Just returned from the eastern shore. Wow. What a time. We canoed to an island and hung out for the day. Lots of toads. A few water moccasins. A wide open sky full of stars. Mushrooms. I am excited about the next few weeks. The Tony Tost/Open Eye Reading Series returns this evening with “the…

Telling it Slant (edited by Mark Wallace and Steven Marks) is amazing. I am thrilled by the essay Avant-Garde without Agonism by Daniel Barbiero: The emerging avant-garde as refusing to particpate in us vs.them. Everything is useful. A nonagonistic openess to the past. Verwindung: to distort and to use to advantage. The past as an…

A new journal put together by some great folks here in Greensboro. Check it out at: Backwards City I am enjoying Burger’s Theory of the Avant-Garde. Only read the foreword yesterday by Jochen Schulte-Sasse: The historical avant-garde as an assault on the autonomy of art. True and false vs. right and wrong. Adorno’s critique of…

Some new music from friends: Wilco A Ghost is Born Velvet Underground Fully Loaded Pixies Come On Pilgrim Mates of State My Solo Project Built to Spill The Normal Years The Fire Theft Some Arab Strap (I need to stick it in the computer and find the tracks/album) Helping my friend Hardy Gieske move back…

Just returned from the woods. All night party for graduating artists in visual arts. Huge bonfire. Hundreds of people. Sculptures hanging from the trees in the woods. The guy hired a live DJ and built a log cabin in the woods. Works part time as a tree doctor. The visual artists dress better than the…

Interesting trunk! Overall ranking: a good supplemental trunk for the study of Westward Expansion. In the surfing room a message appears on the screen: a fatal error has occurred please relaunch internet explorer version 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 meanwhile the breasts feel like burnt biscuits and the neon blinks BURNY BISCUIT and the…

The poems never publish the way I type them (line breaks etc.) Ah well. Only rough ones anyway.

He is, in all modesty and honesty, “just doing his job”—insuring that what we really think, and what we actually say, is a tight fit. Attention to details. Honesty. Integrity. Timeliness. Complete satisfaction. In all honesty, there’s too much “fluff’ here – and I don’t care purp is straight honesty. She will really admire your…

We were reading toward Bethlehem suffice it to say we were tired elephants so we were reading toward Bethlehem looking for new streaks across the sky. We were reading toward Bethlehem with wet blankets and a mop looking for new insurrections suffice it to say religion stinks. But really we were reading toward Bethlehem because…

Had a great Lucipo meeting yesterday with Evie Shockley, Tony Tost, and Ken Rumble. The discussions helped me replay with my poem that plays with the Second Coming. I want many second comings. I am not satisfied with one Apocalypse. Here’s the rough work/rough beast: Of Our Cranial Love for the Lion Suffice it to…

The Dallas Hockaday position did not work out. They wanted someone to teach two classes and I need full time work. I am excited to stay here in NC for a while though. We got a great group of poets in the area and things are rockin. Took another kind of trip last night. My…

What a whirl after my return from NY. Busy grading. Check out some pics from NY: NY Trip

long drive, stiff legs. Very enjoyable trip. Tired as. Ate in the meat packing district last night hung out in Chelsea. Great exhibits. Liked the little jumping men on stone tablets and chocolate hip hop. Then we went to McSorleys again and had many rounds then a few bars in the east village and at…

wow. i am exhausted. But what a time yesterday. Drank a lot of rounds at McSorleys and got the t-shirt. I am was disappointed in the poetry selection at The Strand. Found two great bookstores. One was connected to a housing project with homeless people with HIV/Aids victims. One of the highlights yesterday was St.marks…

took 11 hours to drive from Greensboro, NC to Lambertville, NJ. Long day yesterday. Drank a few pints to sleep. It’s 6:24AM and we are about to hit the road. Catching a train into NY (YEAH). Our friend/host has to work today so we are just going to tackle the city on our own. I…

Tony Tost started a reading series at the open eye cafe where he works. Great crowd last night. Tony and Brian really spread the word. A really really refreshing change to the university reading venue. A lot more energy, more informal. Yes. Ah. Feels soooooo gooooooooood Things are happening. WOW. Things are really heating up…

Rainy day and a Monday. However, while giving a test on Irish drama I read some Haze by Mark Wallace. I feel much better knowing the issues a little more clearly without simple solutions or binaries and it implicates and situates. The idea of the pure has been driving me up the wall. It is…

