes imagine death, but I cannot imagine ceasing to be. More and more it feels like ceasing to be (rather than dying) is what will happen. Should I fear ceasing to be? It seems silly to fear ceasing to be since death…
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Finished the ms (Mouth Harp) yesterday. Feels really good to let it go. The title changed a few times from Never Mind the Beasts to Stigmata:Burger to Mouth Harp. Mouth Harp seems to really get at the heart of the ms. Harp as meditative heaven instrument of the mouth and harp as To dwell on…
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Loading a lot of music into itunes today. Three days of music so far. Close to a hundred cds left to import. Just finished loading all Sunny Day Real Estate, The Fire Theft, Death Cab for Cutie. Now I think I am going to bring those cds to Gate City Noise and trade them in.…
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The headlong mad energy rush of beats and ny school poets really got me head spinning in new directions. Now I am reading Trevor Joyce in a small even pace. Both states are good (enjoyable). I do miss the mad spin though.
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My whole system crashed a few days ago. Spent two days trying to save it (purchased the computer on ebay so who knows about previous owner?). The good thing though is I erased the hard drive and did a fresh installation of jaguar (I had panther before). My poems were on a keychain so I…
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if you haven’t already, check out Shearsman Books. Especially MTC Cronin: Talking to Neruda’s Questions (it’s a free ebook). Shearsman Books
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I’ve been cutting reworking resequencing to make an interesting first book manuscript. I had 70 pages now it’s down to 59 pages. (all in all I’ve cut about 78 poems over the years). The poems I cut needed to be cut (too many flippant “NY school” poems for one manuscript), but I am wondering if…
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I just finished cleaning out the cat litter (it’s a mega cat litter box). Cleaning out the cat litter box is much different than doing the litter. Doing the litter is all about scooping. Cleaning out is all about getting your hands poopy (I guess you could wear gloves, but I don’t like rubber gloves).…
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darn what is going on. Camino will not allow me to type text in blogger and Mozilla is underlining my text. I hate IE so I hope this doesn’t mean I have to dowload and use IE for blogging. On another note: I can’t stop revising my first book manuscript. I keep taking out old…
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I feel like I am always catching up. The Yasusada affair is now way past infancy. The twenty letters to The Believer in Typo 3 explore the issues quite well. The issues of authorship cut deep, so maybe everything hasn’t been said. So despite the possibility of repeating what others have said much better about…
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currently on the eastern shore of maryland reading Doubled Flowering on a hammock. Ah, this feels great. A shower, some sea air, new underwear, good book, and some tea. Yesterday I traded in 35 books (Tate, Plath, biographies). In exchange I Purchased 1)Trevor Joyce’s With the First Dream of Fire They Hunt the Cold, a…
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Finally get to visit home. Got two roundtrip tickets in December to Dublin for $674. Dec 16th – Dec 27th. Never flown on Aer Lingus. Hope they have some decent pillows. This was a great deal considering the last time I went home around Christmas it was $1100 on British Airways (for 1 ticket). Tiffany…
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I just watched Cold Mountain (not a very good movie) and Fahrenheit 911. Both movies, combined with some of my experiences growing up in Portadown, caused a little mortality crisis and cognitive discomfort (hence this writing/grunting). How do I want to die? Not by biological weapon, not by slow starvation, not by bullet, noose, or…
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I think it’s about half way through summer break so I better start reading or re-reading the books I am gonna teach. Just decided to use Lisa Jarnot’s Ring of Fire for my two sections of intro to lit. Should be interesting in combo with The New American Poetry Revised ( I will recontextualize and…
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Is it really true that it is good and right to wash your hands for 2 minutes to kill maximum germs/bacteria etc. I consider myself clean, but 2 minutes feels like a long time for the washing of hands. Mr. Germ said 2 minutes but the following advice about public restrooms seems more reasonable: Proper…
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Does anyone dream of old flings? When I feel anxious about my mortality I have a dream about an old fling. It takes place in 1990. I am 16 yrs. old and Mormon living in a small town named Hurricane. My old fling shows up and has turned away from the Mormon church (I am…
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Check out Fred Chappell’s review of Tony Tost’s _Invisible Bride_ in News & Observer: <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/story/1375244p-7498182c.html" >Invisble Bride Review
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I didn’t realize the greatness of OS X and Mozilla. They are both so fast and clean and bright and precise. One happy camper. I wonder how and why the happy camper started? Does it imply at one time happy campers were rare? I am teaching The New American poetry anthology in the fall (revised…
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New computer arrived yesterday. Waiting on the monitor today. A nice older G4 tower with 600MB RAM and a 40 Gig hard drive. Apple studio crt monitor coming soon. Almost settled into the new apartment. it’s very quiet here. I love it. Nice view. Window AC in the study room (YES!). On the Lucipo listserve…
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This has been a week of moving prep. Tomorrow is the big moving day. My normal reading/writing schedule is way off track. So, hopefully monday I will have a new used powermac with new used studio crt monitor mac OS X and a new writing spot. I am eagar to get down and dirty again.…
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(Dedicated to the dead horse I kicked a few entries back. R.I.P.) You see, my experience of life conflicts with my experiences in life. I want experience as in not of. I want to feel and experience the complications of my experiences in language. In other words, I don’t want another romantic comedy. Loving means…
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The latest issue looks heavenly. Check out the blog: Verse Mag
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Chris Murray (the trek and meme of American poetry) has featured me as texfiles poet of the week. (thank you Chris). Texfiles
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Watched a really good movie last night called The Barbarian Invasions. I am still processing it. Some of the “Barbarian Invasions” in the movie= disease, capitalism, love, lust, terrorism, death . . . At one point the dying father( who is a history professor and a socialist) responds to the young junkie’s comment about the…
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Here’s a poem that perhaps illustrates “the school of quietude.” Abalone (by Tony Leuzzi. BOA editions) Lift the mollusk to your ear and you will hear a cello weap the neck of somber sea. Press it closer to your ear and you will hear an ardent bell ring rills of water through your feet. Pull…
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Lisa Jarnot
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wish you were here?: Bloomsday Rejoyce
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Tony is instigating a great conversation on the breakthrough or freedom narrative. In the 20th century it was the narrative of freedom from meter. Now it might be the narrative of breaking out of the “official verse culture” or “school of quietude.” It might be useful to know where “you” are coming from. But a…
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When I read poetry that knocks off my socks I have two contradictory reactions: 1) stop writing poetry. Just read it. Die happy 2) Steal as much as possible and write like a madman In all honesty I think I enjoy reading poetry more than writing it. I mean I am more enraptured by other…
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lucipo chap Based in North Carolina, The Lucifer Poetics Group is an affiliation of people interested in contemporary poetry with an emphasis on experimental, post-avant, and avant-garde poetics. For more information, to read the Lucipo archives, or to join the listserve, please visit:http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/Lucipo Email me if you are interested in a copy of The Displayer…
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Where to begin? An amazing word dizzy weekend. So many amazing performances. First, the regrets: 1) Our cat Iris was rushed to the emergency room Sunday morning right before the second day of the festival due to convulsions and muscle spasms from Hartz flea medication. After some muscle relaxers, some more tubes down the throat,…
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Tried hartz flea tick stuff for our cats last night (instead of the usual frontline). Now Iris has the shakes. Gotta take her into the vet in 30min. I guess frontline, advantage etc are worth the extra $. The big Carborro poetry festival is about to kick off in a few hours. I going to…
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Tony’s blog makes me want to read Pound in the near future. I like to immerse myself. I am obsessive. But I have to feel a kind of intuition in terms of timing. I know full well what doesn’t grab me today may grab me in a year. Illusions of canon (you must read Pound)?…
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Nice discussions going on in the blog world. The whole Jeff Clark review is interesting. The idea of a negative review having a postive impact? A bad review or censorship can fuel the interest of a given poet/writer/artist etc. Certainly this isn’t always the case. I am wondering if blurbs should be negative. Like ______…
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What a weekend. The whirl keeps on going. Thursday bachelor party. Friday rehersal dinner. Saturday wedding, reception (with open bar and amazing food then a stretched limo ride back to Greensboro). I’ve never worn a tux before (never went to prom etc.) It was a lot of fun. Adam and Melissa are two graduates of…
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My good friend Hardy gave me his bookstore credit before he left town. Picked up: Armenian Papers: poems 1954-1984 by Harry Matthews The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry edited by Paul Auster Zizek: a critical introduction by Ian Parker So far, no poop behind the t.v. My fingers are crossed for the…
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It was great to meet Tim Botta and hear some of his poetry. He read a poem about the box Joseph Cornell never made. He also read a Pantoum and Villanelle. He is workin the language all right. Some great obsessions/ repititions throughout the performance. And performance it was. No nice quiet poetry voice. All…
Never Mind the Beasts 