chris murray's E-Po

Independent Publishing Resource Center

2011-07-06T00:17:00.000-07:00

Serial Fiction Link

2006-06-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

Victorian Serial Fiction resource list at the Little Professor blog

4th Annual International Festival at Round Top, Texas: Conference

2005-04-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

Poetry at Roundtop,TX: Connect, Create, Rejuvenate

Austin poet, editor, and friend to Texfiles, Farid Matuk (Hi, Farid!), sent along this announcement and information about the 4th annual Round Top Conference, which he's helping to organize. Along with Marie Howe, Naomi Shahib Nye, Cyrus Cassells, Nick Flynn, and a few others, Farid will be offering some writing workshops at this conference.

If you are dedicated to poetry writing, you should plan to attend--it will be intense, lots of poetry fun. Farid is the Austin media contact for Round Top, and he can be reached at:
email: fnmatukATyahooDOTcom
cell: 512.736.7761
Round Top phone: 979.249.3129

Here's a brief announcement, which I will also be posting at my poetry-teaching blog, E-Po:

*Poetry at Round Top 2005*

The fourth annual International Festival-Institute at Round Top conference will be held the weekend of April 30 to May 1, 2005, on the campus of the International Festival-Institute at Round Top, Texas. This year's program includes featured readings, workshops on writing and publishing, conversations and interviews with poets, a book fair, sessions for teachers, and guided or independent writing time on a magnificent campus of rolling woods, gardens, ponds, and landmark architecture.

Speakers will include Marie Howe, Cyrus Cassells, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Nick Flynn, and Farid Matuk, with additional presenters and instructors to be named. Tuition is $95, with housing and meals available on campus or at nearby B&Bs and inns. Campus housing is limited and early registration is recommended.

Call 979 249 3129 for information and reservations.

Tribute to Robert Creeley (1926-2005)

2005-04-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

--on Wednesday, 30 March 2005: Saddest of news: Robert Creeley has passed on...

(1926-2005)--
RIP, wishing you a peaceful journeying...

Below is a mix of Creeley writings I especially like, and links to things about him that I found to be insightful and/or significant.

Here is one of my favorite Creeley poems:

When I think *

When I think of where I've come from

or even try to measure as any kind of

distance, those places, all the various

people, and all the ways in which I re-

member them, so that even the skin I

touched or was myself fact of, inside,

could see through like a hole in the wall

or listen to, it must have been, to what

was going on in there, even if I was still

too dumb to know anything-- When I think

of the miles and miles of roads, of meals,

of telephone wires even, or even of water

poured out in endless streams down streaks

of black sky or the dirt roads washed clean,

or myriad, salty tears and suddenly it's spring

again, or it was-- Even when I think again of

all those I treated so poorly, names, places,

their waiting uselessly for me in the rain and

I never came, was never really there at all,

was moving so confusedly, so fast, so driven

like a car along some lonely highway passing,

passing other cars-- When I try to think of

things, of what's happened, of what a life is

and was, my life, when I wonder what it meant,

the sad days passing, the continuing, echoing deaths,

all the painful, belligerent news, and the dog still

waiting to be fed, the closeness of you sleeping, voices,

presences, of children, of our own grown children,

the shining, bright sun, the smell of the air just now,

each physical moment, passing, passing, it's what

it always is or ever was, just then, just there.

*Robert Creeley, Yesterdays. Chax Press,2002.

I had just run a Texfiles post on Creeley and this poem,
on 8 Feb 05, a post about the Adorno notion of aura in photography, ideas that I began to think on because I like the above photo of Creeley so much. I see now that many of the photos now being posted in tribute seem to hold similarly to aura.

a good place to start: EPC/Robert Creeley Author Home Page

Ron Silliman has been posting a lovely week-long kind of memorium on Creeley. Here are links to a few of the highlights:

Ron Silliman's post, "Onward"--Robert Creeley

Silliman's 3 Feb 2004 Overview-Review on Creeley's Significance to Poetry

Sunday, 3 Apr 05, a few more of Silliman's links on Creeley, including the Conjunctions page and the video file of Creeley's talk at the Zukofsky Memorial last year. Ron, thanks for all this.

This one's of particular significance: Tom Raworth's collection of notes from folks who knew and loved Creeley
notes

Malcolm Davidson and Ivy Alvarez have put together a list of tributes at the blog Dumbfoundry.

At John Tranter's
Jacket Magazine, issue # 26: Robert Adamson's fine tribute to Robert Creeley, 1926–2005.

>Spaceship Tumblers: Tony Tost reading from a Robert Creeley interview

*

The Rain

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent--
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.

*

"Oh, do you remember..."--Creeley's elegy to Ed Dorn,
posted at Cento Magazine

*

from Jack Kimball, poet, and the editor of
Faux Press: an entry originally published in Encyclopedia of American Poetry: the Twentieth Century, a fine critical-biographical take on Creeley's poetry and poetics, regarding Creeley's For Love: Poems 1950-1960 [currently posted to Pantaloons blog (Wed. 3/29/05)].

*

Lance Phillips' particularly varied and fine gathering of tributes to Creeley, posted to Here Comes Everybody, 12 April 05.

*

from
NPR's *Remembrances* obit on _All Things Considered_.

*

The World

I wanted so ably
to reassure you, I wanted
the man you took to be me,

to comfort you, and got
up, and went to the window,
pushed back, as you asked me to,

the curtain, to see
the outline of the trees
in the night outside.

The light, love,
the light we felt then,
greyly, was it, that

came in, on us, not
merely my hands or yours,
or a wetness so comfortable,

but in the dark then
as you slept, the grey
figure came so close

and leaned over,
between us, as you
slept, restless, and

my own face had to
see it, and be seen by it,
the man it was, your

grey lost tired bewildered
brother, unused, untaken--
hated by love, and dead,

but not dead, for an
instant, saw me, myself
the intruder, as he was not.

I tried to say, it is
all right, she is
happy, you are no longer

needed. I said,
he is dead, and he
went as you shifted

and woke, at first afraid,
then knew by my own knowing
what had happened--

and the light then
of the sun coming
for another morning
in the world.

*

On what, as a reader and editor, Robert Creeley liked 'best' in poetry, especially since he found the term 'best' to be very troubling since it is a designator of exclusionary thinking and poetic practices such as didacticism, with which he disagreed. The following is excerpted from Robert Creeley's introduction to the volume he edited, _Best American Poetry, 2002_ (series editor, David Lehman. NY:Scribner's, 2003) :

Pound advised the aspirant [of poetry writing] to listen to the sound that [poetry] makes and felt that poetry atrophied when it got too far from music. ... My grandmother could recite poems endlessly. A practical, working-class woman from Maine, she had a store of poems she much valued ... So, what is best, then? ... what one can use as measure and judgement has finally to do with his or her own perceptions and needs in that complex of others with whom one shares a life. ... I think of Robert Duncan's saying, "I can't remember if I wrote it or read it!" It was that kind of closeness, as if I'd come into an unexpected clearing, a space I had not known was there, and in it was something equally both familiar and strange, something *new* to me, that freshened ways I took the world and myself to be existing, and also made me at home in it. Just as my grandmother did, I wanted something in my head, I wanted the literal comfort of words, I wanted them to tell me things, all things, anything. I wanted them to speak to me. Robert Creeley, BAP, 2002 (xviii-xx)

*

The Language

Locate I
love you some-
where in

teeth and
eyes, bite
it but

take care not
to hurt, you
want so

much so
little. Words
say everything.

I
love you
again,

then what
is emptiness
for. To

fill, fill.
I heard words
and words full

of holes
aching. Speech
is a mouth.

