Thanks, Daily Reviewer

Thanks Daily Reviewer for picking Me Tronome as one of the top 100 poetry blogs on the Internet.

Chicagoland

Adrian Brody in Hollywoodland is perfect as a PI in a noir thriller with his mussy hair and charming quirks (he's a private snoop who doesn't smoke, he chews gum), but here in Chicago we have our own mystery brewing.

Apparently Granta magazine, which is published in England, recently visited a Chicago of which I've never heard.

Their recent "Chicago Issue" features much mention of Nelson Algren and Saul Bellow (why Hemingway's name would be mentioned in an issue of Chicago writing is a head-scratcher, he wrote not-so-favorably of Oak Park) and even includes Roger Ebert (thumbs up) but the plot thickens as one scans the contributors' list. It seems that none of the huge number of younger poets who are now living and writing in Chicago are given any mention.

And, Granta, no one thinks that James Schuyler is representative of Chicago. The man was a roommate of John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara in New York. Have you heard of them?

We can't wait for Granta's New York issue. I hope Hillary Clinton will get a centerspread. I mean she's so New York, I mean Arkansas, er Chicago.

RIP Jim Carroll

Thanks to Kent Johnson for mentioning this humble blogger at digital emunction .

Still up: Evidence of my past stint as Chicago Poetry Scene Examiner , with reports on Myopic Books, the Hopleaf, Bookslut, Adam Fieled, Bill Allegrezza and one of the most underrated poets of all time, Lorine Niedecker.

Word / for word, issue 15

Many thanks to Tom Hibbard for including some of my work in the new issue of Word for / word.


Poetry by Cindy Davett, Brooklyn Copeland, Mg Roberts, Marthe Reed, Joshua Butts, Marcia Arrieta, Nicole Zdeb, Julius Kalamarz, Trina Burke among others.

Visual poetry by John M. Bennet, Scott Helmes, Kristin Hayter, Sheila E. Murphy, K.S. Ernst, Nico Vassilakis, Ray Lam, Andrew Topel among others.

Political poetry feature (guest-edited by Tom Hibbard) with Jim Leftwich, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Mark Wallace, Roberto Harrison, Eileen Tabios, Mary Woodbury, Michael Basinski, Chuck Stebelton, Buck Downs, Larry Sawyer, David Meltzer, and Tom Hibbard et al.

Essays/Notes: Interview with C.S. Carrier and Elizabeth A. Hiscox, “Heritage Like Money Then” by Arpine Grenier, among others.

Save Michael Reese Hospital reading

When: July 25, 3-6 p.m. at St. Paul's Art Center
Where: 2215 W. North Ave.

Poetry readings by Larry Sawyer, Charlie Newman, & Al DeGenova
* * *
David Boykin -- solo percussion
* * *



Paul Hartsaw -- tenor saxophone
Dan Godston -- trumpet
Alex Wing -- drums
Jerome Bryerton -- drums



As part of its bid to the Olympics committee, the city of Chicago has decided to build an Olympic park on the south side in conjunction with their plan to make the city accessible for visitors and athletes should the city win its proposal to host the 2016 Olympics. The only problem is that the site of the future Olympics village is also home to Chicago architectural landmarks, including Michael Reese Hospital, which was designed by the legendary architect Walter Gropius with Reginald R. Isaacs. Gropius founded the Bauhaus School in Germany that was a lightning rod for new ideas regarding architectural design worldwide from 1919 to 1933. The influence of Bauhaus ideas on art of all genres is inestimable and continues to this day.


The city of Chicago seems very eager to raze Michael Reese Hospital to the ground whether the Olympic bid is ultimately successful or not. If it is successful and Chicago is chosen as the host city, the Olympics will come and go, and an important piece of Chicago history will be lost forever as a result. This seems like a very large price to pay for a temporary event, even for an event as illustrious as the Olympics.

The Save Michael Reese Hospital group his been organized to address this threat to a Chicago landmark.

Chicago is known for its architecture if anything, and the work of Walter Gropius in the city is an important piece of a puzzle that includes many other skilled architects who made Chicago what it is today, including Louis Sullivan, George W. Maher, Mies van de Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright. The work of these architects and others who made Chicago an architectural landmark that is visited by tourists from all over the world should be respected and the idea that the work of Walter Gropius should be destroyed to pave the way for the Olympics, a temporary event, is profoundly disrespectful to the memory of Gropius as well as to the citizens of Chicago.

Visit the Save Michael Reese Hospital Web site for further information now.

Also see Lynn Becker's, Writings on Architecture for more information.

grüp

The Group resurfaces.

grupo, groupe, gruppe, gruppo, группа, groep, ομάδα, grupp, مجموعة

“Collaboration”: An Official Printers’ Ball Lead-up Event

“Collaboration”:
An Official Printers' Ball Lead-up Event

When: Sunday, July 12, 2:00 PM
Where: Woman Made Gallery
675 North Milwaukee Avenue




Free admission.

For this event, writers’ work and/or performance will involve interaction with other writers, performers, art forms, media, maybe even with the audience. Participants in the event include Simone Muench and Philip Jenks, presenting collaboratively written poetry; Mars Gamba-Adisa Caulton, working with her own music; performance poetry duo Marty McConnell and Andi Strickland just back from their Wandering Uterus tour; Jennifer Karmin, in a live improvised collaboration with Chicago writers; Carrie Olivia Adams, Daniel Godston, Laura Goldstein, Amira Hanafi, Coman Poon, and Larry Sawyer performing the text-sound epic Aaaaaaaaaaalice; and curator Nina Corwin in collaboration with Janice Misurell-Mitchell, internationally known improvisational flautist.


More information at Woman Made.org

Reading at Michael Reese Hospital

What: Save Michael Reese Hospital reading
When: July 25, 6 -11 pm
Where: 2929 S. Ellis Ave.


[pictured: Bauhaus, Dessau]

As part of its bid to the Olympics committee, the city of Chicago has decided to build an Olympic park on the south side in conjunction with their plan to make the city accessible for visitors and athletes should the city win its proposal to host the 2016 Olympics. The only problem is that the site of the future Olympics village is also home to Chicago architectural landmarks, including Michael Reese Hospital, which was designed by the legendary architect Walter Gropius with Reginald R. Isaacs. Gropius founded the Bauhaus School in Germany that was a lightning rod for new ideas regarding architectural design worldwide from 1919 to 1933. The influence of Bauhaus ideas on art of all genres is inestimable and continues to this day.

The city of Chicago seems very eager to raze Michael Reese Hospital to the ground whether the Olympic bid is ultimately successful or not. If it is successful and Chicago is chosen as the host city, the Olympics will come and go, and an important piece of Chicago history will be lost forever as a result. This seems like a very large price to pay for a temporary event, even for an event as illustrious as the Olympics.

The Save Michael Reese Hospital group his been organized to address this threat to a Chicago landmark.

Chicago is known for its architecture if anything, and the work of Walter Gropius in the city is an important piece of a puzzle that includes many other skilled architects who made Chicago what it is today, including Louis Sullivan, George W. Maher, Mies van de Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright. The work of these architects and others who made Chicago an architectural landmark that is visited by tourists from all over the world should be respected and the idea that the work of Walter Gropius should be destroyed to pave the way for the Olympics, a temporary event, is profoundly disrespectful to the memory of Gropius as well as to the citizens of Chicago.

Visit the Save Michael Reese Hospital Web site for further information now.

Also see Lynn Becker's, Writings on Architecture for more information.

Why hasn't poetry disappeared?

[pictured: The "poet" tags a train in Slovakia.]

Every so often, I get excited about the discussions that wax and wane regarding the cultural relevance of poetry. This
article has more to do with globalization, but it had me thinking again about poetry's cultural relevance. Lately, it seems that national newspapers and magazines have been chiming in with articles about the disappearance of poetry and nearly the same few names are always mentioned (i.e., Remember John Ashbery? He’s the one who writes the cryptic poetry that still confuses all the critics. Or, what about Bob Dylan, wasn’t that poetry? Wait, Bob Dylan is still around. He just came out with a new album. Or, didn’t Jewel and Billy Corgan write poetry too? Didn’t Byron get his cousin pregnant? Remember suffering through The Waste Land in college?)

Well, why hasn’t poetry disappeared? Good question. Does it still have cultural relevance? Yes. Answering why it has cultural relevance isn’t easy.

It’s easier to make the case why poetry doesn’t really matter, in the sense that fiction matters or popular music matters. Namely: Poetry cannot truly be sold. This, paradoxically, is "good" for poetry.

It isn’t a commodity, although it does have an aesthetic weight. It can’t be sold for much more than the cost of its materials. Rare first editions of select books and folios notwithstanding, poets are not working for the marketplace. Fiction authors who are successful receive large advances and enjoy commissions based on book sales. Painters and photographers, even, are producing new works and hope to sell their work for huge sums of money. Artists like Jeff Koons even take orders from benefactors and tailor commissioned works so that the final product is more pleasing to the buyer. Koons is a visual jukebox and that’s why I have no respect for his work. Collectors now pay millions for paintings. Painting as an art form is gaining in value as it becomes an anachronism while other art forms that are more ubiquitous are becoming less appreciated. Video art, which seemed so novel 20 years ago, is now becoming devalued as the technology to create it becomes available to everyone.

In June 1855, Walt Whitman presented his brother George with a newly published first edition of Leaves of Grass and his brother stated flatly that he just “didn’t think it was worth reading.” Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America."

However, poetry does serve a function that is crucial to society because poets are the Geiger counter that registers the fallibility and the struggles of the human race. Poets create imaginal language that portrays abstract thinking in vivid visual descriptions. Poetry is also supremely portable. The best poetry has the power to transcend cultural differences and national borders. The best poetry defines human consciousness in such a way that the universal nature of our existences comes into clearer focus. Poetry introduces us to ourselves.

Poetry resists commodification because it cannot be quantified. Its value is fleeting and indefinable. I would say that this is a best-case-scenario for poetry, because its nebulous qualities ensure that it will never gain mainstream popularity of understanding. In this age of information the need for understanding our surroundings hasn’t disappeared, although most get it from other sources. Resonant themes and problems that were first presented as poems filter into resonance through movies, television, and the Internet. A popularizing of poetry wouldn’t help it become more relevant or alter its function.

As we look back into history, the lens through which we view literature has led us to make an error in judgment. Poetry has never been popular, so it can’t be “less” popular now. Ezra Pound, Walt Whitman, or Emily Dickinson were relatively unknown to the masses during their lifetimes. Only succeeding generations recognized that their work had any cultural relevance.

Although there has been a boom in creative writing programs nationally since the 1980s, emerging poets find that what they take so seriously is received with indifference but this is not dissimilar to the reception that ground-breaking art has always received. It’s the perception on the part of those creating the art that has changed. College students now can decide to become poets, much like someone might decide to become an engineer or a physical therapist.

In this world that’s drowning in data, abstract written thought that represents a synthesis or a culmination of information into a digestible form is in short supply. That’s always been the prescription for poetry that matters.

Unable to Fully California

I stare up at the sky and notice Orion, the
Big Dipper, the North Star, and see Venus on the horizon.

On my sleepwalk

this dark-purple lacquer, a sudden comforter, this
night,

French kisses me
while the trees just stand there serenading.

We really can’t trust this nocturnal sightseeing

but the climb does sweeten, as the air thins ever higher
toward some point we try to make.

Words bake in that hot moonlight.

Beastly pinecones have a conversation with me.

Save us from this poem. We need to tell you something.
We’ve been watching you try to
write your way out of it and we’re tired.

I’m tired too, but I look out at the edge of this
paper and see some mastodons there, I say.

The next morning I can’t remember a thing, overhear something about a
bad dream.

Life goes on. We live a life of itineraries.

I’m glad, however,
that together we can open a colorful brochure for some

new world called hope.

Nietzsche as Ashtray

Filled with revolution.

Is nothing more delightful than the wind,

perhaps a kite-full

should the last page never return

be an attaché, diplomat.

Just as amber preserves

arm yourself with dreams.

At a minimum love it in the night.

The museum inside the eye wide

open.

There on a tiny barren island our

big dark universe,

(but maybe you were thinking about the country).

Crawlspace Tango

On a bench my newspapered nerves flutter.
Bloom of a dark, wide silence, the human
Tether keeps pulling. Like a snake bisected
Some hypotenuse out of sight, caffeinated.
The rejection of the forest floor, therefore
Is, in its elevator, a wordless weight, while
Originality convalesces in a retirement ward.
Can you see them? Festooned with teenagers
These quixotic gymnasia replete with audits
Move, slender and klutzy, as if incomplete.
But when the revolver of Indianas reloads
Accomplished summers annex talismans.
Every piñata from my childhood owes
Me a climax or a switchblade. What
Thumbnail December powered the twittering
Machine of our darkest months, yet kept me
Sheathed in the comfort of that celestial
Grinding? Do the cement notes of Orpheus still
Drip from the trees where the laundry
Of our lives waits in such rustic quarters?
Neither, say two final gondoliers ad infinitum.


(on the occasion of Kenward Elmslie’s 80th birthday)

.

The Bullfighter's Secret

It’s been a while since Simon Pettet read at Myopic Books, but I remember the night well, because Pettet’s poetry was a subtle revelation, so I was glad to see his recent interview in Brooklyn Rail . Pettet is a poet who is comfortable in his own skin, and seems to address his own philosophical world with a understated bravado that is no less weighty for being inherently likable, which is no small task. Pettet excels at setting up an expectation in a poem, rhythmically or via imagery, then gleefully confounding that expectation. I was honored to publish some of his stuff in milk magazine . Here's Simon with the poet George Wallace (r).

Bushwhackers. Guerillas. Wizard of Oz, Kansas.

Dylan sounds off on his new tunes, Barack Obama, Chicago, and Ulysses S. Grant.

Tomorrow Night

First Friday Poetry Series
Friday, April 3rd (8 p.m.)

Jennifer Karmin
Elizabeth Harper
Larry Sawyer
&
Dan Godston







St Paul’s Cultural Center
2215 W North Avenue
2+ blocks west of the Damon Blue Line stop
Street parking available
Beer, wine, soft drinks available @ cool-low prices
Free Admission
Donation Requested
The First Friday Poetry Series is a Poetry Green Zone.

Poetry RIP

Once again, poetry is
dying. This oft-repeated prognosis always surprises me here in Chicago, because we are rife with magazines and reading series. Whatever your malady if you need some resuscitation stat, call in the life suport with these links. Newsweek didn't do its homework on this one.


Chicago Review


Another Chicago Magazine


After Hours


Poetry


Make


Book Slut


The Myopic Books Poetry Reading Series


Series A


milk magazine


Woodland Pattern Book Center


The Danny's Reading Series


The Poetry Center of Chicago


ChicagoPoetry.com

ARS NICE POETICA

a poem must
be not mean



-Ken Mikolowsky

look/ out where yr going

Coming up on 4 years now--since Robert Creeley’s passing (March 30), which has me thinking again of what a vacuum exists in his absence. Many poets champion or cheerlead only the work of other poets most similar to their own, but Creeley had a reputation for being much more magnanimous. He would respond to an e-mail in a kindly and forthright way that not only answered the questions at hand but also provided new avenues of consideration -- this is something I had heard about him from other poets and then I also experienced it myself. Being one whose writing doesn’t resemble Creeley’s in its brevity, I marvel over what he accomplished (and in such few words). One gets the sense that each and every syllable in a Creeley poem is absolutely crucial to the poem’s construction. In the alchemical sense, all dross in his work was melted away and nothing but the gold remains -- wit and wisdom that doesn’t seem didactic. Creeley’s Wikipedia page is a useful start.

Paraskavedekatriaphobia

James Joyce, in "Finnegans Wake," coined the word Bababadal­gharagh­takammin­arronn­konn­bronn­tonn­erronn­tu
onn­thunn­trovarrhoun­awnskawn­toohoo­hoo.

Aristophones, in his play "The Assemblywomen," coined the word lopadotemakhoselakhogameokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakek
hymenokikhlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptokephalliokigklopeleiolagōiosirai-
obaphētraganopterýgōn.

Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism: The longest nontechnical word in the OED

Antidisestablishmentarianism: The longest noncoined/nontechnical word

Of which, Wikipedia provides the agglutinative origins:

establish (9)
to set up, put in place, or institute (originally from the Latin stare, to stand)
dis-establish (12)
to end the established status of a body, in particular a church, given such status by law, such as the Church of England
disestablish-ment (16)
the separation of church and state (specifically in this context it is the political movement of the 1860s in Britain)
anti-disestablishment (20)
opposition to disestablishment
antidisestablishment-ary (23)
of or pertaining to opposition to disestablishment
antidisestablishmentari-an (25)
an opponent of disestablishment
antidisestablishmentarian-ism (28)
the movement or ideology that opposes disestablishment.

Honorificabilitudinitatibus is the longest word in all of Shakespeare's works.

One of the longest place names is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokai
whenuakitanatahul. (It's a hill in New Zealand.)

But if we're talking about paraskavedekatriaphobia "the origin of the link between bad luck and Friday the 13th is murky. The whole thing might date to Biblical times (the 13th guest at the Last Supper betrayed Jesus). By the Middle Ages, both Friday and 13 were considered bearers of bad fortune. In modern times, the superstition permeates society.

Five Friday-the-13th facts:

1. Fear of Friday the 13th - one of the most popular myths in science - is called paraskavedekatriaphobia as well as friggatriskaidekaphobia. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13.

2. Many hospitals have no room 13, while some tall buildings skip the 13th floor and some airline terminals omit Gate 13.

3. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and President Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.

4. Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. 'It was bad luck,' Twain later told the friend. 'They only had food for 12.' Superstitious diners in Paris can hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.

5. The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number - 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.


Pythagorean legacy

Meanwhile the belief that numbers are connected to life and physical things - called numerology - has a long history.

You can trace it all the way from the followers of Pythagoras, whose maxim to describe the universe was "all is number.'" (Livescience.com)

However, there are also those who have no hesitation in using the number. "In the Great Seal of the United States there are 13 olive leaves (with 13 olives), 13 arrows, and 13 stars. These form a triangle over the eagle with the number 13 on each point. On the reverse the pyramid has 13 levels.

The number 1138 (1+1+3+8=13) is scattered through many of George Lucas' films, namely owing to the fact that one of his early films was THX 1138. In fact it is represented in all six of the Star Wars movies.

Ozzie Guillén, manager of the 2005 World Series Champion Chicago White Sox, has worn the number throughout his baseball career. Alex Rodriguez began wearing it upon joining the New York Yankees (three, the number he had previously worn, is retired by the Bronx Bombers to honor Babe Ruth). Dan Marino, an American football player known for passing the 2nd most yards in NFL history, wore the number 13, although pundits in the sport have often cited him as the greatest quarterback never to win an NFL championship. Basketball great Wilt Chamberlain wore the number 13 on his jersey throughout his NBA career." (Wikipedia)

In Italy, 13 is considered to be a lucky number. Ciào.

Readings at Myopic Books

Readings are free in the Myopic Books Poetry Series, and there are exciting upcoming events on the calendar. Hope to see you.

Sounds Good to Me

To ridicule the nonsensical rules of English pronunciation, George Bernard Shaw demonstrated that the word fish can logically be spelled ghoti:
gh as in laugh
o as in women
ti as in nation

Homophonic translation means translating not the sense but the sounds from one language to another, or even within the same language.

___________

Charles Bernstein on the homophonic translations of Celia and Louis Zukofsky in Jacket #30: “Zukofsky’s iconoclastic approach to translation would flower with Catullus, which he wrote with Celia Zukofsky, working on it from 1958-1966. For Catullus, the Zukofskys developed a technique that has come to be called homophonic translation – translation with special emphasis to the sound rather than the lexical meaning. Since Latin and English share many cognates, the results are sometimes uncannily resonant, even passionate, versions, of the original poems.”

“Leading with the sound, homophonic translation reframes what is significant in translation, challenging the idea that the translation should focus on content or create poems that sound fluent in their new language. Zukofsky insists that the mark of the translator be pronounced, and that in making the translation strange, we may provide a way to come closer to its core.”

Here’s the first chunk of Pablo Neruda’s “Gentleman Alone” followed by my homophonic translation:


Caballero solo/Pablo Neruda

Los jóvenes homosexuales y las muchachas amorosas,
y las largas viudas que sufren el delirante insomnio,
y las jóvenes señoras preñadas hace treinta horas,
y los roncos gatos que cruzan mi jardín en tinieblas,
como un collar de palpitantes ostras sexuales
rodean mi residencia solitaria,
como enemigos establecidos contra mi alma,
como conspiradores en traje de dormitorio
que cambiaran largos besos espesos por consigna.

El radiante verano conduce a los enamorados
en uniformes regimientos melancólicos,
hechos de gordas y flacas y alegres y tristes parejas:
bajo los elegantes cocoteros, junto al océano y la luna
hay una continua vida de pantalones y polleras,
un rumor de medias de seda acariciadas,
y senos femeninos que brillan como ojos.

El pequeño empleado, después de mucho,
después del tedio semanal, y las novelas leídas de noche, en cama,
ha definitivamente seducido a su vecina,
y la lleva a los miserables cinematógrafos
donde los héroes son potros o príncipes apasionados,
y acaricia sus piernas llenas de dulce vello
con sus ardientes y húmedas manos que huelen a cigarrillo.
________________


Lost, jubilant homophone, errant amour
My largess, so viable, suffers delirious insomnias
And my jovial woman, prescient with hours,
You lose rancheros and cats, cruise tardy and blasé
Comely in your collar of palpitations. Sexual ostrich
Rodeo solitary residences,
While enemies establish alma maters
And conspire in trial dormitories,
Cakes large as waking kiss wives on consignment.

Radiant veranda, conducive to enamel
Wear the regimented uniform of melancholy
Etched with gorgeous flame, allegories and trysts parry
Bars with elegant cacophonies, jump oceans in the moon
Hide continuous lives, as if pantomimed and pollenized
These rumors of medicinal aviaries, sane and
Feminine, keep brilliant company amid eyes.

Piquant employee, despair is mocha
Destined for tedium, seminal novels leaden night
With roads and definitions, seducing vaqueros
Who lay in wait for miserable cinematographers.
Done are the years, and their sons poach principals’ passions.
Why carry such piers? Lead us, dulcet violins
Con sunlight ardently, as humid men walk cigars.

DFW

Word is that Little, Brown is to publish posthumously David Foster Wallace's novel The Pale King next year. Illinois is getting even more attention of late: The setting for the book is an IRS office in Illinois in the 1980s. Thanks to The New Yorker for the excerpt.

New Sound Files at FoggedClarity.com

Two of my new poems are up at Fogged Clarity with corresponding sound files, too.

Vanitas

Tom Clark is now blogging at Vincent Katz's new Vanitas blog. It's good to see Vanitas running strong and Clark's running commentary.

Extra

Are we on the verge of witnessing the death of the newspaper?

Colophon

Milk magazine is included in the Colophon International Magazine Symposium in Luxembourg.

Sayonara, Rod.

I once thought I caught a glimpse of ex-Illinois governor Blagojevich sprinting the sidestreets of Lincoln Square in his black running gear and wanted to say thanks for the helicopters. There's nothing like being awakened by the sound of a swarm of helicopters, because you happen to live too close to a disgraced politician on the morning when the story breaks. Sayonara, Rod.

The good news is that Chicago is really heating up in the next few weeks. Thermometers aside, the city will be a hotspot thanks to the upcoming AWP Conference in the coming weeks. These are only some of the events in store. Hope to see you.



February 2, Andrew Terhune, David Trinidad, & Jan Beatty @ ELBOWING OFF THE STAGE reading space, 1278 N. Milwaukee 4W.

February 4, A.D. Jameson & Philip Jenks @ Series A. 7:00-8:00 p.m. At the Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Avenue

February 11, Rebecca Wolff, Simone Muench, Philip Jenks, Ish Klien & Lewis Warsh @ Danny’s Tavern, 1951 W. Dickens, Bucktown, Chicago.

February 13, Red Rover Series presents Experiment #26: Friday Night in Chicago: A Small Press Showcase with Switchback Books, Action Books, Flood Editions, Futurepoem Books, Les Figues Press, Ugly Duckling Press and more @ Link’s Hall, 3435 N. Sheffield, #207.

February 13, Kevin Coval, Simone Muench, Larry Sawyer, Ray Bianchi, Chris Glomski, Jennifer Scappettone, William Allegrezza, Melissa Severin & Jackie White read @ School of the Art Institute Ballroom, 6:30pm, 112 S. Michigan Avenue (sponsored by the Poetry Center of Chicago).

February 14, Denise Duhamel, Jenny Boully, Susan Wheeler, Daniel Nester, Prageeta Sharma, Gene Tanta, Jen Tynes, Lea Graham, Reb Livingston, Mirela Ramona Ciupag, Gina Myers, Natalie Lyalin, Emily Kendal Frey, Zach Schomburg, Larry Sawyer & Bruce Covey @ Myopic Books, 8:00 pm, 1564 N. Milwaukee, Wicker Park, Chicago.

A Writers' Congress

California sounds nice about now, because we're getting a lot of snow. I'm glad I'm in Chicago, though. There's a lot going on. Look out for the new anthology edited by Chris Green titled A Writers’ Congress: Chicago Poets on Barack Obama’s Inauguration with contributors including:

Christian Wiman, Josh Corey, Jan Bottiglieri, Brandi Homan, Larry Janowski, Tony Trigilio, David Trinidad, Arielle Greenberg, Richard Jones, James Shea, Elise Paschen, Rachel Webster, Francesco Levato, Alice George, Mary Hawley, Mike Puican, Cecilia Pinto, Eileen Favorite, cin salach, Anna Marie Craighead-Kintis, Liam Heneghan, Ralph Hamilton, Virginia Bell, Jackie White, Simone Muench, Haki Madhubut, Deborah Rosen, Helen Degan-Cohen, Charlie Newman, Allan Johnston, Garrett Brown, Maureen Flannery, Chicu Reddy, Suzanne Buffman, Susan Hahn, Reginald Gibbons, Calvin Forbes, Mary Kinzie, Judith Valente, Kevin Coval, Li-Young Lee, Julie Parsons Nesbitt, Dina Elenbogen, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Vicky Anderson, Ray Bianch, Bill Allegrezza, Ed Roberson, Kathleen Kirk, Maureen Seaton, Barry Silesky, Jeff Schiff, Susen James, Brenda Cardenas, Christina Pugh, Max Barry, Patty McMillen, Michael Watson, Stuart Dybek, John Keene, Marc Smith, Lauren Levato, Luis Alberto Urrea & Larry Sawyer.

Here's Yusef Komunyakaa's blurb for the book...

"This anthology of varied voices feels like a single praise song, in the spirit of a larger democratic project, with varying pitch and tone, and this nuance is accomplished without sacrificing the uniqueness of each poet. The reader actually encounters an element of the Barack Obama phenomenon; the philosophy of a shared experience at this poignant juncture in the life of America seems to focus the collection. At times, candid and truth-seeking, personal and public, entertaining and meditative, urban and suburban, imagistic and indebted to orality, these wonderful poems not only convey the complexity of Chitown, but they also unmask the nation's soul, without being nostalgic or overly whimsical. We all can embrace this Obama-inspired anthology of timely praise."

I'll read some new poems at the Poetry Center of Chicago, AWP Off-site Reading. Hope to see you there.

What: Chicago Poetics Reading, sponsored by the Poetry Center of Chicago
When: Friday, February 13, 2009 - 6:30pm
Where: SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Avenue

I Got Silver by Your Hives

Pero los ramos son alegres,
los ramos son como nosotros.

-Lorca



So, we left the artillery
Blooming in the fields of blight
And crept along that music
As flower architects.
My fried rabbi, gloating,
Combs the night’s hair?
Father, you are my triple tomb and
No cherry blossoms in the
Graffiti ward, as the metaphors
Lounge upon that bricked
Naiveté. I have only one life and
Wear a sweater of shadows,
But my mouth seeds forever
Autumn’s hopeful decrees.

Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Thanks to Katy Lederer for the great reading at Myopic and the blog mention.

Poets have to self-publicize. Marilyn looks shocked, but here's another milkmag mention.

Also, I made the "Sexy" issue of MiPoesias . Issuu is such an incredible publishing tool and the magazine looks really cool. Check it out.

If you're in the neighborhood of Evanston, Illinois this Friday, I'll be reading some of my new poetry at Brothers K. coffeehouse, 500 Main St, 6:30 pm.

My chapbook Disharmonium was mentioned in the new issue of Arthur . Now it's official thanks to Byron Coley and Thurston Moore.

"...got a very nice new book of poems from longtime milk magazine editor Larry Sawyer. It's called Disharmonium ( Silver Wonder Press), and is a funny, surreal collection that combines mundane imagist language into a rich new mofungo."

Woof woof woof

Look, fried chicken, a lonely moon
With fey eyes, electric women
Wearing windows and nothing else
A crazed prisoner, perhaps flying,
With a mouth like a cavity, these
Jaws of Nebraska, faux natives,
Slander and oceans, tourists jiggly in the
Distance. Who texts such punks with
Shibboleth diction? What divine blackboard
Triple dunks boldly whose fairy?
Were there ghosts, dismal and grinning?
At the mall were no clichés or surgeries
But a sick levity and ticking quicksand.
Dogs selling bags of imaginary gravity.

It was great to bring On the Road out of the display case and read a section from the scroll edition at Columbia last night as the el rolled by outside the big window on Wabash downtown. Kerouac’s large-hearted open letter to America still has the power to inspire and it was interesting to hear the inflections given the words by the readers as they stood in front of the large triple-screen flashing scenes from classic road movies. Thanks to Columbia College for sponsoring such a well-orchestrated event.

Of Tchaikovsky

Laughing, my sense
Of humor came to visit me in
The middle of the night. War
And famine jumped out the
Window. I pulled out a chair
For my sense of humor and
Then yanked it away at the last
Second, allowing my sense
Of humor to fall on its ass.
My sense of humor thought
This wasn’t very funny, so I
Attempted to make amends.
I cooked the most elaborate dinner.
There was a lit candelabra. The sounds
Of Tchaikovsky, D Major, Op. 35,
Like a sloppy kiss, laid its sticky notes upon
The air. Later I discovered that
Nothing would ever make the
Seasons change any faster and no
One would ever explain to me how those cars
Could slide past the window outside
Filled with such private
Catastrophes.

Benevolent as Gold

derelict page an in
vitation to grace, thus we ga
ther innocence almo
st tangential, a high minde
d echo, like a silo or dyna
mite. the eye must be
a salesperson to marry
these hours, their signifiers

Ti Jean

Jack Kerouac's On the Road works best when read aloud ... quickly, slowly, with a careful mind paid to the sounds and rhythms of the words as they loiter and rush across the page. The [. . . scroll of paper three inches thick made up of one single-spaced, unbroken 120-foot-long paragraph . . .] was written by Kerouac in three weeks in a marathon series of day and night writing as Kerouac transformed himself into the American Balzac. Because On the Road rolls outward in a torrent rather than _____ in stasis like a carefully crafted sculpture, the writing style and method of composition is American in the sense that the emphasis is on timing and production.

Kerouac churned out the novel like he laid it on an assembly line and the speech patterns of the sentences when read aloud have an obvious connection to jazz ... America’s only indigenous art form. When reading this mountain for the first few times, it’s nearly impossible for the reader not to feel swept away by the exuberance expressed by the book and the obvious reverence that Kerouac endearingly held for his subjects. The author, as Sal Paradise, casts out doubt and ventures in the Wilderness to find the elusive truth that he feels bubbling inside him. Certain aspects of On the Road give it a spiritual quality; as heroes Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty race back and forth across the country searching for what it means to be alive in various cars that are nearly like ships slicing the waves of farmland that crisscross middle-America. Kerouac’s bookish alter-ego Sal Paradise, even in name, jumpstarts a journey of discovery that leads none know where. Submerged in the book one also experiences catalogs of details of a 1950s America that Kerouac so lovingly documented. Kerouac also framed the downbeat characters in the novel unabashedly. His polyphonic portraits were nothing more than thinly veiled representations of his own inner-circle, which sometimes gives the book a feeling of inspired gossip. It was enjoyable for me to discover who each subject was and to eventually read their work. This has led many to claim that On the Road is the novel that set them on a path toward an active interest in many other artistic and cultural rivulets and streams. The characters, Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac), Rollo Greb (Alan Ansen), Old Bull Lee (William S. Burroughs), Jane (Joan Vollmer), Damien (Lucian Carr), Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady), Chad King (Hal Chase), Carlo Marx (Allen Ginsberg), Ian MacArthur (John Clellon Holmes), and Elmer Hassel (Herbert Huncke) all seem on the edge of something: But what that something is doesn’t resonate completely. It’s a feeling being expressed in these pages, not a dismal or defeatist existential problem. The book celebrates life and emphasizes the journey (versus the destination) in a wholly unique way. Kerouac’s oratorio hums in the imagination and lingers in the mind. There’s something singular and elemental about this book like the smell of a winter fireplace, or sighting a planet in the night sky, or watching a dog catch a Frisbee in the park, or the sound of a lonely ship’s horn enveloped in mist, or gazing down on a panoramic view after hiking a woodsy hillside. Kerouac’s deft timing and sincerity reaches out through the page and grabs you by the arm, pulling you along for the windswept cinematic ride. [Pictured: Neal Cassady, circa 1955]

Columbia: On the Road Reading

Come hear me read a portion of Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road, Wednesday, November 5, at 8pm in the Conaway Center, 1104 South Wabash, on the Columbia College Chicago campus. Here's how I answered the introductory question of what On the Road means to me.

"On the Road was one of the first books I read that really ignited a sense of the passion that I hold for words. The musicality of the language was such an inspiration at a critical time in my life. Seeing the world through Kerouac's eyes in this book gave me hope for my own journey down life's proverbial 'road.'"

Get Your Yeats On

A rare, first edition of a poem by William Butler Yeats, "Easter 1916" , is sold at auction for $9,600.


Here's the poem in its entirety.

___________





Image: William Butler Yeats, by Louis le Brocquy, 1994




(This has always been my favorite WBY poem.)



The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Scroll Down

Amy King and Vincent Katz at milkmag.org

The blood, sweat, tears of Jack Kerouac: The scroll of On the Road .

The passing of a saint: The death of Sister Emmanuelle .

John Ashbery's "intentional unmeaning" ?

The last voyage of Captain Shock ?

The Chicago Tribune endorses Barack Obama?

Michele Bachman: still stuck in the Fifties.

A postcard from Japan.

Alan Kaufman's Outlaw Bible online.

Judge orders excavation at Lorca's grave.

Jackie Lalley's economic stimulus package.

McClure's Rich Silence

It was really something to hear Michael McClure read his work the other night at Columbia College here in Chicago. I'd never heard him read before, although I'd spent a few hours with him at his home years ago, which is a great memory. Reading from Plum Stones and other books, McClure used his voice to really awaken a sense of wonder in the audience by offering rich silence in equal measure to the words themselves. Each was like a Calder mobile-sculpture that hung in the air until McClure moved along bringing the audience with him--marvelous to hear his "beast-language" poems too. There was something expressed therein that is inexpressible with poems that rely on a literal meaning. Peering inside each poem presented by McClure was a real gift.

Here's a link to an interesting renku and some of McClure's haiku followed by a few of mine.


coven of leaves
how hot is the breath of
tomorrow’s fires







jet insect above
make thick trails of smoke
of our hasty goodbyes







drop of honey
sweet golden lightshow
drown on my tongue

Some Vague Attention

Some vague attention
of wind stirs the golden oats
-Joanne Kyger



Desolate film,

haunt that totality
where we opera.

The size of Finland
my invisible alto.

Dream-starve the
metallic gauze of permanence.

A stethoscope heard itself,
left us thumping.

Drenched in owls,
these mysterious data.

Forests allow themselves that exact tangle.

Thax Redux

[Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips and Thax Douglas discuss the merits of giving senior citizens a free ride on the CTA.]

Sunday, Oct. 26
Reading: Thax Douglas and friends
Location: Myopic Books, 1564 N. Milwaukee, Chicago
Time: 7 pm

Contact: larrysawyerpoet@yahoo.com

Issue 1 is back up. Make up your minds.

Luckily I saved the PDF of Issue 1 before the "editors" took it off the Internet. Like all good pranks, it's now just a memory. Thanks to Gary Sullivan for mentioning my review of John Ashbery's and Joe Brainard's The Vermont Notebook in his Oct. 8 blog entry .

Being included in Issue 1 is like one more chain letter, but it's interesting to browse through all the names. It raises questions of authenticity and identity, being assigned a "poem" without knowing the author. Then, finding out, (surprise), it's supposed to be me. The concept pokes holes in the ego. Someone, somewhere has a lot of free time. Here's the poem I "wrote." I wonder what Pablo Picasso thought about when he read the issue. I never thought I'd be published with Osip Mandelstam or Isadore Ducasse. Hey, he once wrote "plagiarism is necessary." Maybe that's what Vladimir Zykov, Stephen McLaughlin, and Gregory Laynor (the three responsible) had in mind by listing themselves as "researchers." More than 3,000 pages? I'll need an intermission.



Like a Spot

Frown
Depend

In heaven
Throwing trust

Your impetuous existence
A spot
Restraining
New as coming
Of lightning

@ Myopic Books

Chicago is the place to be next weekend. Four Beat poets will be in town next weekend for readings and talks. This is a unique opportunity to see these talented authors read their work and share their experiences. [Pictured: Joanne Kyger]


Oct. 10
Reading: Joanne Kyger
Location: Columbia College, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Time: 7 pm

Oct. 11
Reading: Michael McClure
Location: Columbia College, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Time: 7 pm

Oct. 12
Readings: Michael Rothenberg & David Meltzer
Location: Myopic Books, 1564 N. Milwaukee
Time: 7 pm

A leading poet of the Beat Movement, David MELTZER was raised in Brooklyn during the War years; performed on radio & early TV on the Horn & Hardart Children¹s Hour. Was exiled to L.A. at 16 & at 17 enrolled in an ongoing academy w/ artists Wallace Berman, George Herms, Robert Alexander, Cameron; migrated to San Francisco in l957 for higher education w/ peers & maestros like Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Joanne Kyger, Diane DiPrima, Michael McClure, Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, Jack Hirschman, a cast of thousands all living extraordinary ordinary lives. Beat Thing [La Alameda Press, 2004] won the Josephine Miles PEN Award, 2005. Was editor and interviewer for San Francisco Beat: Talking With The Poets [City Lights, 2001]. With Steve Dickison, co-edits Shuffle Boil, a magazine devoted to music in all its appearances & disappearances. 2005 saw the publication of David's Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer by Viking/Penguin, a collection spanning over forty years of work that paints a vivid portrait of Meltzer's life as a poet through poems taken from thirty of his previous books of poetry. With a versatile style and playful tone, Meltzer offers his unique vision of civilization with a range of juxtapositions from Jewish mysticism and everyday life to jazz and pop culture.

Michael ROTHENBERG is a poet, songwriter, and editor of Big Bridge magazine online at www.bigbridge.org. His poetry books include Man/Woman, a collaboration with Joanne Kyger, The Paris Journals (Fish Drum Press), Monk Daddy (Blue Press), and Unhurried Vision (La Alameda/University of New Mexico Press). His poems have been published widely in small press publications including, 88: A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry, Berkeley Poetry Review, Exquisite Corpse, First Intensity, Fish Drum, Fulcrum, Golden Handcuffs Review, House Organ, Prague Literary Review, Tricycle, Van Gogh's Ear, Vanitas, Zyzzyva, JACK, and Jacket. He is also author of the novel Punk Rockwell. Rothenberg's 2005 CD collaboration with singer Elya Finn, was praised by poet David Meltzer as "fabulous-all [the] songs sound like Weimar Lenya & postwar Nico, lushly affirmative at the same time being edged w/ cosmic weltschmertz. An immensely tasty production." He is also editor for the Penguin Poet series, which includes selected works of Philip Whalen, Joanne Kyger, David Meltzer and Ed Dorn. He has recently completed the Collected Poems of Philip Whalen for Wesleyan University Press.

O, Whiplash Nation

fortune smiles on the unwilling/ My line beckons

What of Julius Caesar

Above us a pox of stars / he led his men to victory.

Look/ Make toast properly.



My fragile exotic tapestry / clean as a shiny chromed fender

Look to the high moon driving.

Happy birthday, Black Mountain College .

Lorca was everyone, they say.

This Sunday @ Myopic Books

Sunday, September 21 – Mark Yakich & Johannes Göransson

Myopic Books in Chicago -- Sundays at 7:00 / 1564 N. Milwaukee Avenue,
2nd Floor

Johannes GORANSSON is the author of three books of poetry and prose and the translator of Remainland: Selected Poems of Aase Berg, Ideals Clearance by Henry Parland, Collobert Orbital by Johan Jönsson, and With Deer by Aase Berg (the last two forthcoming later this year). He is also the co-editor of the press Action Books and the online journal Action, Yes.

Mark YAKICH is the author of Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross (National Poetry Series, Penguin 2004), The Making of Collateral Beauty (Snowbound Chapbook Award, Tupelo 2006), and The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin 2008). He is an associate professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans. Mark divides his time between the bedroom and the kitchen.

Upcoming

Sunday, October 12 / Michael Rothenberg & David Meltzer (In conjunction with the Poetry Center of Chicago)

Sunday, October 19 / John Tipton & Brenda Iijima

Sunday, October 26 / Thax Douglas, Jason Pickleman, Tim Kinsella & Elizabeth Harper

Sunday, November 9 / Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Lisa Janssen, & Jennifer Karmin

Sunday, November 16 / Katy Lederer & Special Guest

Sunday, December 7 / Sunday, December 7 - Daniel Borzutzky, Kristin Dykstra & Gabriel Gudding
2009 Schedule

Sunday, January 11 - Dan Godston & Special Guest

A new literary art form has been discovered ... That's Tom at the beach.

Seeing what it pleases

Seeing what it pleases—
Dirt of the path making
A final net, or sleep,
And in that choosing sees
What? Which path
Chooses, to me,
What cannot be—
As if a snake snaking
Outside what darkness
What eye, in seeing
This life, but a seeming; no
Meaning, bites the
Mind from being.

Barack Obama: It's About Time!

Barack Obama is as "American" as a political candidate can possibly be and painting him as anything other than a patriotic American is a blind alley. His story is an American success story because of his varied background and heartfelt desire to help the underdog. Republicans, no doubt, will attempt to portray him as something other than one who intends to preserve the rule of law as expressed in the Constitution, although he has sworn to do so. He took the oath as did John McCain.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

I’ve heard that after a presumptive candidate accepts a party’s nomination he or she is subject to a briefing that outlines party goals and reveals certain details regarding national security that aren’t provided beforehand, because the candidate is considered officially in the game and therefore provided with a higher security clearance. This is conjecture, but the rationale that a candidate should be as knowledgeable as possible before the debates is a no-brainer. Often I’ve heard friends or relatives comment that political figures cannot reveal their true intentions because they have the national security of the United States to consider and nothing is more important, and that average citizens would not understand. We’ll never have a truly transparent government, but the level of contempt for honesty shown by Bush and Cheney reached new lows. As we’ve all seen with Iraq, when the American people are misled then our “blood and treasure” is squandered, which destroys our credibility and hinders our ability to drum up support among our allies when we truly need their help in a genuinely dire situation. This is what has nearly run us aground. Obama seems ready to provide new solutions to the disproportionate influence of the military-industrial complex that put us into a situation like Iraq and nearly crippled our economy. It may be years before we really understand the billions lost in Iraq on a nation that doesn't even appreciate, or want, our influence.

In his speech last night Obama proved to be sympathetic to the plight of middle-class Americans struggling through recession by providing real-life examples. This is a great thing, because for the last eight years it’s been obvious that George W. Bush, with trickle-down economics, is not sympathetic to the needs of those who aren’t millionaires. McCain seems poised to take up this myopic neo-con mantle by his recent comments that those who make $250,000 a year are still middle class. This puts him in the category of those who are completely blind to the struggles of average people in this country.

What Obama seemed to focus on the most was the idea of restoring “America’s promise.” He’ll be attacked by the Republican smear machine on his perceived lack of experience (although Bush had zero experience in Washington before his presidency, a fact that doesn’t seem to be heralded often enough by Democrats) and he may be able to defend himself against that by the force and experience of Joe Biden. By choosing Biden, Obama bolstered his position in that department and it seems certain that Biden will bring a working-man’s perspective to the ticket, as well as years of hard-won, foreign-policy experience.

The real question is how Obama will sell the idea of change to the American people. His die-hard supporters seem ready for an Obama presidency no matter what that might mean, but those on the fence are listening closely to the details offered. Middle-class, Bible-belt Americans for example who have experienced the downside of Bush’s misguided policies would seem to be an easy sell, but they will not like the idea of any government interference in their daily lives. The key issue raised by Senator Clinton--healthcare--seems to have been put on the back burner somewhat by Obama. This may work in his favor because, although it’s obvious that change is necessary to jump start the vitality of our economy and to bolster our position on the world stage, middle-class Americans will not appreciate a government program that doesn’t allow them to choose healthcare providers. When Obama says

“Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who’s willing to work.”

I’m glad to hear that someone who may possibly win the presidency is attuned to the needs of regular people, but it will be difficult for him to sell the idea of change to fence-sitters if he presents his idea in a way that can be labeled as “big government” by his opponent. It’s ironic that the Republicans gleefully strip away our privacy rights while championing themselves as supporters of small government, but that irony is lost on the masses. Obama will probably defend himself well against accusations that his perceived inexperience is a liability, but he should tread very carefully when explaining how his brand of change would affect average Americans in their day-to-day lives. Tax cuts are a great start, as long as Obama repeats this mantra tirelessly--that he won’t raise taxes on the middle class. This illumines the fact that there is a huge chasm between how the super-privileged (e.g., McCain) perceive the definition of what’s “middle class” and how Obama perceives it. Obama’s version rings true, while McCain is living in a fantasy land of the fabulously wealthy. McCain can't remember how many homes he owns. Where Obama could lose much ground, however, is in the area of social programs. If he hammers home the idea that conversion to green energy will create job growth through “green collar” jobs then he’s got a winner. That would involve a transition that would be somewhat painful but entirely possible. Any job losses experienced as fossil fuel companies switch to promoting wind, solar, and electric power could be balanced by new jobs created as a result of these new technologies. And it’s clear that we must get out of Iraq--a huge money pit. The Iraqis themselves are clamoring for our departure.

It’s the idea of change that could present the real problem, which is another irony. It’s obvious that we are in need of change, but middle America is historically resistant to it, unless they’ve witnessed it and can see that it works. Convincing this huge cross section of voters that Obama's brand of change is what’s needed will be difficult, and last night’s speech probably wasn’t the appropriate time to do so, but I hope that Obama and his advisers realize that there are probably many of those suffering from the economic aftershock of eight years of a Bush presidency who would vote for him if his plan provides genuine relief--without government intrusion. Younger voters embrace change but older voters on both sides of the aisle typically won’t.

Obama’s vision of America might put us on equal footing with the European Union who realized early on that social programs can help workers, but the wealthiest 2% of America, with their deregulation and hands-off economic policies will do what they can to stop the leveling of the playing field because they are directly profiting from the policies that have created our current economic fiasco. By “closing corporate loopholes and tax havens that don’t help America grow”, Obama is putting himself in direct opposition to corporate America. (Although it’s been so bad lately that Wall St. has embraced Obama knowing that change of any kind is needed now.)

So, Obama 1) is a patriotic American, 2) with Biden he has the experience necessary to do the job, 3) he was right on Iraq from day one, and 4) he’s sympathetic to average Americans.

It will be how he explains his plan to change America that will either give him the momentum to win or sink his aspirations entirely. He made it clear last night that he is decidedly pro-choice, which was no surprise. Expect McCain to use this as a wedge as he caters to the evangelicals who already dislike him intensely. So, that point can’t be used to persuade any fence-sitters. Once again, it’s the economy, stupid. If Obama can find some middle ground on issues like abortion (implement a plan to reduce teen pregnancy) and gun control (by considering the issue on a case-by-case basis, what works for Cleveland might not be necessary for Scranton, Penn.) and present himself as tough on national security with a genuine intent to “cut taxes for 95% of all working families” then we may be on the verge of witnessing the election of the first African-American U.S. president.

It’s about time!

Elizabeth Kate Switaj comments on Rob McLennan's poems up at milk magazine.

Thumbs up or thumbs down for my Urban Dictionary entry?

Francesco Levato designed a wonderful page for the Meltzer/Rothenberg reading coming up at Myopic . Many thanks to the Poetry Center of Chicago.

Celebrating Larry Rivers .

____________________________
What's my favorite Ashbery line? "In a far recess of summer/ Monks are playing soccer." Now you know.

Maybe we should ask the Most Trusted Man in America .

Have you tried the Word Cloud Generator ?

Bill O'Reilly, back to school? Great idea.

More on the strange world of Francis Bacon .


BlazeVOX books needs help.

Bill Knott is still pissed.

Theories and explanations about the much debated [sic] .

Scientists say we can "see" sound and "hear" light.

Are you an apple or a pear ?

Feel the love: Celebrities and John McCain .

Once again milkmag.org will participate in the Poetry Foundation's Printers' Ball at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art. Thanks to Fred Sasaki for making this happen.

Amy Winehouse and fake authenticity pay a visit to my other blog ... Environs. [pictured: "Jazz" by Karel Appel.]

"Art is a secret script that you can only read with your instinct."
Karel Appel, 1962

Spliced Suddenly to a Closeup

What happens in poems
trains graze upon the prairie,
hours fall from the sky,

which is unlike anything except
horses speaking in autumn voices.

Beheaded table littered with night
into the mirror swim.

Our Meanwhile

If I were missing a hooray, saying
wake up and car it, you’d gaze a map of
moments and explore the thick foliage of
sleep. Who sent a laugh wrapped in morning?
Under the cypress trees a compass dreams.
Plot caught us deadpanning about the
after and grackles upon pine needles cackle.
But we are thoroughly neither where the
pointing shadows undress themselves and
sway. Our meanwhile, which made one so
Copenhagen, dealt us a pocket of knives.
Have you seen the horizon, without its
Lacan, giving birth to light? Wretched and
magical we return to conquer happy.

“I was astonished at the closeness of his speech with its hesitancies word by word the forms of his writing. It seemed that, in his specialized – i.e. personal, unique, home-made, close to the nose, close to the grain, actual – world of writing and speech, the forms he wrote were precise notations of the way his mind thoughts occurred to him, as he noticed them, and the way they’d be uttered out loud. ... The main principle seemed to be that his mind moved syllable by syllable – as if his basic unit of thought was the syllable – as if thought-forms could be broken down further than picture image, further than thought-breath or whatever larger unit Kerouac or Olson or Duncan or Williams or others have used, could be broken down below words themselves even, to syllables, one by one moving forward in time, one by one at a time left on the page to tell what change mind went thru in the head at the desk or with pen in hand on the lap on a ship or a plane or in bed, slow as a live clock, monosyllable by monosyllable ... here Creeley was exhibiting his own personal objective yoga as it were of speech-mindfulness, a completely unique universe uncovered by awareness of the syllable as basic atom or brick of poetic mind. What was rare to experience was how much the entire set of mind, the set up, represented in the beginning of the poem, was modified by each new single-breath’d syllable. So each one word syllable modified by hindsight all the previous words. Of course that’s universal in speech, but to hear speech so bare that the modifications of mind syllable by syllable were apparent, were the theme and play of the poem, was like raw mind discovery to me anew, like rediscovering Cezanne’s method of creating space, or Poussin’s arrangement of planes or Pound’s quantity of vowels.” (‘On Creeley’s Ear Mind’, 414)

—Allen Ginsberg

___________________________________________________

Hearing Robert Creeley read at the University of Chicago years ago is one of the high points of my time spent as an audience member at poetry readings. It was only after hearing Creeley read that I began to fully understand the pacing and musicality of his poetry. I understood the importance of the parts to whole as never before. Because of his relatively simple diction my previous tendency was to read the poems quickly and then to reread them as quickly. After hearing them presented by Creeley himself, I slowed myself down and thought of their timing as I hadn't before. Creeley seemed more attuned to this than most other poets I've heard——famous or otherwise. After hearing the intonation of Creeley's poems I realized that many of them are brief enactments of a human drama, re-lived in the telling. They seemed to be less of a language experiment and more of a lyrical document of a psychological gesture. As Ginsberg hints above, Creeley was the master of set up.

His asides also provided such monumental context that I literally forgot where I was while listening.