NOMADIC SURREALIST PUNK

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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

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.… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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.… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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

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… Read more.

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).… Read more.

What’s going to happen after I finish? Read more.

I’m 116 pages in. Read more.

Holy shit. Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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,… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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.… Read more.

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… Read more.

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

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”… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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… Read more.

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?… Read more.

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… Read more.

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.