Kyger

Alice Notley re: Joanne Kyger...it's interesting when Notley says each poet's poetry should be its own world. It's difficult to not compare poets, but I think the tendency to do so is counterproductive to an astute evaluation of a writer's work. The photo is Kyger in Kyoto, Japan, I think Allen Ginsberg took it.
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"Being known as a glorious and fascinating talker can obscure the value of your work, at least during your lifetime. I certainly hope to have shown that Kyger's work lives up to her conversation, which I also know something about. Kyger's influence on my own practice has been considerable -- and on many other women -- she's one of the women who's shown me how to speak as myself, to be intelligent in the way I wish and am, rather than suiting the requirements of established intellectuality. Universities are frightfully conservative because they love their traditions and especially their language; idiomatic truth can't get born there, or anything that has to be new, not just wants to be.
     Kyger was recently omitted from Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (a very useful book except for the omissions any anthology's prone to). One must assume this is at least partly because she's stayed away from the centers of Poetry's meager power; to wield power would be counter to the logic and even the technique of her poetry, would be for her a spiritually poor choice. But not calling attention to herself, she isn't always included. As her books show, her daily life involves, besides poetry, domestic chores, community service, local jobs in stores, frequent teaching at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, extensive trips to Mexico, and poetry reading trips to the East Coast. This is not at all an insular existence, but it somehow hasn't brought her the notice she deserves. A certain poetry isn't always fashionable. However, each poet's poetry is, or should be, its own world; you cross borders, you get to know it, you read it being there, not bringing a lot of baggage from outside it, and it works. Poetry's supposed to be lived in not assessed. . ."

Congratulations, Martin Scorsese.

A Fable

Of these misunderstandings there were seven,
as the forested Snid glared out from his jungle lair
and considered the tautologies waiting there,
the fruit ripe in their trees was his heaven.

And as the lotus cleft the stone in two
a fountain of leaves from the forest blew
and a shower of gold from an autumn sky
left the moon in a basket of stars.

Leave it to Beaver—Future Episode Guide pt. 1

Beaver gosh feels the soft pangs of love and gets Wally to help him
pen a love letter to his potential girl only to discover that said
letter falls into the hands of their substitute teacher who
mistakenly surmises that the letter's sender is none other than oh boy Mr.
Cleaver.

The Beaver golly expands like a balloon and explodes after eating all
the ice-cream in the fridge, which Wally has to aw shucks clean up when
Beaver gets sick. The Beave then farts in the tub with his boats
while taking his you rascal clean-up bath.

Oh that Beaver wakes up late for school (again) after a tumultuous
dream that convinces him that he is destined to travel in space as an
astronaut. With Whitey's help, the Beaver constructs a space ship in
the backyard that Eddie and Wally gleefully destroy. Wally is so
guilt-ridden the next day that he gives the Beave here ya go a shiny
new nickel.

Ward really blows his stack with the Beaver when he discovers that he
and Whitey have been wearing his cardigan sweater and sticking his
pipe in their mouths as they have a laugh pretending to be hard-working
dads. Ward decides to "show them the ropes" by telling the Beave that due
to unforeseen circumstances he'll have to get a job at the salt mines to
support gosh the whole family.

Geez, Eddie Haskell talks Wally into cheating by passing him answers
during an important test in school. Wally gulp has to retake a much harder
test as punishment the following day and he counts on Beave to help him
get out of the jam by standing at the classroom window with Wally's
textbook in hand. The plan is foiled when Beaver discovers that he
can't read big words and stuff.

Beaver gets hit in the darnit head with a pop-fly baseball after school
and is now convinced he has psychic abilities. With Larry Modello’s
help, the Beave sets up a fortune-telling sidewalk stand. Together the boys
have it made in the shade until Lumpy shows up and they quickly learn
gee Dad honesty is the best policy.

Tooey decides he would be much healthier and happier if he gave his
lunch money to Lumpy on a daily basis. Wally and the gang decide to
rattle Lumpy’s cage by threatening to reveal Lumpy’s dark summer
camp secret (that he likes to knit, gee whiz, girl sweaters).

Histoire du Cinema

I remember seeing Star Wars for the first time
But it wasn't like seeing Breathless for the first time.
I was breathless when I watched Raging Bull for the first time
But I was a raging bull when I watched Clueless for the first time.
I was clueless when I watched 8 1/2 for the first time.
But I was 8 1/2 when I watched Snow White for the first time
I was snow white when I saw Halloween for the first time.
It was Halloween when I watched High Noon for the first time.
I remember seeing King Kong for the first time.
It was in The Apartment that I saw The Searchers for the first time.
In Modern Times, a Taxi Driver should consider The Graduate and
go Singin' In the Rain On the Waterfront with The African Queen,
instead of this route I took classes with a Psycho from Chinatown on The
Grapes of Wrath. Someday I'll be An American in Paris but for now
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Rocky and The Wild Bunch rode in on
The Streetcar Named Desire to fill their Jaws with The Best Years of Our Lives.

