A Warm Thing By Spoon

2009-03-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

There is a qualitative difference between asking the reader to use all of their senses to read and being deliberately obscure. -Silliman

This space is for the leaving of comments that demonstrate a reaction to the poem you have discovered.

What Am to Exist Poem

2009-02-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

Alex and I were talking a few days ago about the idea of interpretation being limitless and is it really limitless; what is interpretation or maybe what is "understanding" and when do you as the audience interpret and when is that not necessarily an option? At first I said yes, interpretation is limitless. He then pointed to the word "bus" (displayed on the wall behind me) and said that I would never think "bus" meant "fish" or "an orange." But what about Stein: she could throw "bus" into any of her poems and I no longer care about the physical object of bus. I do not care where it is going, what color it is or even if a bus really exists. It is not a bus to me, rather it is a sound that is placed next to more sounds that I enjoy. It is here that I think interpretation is not necessary and maybe this is where writers (like those on Possum Ego, get upset). I cannot help but think that it is not an insult to a poem if one does not want to search for the MEANING behind it. A critical discussion can be based around the structure, its ability to exist at the level of language.

There are a number of thoughts that come to me when diving into this topic; words such as "relevance" and "impact" are a few. While reading up on sound poetry I begin to wonder if I am being honest with myself when I say my love for poets such as Stein begins and ends at sound. The beauty of her pieces does not come entirely from sound but the ability to take existing words that have meanings and placing them in an order that destroys these meanings. While I do respect poetry that uses made up words, I do not appreciate it to the same degree as Stein or some of the Language poets for that matter. Without the meaning behind language, there is nothing to fuck with and where's the fun in that? To what degree can language be stretched, distorted, decontextualized . . . ? What is the effect of such things on an audience: frustration, apathy, a call to action, artistic/social/political/ or individual reform? My final project has shifted from my previous idea of Oulipo exercises to one that explores these possibilities. What can poetry, through its freedom to constantly use language in new ways, DO? Is there such a thing as linguistic activism?

This is all very scattered at the moment. I'll add more to the thoughts above at a later date. The creative aspect of this project will consist of a number of new poems varying in length that will somehow decontextualize language. They will be displayed on pieces of paper stuck inside movie rentals, fliers outside stores with tags to rip off (as if buying a car), broadsides in bathrooms and so forth. On each paper/tag will be a link to a new blog where people will be asked to quickly post a response to the poem they discovered. Community and ultimately linguistic activism will be determined according to comment turnout: either people respond to poetry or they don't. The critical part of the project will predominantly evaluate the Language poets and their effectiveness or ineffectiveness to create activism.

Response to Word Clouds/Flarf . . . .

2009-02-04T19:59:00.000-08:00

The quote below is taken from Dale's critic on Possum Ego. I will be basing most of my argument around this.

"And also, and this is the part some won’t like, I’d like to know if flarf is not engaged in the production of tag clouds? Is not the stated purpose of flarf just this, to create tag clouds through 'combination and remixing'outside of the contexts of discourse that provided meaningful space for the words in the first place? Flarf poems resist criticism because they resist meaning by voiding words of the contexts of their origin."

Wouldn't this classify Stein or the Language poets as word clouds as well? Word clouds, at least from my understanding, are potentially visual pieces of art but where they lose interest for me is the lack of human contact they emerge from. They are not created by the poet with the purpose of defamiliarizing/recontextualizing the words. Flarf, or any other poetry that aims to use words in a way different from the usual/the expected, does so with this in mind. Take Stein for example: she saw "repetition" more accurately as "insistence." If I use the word "fish" in one sentence and a few lines later use it again but surrounded by entirely different words, "fish" takes on a whole new meaning/feeling/urgency. Word clouds have this power to insist but in such a way that (for me at least) does not cause me to perceive the "meaning" or even the sound of the words in a different way. It exists as a word yes, but it is not made more beautiful for me simply by emerging on the screen in various sizes. If it is, it does so at a level somewhere outside of language. What Stein, the Language poets and Flarf do is insist -- the meaning they create within their poems is not concrete or definable according to one set agenda but there is no doubt a new meaning emerges with each insistence, each sentence and their ability to recontextualize. Just because Drew does not assert the idea of "global conspiracies" with a discourse about the topic does not mean its placement within the poem does not cause the reader to associate a new meaning/to hear and see these words in a new space thus opening their mind up to a different thought process.