Ken Rumble rocks. He’s really working it here in NC. What an amazing reading last night. All three poets distinct in delivery. Mark Wallace was very generous, warm, gorgeous in his reading. from “Reasons to Write”: “If I / keep writing poetry, it’s only because, in a world of reasons, poetry has long / since…

Woke up at 4am today. Choices choices choices. Got a letter requesting a phone interview for a position teaching English at an all-girls school in Dallas, TX called Hockaday. I know nothing about Texas except the stereotypes. I know nothing about girls prep schools. The website mentions the faculty are writers, composers, visual artists etc.…

So the 5 AM writing time continues. I’ve often heard advice to wake up with not fully formed critical apparatus or coffee stimulant and write without censoring. Doesn’t this assume the critical/creative split? For me, the early morning writing requires a bit of coffee. It’s more about not worrying about day to day concerns at…

I am very excited about the reading this Saturday in Carborro, NC. Listening to Mark Wallace via Real Audio right now. Excited to hear him live. Just got Complications from Standing in A Circle by Mark Wallace and Music or Honesty by Rod Smith Wanna read them before the reading. But I got comp essays…

<a href="http://fotola.com/berylium/postpran/&quot; >Fotola

Wish I could have made it to Raleigh on Saturday to hear Aaron and hit the used bookstores. Sounded like a great time. I am wondering about the idea of artists getting better. To my ears R.E.M’s first and second (Murmur and Reckoning) are their best albums. Seems like this may be true of some…

Deep sea diving with Frank Stanford. At first my ears kept popping and I had to surface a lot for air (not used to holding my breath for so long). But now I can stay down much longer. The ocean wow what an ocean.

What’s going to happen after I finish?

I’m 116 pages in.

Holy shit.

1. Grab the nearest book. 2. Open the book to page 23. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions. My nearest book was an anthology of Irish drama (since I am grading). The sentence: “Now thrust the swords into the flame, and pray.”

You know sometimes I get swept up in reactionary rhetoric. Sometimes I don’t do my research and assume way too much. This is the case with my entry on Foetry on Monday. First, the heresay of unfair judging. As many bloggers have pointed out we have to be careful not to let resentment and rumor…

Had a great time hanging out with Tony Tost and his girlfriend Leigh. We ate on a balcony overlooking the big city of Greensboro and speculated about whether or not the passing clouds would break into storm. The talk of clouds seemed appropriate before Tony’s reading at the Green Bean. Tony started by reading some…

Received an interesting email from a guy named Aaron Lundstrom about creature comforts and beautiful narcotics. I’ve been mulling. I am not sure an outright dismisal of popular culture is effective. I think self-righteousness can be just as scary as television. I think television can be a creature comfort and narcotic and perhaps prevent political…

Just ordered the books I am gonna use for my classes in the fall. For my two sections of English 101: 1) Confronting Capitalism edited by Eddie Yuen, George Katsiaficas, Daniel Burton-Rose (Soft Skull Press) 2) Snark, Inc,: A Corporate Fable by Brian Cage (Soft Skull Press) Think we’ll also watch Fight Club, American Beauty,…

I am going to attempt a theme based English 101 class next fall on counter culture. Include movies that deal with the idea of counter culture and revolution such as Fight Club, The Matrix (part two). Longman has an anthology of counter culture essays (mostly from the sixties). Just ordered Daphne Gottlieb’s Final Girl and…

Just finished Albert Mobilio’s The Geographics. Rocked my socks. One of the best books I’ve read. Not sure what it is. I can’t put my finger on it yet. I wouldn’t rule out music based on the label. However, I am cautious when I see the ever present Warner Brothers label on indie music, but…

The Kills are rocking me this morning. I’ve been contemplating the idea of information overload (esp. image overload) and poetry either resisting or accelerating the overload. I’ve heard on many occassions that poetry helps a person slow down. But I am not sure I want to slow down if slow down means: 1) pastoral freeze…

Turned 30 yesterday. Got a Nikon coolpix camera. Spent all morning playing with it instead of preparing a lesson plan on Kierkegaard. Got some music. The new Modest Mouse, Dr. Eugene Chadbourne, and The Kills. Went to a show at Gate City Noise and heard a band called Robotnicka. Most of the members were from…

Interesting contrast this weekend. My friend’s parent’s came down this weekend and they love Billy Collins. They are both doctors and extremely nice. So first, I went to the beat conference and watched Pull My Daisy and heard David Amram and Michael McClure. I was a little skeptical about the popular appeal of the beats…