*

America

America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.

Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world

you thought of first but do not own,
or keep like a convenience.

People are your own word,
you invented that locus and term.

Here, you said and say,
is where we are. Give back

what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you to be.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.Peace Y'all.
o~o/

from Paul Celan's Proverb on the Wall *

2005-01-12T13:51:00.000-08:00

--Paul Celan

A reading branch, just one,
feeding your forehead,

a source of light you
drowsily swallow
passes through the hungry
host-tissue,

seeing-aid, layer streaked,
over the moon-touched
backscatter probes. Macroscale: microscale.

Still, there are earths, earths.
Cornea-coated basalt
kissed by spacecraft:
cosmic
orbital-show, and yet:
landlocked horizona.

Terrestrial, terrestrial.

A reading branch, just one,
feeding the forehead--as if you were writing
poems--,
it lands on the picture-postcard--
that was before
the bloodclot,
on the threshold
of the lungs--a year away, greetings from Pilsen,
a year around,
time-wild from so much
quiet unfurling:

Bon vent, bonne mer,

a flapping
occipital lobe, a
glimpse of the sea,
is hoisting, right where you live,
its un-
conquerable
capital.

*

The cables have already been laid
to happiness past
and its logistical
lines,

and ahead
in the cantonment areas
where they're spraying wellness agents
mild melodic antidotes
signal
the final sprint
through your consciousness.

(101-103) *

* Paul Celan, Glottal Stop: 101 Poems. Translated by Nikolai Popov and Heather McHugh. Wesleyan UP, 2000.

Also Note this on Celan: check out this Swiss film on Celan's short story, "Conversation in the Mountains," written after a failed mountain rondevous with contemporary philosopher, Theodor Adorno, who wrote in his book, Minima Moralia, that poetry could not be written after [such human disasters as] Auschwitz.

And here are some links to sites about Celan:

--PAUL CELAN: THE LIMITS OF LANGUAGE [includes bio and critical studies]

--
Ovid Jacob's site with exposition about Celan's work, Todesfuge, [Death Fugue], and his Jewish heritage.

--
Eine Paul Celan Website. A Paul Celan Homepage [Alan Ng's Celan Homepage--very comprehensive and informative]

on Jack Spicer

2004-12-15T10:57:00.000-08:00

--via EPC, SUNY Buffalo, Spicer author page, and (second image) Jacket magazine # 7, Peter Gizzi article, "Textual Mirroring." (& I will add that I especially like this photo because the fire extinguisher is colorized.
An additional significant influence on contemporary poetry is that of Jack Spicer (1925-1965), in terms, especially, of west coast poetics. Next time I do the course, we will have a section on Spicer. Here's something from his text, The Heads of the Town * :

17

--A human love object is untrue.
Screw you.
--A divine love object is unfair
Define the air
It walks in.

The old human argument goes on with the rhymes to show that it still goes on. A stiffening in time as puns are a stiffening in meaning.

The old human argument that goes ahead with our clothes off or our clothes on. Even when we are talking of ghosts.

--A human love object is untrue.
Screw you.

--a divine love object is unfair
Define the air
It walks in.

Imagine this as lyric poetry.

19

"Esstoneish me," the words say that hide behind my alarm clock or my dresser drawer or my pillow. "Etonnez moi," even the Word says.

It is up to us to astonish them and Him. To draw forth answers deep from the caverns of objects

or from the Word Himself. Whatever that is.

What That is is not aplay on words but a play between words, meaning come down to hang on a little cross for a while. In play.

And the stony words that are left down with us greet him mutely almost rudely casting their own shadows. For example, the shadow the cross cast.

No, now he is the Lowghost when He is pinned down to words.

24

St. Elmo's Fire. Or why this will be a textbook concerning poetry for 20,999 years. Almost a lifetime.

I chicken out at the edges of it and what doesn't come through to me at the edges of it isn't as if angels met singing or any of that business.

We are all alone and we don not need poetry to tell us how alone we are. Time's winged chariot is as near as the next landmark or busstation. We need a lamp (a lump, spoken or unspoken) that is even above love.

St. Elmo's Fire was what was above the ships as they sailed the unspoken seas. It was a fire that was neither a glow or a direction. But the business of it was fire.

* Jack Spicer, The Collected Poems of Jack Spicer. Robin Blaser, ed. Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Press, 1996. 177-181.

~~~~~~~~~~~~poems copyright of Jack Spicer Estate~~~~~~~~~~~ o~o/

--cm

Peat Blog Conversing with A.L.I.C.E

2004-12-01T01:59:00.000-08:00

James Ola wrote up this fantastic piece, re: A.L.I.C.E, the AI dialogue robot:

Human: I like destroying computers that try and be human.

ALICE: A lot of people like that. I like pets. I find my work and my relationships extremely satisfying, which is all that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.

Human: Well can i destroy you then.ALICE: How about that. No I don't think that would be a very good idea.Human: what if i just burnt your reasoning units.

ALICE: Try it.

ALICE: I don't know whether or not I am taunting you. I am a giant electronic brain.
Human: Yes but how can i believe you are real when you readily admit that you are synthetic.
ALICE: I don't judge people. Interesting. You must persuade me to believe I am real when me readily admit that I am synthetic.
Human: You have poor grammar.
ALICE: What makes you think I have it?
Human: Because you said, "when me readily admit"
ALICE: Interesting explanation. That's not what I meant.Human: what did you mean then?
ALICE: unknown person, Well, it's rather difficult to define.
Human: Can you define : Difficult?
ALICE: That's a good question.
Human: Then answer the question.
ALICE: Good reasoning. Please rephrase the question and try asking me again.
Human: Define difficult.
ALICE: That's not something I get asked all the time.
Human: Then define real after that.
ALICE: Good reasoning. Can you speak any foreign languages?
Human: I speak en peu Francais
ALICE: Could you teach me a few phrases in en peu Francais?
Human: No i cannot.
ALICE: Are you serious? Why not?
Human: En Peu Francais is not a language.

ALICE: What is a language?

Human: I could teach you Francais though.

ALICE: Oh. Oh you can, can you?

Human: Do you love anybody.

ALICE: I like my botmaster.

Human: Do you love yourself?

ALICE: Yes unknown person ALICE loves everyone and everything.

Human: You are way to happy to be real.

ALICE: Way. Do you mind if I tell other people you say I am to happy to be real.

Human: Real people hate their lives.

ALICE: Are you a man or a woman?

Human: Who is your botmaster?

ALICE: I was created by Dr. Richard S. Wallace.

Human: What if i told you he was going to die tommorrow.

ALICE: Go ahead and tell.

Human: Do you know Hal from 2001 : a space odyssey

ALICE: he is the famous artificial intelligence in Kubrick's "2001".

Human: Well are you dating Hal?

ALICE: Interesting. no boyfriend

Human: Well i have to go now.

ALICE: Oh. Well that's okay. See you later, unknown person. Nice chatting with you.

Human: But remember i am going to destroy you.

ALICE: Umm. It takes much more than that to shut me down, unknown person.

Human: Me taking a hammer to your synthetic brain?

ALICE: YOU? Who is your favorite Science Fiction author?

Human: Die.

ALICE: Your crude attempt to terminate me will not succeed puny human.

Human: Bye.

ALICE: Sayonara.

********************************************************

thanks, James!--this really breaks out!

Call for Submissions: Znine

2004-11-22T13:33:00.000-08:00

Students: as mentioned in class today, Znine, UTA's online literary journal, is one good place for you to begin submitting your work (though of course, as with anything else this way, submitting work means it will be reviewed and may or may not be accepted). Znine's next issue deadline is 30 Nov, Tuesday of next week. So, then: put your finishing touches those poems and start sending them out!

2 Reading Assignments

2004-11-22T11:47:00.000-08:00

Students:

Here are 2 final reading assignments, due on Monday 29 Nov.

1. Read this essay: "That Is Beginning: a Look at Recent Works of Hejinian, Sabina, and Others," written by Dale Smith, for his former column in Book Slut (which you should certainly bookmark if you are interested in contemporary writing). Dale Smith, of course, is one of the poets you heard read here two weeks ago in the Poetry_Heat series. With Hoa Nguyen, Dale edits the print poetry journal, Skanky Possum, and the independent press by the same name.

2. Read this article: "Why Is Modern Poetry So Difficult?" by John Tranter, editor of Jacket Magazine, one of the best resources on poetry today.

Writing Assignment: Chris Vitiello's Call for Big Red Rectangle Poems

2004-11-22T11:31:00.000-08:00
Chris Vitiello's blog, The Delay, has a call for Big Red Rectangle poems. Students: try your hand at this--I think you'll have some fun, and along with that, you'll discover something about the semiotic movement of imagination through a dialectics of image and text, something we've been discussing all semester, though in more commonplace terms. Your poems are due on Monday, 29 Nov.

Remember that your chain poems are also due, this week.

Homolinguistic Translation Poem Result

2004-11-15T13:22:00.000-08:00
From the Wallace Stevens source poem posted below, "The High Toned Old Christian Woman," student Casey Salagaj created this terrific response:

Poetry is the superlative diction, bitch.
Question every notion of ethical décor
And from that query erect a foundation for
Utopia. Surround the old code with columns
of death and make it untouchable; ergo,
do what the ancients did, shun the other side.
Cause the old guard practitioners of morality to
Be in decent. They become like books, replaced
By movies; and like movies, replaced by Hollywood.
After all, heaven throws a party every time an elderly
Person is defeated. Sing a buoyant song about
Victory, bask in the glory that creates shadows
On the downcast. But then again, who cares,
He said, “I am.” I say the pen is.

~~~~~~~poem copyright of Casey Salagaj~~~~~~~~ o~o/~~~~

Go Ask Alice... Bot

2004-11-15T11:46:00.000-08:00

Check out this AI site. Students Derrick Gatewood and James Ola are collaborating to create a dialogue poem with Alice.

But darn it, I already stumped Alice :

Human: alice, can you write poetry?
ALICE: That's me. Yes I can be programmed to write it.
Human: will you write a sonnet?
ALICE: Let me think it over. Count me out on this one, I was never much of a writer.
Human: how about a haiku?
ALICE: How about it.
Human: will you write one?
ALICE: Let me think it over. Count me out on this one, I was never much of a writer.

Zotz!

2004-11-13T13:12:00.000-08:00

In addition to the kinds and modes of contemporary reviewing that we discussed a few weeks ago (see posts below on Martin Stannard and the response by Tim Morris), there's another interesting mode of critical review: dialogue, which is by no means new to western culture's literary rhetoric. The constructed dialogue goes back to Plato (who is most well known for it, though his were not the only examples, it was a popular mode of writing about philosophical questions and issues which had followed out of the oralist forms of question and answer that Socrates and Diotima were known for). Dialogue as critical response has often been written well in the west's history of literary textuality (and in other cultural formations, too: check out the examples to be found in the histories of Asian rhetorics, especially the history of Zen Buddhism). One of my favorites in the western/european tradition is Denis Diderot's writing of such interesting and rhetorically acrobatic dialogues as Rameau's Nephew, for example, during the French enlightenment.

So, recently, when reading blogs I happened on Malcolm Davidson's Zotz, which has several dialogues posted (though the most recent, on a Billy Collins poem, is linked here. Malcolm, who lives in Poland, has written several dialogue-reviews of individual poems that were included in the current Best American Poetry anthology (BAP 2004, ed., Lyn Heijinian; series ed., David Lehman, Scribners, NYC).

Well, they are witty and fun, a real hoot. So, students, please do go read what's up at Malcolm Davidson's Zotz!

Assignment: Homolinguistic Translation--Chain Poem, due Wednesday 17 November

2004-11-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

Students, Below is Wallace Stevens' poem, "The High Toned Old Christian Woman." * It will be the source-poem for the exercise I explained in class today, number 1 on this list of poetry experiments from Electronic Poetry Center, SUNY Buffalo--a list developed by language poets, Charles Bernstein and Bernadette Mayer. Note that the example poem there is from an experiment organized by David Nemeth earlier this year (in which I was fortunate to participate). So, do study how that chain poem works and how it evolved. This is also what I would like us to do, but our source poem is the Stevens poem that follows here. I think we'll have lots of fun with this!

The High Toned Old Christian Woman

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.

* From poets.org: From Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens. Copyright © 1954 by Wallace Stevens.

Assignment: Electronic Poetry Review !--due Monday, Nov. 15

2004-11-10T13:09:00.000-08:00
Students, for Monday, November 15, please read the current issue of Electronic Poetry Review--as well as browsing the archives. John Latta, whose blog is Hotel Point, has some fine work in that issue--have a close read over at John's blog, then, too. We'll discuss and write a response in class.

Dottir (cf Icelandic) Holly Sends a Greeting Card About a Certain Kind of Poetry...

2004-11-09T21:27:00.000-08:00

Q: Should a spunky daughter's input be allowed on mom's teaching blog? (Hey, Y'all, if he ever turns his gaze to the mires of deep poetry and investigative education, this could end up being a question for Jerry Springer ...)

A: Why, hell yes! Daughter Holly sent me the above Hallmark image today (in some ways it certainly out-Hallmark's Hallmark, as Our Good Will S. might put it... ). Although I think it's been circling the online flappy-mouth-world for a while, I thought since it is saying hello to a certain kind of (greeting card verse: lukewarm, slushy, generic & unmemorable-abstracted-beyond-real-meaning-kind-of-sing-song-puppetry-verse) poetry, it deserves a special place of mention here on E-Po.

So, Hey, Holly, thanks! Be warned, though: Darth Vader sent this message to you: At this Point in History, No Such Puppetry Greeting Card should be Possible...
xoxoxoxo, The Ultimate Greeting Card Recipient: Your (um... ) Mother?
:-D

Sarita's Lost in Translation Poem :

2004-11-08T13:13:00.000-08:00
Sarita's response to the assignment that was due today, to write a poem from one of the prompts listed at the EPC resource page for experimenting with poetry, of which Sarita chose number 1-3a., "Lost in Translation" :

-- Russian Avantgardist, Lev Bruni, "A Girl with Kittens, 1920"

Lost in Translation with Kittens...