Hallelujah Fruit Bowl

Thank you for your reliability.
I could always count on you to
maintain your even temper, as you
held the few remaining oranges
and a banana or two. You no
doubt heard my random muttering
in the kitchen on bad days, perhaps
a “goddammit” slipped out
once or twice, as I nearly cut my finger
or a pot boiled over. But you sat
there steadfast, performing your
duty so calmly. I salute your
temerity in that somewhat
frenzied nook, neighbor to
the toaster, but ultimately
without peer.

Where the Sky Went

Explorers of the inner side of nowhere
for only that moment
as if your prey

Gazing upward toward
entropy
Still in the published bones
secret things stand, explore the curve of torsos, psychic Alps

Deep inside the volcano that erased the
Mediterranean world
as if a blind coyote
get someone on the phone immediately
paraphernalia of binah, chthonian muck

Oncoming lights, the human velocity of
maintaining leaves me
this time between the sheets
of paper in the dark river of delirium
attention shoppers
some passing storm

walked
inside me

A pool of mirrored yesterdays
must be slowly dying of
some esoteric discipline

up sprouted only sorrow
as if this clear light
walking le morning

would you ask ad execs
to design a new skin for you
in front of televised fires.

Caravanserai

This afternoon is a film character at the wheel
thunder break the dishes of the sky
one never sleeps as late as daylight is a weird omen

to you the one without clothes
naked as a skinned peach

plagiarized glances stolen ambulances
I'm gone over the edge only wish to reconstruct
beautiful gardens under your blankets

maybe we haven't been speaking
of a stolen automobile

Breathless

that's how I found you
watching a
movie not stealing automobiles
million birds along a clothesline

the telephone rings exploding into stars
hoi polloi grace sidewalks Sundays.

What the World Needs Now

Talking to Fred Sasaki the other night about rock lyrics and how poets have been influenced by them had me thinking about Marc Bolan. I know that T. Rex, Dylan, and other rock lyricists have influenced my conception of how images work in successful poems. Because it's also Valentine's Day,

"The lively sparks that issue from those eyes,
Against the which there vaileth no
defence,
Have pierced my heart, and done it none offence,
With quaking pleasure more than once or twice."

-Sir Thomas Wyatt

I'm also framing this off-the-cuff blog entry with the thought in mind that the rock musicians I've always loved have written lyrics that use imagery to create a vivid mind movie that harkens back to the tradition established by the medieval troubadors. Renaissance poets also spun tales of lost love that resonate and that imagery has been recycled to the point where it has become the source of much cliche. But a line could be drawn connecting the lyrics of these poets (which could be taken even further back to the work of classical poets like Sappho) to the lyrics of rock artists such as Marc Bolan, the Rolling Stones, and now Beck.

"You slide so good, with bones so fair
You've got the universe reclining in your hair
'Cos you're my baby, yes you're my love
Oh girl I'm just a jeepster for your love.

Just like a car, you're pleasing to behold
I'll call you Jaguar if I may be so bold
'Cos you're my baby, 'cos you're my love
Oh girl I'm just a jeepster for your love."

-Marc Bolan

The blason was invented by Clement Marot in 1536. This enumerated form of catalogue verse of praise or blame works well to list the reasons why the object of one's attention is deserving of that.

"I saw her today at the reception
In her glass was a bleeding man
She was practiced at the art of deception
Well I could tell by her blood-stained hands.

You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need."

-Mick Jagger

One of my favorites is Free Union by Andre Breton, which explodes with uncommonplace imagery and comparisons so singular that the reader is forced to envision a woman so fantastical that no comparison can be made between the woman described and any living person. Breton's goal was to take the reader someplace unique and never before imagined.

"My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child’s writing...

My wife with the shoulders of a champagne..

My wife with legs of flares
With the movements of clockwork and despair
My wife with calves of eldertree pith
My wife with feet of initials...

With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers
And of shafts of white peacock plumes
Of an insensible pendulum.."

-Andre Breton

Sure this stuff seems a little hokey now in the year 2007, but the music of T. Rex still sounds cool. Bolan's pen was filled with something magical ... there should be a new subgenre of music invented for him. Thanks to YouTube for the kooky video. Enjoy.

Always Returning

Return always to the
first day when the world
opened, gushing memory,
its libretto against our skin

Doorbell sonatas and
fire stations scream
red in the night:
enter the labyrinth
of our every mood.

The last star is a rerun in
the sky, burning the
atmosphere of a
summer there hovering.

Could it always be that day
when we meet and map
each moment's lounging frame?

Dancing Off the Edges of Our Lives

We notice ordinary things like flower pots
filled with sighs and closets dripping
monsters. Is it time yet to depart
from the cloistered probability
that our study of cognac has yielded no
transparencies other than what we
imagined? Here in the future our
wings are mere footnotes
ancanthus medallion, ribbon of sky,
facts smile from posterior gardens.
There is a spy called wonder who watches our
habits. There is a virtue to the geometry of
sleep for a friend is a ruddered thing requiring
citations and phosphorescent rooms.