I agree with "Jane Dark" that our idea of "meaning" has to be looked at and that tag clouds can be "interesting" and "communicative." This being said (and in accordance with the argument I have already made,) I do not think word clouds can be placed in the same category with poetry such as Flarf. A conversation in relation to it and Dada collages or intermedia art seems to be a more likely place.

Now Sound

2009-01-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

Christian Bok performing "Mushroom Clouds"

Bok performing "Chapter U" from Eunoia

Eirikur Orn reading at the 2008 Flarf Festival

Jackson Mac Low/ John Cage

2009-01-28T19:38:00.000-08:00

1974 Jackson Mac Low, Susan Musgrave, George Macbeth, Sean O'Huigin, and bpNichol perform 5th Bluebird Asymmetry

1984 Anne Tardos and Jackson Mac Low perform Refrigerator Defrosting-Pseudoglossolalia

Jackson Mac Low reading "Our Creativity-Memory Was Wrung, Was It?" from his collection of ten poems entitled HSCH

A performance of John Cage's 4"33" (Cage's question, is there really such a thing as complete silence? Everything we do is music).

1966 Film Sound?? by John Cage and Rahsaan Roland Kirk "There's no such thing as no sound. It's simply a question of what sounds we intend and what sounds we don't intend."

1978 Richard Kostelanetz's Interview with John Cage: For the Third Time: discussion of the techniques he used in "Writing Through Finnegans Wake" and "Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake"

Bern Porter 1911-2004

2009-01-28T10:54:00.000-08:00

FOUND SOUND: We must in our daily lives confront the phonebook. Sometimes it is a close and charming friend while other times a hideous monster. We will now give our respects to the phone book.

More Porter on Ubu

More of his Found Poetry

Final Project

2009-01-27T23:30:00.000-08:00

This will make more sense after my presentation on Thursday

While reading over the Oulipo manifestos and reasoning behind "Rules and Constraints" I could not help but feel my heart leap and skip and do all those things it does when it gets excited. (If a heart could drool mine would). The way that they discuss language, there desire to create "choices" for future writers as opposed to their own literary works is a compelling way to exist as a writing community. Oulipo Compendium is 333 pages of constraints/rules/procedures and I feel compelled to see how many I can accomplish/make into a collection by the end of the term. Any thoughts on this people? I could have more "academic" or critical work throughout or along with if need be -- it's not too hard to tie in the idea of community here . . . .

There's Hope Yet

2009-01-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

Learn more about the poetry community in our very own Portland, Oregon by reading Rodney Koeneke's blog post about Spare Room. It makes me feel good inside.

Guests Are Allowed to Bring Friends to This Event

2009-01-25T19:17:00.000-08:00

for Madeline Gleason

Maybe we were night
crossing bridges falling
down Maybe I am
sorry for eating your
melon on Tuesday and
not taking out the garbage

Today I am becoming
what I think is myself
or maybe you in a Hillary
Clinton costume now dancing
on a table with a cane
and the collected works
of Keats in you hand

What made you not one
but the circle around the sun
and the now of some other tale

If I push down on my stomach
If I am the vision
of another a new generation
than what is that globe
doing in the corner and
why did you die of despair

It is true that for the
most part I do not know
what makes us different from
super powers or thunder

on Madeline Gleason 1903 - 1979

2009-01-25T16:39:00.000-08:00

Madeline Gleason was a beat long before Ginsberg or Kerouac made their way onto the scene. While they were still learning how to grow beards, Gleason was mixing old fairy tales and nursery rhymes with contemporary language to create a sound within poetry not yet heard. In the late 40's she founded the San Fransisco Poetry Center alongside Robert Duncan (who usually gets the credit). In April of 1947 she held the first ever San Fransisco Poetry Festival, creating a new forum for the spoken word. It was one of the first times poetry would be performed like a concert, with multiple poets coming in to read original work, sometimes with musical accompaniment. The festival was such a success that it become a regular event, bringing in poets from around the country. It was this festival that would spawn the Six Gallery reading where Allen Ginsberg first performed Howl.