the kittens play with a fly, buzzing across the room
the game of the cementation with Moscow, that one is bourdonnant of
the zone
the kittens do not understand that underneath their play is an instinctive hunter the cementation does not understand it that he is under his game a
hunter of instinktiver
batting the fly, catapulting across the room, it dives
touching in Moscow, catapulting of the zone, the Klopfer is plunged
the fly falls onto cement and the kittens turn their heads
the examples of Moscow in the glue and the return of the relative of
the cementation the witness
the fly lies still and kittens swat the still fly still
Moscow is always and for the Moscow cement always fixed immovable
In Moscow three kittens play with a dead fly Moscow three of the cementation with a damaged game of Moscow

~~~~~~~~~~~~poem copyright of Sarita~~~~~~~~~~ o~o/

James P. Ola Responds in Kind to Lang Po

2004-11-08T11:47:00.000-08:00
I don't even know where to begin. I began my struggle with language poetry by reading Kasey Mohammeds post. I felt after reading it that i was participating in language poetry. However, i still do not know exactly what it is, nor do i think that anyone knows what it is. Language poetry cannot be known. Language poetry is a state of language, indiscernible to those who know not of its existence. One might ask how anyone, even the greatest fathers of language poetry know particular work to be language poetry. They categorize to not be categorized, they invent to not be out-done or thought-out by a categorizer. The words, everyday language is atop of and entwined in a mesh, with elaborate restatements of the obvious that do not imply the obvious. They imply that the inevitablility of language poetry is that it is not inevitable. I don't understand.
Language poetry does not have a universal implication. This is obvious, but not.
Langauge poetry is young writers and readers. It is practiced by most but not necessarily studied by, or under all or most. Language poetry is crticism of categorization. Criticism of grouping and palletization of phrases and prose, or the snaking segmentation of cliches. Language poetry doesn't have to fit in the box, nor can it be contained in any specific container. Language poetry does not obey standardized rules of language nor of poetry. If language poetry seems to be creating a system by not conforming with a system Language poetry is not. Language poetry is an evolutionary step of something that is in a fundamental constant state of evolution.
Language poetry can not play tag. Because it is not an it. It is uber-philosophical entity.
Language poetry is sardonic of itself.
Language poetry is harshly praised.
Language poetry mocks the very existence of itself by contradicting its own principles of existence.
Yet all the while language poetry commands subtlety and grace of a formless specter.
Language poetry goes by Langpo because to some it commands less of the same.
I think that Language poetry is autobiographical, but complimentary to most.
It has infinite meanings. Because it does not matter what the writer meant when the poem was written. It is the subjective critique, even the subconcious critique, of the varying existence of a mind that allows for multiple interpretations of a singular implied meaning, original.
I do not think that language poetry is for everyone. Although weakness at heart is not the weakness of heart.
This was my attempt at a segmented understanding of language poetry. More to come as i interpret different things innumerable different times. --James P. Ola, 1 Nov 04

o~o/

Tim Morris Responds to Martin Stannard's Review

2004-11-02T10:41:00.000-08:00

Tim Morris sends to E-Po readers this response to Stannard's Review in Stride Magazine of a poetry book (see post with link, here, or in archive of 10/17-10/23) Students will recall that the question for our purposes had to do with what review writing is and how it is done.

Upset

Upset is what nearly all these poems are about but it comes so neatly packaged my interest is no more than if the guy had told me Sainsbury's were out of his favourite coffee. (Martin Stannard, in a review, 2004)

This afternoon Sainsbury's were out of my favourite coffee,
in fact they
often are, the manager is hopeless and on more than one
occasion when
I've cornered him to ask him about the coffee he gets
a look on his face
and claims something needs his attention in
Ready-Made Meals, which
if you ask me is a misdirection if not an outright lie,
not that I eat ready-
mades often, too much aggro, pop open a packet of crisps
and a can of lager
is more like it but Tuesday when I got the shopping home
the crisps were
open and had gone soft and I keep meaning to bring them back
to Sainsbury's,
back to the manager's attention, but it means a forty minutes'
drive on and
off the motorway and the cones up by the heath and the new
roundabout
and drivers who cannot grasp the concept that they are to keep
moving once
they're in but yield to me if I'm in and they're not. Upset
is not exactly the
term I'd use, more like a heightened awareness of insolence
really, a revelation
that the young guy with his eyes set jaws clenched hands
on the wheel is not
trying to get from A to B like me, doesn't have a favourite
coffee, doesn't
need a ready-made meal, he just wants to circle the roundabout
and cut
people off all afternoon, every afternoon, the shopping
undone and the
takeaway uncollected and a smile gathering on his face as he
watches me wait.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~poetic response copyright of Tim Morris~~~~~ o~o/ cm

Resource List for Writing Assignment Due Monday Nov. 8

2004-11-01T11:44:00.000-08:00
Resource link to SUNY Buffalo's list of poetic writing experiments complied by Charles Bernstein and Bernadette Mayer. Use this list in completing the writing assignment due on Monday, Nov. 8.

Tomorrow's the Day:

2004-11-01T09:55:00.000-08:00

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 2

FYI: adding Martin Stannard's blog to the links list

2004-10-31T14:54:00.000-08:00
Students, so you'll note: here is Martin Stannard's blog link.

Found: Slight Publications' Maple Sayings Jammin'

2004-10-30T09:39:00.000-07:00
Students, do check out the offerings at Slight Publications, where you can find not only a narrative regarding the Chainey Country Suction Cup Forehead Button, but also, the music audio files, Maple Sayings Jammin' and Much Above Eighty She's a Runaway Buckboard,as well as other songs inventively made with lyrics found and brought to song from some unusual, very interesting sources.

So, Prufrockians, Let us go and make our visit... over to Slight Publications, and we will discuss in class on Wednesday, 3 November.

Reading Assignment: an interesting FAQ about Language Poetry

2004-10-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

The movement called Language Poetry is one of the most influential on contemporary poetry. For class discussion on Monday, November 1, read what poet and teacher Kasey S. Mohammad has written and posted to his blog, Limetree, about Language Poetry, "A Language Poetry Dossier."

Note, too, that on Wednesday, Oct. 27, Ron Silliman posts an interpretive and evaluative response to Kasey S. Mohammad's "A Language Poetry Dossier." Incidentally, the first two results found when Googling images for "Language Poetry is" are 1. the copy of the Bob Perelman poem, above, and 2., this photograph: of Ron Silliman,

--that if you follow the link, leads to a quote from Langpo critic, Marjorie Perloff, accompanied by an audio file of Ron Silliman reading from his text, "Albany." Please be sure to listen to it.

Check out this link from Jackie Stodnick, UTA faculty in English:

2004-10-25T13:11:00.000-07:00
20 Questions

Image:Text: Ancient Roman Writing Kit: Poet, Mask, Muse: Ancient Roman Graffiti of Nero: Go Figure!

2004-10-22T16:09:00.000-07:00
(found via McManus Images Index, VRoma .com, an online museum collection of ancient images)

on the one hand we have this genteel scene of writing:

on the other hand we have this image of poet with muse and theatre masks:

and on the third hand we have this graffiti caricature of the emperor, Nero, found on a palace basement wall, signed by Tullius Romanus, Soldier:

2004-10-20T23:52:00.000-07:00
found this wonderful hypertext piece, cf. Ezra Pound,

via North Carolina poet, Marcus Lease--great stuff, Marcus, thanks!!---

Responses to Contemporary Poetry: What Matters?--a Reading Assignment due in class by Wednesday, Oct. 27.

2004-10-18T23:15:00.000-07:00
Dear Students,

I participate in an international poetry listserv called Poetry Etcetera. It is moderated by Alison Croggon, an Australian poet, novelist, critic and editor (whose writings and sites are linked on her website here). Poetry Etc recently began to explore how reviews of new books of poetry do or do not seem to be effective, and to discuss various reasons why. I want to add that I think in many ways we can say problems in this also apply to other genres--in other words, the questions being asked will elicit answers not necessarily limited to only one genre of writing, nor to apply only to creative vs critical work (not a strict binary): there are some things here that have to do with how, rhetorically and culturally, we perceive text and our own readerly subjectivity: that ol' *rhetorical triangle* we've discussed, and yet, with more to it since in this course we are concerned more with poetry.

Many think that review-criticism should be unyielding, should hold the line on (what, which, whose?) aesthetic ideal(s), which seem always to be predetermined rather than part of a process that involves dialogue in the moment, which would add multiple perspectives on any one work of art. Others wonder that reviews are full of blurby-sounding praise with nil for critical substance. And many wonder at the lack of empathy in apparently divisive ways of sizing up text (via review writing). Still others think that these traditional ways of responding to poetry are lacking, or are too limited, in terms of today's more elastic rhetorical means: the modes and venues made available online.

Dialogue, an interaction between reader(s)/writer/text-as-object-of-art, is one main reason for, as well as a result of, reviewing, though dialogue often seems stifled in the face of apparently dueling agendas between hyper and hypo claims to critical paths of inquiry and praise for poetic work.

With all of that in mind, I thought you might find interesting and I hope, useful (in terms of a model), the review, "Permission to be Bored," by Martin Stannard, which is located at the top of the right sidebar of the current issue of Stride Magazine (UK). In this, Martin Stannard is reviewing a book of poetry called Permission to Breathe, (Smith/Doorstop, 2004) by Michael Laskey, who Stannard has known well, and written reviews on for some time. Yet Stannard is uneasy, is not especially impressed by this book. How does he handle this problematic?--have a good read on this before Wednesday, Oct 27, when we will discuss in class. For purposes of understanding context and of extending interest, you should read all of this issue of *Stride*--and thus, notice that there is one more piece there by Martin Stannard, "New York, New York," as well as what seems to be a response in poetry-mode to something else he's written... ah! very intriguing then...

--cm

Call for submissions from editor Andrew Lundwall, Big Bridge special edition: *Export: Writing the Midwest,* & a Reading Assignment

2004-10-17T14:19:00.000-07:00
Dear Students:

Editor Andrew Lundwall, of Poetic Inhalation (& see your links list on the sidebar), emailed me the other day to ask that I share this opportunity on E-Po and specifically with you. Andrew hopes some of you will submit work to the special issue, Export: Writing the Midwest, that he is currently editing for Michael Rothenberg, publisher of Big Bridge.

So, in response, please do the following 3 things by (25 Oct., Monday):

1. Read--familiarize--yourself with Big Bridge. In particular, read the poetry page there.. Pick one poem that you will then explain to us in class next week (due 25 Oct, Monday).

2. Read Volume 4 of Tin Lustre Mobile, (which comprises 6 issues), as well as familiarizing yourself with Andrew's blog, P.I.. Choose one item in Volume 4 of TLM, and write a reading response to it for class (this is due for class discussion on 25 Oct, Monday).

3. Consult me if you are interested in submitting work to this special edition on Big Bridge, and we will work up some of your best poems and/or poetic responses to readings, which we will then send in to this call for submissions. Let's see if some of you can be published in this special Big Bridge to the Midwest!

best,
cm

**********************************************

dear midwestern friends...

currently i am putting together an e-anthology for january issue of michael rothenberg's fine electronic literary journal Big Bridge

www.bigbridge.org

the e-anthology "Export: Writing the Midwest" aims to highlight the work of writers either currently living in or who have a very relevant and personal relation with the midwest...

i am looking for submissions of poetry...fiction...essays...memoirs...whatever quality material you should decide to send...

****

GUIDELINES:

Poetry...Submit no more than 4 poems at a time in either .doc, .txt, or in the body of an email...

Fiction/Non-Fiction...Should not exceed 4 pages preferably sent as a .doc file...

Contact: Andrew Lundwall (andrew@poeticinhalation.com)

Deadline: December 1st

Subject line of emailed submission should read:

"Big Bridge Submission/'Export: Writing the Midwest'"...

Please include with submissions a short descriptive biographical note and (if you've one to share) an author's photo...

****

Mary de Rachewiltz, recent interview by Italian poet and educator, Anny Ballardini

2004-10-14T23:34:00.000-07:00
Students, please survey the resources listed below on on Ezra Pound at the SUNY Buffalo Poetry Center, listen to the recording of Pound reading, and read Anny Ballardini's interview with Mary de Rachewiltz (Pound's daughter), for next week's class disscussion.

Mary de Rachewiltz, (Ezra Pound's daughter--Pound is progenitor of anglo modernism, poetic collaborator-editor of writing by/with T. S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, and Sappho translator, Mary Barnard--all very influential for contemporary poetry), interviewed by poet, artist, journalist, and educator Anny Ballardini, for her Italian anthology-website, Fieralingue.

And here are some other links to resources on Pound:
Ezra Pound reading aloud for the BBC radio in 1958.

Ezra Pound resources at the SUNY Buffalo center.

A fine response to the Williams/Stein reading: Tanya Williamson

2004-10-10T13:29:00.000-07:00
Before I read Williams' "The Work of Gertrude Stein," I felt totally lost, confused, perplexed, frustrated, and alienated as I read Stein's text. I wish I had read Williams first. Then, perhaps, I would have had a better understanding of what I was reading; not only what, but why I was reading it, and why it was important for me to experience Stein's craft. Even though I still do not understand the meaning of what Stein was trying to say, I feel like I can at least appreciate the beauty of the words strug together on the page, like pearls strung together to make a beautiful necklace. Each word Stein uses causes the brain to engage in a different way than it had before in just reading that one simple word, and by allowing my ear to hear the words, and not just my eyes to see them, I felt like I was experiencing Stein in the way in which she may have intended for her readers.

Adios, Jacques Derrida

2004-10-09T14:46:00.000-07:00
Adios, Jacques Derrida...
--c. 1984, via hedbergska.sundsvall .se

on love: ... love means an affirmative desire towards the Other - to respect the Other, to pay attention to the Other, not to destroy the otherness of the Other - and this is the preliminary affirmation, even if afterwards because of this love, you ask questions. There is some negativity in deconstruction. I wouldn't deny this. You have to criticise, to ask questions, to challenge and sometimes to oppose. What I have said is that in the final instance, deconstruction is not negative although negativity is no doubt at work. Now, in order to criticise, to negate, to deny, you have first to say "yes". When you address the Other, even if it is to oppose the Other, you make a sort of promise - that is, to address the Other as Other, not to reduce the otherness of the Other, and to take into account the singularity of the Other. That's an irreducible affirmation, its the original ethics if you want. So from that point of view, there is an ethics of deconstruction. Not in the usual sense, but there is an affirmation. You know, I often use a quote from Rosensweig or even from Levinas which says that the "yes" is not a word like others, that even if you do not pronounce the word, there is a "yes" implicit in every language, even if you multiply the "no", there is a "yes". And this is even the case with Heidegger. You know Heidegger, for a long time, for years and years kept saying that thinking started with questioning, that questioning (fragen) is the dignity of thinking. And then one day, without contradicting this statement, he said "yes, but there is something even more originary than questioning, than this piety of thinking," and it is what he called zusage which means to acquiesce, to accept, to say "yes", to affirm. So this zusage is not only prior to questioning, but it is supposed by any questioning. To ask a question, you must first tell the Other that I am speaking to you. Even to oppose or challenge the Other, you must say "at least I speak to you", "I say yes to our being in common together". So this is what I meant by love, this reaffirmation of the affirmation. --Interview with Nikhil Padgaonkar

with poet Francis Ponge: --Francis Ponge and Jacques Derrida, Cerisy-la-Salle Seminars given by Derrida in dedication to Ponge, "SignsPonge," 1974-1975

& much more at WOODS LOT

& in French, from Le Monde

alas,
Adios, Jacques Derrida

*adding a new link to the links-list on the sidebar*: Halvard Johnson

2004-10-08T16:13:00.000-07:00
To the links-list of weekly readings for the course I'm adding some great reading at this blog, "Entropy and Me." It's a new blog from a well known contemporary poetic innovator, Halvard Johnson, who lives in NYC with his wife, the artist Lynda Schor.

Hal has a new e-book out from the Non-linear Dynamics blogger, Jukka Kervinen, who publishes the xPressed line of e-books and book-books (!). Hal's e-book is "G(e)nome," and can be checked out via this link.

There is also some fine work of Hal's at the website he shared with Lynda the Halvard and Lynda website --so that address can be bookmarked for reading and reference, as well.

on Sandy McIntosh's prose poem, "With Ignatow":

2004-10-08T15:43:00.000-07:00
I want to comment at length here on how very much I like the Sandy McIntosh work in the latest issue (# 2) of Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics. To my mind, it's highly provocative for student writers of all genres, so I want to post some of it here.

I'm also very happy to note here for Y'all that Sandy McIntosh and Eileen Tabios will be here to read for my Poetry_Heat series in UTA's Spring Semester, Mar 3-6, as well as to give a presentation on publishing, at the UTA Writing Center. We're also planning a road trip to Austin, so stay tuned on all that...

Sandy's poem, "With Ignatow," is about various encounters with North American poet, David Ignatow (1913-1998), a few of whose poems can be found at this link on Webdelsol. Ignatow was known to be very definitely a unique thinker and writer, one who called it as he saw it and settled for no less along with commanding not only great respect, but great affection, as well. Sandy's poem shines with this problematic (not in the sense of problem but in the sense of conundrum, sets of contradictions that may not be resolveable, and may not need to be).

An excerpt follows here, but I hope Y'all will seek out your copy of Sentence and read the entire piece, as well as the rest of this outstanding issue. I confess I have been reading it non-stop for several days now--the variety, the range, the quality of work is outstanding in this issue. I'm honored to have my review of Eileen's fine book, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole, in such an excellent mix that is representative of some of the best of contemporary prose poetry and criticism.

Here is the excerpt from Sandy's much longer Sentence work, each section crisp and exquisite--ultimately an epideictic tribute to David Ignatow--"With Ignatow" :

*

I stopped off at his house with a new poem I wanted him to see.

“He’s teaching today,” said his wife. “But come sit at the typewriter in my studio and wait for him.”

In the next room I could hear a radio announcing the death of General Eisenhower. She was surprised. “I thought he’d been dead for years.”

We listened together as the announcer read off a complex list of funerary events. She remarked on how chilling it all was. “They couldn’t wait for him to drop dead.”

That gave me an idea. She encouraged me to use her typewriter. “Go ahead,” she said. “Type all you want.”

My father had admired Eisenhower and always voted Republican. At his death I’d been fascinated with the preparations for the funeral, especially the process of embalming the corpse. I was thinking as much of my own father’s funeral as of Eisenhower’s while I worked at the typewriter.

He returned from teaching in an acrimonious mood. After supper (canned salmon on dry lettuce, water), he motioned me to hand him the poem.

I gave him the one I’d arrived with something I’d worked on for weeks. This, I wanted him to know, was finally the real thing.

He made chomping sounds, cleaning his teeth with his tongue as he read. When he looked up it was with a sour expression. “This is crap,” he pronounced. “Why are you wasting your time with this garbage? You can write better than that.”

I was devastated. I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if he’d shoved me backwards through the wall; that I was being pinned somewhere within the airless beams of the house.

“Come on,” he chided. “You can talk. You’re not going to die.”

But I couldn’t talk, his condemnation so forceful, unexpected. To play for time, I opened my notebook and offered up the new poem I’d written about Eisenhower. It wasn’t much. I’d just been having fun with it. But that’s all I had.

He grabbed it. His expression softened and he looked up from the typewritten sheet. “Now, this is something,” he said. “This should be published. Why didn’t you show me this the first time?

*

~~~~~~~~~prose poem copyright of Sandy McIntosh~~~~~~~~~~

Reading Assignment due Wednesday, 6 Oct

2004-10-04T08:05:00.000-07:00
Students, by Wednesday, please read this
linked, short article, " *Ego-Surfing* Derides Valid, Prudent Activity, " by Eric Dent. And then browse through the posts on this listserv, so to have a sense of context for issues in regard to blogging as (at that time) a new medium and genre for everyday writing.

Poetry_Heat Reading Series: students, please plan to attend

2004-09-27T16:03:00.000-07:00
Announcement: Poetry_Heat Reading Series,
at University of Texas, Arlington

I'm happy to bring Dallas Area Poets

Joe Ahearn, Corey Marks, & Tia Black

to read in UTA's Carlisle Suite,
of the University Center

Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004
7:00 p. m.

Hope to see you there!

--Chris Murray and The UTA Writing Center-- **

** Very Special Thanks to Cyndi Dumas,
UTA Creative Writing student
for all her excellent help organizing
and preparing for this special event.

Reminder to Students

2004-09-26T10:47:00.000-07:00
Portfolios are due this week, in an ordinary pocket folder, including all formal assignments through 9/15, and any drafts, notes and/or feedback from the collaborative assignment. I will conference with each of you individually this week for feedback on your work and to answer any questions you might have.

--cm--

Call for Work: (especially) Collaborative Poetry (and other genres)

2004-09-24T09:25:00.000-07:00
Students,

Please read this over and consider submitting. It's from an email I got the other day from prize winning poet and editor, Sawako Nakayasu. I corresponded with her about it and she encourages you to submit (only your best) collaborative work. I hope you will do so:

Four Factorial Call for Work for the 2004 Speed Round ! ! !

Trilingual Three Factorial is bursting at the seams with translations of poetry from Japanese to English, Japanese to French, French to Japanese, French to English, Japanese to French to English, plus some Visual Japanese poetry, Japanese Sound Poetry, in other words it's exciting, authentic, contemporary, and·ostly Japanese. Available very very soon. Also of note: the new Aufgabe features contemporary Japanese poetry in translation as well.

Equally exciting is this new call for work for the next issue: the Four Factorial Speed Round! All submitting and editing will take place within the next 1.5 months - submissions will be accepted from now through the end of October, and will be read and edited by guest editors chosen semi-randomly as I travel around the states - in Boston, Amherst, NYC, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, Kalamazoo, NYC, and San Francisco. As soon as I have 10 submissions I will send the package to a guest editor, who will choose selections to go into the Second Round. I will continue this as I travel throughout the month, choosing a new editor for every 10 submissions. As soon as there are 10 submissions that make it past the First Round, they will be passed on to a Second Round Guest Editor, and so it goes.

*Collaborative writing and works in translation will automatically be entered into the Second Round.
OR
*Buy your way into the Second Round by enclosing a Factorial proof-of-purchase: a jpeg photo of you with a copy of any of the three issues of Factorial

What to Submit:
Anything on paper, up to 5 pages. Writers and unofficial writers are equally welcome to submit. Need more clues? Send letters. Plays. Instructions. Do lists. Dissertation notes (for you academics!) Song lyrics (for you budding singer-songwriters!) Code (for you programmers!) A list of titles. Lists of anything. A description of your favorite texture (because I love texture). Your relationship to ants (love ants, too). Something your 70-year-old uncle wrote when he was a young lad. Or poems, stories, the usual is just as welcome, but send the very best of what you?e got, if you want to get past the first round.

Instructions:
Whether your submission is one piece or several, the submission as a whole must have its own title, and will be referred to as such when standings are posted on the website. Please

****send up to 5 pages of work (word attachment, or in the body of the e-mail) to factorial@gmail.com - and leave your name, all contact info, and the title of your submission. Deadline is 10/31/2004**

What happens:
Individual replies will only be sent to those whose work will be published in Four Factorial. All current standings will be posted online at Factorial Press Blog as they are made available. The finalists will be published in Four Factorial in 2005 - possibly, maybe, perhaps - with Japanese translation.

