British Islamophobes Go Berserk
29.8.10
28.8.10
In The Mines Of Mexico They Weep
Now there shall be a man cohered out of tumult and chaos . . . . the elder encourages the younger and shows him how . . . they two shall launch off fearlessly together till the new world fits an orbit for itself and looks unabashed on the lesser orbits of the stars and sweeps through the ceaseless rings and shall never be quiet again. - Walt Whitman, in the preface to Leaves of Grass.
In a twilight pilgrimmage
via these frost cracked streets
close to the Campbell shaft
full of our fathers breath and breathing,
we unfold our own cloth on the Fourth of July,
one crease at a time on the crags
near the ballpark in Warren, down from
the Loma Linda and the old mine-boss housing.
Flashlights dangle from the hands
of children. The night catches us deeply
unaware, but they don't think like that,
they are that,
think more about the starting time,
and the firemen on top of the dumps
who signal the end by waving lanterns,
how they crave that sort of thing
up there on those mountains of slag
thinking, as ours do, of the breath
of canaries and candles deep in those old holes.
A persistent and unheard whimper
fills space on this weary-
happy picnic in July or maybe
it only fills the weariness with something else.
I clasp a child tight in my arms,
a finger closes the tender wound,
hush hush, our waiting begins, we settle down.
Our Fourth of July is in sweet tortuous ruins
thrown in a trash bin of appetites lost.
We've run from one excitement to another
Now there shall be a man cohered out of tumult and chaos . . . . the elder encourages the younger and shows him how . . . they two shall launch off fearlessly together till the new world fits an orbit for itself and looks unabashed on the lesser orbits of the stars and sweeps through the ceaseless rings and shall never be quiet again. - Walt Whitman, in the preface to Leaves of Grass.
In a twilight pilgrimmage
via these frost cracked streets
close to the Campbell shaft
full of our fathers breath and breathing,
we unfold our own cloth on the Fourth of July,
one crease at a time on the crags
near the ballpark in Warren, down from
the Loma Linda and the old mine-boss housing.
Flashlights dangle from the hands
of children. The night catches us deeply
unaware, but they don't think like that,
they are that,
think more about the starting time,
and the firemen on top of the dumps
who signal the end by waving lanterns,
how they crave that sort of thing
up there on those mountains of slag
thinking, as ours do, of the breath
of canaries and candles deep in those old holes.
A persistent and unheard whimper
fills space on this weary-
happy picnic in July or maybe
it only fills the weariness with something else.
I clasp a child tight in my arms,
a finger closes the tender wound,
hush hush, our waiting begins, we settle down.
Our Fourth of July is in sweet tortuous ruins
thrown in a trash bin of appetites lost.
We've run from one excitement to another
races, parades, contests, reunions
thankful for a gentle sun, there was no burning
and there will be few scars if any.
The miles between this and that
contract like stars in heaven where
light reaches us much too late
and we as well, get there accordingly.
This is the anniversary of all
that's happened here
for each body on this ragged old quilt,
each poor soul and dumbstruck
face tipped up toward the sky.
The silence between one person and the next
is only the truth where commentary has failed.
I look around me one last time
before the sun takes all the light away -
count the faces I own, erase what's left,
a small town thing to do on an occasion like this.
The darkness is complete and the fireworks begin.
My daughter tells me, during one of the beautiful
interims which goes like this:
thankful for a gentle sun, there was no burning
and there will be few scars if any.
The miles between this and that
contract like stars in heaven where
light reaches us much too late
and we as well, get there accordingly.
This is the anniversary of all
that's happened here
for each body on this ragged old quilt,
each poor soul and dumbstruck
face tipped up toward the sky.
The silence between one person and the next
is only the truth where commentary has failed.
I look around me one last time
before the sun takes all the light away -
count the faces I own, erase what's left,
a small town thing to do on an occasion like this.
The darkness is complete and the fireworks begin.