Found a really cool site called Titanic Operas: poetry and new materialities. check it out at Titanic operas

Just decided to teach as a full time lecturer for another year. I enjoy teaching. There are plenty of great poets who do not/did not compromise their poetry for “professional” reasons. I am writing more than I ever have while teaching full time. So it works. Really looking forward to the beat conference on Saturday…

Josh Corey’s notes from the AWP conference are fascinating. The MFA as a gated community. As post-MFA I can see this. However, the “avant guarde” feels like a gated community as well. When will we get a new noun? I teach full time as a lecturer and I feel more and more drawn to work…

My friend Dan returned with goodies from AWP: Poker by Tomaz Salamun (ugly ducking press. really well made) Fa(r)ther Down: Songs from the Allegy Trials by Arielle Greenberg (New Michigan press) Post-Avant by Daniel Zimmerman (Pavement Saw Press) I just started Post-Avant. Very impressed so far. I hadn’t even heard of Daniel Zimmerman until today.…

Obessions. Yeah obessions. I am redoing my library like I used to redo my hair. I would grow it for a few months then shave it bald. All go then start from scratch. Here a beard gone tomorrow. So I took more books into the Bookshop. Ate some Greek stuff at the Med. cafe. Traded…

Met a few poets and scholars at the bookshop in Chapel Hill yesterday. In particular a real nice guy named Joe Donahue who teaches at Duke. He told me about a reading series in carborro at the Sizl art gallery. In April Rod Smith is coming to read. Maybe Carborro is my saviour. Greensboro is…

Excited to get the new Modest Mouse CD and bootleg. The cd is being released spot dead on my b-day. April 6th 2004. Only heard “float on.” Liked it. Hope it’s as good as the Moon. Their albums declined after the moon. Couldn’t finish watching Incubus last night. felt like the 7th seal. good the…

In the process of writing maybe brand is in the background somewhere but after a while it seems to me the author is branded. What are blurbs but a brand? I often glance at the blurbs for names/brands (shameful I know). Not to rule out the book completely. But if Dana Gioia blurbs a book…

I am floored. Moved. Excited. Yes Yes Yes. There goes my head. I am alive. Check out K. Silem Mohammad’s electronic chapbook: <a href="http://www.durationpress.com/bookstore “>Duration Press The only way out is in since the out has already been appropriated by the in. In other words, I agree with <a href="http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/&quot; >Silliman’s defense of branding. At…

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 come, as a general thing, from the talents that are members of a group; every works better when he has companions working in the same…

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 my own canon) but I sometimes regret getting rid of some books. I am in that mode right now. Tempted to get rid of Levine…

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 push and pull. Play my kind of game no play mine. Slow fast slow fast. Eventually fast one (thank god). I’m currently 12th in the…

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 reading from a Defense of Poetry, then Mairéad Byrne’s “The Pillar” and Randolph Healy’s “Daylight Savings Sex.” Almost all of my students have not read…

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 ways in, but I am hooked and altered. The alterity in Invisible Bride feels genuine. What I mean is I got some serious head chills.…

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 poems in real audio of Lisa Jarnot and Wanda Coleman. A little talk about tradition and innovation. Students were shocked by Lisa Jarnot. Who’s emp.…

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 the difference between writing out your feelings in a journal and writing a poem. Not that a combo of journal/blogging and other types of discourse…

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 punkier version of Hootie and the Blowfish. A third good friend said, “Gimmick. All gimmick.” The gimmick comment stuck. What distinguishes a gimmick? Innovation as…

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 on a jolly good show. Also going to see Leo/Pharmacists at GO! on Sunday. Good week to rock.

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 August Kleinzahler about poetry magazine being wide awake with its new editor. The new issue has a bunch of poems by Bill Knot. The latest…

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 I sound so Ron will like me? Does Ron ever read my blog? The Patchen poem Aaron looks at is a very interesting example. I…

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 to take a taste test of Selah and Madonna anno domini.