Not unlike Kerouac or other Beat poets, Gleason's work often rhymed and included references to pop culture. Her one poem, "Once and Upon," published in The New American Poetry is a perfect example of her unique use of nursery rhyme themes to display more contemporary ideas.

Cross at the morning
and at waking,
with a mourning for summer,
she crossed the bridge Now
over the river Gone
toward the place called New
to begin her Once Upon

Beat poetry had the ability to be heard in a way that bridged the gap between poetry and music and Gleason was doing so before there even was a movement. Unlike many of her other poems that do rhyme, "Once and Upon" has a playful tone to it. Gleason is excited about language, the way old phrases and ideas can be broken down and put into a new order.

And no trees bent down
to whisper their wisdom
for her becoming.
Ah! Now! Ah! Gone! Ah! New
Ah! Once Upon!

The poem ends with such energy that leaves the reader wanting to know what else Gleason will show them or where she will take them.

To the Sound of Late

2009-01-25T16:08:00.000-08:00

for Philip Whalen

I was thinking we might
care today about the confusing land/
the weather/ a cemetery
The dollhouse made at the
beginning of the century -- for breakfast, your dream
tries to be too hard
Would you not
give me 17cents to bury
the idols you have collected
The deceiving here or not or priests
and their death
Over again
Over again
Coming around carrying in the taxis,
I said a mouth shutting to you
that I might love
until I find the old moon
and give to you
the shimmering of some colors
on Russia

on Philip Whalen 1923 - 2002

2009-01-24T19:56:00.001-08:00

I can put my toe in my mouth
from Take I, 4: II: 58

Philip Whalen wrote (although I cannot seem to find again what poem it is from):

If I couldn't write or speak
At least I broke and stole
that branch with love

A part of me has always wanted to steal these lines and claim them as my Statement of Poetics. I copied them down in a book a year ago as something that stood out to me and now that I cannot find the full poem, I am going to continue to discuss them completely out of context. They are officially becoming my "Red Wheelbarrow."

Whalen was a Zen Buddhist originally from The Dalles, Oregon (that is for you Alex). Among many other places, Whalen wound up in San Fransisco where he became a part of the Beat movement. Like many of the Beats, Whalen's poetry was very "truthful." I place quotes around this idea because all poetry tells of a truth in one way or another but in criticizing poetry, people often look for work that they can derive an immediate message from. Whalen's work, more so than someone like Stein, at least appears to provide people with ideas/materials that are more readily accessible. Even so, I do not want to lump Whalen's poetry into the category of Confessional Poetry -- this would distract from his poetic ability to build beautiful lines and I think there is something to be said for how he puts together a line. Take for example a line from his poem "Sourdough Mountain Lookout:" " The high cirque-lake black half-open eye." There is something about his word placement in this line that rolls nicely off the tongue.

The place where Whalen falls short with me is that I simply do not care. It is not for lack of trying; his writes lovely descriptions of landscapes (that I do prefer over almost any Frost poem) and musings of the human existence. There are times when I can indeed see him sprawled out on the concrete soaking in the sun and I am sure I would not mind being there with him. Out of all the Beats, he seems the calmest, maybe the least hopped up on drugs.

But to go back to the lines I began this discussion with; I say that I want to steal them for my Statement of Poetics because they seem to suggest a level of innocent freedom with regards to the writer/work and the writer/audience. "I broke and stole that branch with love" is a manifesto for poets to try and explain that we are not necessarily trying to fuck with you and make as little "sense" as possible but rather we are trying to say "I love you" or "pass the butter" different than every Hallmark card or commercial.

Community at work

2009-01-24T19:05:00.001-08:00

Good class discussion occurring here

while listening to Olsen

2009-01-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

I thought when dripping
hands I might clank
or move to another country
to make love to your wife
while behind a stack of
books -- she stacking upon
her lips, the bottle
the sauna,

a day like in space now
making a daughter with
me and to think, all
after we find a new
leader

We walk the wharf to
remember the scent and
places of must, of an eastward
harbor where once I became
so brisk and buried beneath
your writing and
dreams of the bay

Today is lumped into
an eye-shape I will
change my name to
Donald or at least
something that has
humps and rhymes
with many things

WWR's 28th Edition

2009-01-16T15:33:00.000-08:00

Being that our class is focused on the idea of poetic communities, here is the link to the West Wind Review website. Our contributor lineup is one that will make you cum rainbows and glitter for hours!