My daughter tells me, during one of the beautiful
interims which goes like this:
ooh, aah, wonderful! then another interim and another,
one day the sun will die
as copper sulphur spark comets flower dark,
my father scatters in the sky,
my father scatters in the sky,
Oh! Mufasa, talk to me!
First draft sometime 03/06 however the sketch for this poem much earlier...probably in the mid 90's.
25.8.10
Bisbee Blues Fest, September 25, 2010
Artist Videos here:
https://thebisbeebluesfestival.com/artist-videos/
Artist Videos here:
https://thebisbeebluesfestival.com/artist-videos/
19.8.10
Border Patrol Suicides Skyrocket
"It's unclear exactly why the men ended their lives. Few of them left notes. And the Border Patrol seems somewhat at odds with itself over the issue. The agency declined to provide details of the suicides and would only confirm the number of deaths since 2008. But the AP uncovered the names, locations and dates of the suicides by reviewing public records, including those obtained from medical examiners through the Freedom of Information Act, and speaking with people close to the Border Patrol."
Read between the lines wudja? I guarantee you, none of them were poets.
Alfombra Roja
-an explanation of the Cuban Necktie and the Disneyland Similacra of the Underworld of the Sicarios.
"Julio Scherer García, doyen of independent journalism in Mexico, recently published an illuminating book: La reina del Pacífico. For months, Scherer visited Sandra Ávila Beltrán in the penitentiary where she has been held since September 28, 2007. Presented to the media as if she were the “Queen of the South” from Arturo Pérez Reverte’s novel, Ávila has all the necessary traits to captivate the public imagination. She is a beautiful, strong, defiant woman, imprisoned by a weak head of state who broke his bones falling off a bicycle (a kindergartner’s accident), and who is further diminished by the suits he wears (on him they all look extra-large). The Queen was irresistible prey for a president with small feet. Displaying her to the public is part of a larger propaganda strategy that has done nothing to diminish the brutal impact of the drug trade."
"According to what she tells Scherer, Ávila’s involvement in crime has been less direct and in a certain way more alarming than what her jailers suggest. At 44, she has never known a life outside the drug trade. She talks about the industry the way Sofia Coppola might talk about film. She had open lines of communication to all the noteworthy capos, was kidnapped by a delinquent boyfriend, has been married to two narcos (one a corrupt police commander), underwent the kidnapping of her adolescent son, has watched people die at her feet, and has had at her disposal all the parties, all the jewels, all the cars, all the mansions (each occupied only for a couple of weeks)—every excess purchasable for cash. Although she studied journalism for a semester at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, she was not familiar with Julio Scherer, the country’s best-known journalist. For forty-four years she lived in a world apart, like the inmates of Biosphere 2.
-an explanation of the Cuban Necktie and the Disneyland Similacra of the Underworld of the Sicarios.
"Julio Scherer García, doyen of independent journalism in Mexico, recently published an illuminating book: La reina del Pacífico. For months, Scherer visited Sandra Ávila Beltrán in the penitentiary where she has been held since September 28, 2007. Presented to the media as if she were the “Queen of the South” from Arturo Pérez Reverte’s novel, Ávila has all the necessary traits to captivate the public imagination. She is a beautiful, strong, defiant woman, imprisoned by a weak head of state who broke his bones falling off a bicycle (a kindergartner’s accident), and who is further diminished by the suits he wears (on him they all look extra-large). The Queen was irresistible prey for a president with small feet. Displaying her to the public is part of a larger propaganda strategy that has done nothing to diminish the brutal impact of the drug trade."