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 Gregory Corso’s Mindfield Denise Levertov’s O Taste and See Clark Coolidge’s Own Face Josh Corey’s Madonna anno domini I’m building here. Trade out old tastes…

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 the credability of the writer in question. Thereby increasing artistic capital. Does Ann Carson’s short short bio increase her artistic capital? Does the mystery surrounding…

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 denied entry. So often I hear it’s harder to make sense, speak clearly than speak/write cryptic. It’s the old text/reader/writer (Mr. Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle). Get…

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 ($5.00 USD) Daylight Saving Sex by Randolph Healy ($5.00 USD) Shipping and Handling: $2.50 USD Total: $12.50 USD $12.50 for two books from the other…

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 Over by Elaine Equi Lit by Ron Silliman The Happy Birthday of Death by Gregory Corso (with a nice little fold out poem) really digging…

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 little in Ireland. Loved Ajax. Traded Bob Hicok for the revised and enlarged selected Robert Duncan edited by robert j. bertholf. Play at hand: 1)…

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 blind need pushing.” Picked up Sleeping with the Dictionary. I am very excited. Got a serious roll. Sacked the headmaster for a monkey. Post Date: Fri…

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 from Sex and the City typing on her mac). Playground tactics. Original tactics not like the rabbit in a hat trick. <a href="javascript:SquawkBoxPopup()” title=”Comments by…

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: this is so and so, he’s from the program. Which reminds of: the church. The church says. . . As if everyone belonged to the…

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 . . . readers can be expected to enjoy a device that ruptures the commodification of reading insofar as this fulfills their desire for such a work.”…

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 Charles Bernstein’s A Poetics at the used book store and Insomnia Diary by Bob Hicok. I’ve only read four pages of Bernstein and it’s really…

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 on good music. I picked up: The Flaming Lips (The Soft Bulletin) Ted Leo/Pharmacists (The Tyranny of Distance) Califone (Heron King BLVES) The Wrens (Meadowlands)…

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 much middle of the road art is simply boring . . . sophisticated armored writing feels very middle of the road to me. Aping the…

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 beside the point rather than the point. (Ha. I’m clever. I’m special. I’m unique. I’m me. etc.) I worry about difference daily. And community. I…

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) narrative, easily digested etc. Now Iowa is on the other side. Mostly avant guarde inspired/influenced poetry. Iowa has power. Iowa is bringing the avant strategies…

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 they feel unintelligent because they don’t get process oriented poetry. I don’t want anyone to feel stupid and unworthy, including myself. I am driven to…

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 is obscure, because poetry is clear. . . we need to have forgotten poetry completely before it call fall naked into our arms.” I suppose…

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 a poet was polite, agreeable. A nice dinner guest. Only a few thought of a poet as crazy and dangerous (we were discussing the Irish…

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 stirs indicate almost to the point of a dead horse) If I am between language as multivocal, flux filled, slidding, anxiety ridden and language as…

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 memoir. Did not enjoy it. William Matthews is ok, but not very interesting. I am not sure why (other than recognition, status as son of…

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 buzz. Snow on the ground. Cold fingers. I don’t have to teach today because of the ice. Cuddle up to Dali, Bonnie prince billy, an…

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 am wondering about poetry and performance after listening to Craig Arnold the other day. I like poetry read well, or well read poetry, but sometimes…

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 over me 3)Tubes and a breathing machine 4) Unaware (i.e. out of my mind) 5) gun shot to head 6) hanging 7) gutting 8) electric…

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 Arnold read at 2pm today. Haven’t read any of his poems before. He’s one of those Yale winners. Daddy long legs. Useless jaws. Sometimes I…

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

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 the end. Most of the movie uses gestures more than conversation. Emotion is lost in translation from movie to audience. Which came first, the emotion/experience…

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 America at the age of 12 from N. Ireland. It was 1985. Breakdancing was big. My preconception of America was built around movies (of course).…

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 the eye of the needle. If home is an interior then not home is . . . What a strange, profound, bewildering wilderness We invented…

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 the cosolation of my future. My lot behind twelve million clomping hooves. It behooves you to bereave with bandits. Glaciers recommended their services but brisk…

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 the illogical in language. Is language inherently logical? Language and magic. Language before deconstruction. However, language is always already there. So to think of the…

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 Guest, The Location of Things, Archaics, The Open Skies Best American 2002 (curious. Got it for $2) Edward Dorn, Gunslinger Octavio Paz, A Draft of…

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 of prisoners and I am one of them. I ask around and no one knows how we got here. The guards do not know how…

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 artistic outsiders. Form and content not seperate for the mac (for pc it’s all content, form is secondary). So very ugly mass produced pc’s. So…

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: Nice to See You (Homage to Ted Berrigan) $2 The Dada Market (anthology) $4 Routine Distortions (Kenward Elmslie) $5 Mercurochrome (Wanda Coleman) $5 Charles Simic…

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 narratives. Subjectivity? The energy of image. Image is static. Does not move much outside the poem. How to light up images, make them move. Rhetoric,…