Cool Foreign Accent

There is a pit of silence look where
the music waits and the softest rain
will never reach us there

Dawn cannot be wrong and lilting like
shadows untrimmed, this drizzle

Let us forgive them of error
recluse words in a poem. Don’t they
sound like heartsick and willing appetites
brought to morning
where the music waits with capitalized eyes?

Lens

These mysterious hours

are long-legged


little spiders.

The last day of each year

is my classified ad.



Scent of beach enter.

Lonely passenger, ride the dream bus.

Visit stores without clientele.



Heart so mountainous,

there must be

some unseen map,



bridge to nowhere.

We're in the midst of working on milk, vol. 8 and again I'm amazed by the quality of the work we'll present. It's been my honor to publish the work of these artists since 1998.

I haven't tapped into the world of comics in a long time, but I've been doing some research on Frank King and Chris Ware.

I've written a story that my friend Joe Kimball is going to illustrate.

I'm just remembering working on my first issue of Nexus with my friend Mark Knapke as assistant editor. I remember sitting in the Nexus office in the middle of many nights laying out pages and spending hours on the phone talking to various people amazed that I had a big budget and could make endless long distance phone calls. I remember calling Morocco to try to get Paul Bowles on the phone because someone had given me what was supposed to be his number and hearing a soft voice so unintelligible that I hung up. The Nexus magazine that I edited is not to be confused with the new age fluff mag of the same name. Nexus the poetry journal was founded in 1967.

Those who appeared in Nexus vol. 33, no. 1 include the following:

Hakim Bey, John Brandi, Ken Brown, David Chorlton, Ira Cohen, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Henri Ford, Allan Graubard, Renee Gregorio, Paul Grillo, Gabor Gyukics, Maggie Jaffe, WB Keckler, Nancy Levant, Angus MacLise, Gerard Malanga, Sheila E. Murphy, Simon Perchik, Jean Marc Sens, Gustaf Sobin, Sparrow, Tetsuya Taguchi, Janine Pommy Vega, Paul Violi, Ken Wainio, Nan Watkins, AD Winans, Taylor Mead, Tuli Kupferberg, Ronnie Burk, Philip Glass Interview

Video recording was invented in 1956 as an intermediary in live broadcast television. It was a cheap means to pre-record and edit regularly scheduled programs taped from live events. Roughly twelve years later, conceptual and minimalist artists would take an interest in the medium, making “artist videos” at a time when there was no such thing as a video artist. Michel Auder is an exception. He chose video as his primary means of expression well before video was accepted as a practice in its own right.

Born in Soisson, France, in 1945, Auder began making films at the age of 18. As an aspiring young filmmaker, he fell under the influence of the French New Wave and experimental cinema, most notably Jean-Luc Godard and Andy Warhol. In 1969, Auder met and eventually married Viva, one of Warhol’s principal talents. A year later, they moved to New York where Auder has since resided. That same year, he purchased a Sony Portapak, one of the first commercially available video cameras. Since 1970 he has persistently documented the people, places and events that are his life.
 
The label “video artist” was applied retroactively when Auder began exhibiting his work in 1980. At that time he produced a series of discreet works, some of which were from scripted biographical material and others that were video collages appropriating material from television. As technology improved and access to editing facilities increased, Auder’s skills as an auteur became more apparent. He is a consummate voyeur, one who literally reads scenes of intimacy, exchange and daily life as verses of poetry unto themselves.

Meanwhile

Going on boats
morning’s candelabra
splinters light
across water.


Horizon
an eyelid.

Daily fireworks, roof
of stars
give way to
blue.


Frozen oranges,
erupt
from the palm of my hand.


*


You have
come so far
and somehow
the call
was heard, as
a telephone
ringing
on the moon.


Don’t
worry, we
are marooned
in a
nevertheless city,

I’ll unzip
the buildings,

release the
birds.

Kentucky

You are coatless Kentucky
You are drunk and disorderly
Your lawns however are immaculate
Your women are chatty, horny
You don’t pick up the check
You're the home of Johnny Depp
You are peppered with horses
Your eyes are barbeque pits
and I’m ok with that.

Frank Sherlock Needs Your Help

Amy King writes:

Philly poet and host of the La Tazza Reading Series, Frank Sherlock, recently suffered a heart attack and kidney failure, among other anomalies, during a very brief window of time that he was without health insurance. It’s one of those crap shoot moments, folks. Anyway, he’s a good guy for sure, young (early 30’s), and a poet who encourages and supports poets — all feats I’m a fan of. He has run that series for a good long time now (I read in it years ago) and gets a much deserved “A” in my book. He needs cash and books and good words sent his way for recovery.


Thanks to the generosity of Juliana Spahr you can now send checks for the Frank Sherlock EMERGENCY FUND which will be tax deductible!

'A 'A ARTS
c/o J. Spahr
5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94613

CHECKS SHOULD BE MADE OUT TO "'A 'A ARTS"
and these checks will be tax deductible.

PLEASE MAKE A NOTE THAT YOUR CHECK IS FOR FRANK SHERLOCK.
Your donations are very much appreciated.