Class notes from 1/13: The Modern Eye

2009-01-14T22:28:00.000-08:00

2009-01-13T19:15:00.000-08:00

(William Carlos Williams) Drunk inside an elevator

2009-01-12T23:49:00.000-08:00

for Nada Gordon's birthday

so that the
playpen would
not be
full of
so many
speakers.

Did the DNA
groan? It dragged
God but in
reverse through
the garden
making high school
nag with getting off.

Steinese-ism-istic

2009-01-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

Author

First to the natural, shall we marry and watch a thinking a turning a shrinking of winter. If not a tart shark if not a tracing but a fading my whiskers are someones head full of lint.

What then of the skin, the tanking skin. Nearly but to the trash they then begin ranking. What of the ranking. There was a nearly a hurling of restraint a tanking of shaved beings.

Rifle
for Mark Butterfield

Not such a melted bird, a tub an empty tub without a flute or the utterance of words in B-Flat. It is the brute on the drum who makes the farm the link and who makes the farm a kite. If the kite is them in B-Flat than why not the butt and why not the lumber that he milks. What of the marble the dirty utter that he claims as turf.

Always again there is melting.

All These As You Please: A look at Modernism

2009-01-11T16:47:00.000-08:00

They are in there and we hear them again
-Stein, "A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson"

Words make a pleasurable community within the seeing of "object as object." If one does not find meaning within the sounds of words, where do the emotions of words come from?

"Image," as Pound defines it, is "that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time." I find this to be somewhat open-ended and ultimately, entirely freeing. Often what seems to happen with proclaimed "Imagist" poetry is, as Kasey put it, prose but with line breaks. The writer feels the need to describe exactly what an apple looked like or an instant in their life. Rather than "throwing" the image at the audience, they tell you what the image is. William Carlos Williams "The Red Wheelbarrow" is a good example if we want to dispel preconceived notions of this poetic form. Each sentence/line/stanza in a poem should ultimately be able to stand alone. It is something the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets have said and it seems to demonstrate the energy of the Imagist movement as well.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

A part of me has always had a problem with this segment of Williams' larger piece, Spring and All. Is "The Red Wheelbarrow" talking at me or throwing the image at me? There is no question that I SEE the scene he is describing and, as it stands alone, I do not see the image as something that is part of a grander scheme of life, world peace or some profane question regarding life's meaning. Should I be? This brings us to the desire to find "meaning" within poetry. It is here that Pound's definition sooths my frustration. Alone, "The Red Wheelbarrow" sings with the voice of Williams. It is hard to say the words do not at least sound beautiful next to each other. As part of Spring and All, "The Red Wheelbarrow" becomes part of a far more ambitious piece that incorporates the Modernist ideals of breaking form.

It seems to me that the key point in Pound's definition is that an "image" happens within an instance of time. This holds each word accountable. While an image can be, it does not have to be restricted to the more literal idea of a photograph emerging in one's mind. Stein was often criticized for attempting to turn words into paintings. I do not mean physical paintings but rather that Stein wrote words that moved freely like paint on a canvas. John Malcolm Brinnin criticises Stein saying that a painter "knows things by sight," whereas the writer "knows them by name." If words have the power to create an image within an instance of time than what ultimately sets poetry apart from painting (besides the materials used)? Stein saw "naming" (i.e. nouns and the use of them in writing) as limiting language. People already know the names for things so why repeat it in poetry or prose? This idea is not drastically different than Pound's expectations for Imagist poetry: do not write words that render the poem inactive or attempt to write something that the reader will not be able to then "see." Specifically in the case of Pound and Stein, "seeing" happens through sound. If Stein's work does not excite the brain in one way or another, causing some kind of interplay between sight and sound, I do not know what does.

Gertrude Stein reading A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson