Life at Kentucky Fried Chicken

Once I saw in a backroom that there was
a room behind that which was behind that room.
When I told everybody that the backroom wasn’t
really the hindmost room in the building and that
in fact there was another smaller room inbetween
the room they thought was the backroom and the
actual backroom they didn’t believe me.
Not only that, I was sent to the backroom, their
idea of it anyway, as a sort of punishment. They
asked me to think really hard about why
they thought it was necessary to send me
to the backroom and that questioning the
location of the backroom was something
that just wasn’t done. I walked off and thought
"I wonder if anyone has ever mentioned this
as a comment in the suggestion box"
so I went over and unlocked it and
inside was a note that read "this food sucks.”

Why So Enormous

There is a logic to breathing that I know so well
here is the darkness where the mirrors hide.
Where are you waking, walking so?
The city is a Smith & Wesson covered in noon.
There I discover the parallel moon.
The light, crazy ivy, is oblivious to waves.
It covers our hummingbirds in delirious flames.
My pizza is a plaza where I meet no one.
The silence there is a tribe of ice.
My shoes ache as I wait for the bill.
A woman files her nails with a miniature spell.
The sky is so wide that I’m offered a slice.
Soon we will march upon a desert and hum.
My pizza is a plaza where I meet no one.

Oh Yeah

And another thing

a candle balanced
precariously on my tongue

could be mistaken for the
pronunciation of your name

or mine, it's all the
same to me whether
you kill me with the
kind salutation that I am

of your race
among whales
and fish of the sea.

And these
air bubbles between us
pay attention
we breathe the
same air

are microcosms
in the gaps of our conversation

what lotus blooms, where all are lost in space

chasm, greet me
as I open usual doors

these stars, galaxies
when you advertise
familiar
pavement into speech.

Tell all your friends. My chapbook, Disharmonium, will be published by Silver Wonder Press in Chicago in late fall 2007. Contact Chris Gibson at P.O. Box 146399, Chicago, IL, 60614 to order a copy.

Why do I miss the 80s? I miss the goofy rock videos.



A friend of mine swears that Dylan is our modern-day prophet, foretelling of our climate woes and altercations in the middle east (think "After the Flood," "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," and "Infidels"). His detailed notes on the subject made me want to listen to Subterranean Homesick Blues again, but that's as far as I got.

George W. has stomach problems of late. Could it be that he's finally realizing that he's the most ineffectual U.S. president in history?

I had the chance to go through the archives at Poetry Magazine the other day, which was a really amazing experience. The Printers' Ball is coming up, which should be cool. Don't miss the gravity-defying event at Myopic. It will be full of surprises!

So, most say that Aishwarya Rai is the most beautiful woman on the planet (Angelina who?). I still say it's Cate Blanchett. Personality counts dude. Rumor has it they're casting CB as Bob Dylan in an upcoming biopic. Weird.

Blaise Cendrar's Prose of the Trans-Siberian and Little Jeanne from France was one of the first books of poetry I came across when I first became more serious about reading. At the Fairborn, Ohio library I also found the Anchor Anthology of French Poetry with translations of the work of Nerval, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Valery, Apollinaire and others. I had read those two books as a kid before I read Leaves of Grass. There's something about Cendrar's poetry that makes it seem like he's just having a conversation with you.

This page doesn't take full advantage of the interactive capabilities of the Internet to re-create experience but it's worth a look, too.

Glib Olympics

Who cares about the heirloom anyway? It doesn't go with anything and besides it looks too Rilke, desperate and alone. My shoes are more Neruda punching the pavement in tangerine triplicate as we ply the city with drinks and keep up our damn drilling, somewhere (down there) we will eventually find our raison d’être. You recline into another plush comeback and remind me that our paths have crossed for just this reason. Double-parked on a junket to WTF.

Wound Farmer

A regular Nick to your Daisy
watching it glisten like a meteor shower

televised in a block of ice.

There is an iffy cocoon
of these afternoons by the swamp.

I’ll milk the shadows of melancholy.

We’ll bathe in gender politics.

Femme fatale, decline all drinks proffered.
I left my sense of humor in my other suit.

You had a breakfast of bees.
Migratory birds applauded your rare frequency.

Perhaps we should’ve checked with the national
weather service about our feelings, before we let them fly.

At the English garden there you found
wan Snickers wrapper, sign of civilization.

Time has feathers, but we, too shy, seem
forever left to linger upon the lips of an hour.

The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys

The article up at the Poetry Foundation site had me thinking of my own early attempts to write songs based on the lyrics of Elvis Costello, Tom Verlaine, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, and Marc Bolan. Cut me some slack I hadn't yet read Frank O'Hara. Beyond the trite or simply flat inbetween lines of many rock lyricists are bursts of real brilliance and insight that rival some of the most memorable lyric poetry ever written. Of course, the banal and simply pretentious sounds not half bad when backed up by a stack of Marshalls. As the groundbreaking sounds of some of the best music of the 1960s (garagebands galore) gave way to the decadent irrelevance of bands like the Eagles in the 1970s, rock music moved beyond its roots and became something else entirely. Some bands teetered between the bluesy roots rock that had started the phenomenon called rock 'n roll and the fusion based noodlings that marked the beginning of the end for quite a few talented musicians.








As rock bands began to be called supergroups, they took themselves a little too seriously and left what was genuine by the wayside. Before bands like the Ramones emerged on the scene to reclaim rock 'n roll and return it to what it had always been, there were certain songs that weren't so cheesy they couldn't be appreciated, mainly because the lyrics rang true and offered some kind of insight typically not found on the FM dial. Traffic's music has always been hit or miss for me, but I've always liked The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys because it defines the time period after Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues so well.



If you see something that looks like a star
And it's shooting up out of the ground
And your head is spinning from a loud guitar,
And you just can't escape from the sound
Don't worry too much, it'll happen to you
We were children once, playing with toys.
And the thing that you're hearing is only the sound of
The low spark of high-heeled boys.

The percentage you're paying is too high priced
While you're living beyond all your means
And the man in the suit has just bought a new car
From the profit he's made on your dreams,
But today you just read that the man was shot dead
By a gun that didn't make any noise.
But it wasn't the bullet that laid him to rest was
The low spark of high-heeled boys.

If you had just a minute to breathe
and they granted you one final wish
Would you ask for something like another chance?
Or something similar as this? Dont worry too much
It'll happen to you as sure as your sorrows are joys.
And the thing that disturbs you is only the sound of
The low spark of high-heeled boys.

If I gave you everything that I owned and asked for nothing in return
Would you do the same for me as I would for you?
Or take me for a ride, and strip me of everything including my pride?
But spirit is something that no one destroys,
And the sound that I'm hearing is only the sound
The low spark of high-heeled boys.

"Chicago" Poetry

Ray's comment raised some questions for me. If experimental poetry is in some renaissance in the city/region, is it being written from a specifically Midwestern viewpoint? Is experimental poetry "regional" in the U.S. any more? What schools of experimental poetry are there in the city and who are the poets associated with them? Do the different poetic groups in the city depend on economic or academic standing? Are different groups really open to each other? What experiments are being done here that are not being done other places?

Anyone want to offer an opinion?
posted by bill @ 10:22 PM 9 comments
9 Comments:

At 4:49 PM, Larry Sawyer said...
Random thoughts here...this recalls Kerri's comment re: shared geography vs. aesthetic differences? I think internal observers would probably be more aware of aesthetic differences and categorize along those lines and outside observers would tend to lump Chicago poets together according to shared geography. I personally think a little community building is a positive thing. I seem to note shared aesthetic allegiances among Iowa grads--not making a value judgment about it--and then, of course, there are divisions among the poets here, definitely, regarding stylistic and aesthetic allegiances. Perf poets being at one end of the continuum and page poets at the other? But setting it up as a dichotomy is simplification to an absurd level. There are many varying gradations inbetween. I've been living here for approximately 5 years now and feel much more at home than I initially did--I view bumping into the same groups of talented poets at various local venues as a blessing. I'm not one to quibble to the point of absurdity, most interesting poets I've met here are using collage tactics, colloquial language, somewhat surrealist juxtapositions, and various disparate elements mined from various media sources to make their work jump. I don't think many of the poets I admire around here worry much about whether their work is accessible, they operate on simultaneous levels of thought. I'm not sure many Chicago poets I know necessarily consider themselves "Chicago" poets either--seems limiting to apply the label. But this is America and marketing is key! Is there a craft vs. inspiration argument? It's possible to write oracular poetry that's also very experimental or else to write experimental poetry that seems perfectly comfortable to never leave the page. At some point any reading is a performance of some kind. One may choose to mutter barely audible poems but if the work is solid most audiences I know would still respond to it. Gabe Gudding recently gave a soft reading and was so masterful that one strained all the more to be sure to catch every word--is there a recipe for anti-performance? Can we figure that out and play off audience expectations? Is there now a Chicago school?

At 1:02 PM, Ray said...
I think that there are certainly some groups that have similar interests and concerns and then there are groups that are in dialogue some not.

Here is how I view Chicago poetic groups and some of these groups are in dialogue and some are not.
All of these groups have good poets and I think that it makes our city quite rich in poetic presences.

Here is my assessment of the subgroups within the "experimental" world of poetry in Chicago/Milwaukee anyone I left out please forgive me in advance.

Academic Experimental Poets:

Type of Poet: Tend to be full time professors or teachers.

These are poets who are marginally or completely experimental and can be interesting but who do live within an academic setting. This is the best marketed group in Chicago poetry.

S. Reddy
Arielle Greenberg
Tony Triglio
Dan Beachy Quick
Robyn Schiff
Bill Allegrezza

Non Academic Experimental Poets tend to be a little more daring than the academics but need to work harder on self marketing.

Type of Poet: Well educated but not teachers of poetry primarily

Chuck Stebelton
Kerri Sonnenberg
Jesse Seldess (Left us)
Mark Tardi
Ray Bianchi
Larry Sawyer
Roberto Harrison
Dave Pavilich

Hyde Park Poets/CPP/Danny's
a group that is very similar to the Academic Experimentals but they are either not academics or are Graduate Students and tend to be in dialogue with everyone. Strong Duncan influence here.

Matthias Regan
Eric Elstain
Peter O'Leary
John Tipton
Joel Craig
Michael O'Leary
Mary Margaret Sloan

UIC Poets, this group should be larger but I dont know all the name they are not experimental poets but they are not mainstream either there are many Steven's devotees they are more traditional and tend to use experimental forms and usages but are not easy to stereotype.

Kristy Odelius
Garin Cycholl
Simone Muench
Michael Anania
Mary Bittinger
Chris Glomski

Slam Poets/Hip Hop Poets

This is a mixed group some are totally Slam oriented and some are more talented and do other things two of my favorites in this group are Krista Franklin and Tychimba Jess

Therapeutic Poets

Finally there are a whole ocean of poets who could best be described as hobbiest poets or therapeutic poets and I dont know these poets well and much of their work is focused on self rather than poetry as art.

Dialogue

I think that all of these groups are in dialogue to a degree. There is not that much to say with the Therapeutic group since their concerns are different. I think that one area where all four "experimental groups" are weak is to be in dialogue with those poets like Krista Franklin and Tychimba Jess who are fine poets and who tend not to be from the same background a real outreach should happen on this front.


At 5:00 PM, Larry Sawyer said...
What is considered "experimental" is a mutating concept, so it may be interesting if we make an attempt to define our terms. Is experimental: Olson’s poetics as “open field”; Pound’s emphasis on image above all else; the worldwide Surrealist emphasis on experimentation and bizarre juxtaposition; the Beats emphasis on controversial subject matter, raw presentation (i.e., first thought=best thought), and line length governed by breath unit; disruptive syntax and avoidance of the lyric of Language poetry; maximal actualism of poetry like that written by the late Jim Gustafson; talky-quirky, city surrealism of Frank O’Hara; abrupt variation in diction and tone (latinate and slangy words commingled) of the New York School? Does any of this apply any more?

Flarf? Certainly HTML and Internet use, not to mention the proliferation of the poetry workshop has affected the course of poetry in the United States. I usually assume that experimental does not include poetry that relies solely on contraversial subject matter with a disregard for craft. I've had Clayton Eshleman tell me that he goes through hundreds of drafts per poem. Cid Corman told me that producing a poem consists of excising all superfluous words. Is there a re-emergence of the lyric? Are sound poets being the most experimental. Obviously what was considered experimental in the days of the Don Allen anthology no longer applies, although I gained much from reading that book way back when. What's next is what I want to know. I'm genuinely amazed and constantly excited by this idea called poetry and all its permutations.


At 6:30 AM, Ray said...
Experimental is a throw away term. I prefer to look at contemporary poetics in the following way.

Out of the Pound tradition there is a profound use of many sources and a sense of history as poetry.

Pound's work comes out of that sense. So as contrasted with say Williams who was concerned with the everyday and using that to create new ways Pound and his followers are concerned with bringing our shared poetic history and a dialogue with other languages into the poetic conversation.

Duncan and the SF Ren people along with many Black Mountain poets do this well.

The best examples of this kind of poetics I have found recently is Chris Glomski's new book and Lisa Jarnot's Second Book (for its complexity).

I also think that there is a profound avant garde sense that does not desire this dialogue with other cultures or languages. This sense might be called Steven'sesque even though this is simplistic.

There are allot of 'experimental' poets who are not concerned with history or our poetic past or other languages but more with a sense of poets on a mission.

There are an aweful lot of these poets around. I think that it is easier to be this way since it requires less reading and can be more focused on self experiences in a non confessional way which also comes out of the Whitman tradition.

I think that to use contemporary MFA programs as a way to define the poetic 'tribes' so to speak is not helpful because it is too simple.

Chris Glomski for example went to Iowa MFA but his work is really aesthetically in the Pound/Black Mountain camp. He has much more in common with say Duncan than with Jorie Graham who was his teacher.

A poet like Garin Cycholl has many influences. His work could be a fusion of many things not least of which is a sense of the land and geography which is usually absent in contemporary poetics.

Another poet like Jesse Seldess has much owed to Stein and her sense of language and repetition and little to do with any aesthetic other than his own and Jesse went to Iowa as well.

So what is an experimental poet? My friend Joe Ahearn defined it this way and I cannot think of a clearer definition;

Concerned with Language non-confessional the postmodern sense that we can fuse traditional forms with non traditional forms fluidly.
a profound dialogue with other artforms. A dialogue with the actual and the non actual to create a new sense of language and poetry.

Regarding the internet I think the only difference between the Internet and years ago when poetry magazines were printed is a sense of access. Poets today can get their work out but the sheer volume of garbage has hurt the critical structure of poetry and I think that this has not been good for the artform the need for critical structures is the key thing needed for poetry. Someone needs to think about whether or not the poetry that is lauded is really interesting? I find allot of the poetry that is award winning boring and banal. I also find that allot of Post Language poets to be formulaic in their writing but they are getting published by intertia and reputation.


At 10:30 AM, Kerri said...
sorry i've been out of it lately. stil l waiting for a chance to collect my thoughts about last week's kenny goldsmith reading which i'll post here.

all of this vocabulary is very tricky, and part of what i want to say is that so-called experimental writers by my definition engage with the conceit that language is an imperfect system, an illusion of certainty that makes the whole endeavor of taking it up as one's artistic/expressive medium kind of absurd. writing that is not written with this (liberating? baggage?) in mind seems to lack a crucial dimension that I, as a reader, miss. This writing, that some may term non-experimental, conventional, school of quietude, etc. is best defined by my eye and ear as work that operates under the assumpion, the trust really, (in) of language as an authoritative tool. Authors that consider themselves masters of this medium, and masters of their readers' experience have always seemed to me a bit deluded.

similarly, i once attended a fundraiser for a local literary organization that situates itself within the traditions of identity/performance/declarative poetics. readings and mingling occured that made me and the fabulous and now in egypt dawn b. feel a little out of place. the director of the organization came over and asked us if we were poets, and then what KIND of poetry we wrote. that question still stumps me. dawn replied for the both of us, "postmodern." i'm not sure if this was any more definitive than "experimental" "for the page" or any other designation, but it seems the least problematic of all the terms kicked around so far/usually.


At 11:05 AM, Kerri said...
let me go back to a few of bill's initial questions, good ones. just when one thinks they can provisionally resolve the issue of what constitutes the "experimental" there's another issue of what constitutes regionality to a poetic school. i think it's more difficult than 10, 20, 30 years ago for geographic locales to develop a sense of poetic school because a. americans are very migratory, poets even more so, i.e. how many poets in sf or ny are born and raised in either place? are midwesterners more rooted to a sense of place? a lot of us seem to have a hard time leaving this region.. what keeps us here? (our highly developed "family values?"!) b. the post ww2 growth of the college industry that brought education to outposts that typically are not urban centers, or other traditionally artist communities. u.s. poets relying on these insitutions for work take on a nomadic lifestyle as a result, and add an interesting dimension creatively to one's sense of place. c. a unique sense of place is increasingly hard to come by in much of the country where the franchise landscape makes houston look like rockford (il) look like mesa (az) look like... a dearth of places, mostly older cities like chicago and ny, seem poised to blunt this homogeneity at the level of their local culture and thereby have more to offer writers/artists taking up questions of place in their work.


At 9:12 PM, Larry Sawyer said...
More random and forgive me if I stray too far from, ahem, the topic at hand, but I found an interesting Pound quote that had me thinking a bit more about the nature of what could be called "experimental."

--As for experiment: the claim is that without constant experiment literature dies. Experiment is one of the elements necessary to its life. Experiment aims at writing that will have a relation to the present analogous to the relation which past masterwork had to the life of its time.--

This reminded me of Ray's comment that there are experimental poets here in Chicago relatively unconcerned with the history of poetry or history in general. To understand the relationship that past masterworks had to the life of its time would require some understanding of the social context in which these texts were written. I think to a certain extent the attitudes of some younger poets, including their ambivalence regarding poetry of the past, reflects our consumerist culture where something that has only existed for five or so years is considered "old." It may be that it's natural that personal taste guides one to read only what one likes, consuming only the new, versus expending the effort it would require to study omniverously the poetries of the distant past or world poetries. I admit that writing poetry has shortened my attention span but it has not decreased my interest level.

It may be, going in another direction here, that poets who have no understanding that language in itself is a faulty construct and that narrative is at best a fallacy will forever write confessional or therapeutic poetry but by increasing their knowledge of what has come before and subverting it they may begin this process of renewal that could be called experimentation. I do see that there is a group of poets here in Chicago interested in innovation who understand that mere stylistic effect is not enough and that a focus on the malleability and plasticity of language must be grounded in an understanding of history, or at least literary history, in order for a work to have real social relevance. I think it may be that an awareness of all this is a distinctly Chicago viewpoint right now among poets here who are attempting something different in their writing, only because there may have been a lack of this viewpoint in this city until fairly recently, thus a "renaissance."

There are poets across the nation attempting something similar but there is a confluence of individuals here who are bent on innovation and they all seem to be of the same age range? The common denominator is aesthetic standpoint in a general sense versus using the locale of the city of Chicago as subject matter in the work. It may just be happenstance that so many interesting poets are now calling Chicago home.


At 11:49 AM, Kerri said...
The review of Ted Berrigan's Collected in the Poetry Project Newsletter has been reprinted on Silliman's blog today and it strikes me as relevant to some of the points Ray has brought up on the definition of innovation in poetry, the role of class and employment sector one's in poetics and poetry community, the role of history in innovation, etc.

I thought this bit was of particular interest, probably because "unkempt" sounds like a fitting description of my own activity.

Quote is from film critic/artist Manny Farber: "Good work usually arises usually arises where the creators... seem to have no ambitions towards gilt culture but are involved in a kind of squandering-beaverish endeavor that isn’t anywhere or for anything. A peculiar fact about termite-tapeworm-fungus-moss art is that it goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, likely as not, leaves nothing in its path other than signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity.”



At 12:12 PM, Kerri said...
on the charge that a lot of poetry being written today is not concerned with history, i disagree. while overt quoting from the iliad may have fallen out of f(l)avor, my sense is that there is more history, literary and, uh, the regular kind, pressed into allusion than i credit myself with being able to detect.

kind of like how the colbert report expresses a progressive viewpoint through the manufactured lens of a conservative slant, i think a lot of postmodern poets advance a keen knowledge and sensitivity to history with the informed structures they build on top of it. If I spend enough time I can usually find it peeking through the shutters, or perhaps history is more appropriately the hvac system in this scenario/contemporary practice.

maybe i just want to be talking about the colbert report and architecture and this has been a fiendish tangent. apologies.

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I found an old photo I'd taken of Ira Cohen inside St. John the Divine in New York. The definition of poet's corner is expanded, however, when Ira's in the frame. He's a photographer, poet, filmmaker, and provocateur. Cheers.

Queasy Century Seeks Quiet Home

Call me future tense. Your docent is a few potatoes short of a full harvest. Up doesn't help much in the dark when the furnace is calling. Finally call it a night and snuggle up next to another tomorrow. I haven't been here for awhile, even though a delicate situation requires delicacy and this is no longer a poem about anything other than the fact that I've opened another Tuesday. Crouching under the couch are other reasons why it's been icy all along. He’s a phony fire hydrant of a man. My arms of dynamite are pushing up through neighboring gardens. The vortex of our collective future is calling my name and I hear Italian tenors serenading nightly. No. That was just my stomach again. Can't you hear the gears of remembrance? Something has changed drastically. Someday I will—my shoes rise up impetuously and disappointingly, still. For this or that or the other reason. It doesn't matter. It would appear that my thoughts have taken me elsewhere, anywhere but here. Dazzle all with Gregorian chants, but meanwhile ordinary sticks eye me suspiciously from their own cramped boxes. You try to sort it all out, pay the bills, bang out a poem. Airline stewardesses are so post office. Sometimes adding it all became too complicated to be just one person all the time.

Times Ten

Puck hid from Oberon as long as he could, but in Wrigleyville the crowd erupts like a shook up can of Old Style. My Ivanka, how I love thee and the plastic horse you rode in on. Troubadour, derived from occitan trobador, literally means “finder.” O haughty life, crowned with darkness, my boredom is prehistoric going back millennia. The receding hairline of history. My lassitude is pouched like bored kangaroos traipsing imaginary outbacks. This kind of collective apathy forms an entire dull universe where dimming stars are encircled by galactic yawns. Yes, it is quite uncertain here on planet shrug.

It’s Just That Simple

That must be some Hawaii.

Would tasting the lava be wise?

You tell me no and go into the house.

Stranger, who led me like Dante to salvation?

Let me leave you here to eat the flowers.

Best wishes said the gameshow host.

At the picnic we ate cellular phones.

That’s what it’s like being in love (I guess).

Each moment: pregnant with expectation.

Might one word sum it up completely?

Let’s lead a life of modern conveniences and

every so often stand on our heads.

Let’s barbecue all of our envy and anger.

Currently reading...Heart of the Breath/Jim Brodey, The City Visible/anthology, Allegrezza & Bianchi, eds., Notebook of a Return to a Native Land/Aime Cesaire, trans. Clayton Eshleman, The Collected Poems/Octavio Paz, Anne Sexton/The Complete Poems


“Sexton once explained, ‘I'm hunting for the truth. It might be a kind of poetic truth, and not just a factual one, because behind everything that happens to you, there is another truth, a secret life.’ Though many people, consciously or unconsciously, resist treating Sexton as an intellectual (a fact that has something to do with her high school education and early self-image as ‘a buried self’ who only knew how to ‘diaper babies and make white sauce’), her incessant drive to uncover ‘another truth’ has everything to do with the cycle described by Wittgenstein: ‘When you bump against the limits of your own honesty it is as though your thoughts get into a whirlpool, an infinite regress: You can say what you like, it takes you no further.’ Sexton's poetry is fixated on this language-game: she was, I think, both totally seduced by the Oedipal narrative of discovering ‘the awful truth,’ and totally aware of the impossibility of such a venture.”

—Maggie Nelson

Skirting

Break out the ego cleats

my wife is lightning:

tomorrow’s surf board.

O stanzaic nation

wake the blue, brilliant

crescendo of French horns

anointed.

A free double feature

about Death Valley,

she eternals me.

In the lens there is a great distance

lounging

beautiful as a volunteer.

Demure, all nerve

the farthest music still audible,

we hail a taxi made of bamboo.

Here (in the Cathedral of Now)

you
cannot hear the breezes
in the
belfries of your heart
still
submerged,
from your last vacation
On the brand new phone
called Life, we are getting nearer.
In the deli of the soul
My ineffable melodies
once so trivial,


who knows what time it is?

The television is a
candle


heartaches
with the centrifugal force of an
afternoon


the wall
swims through your


feather.

In late 2007 Fantagraphics is going to publish the story that I've been working on with Joe Kimball! I need to get busy. I'm behind the times when it comes to my knowledge of R. Crumb, Peter Bagge, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Dan Clowes, Joe Sacco, Chris Ware, Jessica Abel, Sophie Crumb, and Charles Burns. I know that Chris Ware lives in Oak Park. Clowes's GhostWorld is really super. Are comics the medium of the future? Here's a panel from the story.

Brodey

The Jim Brodey book Heart of Breath (Hard Press) contains some great, loose passages. There's a desperate, lonely quality to Brodey's poetry that makes me wonder if Brodey was nearly like the Lew Welch of the 2nd generation of New York School poets.


Bob Kaufman

Originator of the dense thought
Made lyrical this solitary
Wanderer of Brain St.

Succumbed to infinity
By bleak choice
Nominated in bliss

To rule a purple void
Wanderer of Brain St.
The calm & quiet explosions

Of natural chaos
Calm & exciting mentor
Of evangelical stroll

He the parent of his own body
Flesh of silence grilled
In an honesty only humans ignore

-JB

I'm traveling to the fine state of Wisconsin to give a reading tonight, which had me thinking about all the readings [David Trinidad, Mark Tardi, Brenda Cardenas, Antler, Raymond Bianchi, Kerri Sonnenberg, Paul Hoover, Ron Padgett, Eliot Weinberger, Brenda Iijima, Maxine Chernoff, Garin Cycholl, Daniel Borzutzky, Krista Franklin, Mary Margaret Sloan, Susie Timmons, Clayton Eshleman, Wanda Coleman, Gerald Stern, Philip Jenks, Simone Muench, Ira Cohen, Sheila E. Murphy, Gabriel Gudding, Joshua Beckman, Diane Wakoski, Tim Yu, Simon Pettet, Michael McClure, John Tipton, Roberto Harrison, Chris Glomski, Adam Fieled, Aaron Belz, Catherine Daly, Steve Halle, Robert Creeley, Vincent Katz, Duriel Harris, Daniel Nester, Douglas Rothschild, Kenneth Koch, Nathalie Stephens, Sterling Plumpp, Peter O’Leary, etc.] I've attended over the years. I've awarded these poets superlatives, but you can cast your own vote.

Most fashionable…Antler
Longest asides…Diane Wakoski, Robert Creeley
Most cryptic…Philip Jenks
Funniest…Ron Padgett, Aaron Belz
Sexiest…Gerald Stern (yes, kidding)
Most mathematical…Mark Tardi
Beastiest…Michael McClure
Grouchiest…Kenneth Koch
Most Likely to Succeed…Tim Yu
Psychedelic Award…Ira Cohen