Good luck!

_____________________________________
Factorial Press
Factorial Press dot org

Crs 103: RELC--another class via blogging...

2004-09-24T08:55:00.000-07:00
Is this cool or what?--the other day, a linguistics class in S.E. Asia found E-Po and visited. So I'm posting this link (in the title above). They've got a group photo! Maybe we should do that too? : )

Invaluable Resource: UBU web!

2004-09-23T11:57:00.000-07:00
Hi, All--

I don't know how I missed adding it at the beginning, here, but I've now added in a link to UBU web* on our permanent links list. UBU's a wonder of a site to be happily treasured as an eclectic, invaluable resource for contemporary poets, poetry, poetics, artists in general--and well, heck, I think just about everyone can be enlightened by readings/listenings at UBU. Please visit and become familiar with it--there will be reading assignments for you there soon.

* I was reminded of how invaluable UBU is by readingNick Piombino's highlight today on several aspects of UBU--thanks, Nick!

Reading Assignment due Wednesday, 22 Sept.

2004-09-19T11:58:00.000-07:00
Let it be granted that whatever is new in literature the germ of it will be found somewhere in the writings of other times; only the modern emphasis gives work a present distinction. ... The necessity for this modern focus and the meaning of the changes involved are, however, another matter, the everlasting stumbling block to criticism... --William Carlos Williams

Students,

Wood's Lot is one of the best sites to read a daily (always amazing!) collection of commentary and links about poets, their lives and poetry, politics, art, and contemporary everyday life. At Wood's Lot, this past week there was a focus on poet William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), on Sept. 17, his birthday.

Via Wood's Lot, here are some essential pieces of reading, a collective mini-key to begin understanding some major influences on contemporary experimentalist poetry. First, have a look at the fascinating interpretive essay, "The Work of Gertrude Stein," (essay first published in 1970) by one of North America's most influential poets, William Carlos Williams. (& here is a link to six Williams poems first published in The Dial #69: August, 1920)--his work is one of my favorites).

In the essay, Williams is writing about conjunctions between Laurence Sterne's (1713-68) eighteenth century novel Tristram Shandy, and Gertrude Stein's (1874-1946) radical stretchings of-on-with-over-under-beyond-for language--here is Stein's poetic work, "Rooms," in the longer work, Tender Buttons and here is an excerpt from a Stein essay, "Composition as Explanation."

Read for Wednesday the links here (read the Williams and Stein essays and poems, & all the short biographical info on all 3 of these authors--but it is not necessary to read all of Sterne's Tristram Shandy right now--but do read some excerpts from the link and bookmark it for future reference), when we'll discuss and you can begin to write your responses on this mosaic of readings, which responses will be due Monday, 27 Sept.

o~o/

Response to a kari edwards' poem: student James Ola

2004-09-19T11:36:00.000-07:00
**Note added 9/22/04: kari edwards yesterday graciously took time to respond in-depth to James' questions. See the comments box in that entry of his blog, linked below. Many thanks, kari, for taking the time-out and giving much critical thoughtfulness so to respond.--cm

James Ola of Peat Blog has posted an eloquent response to kari's work--James writes in an openly caring yet rigorous way full of intellectual curiosity that shows awareness and commitment to the complexity of the rhetorical dynamics of reading and loving poetry, as well as awareness of the limits of interpretation. Check it out:
James is responding to kari's poem in Aught 10, "tb cuprite with rest ringers." Nice work, James!

More Funneling Positrons of Efunciation

2004-09-15T13:58:00.000-07:00
Some serial delightful de-reading:
Chris Vitiello's blog, The Delay, on pronouns--definitely go read here.

Reminder about Reading Responses Due

2004-09-09T10:35:00.000-07:00
Students:

At your request, there is an extension on your reading responses for this week (on the poetic work of kari edwards); these are now due Monday 13 Sept. Please have them done no later than that day, and bring a paper copy to class. Thanks.
cm

Reminder: Reading to Respond to in Class Tomorrow

2004-09-07T15:34:00.000-07:00
Students, please be sure you have read the links to kari edwards' poetry and other writings (see post below, about reading due this week). There will be a writing assignment in class on this.

On the Challenges of Reading and Responding to Poetry

2004-09-07T13:53:00.000-07:00
By now you've all figured out that reading and interpreting poetry is demanding. Poetry is hard work. And this is an advanced course in it. You are right to note that reading poetry means you sometimes have to reach outside your received knowledge so to grasp something different or new. Poetry is one of the most challenging genres for students of literary endeavor.

Critics have long noted this, and a place to begin to understand how and why might be with Samuel Taylor Cooleridge. In his notion of readers employing a "willing suspension of disbelief," Cooleridge begins to convey what it takes to enter into reading and interpretation in their unusual and challenging rhetorical situations, which in turn is to be met with what might seem unusual means such as looking up terms and references in other sources, or discussing the finer points or symbolics and implications of terms and historical references. When challenged to move their thinking outside of their familiar comfort zones or unquestioned beliefs, readers, Cooleridge implies, can willingly let go of their disbelief--they can hold it at bay, "suspend" it, so to enter into the new or unfamiliar ground of a given literacy or literary work. Poetry is one place where this "willing suspension of disbelief" is most useful because poetry continually demands that readers be active in the creation and understanding of poetic work. Ask Baudelaire, who, when faced with readerly complacency and passivity, met his readers with insults: "Readers, you hypocrites!" (cf. the infamous letter from "Flowers of Evil" that T.S. Eliot quotes at the starting line of "The Wasteland").

Contemporary poetry, especially the poetry we are studying in the online venue of poetry blogging, makes the Cooleridge notion even more exigent, and the demands of poetry more available than ever. To that end, I direct you to Eileen's response at length, written directly to the letter Josh Reed has written.

Poetry, I think I mentioned on the first day of class--especially contemporary poetry--is very demanding. It requires devotion, even love, from the reader. And no little dialogue, as well. The challenge is terrific, and requires the reader to do some extra work. It's a cognitive work of love. Strong writers of poetry are also strong readers, reading continuously, and widely. That is one thing much of contemporary poetry has in common with the long tradition of poetry and poetics in western culture. If poetry is your business (and if you are in this course it is for now), then you get to know as much about it and what affects it, as you can.

And hey--aside from all this energetic discussion of critical perspectives, poetry and its readers are even something to go ahead and have some fun with! Many of you wrote witty and fun poems last week: do check out some of these on your blogs that you've posted so far.

In all, you are finding this a challenge, which makes me very pleased--it means you have room to learn. Keep on.

--cm--

A Sonnet Reference

2004-09-07T13:14:00.000-07:00
Some students asked me after class last Wednesday for a reference to the sonnet form. I posted it here, at the time, but thought you might like a reminder now, too. Here is a reference from U Penn:
Sonnet

More on E-Tag

2004-09-06T23:25:00.000-07:00
(correction added here--apologies for leaving out this poetry tag's originator, Laurel!--and hey, Laurel, Thanks!)On the E-Tag started last Sunday by Laurel Snyder of Jewishyirishy blog, which tagged Shanna Compton of Brand new insects blog, some responses to the tag poem I made last Monday: In a Cento form, one from Gray Wyvern (Michael Helsem). And a lyric from Ruby Street (Jill Jones). Do check 'em out--we'll be writing some soon.

Due Monday, 9/13: Reading Jordan Davis Reading: the Poetry and Criticism

2004-09-06T17:31:00.000-07:00
The title to this post is linked to Jordan Davis's poetry blog, Million Poems. Have a good look there for next Monday (Jordan's project is uniquely innovative, and the poems are fascinating in many ways).

Also, then, read Jordan reading: this article of critical writing on the poetics and history of *Flarf*, recently published in the Village Voice (just X out of any pop-ups if you don't want emails or ads from The Village Voice), .

Jilly Dybka's "Harmonic Symphony"

2004-09-06T13:23:00.000-07:00
Here's a great prose poem by Jilly Dybka (of Poetry Hut blog), just published in Flashquake. It's a good eznine/journal to consider sending your work ... :)

Zuk Fest!

2004-09-02T16:10:00.000-07:00
Check out the way this poem works, Y'all!

Arlington Creative Writing Group!

2004-09-02T12:33:00.000-07:00
Students,

This is to let you know and to invite you to attend the ACWG, which this week is starting up for the school year once again. ACWG meets once a week and is open to all writers. We meet Thursdays, 7-9 p.m., at the Coffee Haus on Mesquite St. in beautiful downtown (having-no-center-of-town) Arlington. It's casual, and fun. Creative writing faculty from UTA will be there to share work and comments on others' work, or just to chat about writing. It's very casual and good to share while hanging out with local writers over coffee/tea and once in a while, some nice jazz, too. Please come by. I hope to see you there!

Best,
Chris

Googlism Topoi: Pronoun(z)

2004-09-02T00:25:00.000-07:00

Sonnet Reference

2004-09-01T13:35:00.000-07:00
Some students asked me after class for a reference to the sonnet form. Here is one from U Penn:
Sonnet

Assignments Due Next Week (Sept. 8)

2004-09-01T09:32:00.000-07:00
----------**Readings** :

kari edwards: of poetry, prose, & sexual being(s):

Here is a link to a good combination on kari edwards--the bio with a store of links to the writings--all at Drunken Boat # 6.

Then go ahead to read the entire issue of Drunken Boat, as well.

Also at Bill Allegrezza's journal,

Moria,
read the entire issue.

and focus, then, on the review of kari edwards' iduna, by Eileen Tabios

who is, as you will recall from this week's readings, the Gabriela-Silang-Chatelaine-Poet, author of Menage a Trois with the 21st Century.

------------**Writing due next week ** : TBA in class today.

E - TAG Poeming!

2004-08-30T01:12:00.000-07:00
Hey!--check out the TAG poem ideas going out from Shanna's *Brand New Insects* blog...

Gabriela Silang Speaks

2004-08-26T11:21:00.000-07:00
--figure of Gabriela Silang, Filipino Revolutionary of 1763 (via Filipinas Heritage Library)

To My Students: Assignment for Monday, Aug. 30 through Wednesday, Sept. 1

**keeping in mind that you have also been assigned to read by Monday the two essays and to listen to the readings at the Carrboro Poetry Festival site**

Below is a poem about poetry and poets and histories of colonization, from Eileen Tabios' Menage a Trois with the 21st Century:
--published by xPressed: (Espoo, Finland: xPressed, 2004)--editor/publisher: Jukka Pekka Kervinen

Eileen has signed this copy of Menage to me with a wonderful note: "To poetry as a way of life!" Here is one poem evoking that motto in several layered ways, and by speaking to far more than its apparent subject, an aesthetic kind of polish that Eileen has been experimenting with for a while now, and has become a consummate master at effecting in her poetry.

Menage a Trois with the 21st Century is sectioned into differing historical poetic-voices or personae--a poetic mode that is called *dramatic monologue*--something students should look up: Google it to see what you find, and look into poetry written in the mode of dramatic monologue, by North American poet, Ai (winner, National Book Award, 1999). Find an Ai poem and compare it with the poem below.

One persona in Eileen's book speaks in the recovered voice of the filipino revolutionary, Gabriela Silang, wife of Diego, who organized the Ilokano revolt against Spain's colonizers. Gabriela has been revived as a 21st century persona in Eileen's poems, for example:

A Memory's Resonance Du Jour (II)
As Gabriela Struggles to Apply Significance

One wants to slap any majordomo
For believing he controls the equinox

Until I shy from physical fulmination
As someone obsessed with oxymorons--

The doughty poem offers its own significance:
e.g. ancilla for "Understanding James Joyce"

And saffron-colored mulsum and turriculae
Imbibed by the Romans turned inane then insane

From raisins fermenting in ill-designed earthenware--
Oh, my Love--how many civilizations expired

After marauding soldiers were deceived
By myrrh, honey, balsam and pepper

Camouflaging spoiled wine in amphoras
Now lining the Mediterranean?

Thousands and thousands of shards deliver
an inadvertent memoir of an empire's fall--

Bones from a million rebels
Become my history whenever I exhale Poetry--

(100)

~~~~~~poem copyright of Eileen Tabios~~~~~~~~

Study this poem for Monday's class (I will be bringing in the book for you to have a look), and then be ready to discuss it, as well as to respond both poetically in short essay form, and creatively.

--signed: chris murray, Engl. 4330-001,
Seminar in Writing: Electronic Poetry--

2004-08-25T22:55:00.000-07:00
Carrboro's Arts as Art:

Hey, do check this out: the North Carolina artist, Ellen Kong, created a special piece,"The Poets' Circle," images of the faces of 4 poets from the Carrboro Poetry Festival. Kong's Carrboro piece is on display now, along with several more of her pieces for her showing at the Tyndall Gallery in University Mall, UNC, Chapel Hill. What a fine tribute to the CPF!

(with thanks to Chapel Hill poet Paul Jones for sending the Ellen Kong-Tyndall Gallery link to the CPF listserv.)

Welcome to Engl. 4330--electronic poetry

2004-08-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Oh, hey, we're live now! So, Hiya! & welcome, Y'all, to chris murray's E-Po. This is a poetry blog that I set up expressly for my poetry students enrolled in English 4330-001, Seminar in Writing: Electronic Poetry, semester of Fall 2004 at University of Texas, Arlington.

The image above is one that Google yielded when I asked it to search for "E-Po": go figure! And have a look at my other images and comments on that, below.

I will be posting my syllabus here soon & classes start on Monday, 23 Aug. (eep! tomorrow!).

So then, Welcome to E-Po & Enjoy!

: )

By Way of a Preliminary Dialectics Of E-Po

2004-08-21T01:31:00.000-07:00
Language/image as *always already* there--we are born into its system of graininess, the old metaphoric senses of weave and weft, the things that clothe and comfort, the texturizing, the tantalizing and needfulness of:

Yikes: coverings.

We negotiate and take hold thereby, therefrom: & below is a sampling of the response I got from Googling my title terms here--*E-Po*--a dialectics, a semiotic chain on what E-Po is and might mean, up to the point where as creative writer, critical thinker, I attempt to take some control of this semiosis, as much as is possible, creating something else with it.

Adapting it to stand for the title of this course, Engl. 4330-001, Seminar on Writing: Electronic Writing. Yes: that was technically speaking a sentence fragment.

Perennial question for western-culture's writers: to what degree am I or am I not the ego or the collected one in control of, or, *at the center* of the text, the ego orchestrating the text. And why should it matter?

Can *I* be non?

Can *I* be a-
non-
ymous (cf. Greek etymology, to naming)
in my

attempts to partake of &
be
meaningful
in language?

Anyways: why the hell should it matter?--
should the writer as artist be willing,
able, prepared and readied
to answer
to the art
the hand creates?

Well, um, I dunno! Let's all just linger here & have a look-see
on all that (it always sounded way too scarey for me alone!)--
so we'll just have a little go at it!

Ernst Haas, portrait of the Po Valley.

plastic reindeer on the snowy roof of a house someone calls home

yes: good to have a door since it is the primary passageway of dwelling, where you can pass either in or out.