"According to what she tells Scherer, Ávila’s involvement in crime has been less direct and in a certain way more alarming than what her jailers suggest. At 44, she has never known a life outside the drug trade. She talks about the industry the way Sofia Coppola might talk about film. She had open lines of communication to all the noteworthy capos, was kidnapped by a delinquent boyfriend, has been married to two narcos (one a corrupt police commander), underwent the kidnapping of her adolescent son, has watched people die at her feet, and has had at her disposal all the parties, all the jewels, all the cars, all the mansions (each occupied only for a couple of weeks)—every excess purchasable for cash. Although she studied journalism for a semester at the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara, she was not familiar with Julio Scherer, the country’s best-known journalist. For forty-four years she lived in a world apart, like the inmates of Biosphere 2.
The landscape has been transformed by the investment of dirty money. Any Mexican city features plenty of locations to film the death of a capo or a police commander. There, the ideal restaurant: a plastic and neon château where waitresses in miniskirts serve brontosaurus ribs, next to a Mercedes-Benz dealership and a hotel that looks like a mosque with Plexiglas cupolas. Places like Torreón or Mérida, which until recently had reputations as calm cities (because it was assumed that the narcos who built their homes there didn’t use them for “work”) have now also become the settings for executions.
In the new environment of fear, 10,000 companies offer security services, and close to 3,000 people have had a chip the size of a grain of rice implanted under their skin so that they can be easily located in the event of kidnapping. "
18.8.10
17.8.10
John Latta contemplates the Mentor/Manatee existence
http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2010/08/roberto-bolano-william-faulkner.html
Two Latta Paintings of Words with fine last lines and appropriateness. Poems that teach the poem about itself and what could be better than that!
http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2010/08/roberto-bolano-william-faulkner.html
Two Latta Paintings of Words with fine last lines and appropriateness. Poems that teach the poem about itself and what could be better than that!
Not my gospell Squall, my
Arch and holler, my sacerdotal
Imperium, my squawk, my Gun. -John Latta from Cold and Arch in Typo Mag #3
16.8.10
Sign of the Times
"Mobbing" is the term that has been coined for an increasingly common phenomenon in primarily Western employment environments that leads to divorce, unemployment and it has been documented in at least one study that 12% of all suicides experienced a 'mobbing' event shortly before they took their own life.
http://chronicle.com/article/What-Killed-Kevin-Morrissey-/123902/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Suicide at prestigious Virginia Quarterly Review stirs concern over workplace bullying:
Family members and people close to the review say Mr. Morrissey, the review's managing editor, had been complaining to the university about workplace bullying by his boss, Ted Genoways. But, they contend, the institution did virtually nothing to help. "Kevin had been to the university as recently as the Monday before the Friday he died," says a person who worked for the review. "The university had tools to step in and mediate, and they didn't." Some close to the situation say that in the days before the death, they even warned the university that Mr. Morrissey, who suffered from serious depression, might commit suicide."
"They say Mr. Genoways, in turn, began cutting Mr. Morrissey out of key decisions and distancing himself from the office, refusing to answer staff members' e-mail messages, shirking many of his day-to-day duties, and dumping most of the work on his small staff. "The whole staff felt Ted took all the credit and did none of the work," said the person who worked for the review, adding that Mr. Genoways spent most of his time at VQR "scrambling to be a star." Mr. Genoways has been away from the office on a Guggenheim fellowship in recent months, but he still has been responsible for making sure the journal's issues are finished on time."
"Mobbing" is the term that has been coined for an increasingly common phenomenon in primarily Western employment environments that leads to divorce, unemployment and it has been documented in at least one study that 12% of all suicides experienced a 'mobbing' event shortly before they took their own life.
http://chronicle.com/article/What-Killed-Kevin-Morrissey-/123902/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Suicide at prestigious Virginia Quarterly Review stirs concern over workplace bullying:
Family members and people close to the review say Mr. Morrissey, the review's managing editor, had been complaining to the university about workplace bullying by his boss, Ted Genoways. But, they contend, the institution did virtually nothing to help. "Kevin had been to the university as recently as the Monday before the Friday he died," says a person who worked for the review. "The university had tools to step in and mediate, and they didn't." Some close to the situation say that in the days before the death, they even warned the university that Mr. Morrissey, who suffered from serious depression, might commit suicide."
"They say Mr. Genoways, in turn, began cutting Mr. Morrissey out of key decisions and distancing himself from the office, refusing to answer staff members' e-mail messages, shirking many of his day-to-day duties, and dumping most of the work on his small staff. "The whole staff felt Ted took all the credit and did none of the work," said the person who worked for the review, adding that Mr. Genoways spent most of his time at VQR "scrambling to be a star." Mr. Genoways has been away from the office on a Guggenheim fellowship in recent months, but he still has been responsible for making sure the journal's issues are finished on time."
12.8.10
Ah Ramadan Kareem and it is
Evidence Reveals Direct Israeli Involvement
in the 2005 "Valentine's Day Assassination" of Rafik Hariri
in Beirut Lebanon. Simultaneously, other evidence was provided that demonstrates the way Hezbollah managed to capture at least 9 IDF commandoes several years prior in the village of Anjar which in turn demonstrates the advanced technology available that has enabled the world's most beloved resistance army to beat not one superpower but two and not once but thrice.
Footage intercepted by Hezbollah directly from Israeli sources embedded in the IDF and shows Israel directly monitoring the route upon which Hariri was to take when his safety warning system (the most high tech in the world and obtained from Israel to boot) was jammed. The evidence has been surpressed by Hezbollah due to the fact that it would weaken their security and the security of Lebaon if Israel knew their capabilities to intercept this data. Now, because the UN tribunal which was stacked in order to blame Hezbollah has begun, Hezbollah had no choice. It will however generate even more support now at this midnight hour for the legitimacy and rights not only of Hezbollah to retain their weapons for deterrence but to eventually transmute those into weapons and philosophy shared by the mostly Shi'i Lebanese Army.
Jews the biggest victims of the hate crime known as Zionism
Two million plus hits and counting ....gee....as many hits as Silliman has received in a lifetime
"Multiple Subjectivities" versus the exploitation of women's clothing, the role of the Hollywood script in abducting and unveiling not only Arab/Oriental women but women in general. A very interesting point is made about the script of the inferiority of various cultural dress codes from the inferiority of the Victorian era and it's collision with the scantily clad sub Saharan/North African female versus the inverse relationship now in which American scantily clad women are considered not only superior but exceptionally so when compared to their poor muslim sisters.
Evidence Reveals Direct Israeli Involvement
in the 2005 "Valentine's Day Assassination" of Rafik Hariri
in Beirut Lebanon. Simultaneously, other evidence was provided that demonstrates the way Hezbollah managed to capture at least 9 IDF commandoes several years prior in the village of Anjar which in turn demonstrates the advanced technology available that has enabled the world's most beloved resistance army to beat not one superpower but two and not once but thrice.
Footage intercepted by Hezbollah directly from Israeli sources embedded in the IDF and shows Israel directly monitoring the route upon which Hariri was to take when his safety warning system (the most high tech in the world and obtained from Israel to boot) was jammed. The evidence has been surpressed by Hezbollah due to the fact that it would weaken their security and the security of Lebaon if Israel knew their capabilities to intercept this data. Now, because the UN tribunal which was stacked in order to blame Hezbollah has begun, Hezbollah had no choice. It will however generate even more support now at this midnight hour for the legitimacy and rights not only of Hezbollah to retain their weapons for deterrence but to eventually transmute those into weapons and philosophy shared by the mostly Shi'i Lebanese Army.
Jews the biggest victims of the hate crime known as Zionism
Two million plus hits and counting ....gee....as many hits as Silliman has received in a lifetime
"Multiple Subjectivities" versus the exploitation of women's clothing, the role of the Hollywood script in abducting and unveiling not only Arab/Oriental women but women in general. A very interesting point is made about the script of the inferiority of various cultural dress codes from the inferiority of the Victorian era and it's collision with the scantily clad sub Saharan/North African female versus the inverse relationship now in which American scantily clad women are considered not only superior but exceptionally so when compared to their poor muslim sisters.
40,000 rockets and counting
Finally. Israel formally implicated in the Valentine's Day assassination of ex Prime Minister of Lebanon. About time I say, about time. The crater was so obviously caused by an aerial bombing and a person would have to be blind to have missed that. Or on the Israeli payroll. And apparently about a 100 people were on that payroll, many of them high ranking officials in the security apparatus in Lebanon, the army as well as employees in the telecommunications industry.http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=118133#axzz0wMoUghsV
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations discusses the unbelievable (and apparently unpronouncable for the chairman who is a bit tongue tied) increase in strength and importance of Hezbollah in the region and the world (as a proxy of Iran of course, yadayada). The guy is hopelessly biased towards Israel and against the Lebanese people who it is well known by now, support not only the resistance but the actual and legitimate political party that represents a variety of sects not solely the Shia muslims of Lebanon.
http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=de51c6a4-5056-a032-52bc-dcf1f13de7ae
"Unless Hezbollah is defeated completely, in detail", well yes Doctor Norton. And it can't be defeated. Game over. And you are most welcome at bayt Sweid in Haris any time you care to stop in for a cup of tea. My pleasure.
11.8.10
Eloquence Found in Trash Can Called Chicago
Thanks to Micheal Rothenberg who kindly remembers me with each new Big Bridge issue, I'd like to suggest further reading for those who are too important to watch TV over at Silliman's house without really knowing why they are there doing so anymore and Ron practicing some form of idealized business communication much like the newest on the scene known as rimming, Reflective Information Management. The following thesis cum essay cum review hails from one Linda Rogers who I know nothing about. I do say though, the woman can write, think and dictate promises to me all she wants to (kicking that ole die hard Perloff right to the curb), promises about the political kingdom come we find ourselves in nowadays. The Cuban story which anymore is the story of dissidentism backwards and from the rear view mirror in poetry which no doubt would please my former colleague and editor Circles Robinson who now runs The Havana Times (last account anyway) from his home somewhere in Latinia, where he has been exiled for who knows how long. I found this while looking for something about Thax Douglas a troubadour in the highest sense of the word who writes poems for Rock Bands and gets into concerts for free. I happened upon a little Thax chapbook at the thrift store (who on earth would throw out a book of poetry especially from such an underground and persuasive metaphysical metaphorist?)....and began reading through it and imagining all the young boys I've had around lately who would benefit from such a magnificent and humble gift as a first edition signed copy of Rock Band Portraiture from their cougar mamma poet in residence, chief cook and bottle washer too.
POETRY AND THE SOCIAL GOSPEL
The Captivity and Liberation of Language
"I knew a child who lived on the wild side and painted pictures with no borders between his phenomenal and spirit worlds. His only rule was the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
He then encountered an elementary school teacher who moonlighted as a free soul bounty hunter. She would break his spirit and prove that his indigo wisdom and difficulty decoding language was waywardness. By the end of grade one, the boy was drawing heavy lines around every character; this is the church, this is the steeple… "
Thanks to Micheal Rothenberg who kindly remembers me with each new Big Bridge issue, I'd like to suggest further reading for those who are too important to watch TV over at Silliman's house without really knowing why they are there doing so anymore and Ron practicing some form of idealized business communication much like the newest on the scene known as rimming, Reflective Information Management. The following thesis cum essay cum review hails from one Linda Rogers who I know nothing about. I do say though, the woman can write, think and dictate promises to me all she wants to (kicking that ole die hard Perloff right to the curb), promises about the political kingdom come we find ourselves in nowadays. The Cuban story which anymore is the story of dissidentism backwards and from the rear view mirror in poetry which no doubt would please my former colleague and editor Circles Robinson who now runs The Havana Times (last account anyway) from his home somewhere in Latinia, where he has been exiled for who knows how long. I found this while looking for something about Thax Douglas a troubadour in the highest sense of the word who writes poems for Rock Bands and gets into concerts for free. I happened upon a little Thax chapbook at the thrift store (who on earth would throw out a book of poetry especially from such an underground and persuasive metaphysical metaphorist?)....and began reading through it and imagining all the young boys I've had around lately who would benefit from such a magnificent and humble gift as a first edition signed copy of Rock Band Portraiture from their cougar mamma poet in residence, chief cook and bottle washer too.
POETRY AND THE SOCIAL GOSPEL
The Captivity and Liberation of Language
"I knew a child who lived on the wild side and painted pictures with no borders between his phenomenal and spirit worlds. His only rule was the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
He then encountered an elementary school teacher who moonlighted as a free soul bounty hunter. She would break his spirit and prove that his indigo wisdom and difficulty decoding language was waywardness. By the end of grade one, the boy was drawing heavy lines around every character; this is the church, this is the steeple… "
9.8.10
Internationalism versus Globalism in Literature
Is there a difference between a tourist and a tourist?
-"Thanks to your visit" A sign outside of the Maronite town in South Lebanon Bint Jubail, the site of the most recent battle with Zionism which to many people represents the reason why this essay is profoundly unenlightening. Thanks to YOUR visit Israel, English speakers do not even realize the word for earth is Arz.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=239464&commentsubmit=true#lastcomment
Ange Mlinko writes of her short stay in Beirut during a contested election. Unfortunately she gives the impression of gunmen on every block when in fact she was situated literally, within a block or two of the "Capitol Building". So yes, there are typically "machine gun armed" soldiers near any structure in the WORLD in which heads of state meet to discuss gas prices.
And, just a little note, the Quran is spelled with a Q and a U. With a Q. With a U. The anunciation of a short o followed by the vowel a sans silent e, inevitably produces the bastardization which has been disseminated in the English speaking media as "Koran" (a very unpretty sound) instead of the dove like Quran. Hear it? Stop spreading this type of mistake by stopping the spread of such stereotyped sound patterns in 'our' culture. I say 'our' but truly, the Western culture is no longer my home. Far from it, it's a tour of a church and a valley.
Is there a difference between a tourist and a tourist?
-"Thanks to your visit" A sign outside of the Maronite town in South Lebanon Bint Jubail, the site of the most recent battle with Zionism which to many people represents the reason why this essay is profoundly unenlightening. Thanks to YOUR visit Israel, English speakers do not even realize the word for earth is Arz.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=239464&commentsubmit=true#lastcomment
Ange Mlinko writes of her short stay in Beirut during a contested election. Unfortunately she gives the impression of gunmen on every block when in fact she was situated literally, within a block or two of the "Capitol Building". So yes, there are typically "machine gun armed" soldiers near any structure in the WORLD in which heads of state meet to discuss gas prices.
She describes 'fanatical' Arabic language patterns.....hmm. The Lebanese are very anal retentive people Ms. Mlinko. Very. Do not mistake their dialect for the less exact (not) classical Arabic. The Lebanese have improved the di-glossial (rather than 'fanatical as she puts it) language (fuhsa), improving it with a rather franco-phile flourish. As English speakers who have no classical intent left within our mutt-speak, we fail to understand the beauty of classical wonders exposed to cultural wonders which produce dialects:
"It’s dispiriting, I wrote in my journal, to have everything reduce to sectarianism—even the colloquial Arabic of my language class is tainted, I learn. Ah, he must be Muslim, said Miriam’s mother as she listened to me recite the phrases he had taught us for greetings and farewells. “Some of that is more literary Arabic.” “We say mneha, not aal, for ‘I’m fine,’ and we don’t say bihatrak, we say au revoir.” Then Miriam characterized the concern with the purity of Arabic as “fanatic”: at bottom it is about the sanctity of the language the Koran is written in. Fanatic too, she thought, was the insistence of her English professor last year that she write e-mail in formal language, not texting abbreviations. Language is for communication, she insisted, so what’s the harm if “you are” turns into “u r”?"
Mon Dieu!
It has literally nothing to do with religion so much as it has to do with a professor who hopes to teach a student the complicated and important role language has in all Pan Arab societies in which newspapers and television broadcast 'media Arabic' which is a close relative of the Egyptian Arabic (thought to be the most exact and teachable) in comparison to Fuhsa itself or 'Quran' Arabic. Educators only come in two varieties in the Levant, purists and charlatans and they cannot be identified by their out-of-date plaid coats...not usually anyway. There is a note of preservation in the discussion of 'classical' languages...you know..the PC concept or rather notion of the loss of culture through the watering down of same said 'languages'. Modern Arabic or rather, Lebanese has been infected with mutt-speak and there are no words for some ideas like 'television' and 'telephone' not to mention there is no P in the alphabet and Pepsi becomes Bebsi.And, just a little note, the Quran is spelled with a Q and a U. With a Q. With a U. The anunciation of a short o followed by the vowel a sans silent e, inevitably produces the bastardization which has been disseminated in the English speaking media as "Koran" (a very unpretty sound) instead of the dove like Quran. Hear it? Stop spreading this type of mistake by stopping the spread of such stereotyped sound patterns in 'our' culture. I say 'our' but truly, the Western culture is no longer my home. Far from it, it's a tour of a church and a valley.
"Mogrehbi" or Moroccan has become a buzz word in this valley called Americana by the way. Mogrehb 'jumaa' and 'djumma' is like genie to jinn is to djinn. It is a difference between alphabets, not dialects. If it were, the description would be one of Mogrehbi as being nearly impenetrable to most Arabic speakers (be they Lebanese, Egyptian or Oxford type-trainees such as yourself). It is spoken in North Africa all the way up into the Gizan area of Saudi Arabia by the Saudis themselves...the poor ones in that rural and mountainous zone so chock full of types of people who look more like Laplanders than they do inner city American school educated Saudi citizens. So of course he was confused...you were asking if the same word was different.
The name for university (Jumaa) translates most closely to "school of thought" as in, SoQ poetry or the like. It is an ethos minded word and is applied in a most religious sense to the five Madhabs in Islam. (Four if you ask the Sunnites who deny Shia their rightful place in Islamic history.) More importantly, it should be pointed out that the generic terms such as 'madrasa' have been taken wholly out of context in the West to mean 'terrorist' academies when in fact madrasa literally translates to school, elementary to be exact or any sub-level institution that falls more on the three RRRs than it does the philology scale (jumaa).
Even more interesting is the origin (first attested to a Latin origin) of the word TUTOR. It's actual origin is much more likely to be the same as madrasa...that much feared category of terrorese. Tudros (poor transliteration on my part) which is Arabic for "to study" or 'you study' and the root of maderroos (teacher), like all familiar groups of words in Arabic is highly relational to the issue of the transference of information which is headed off with 'da-ra-sa' (my son's best guess at the root letters). As with all Arabic root words, there are three consonants which are then taken and manipulated via the use of phoneticized vowel sounds to mean: teacher, school, learn, etc. Unlike English in which the word for school has literally nothing to do with the word to teach.
And the last paragraph is priceless....a Mohameddan is mentioned....are you uh stammering starlet like a Mohameddan? Yes, it is best to keep people guessing in Beirut but if you have to guess......perhaps you ought to rethink posting essays about it. Or maybe not, I do not mean to sound ungrateful on my own behalf or behalf of the poor Lebanese. It's so nice to see the little country that thinks it is big look a little bigger even if its through the eyes of a poorly trained observer. Next time you get the chance, ask him if he is Druze or Habashi. That will get you into the conversation you hope to have regardless of what he is or isn't. You'll find out about your spy schools and hostage places.
Furthermore, if investigating the nature of the exile (Beirut and Liban happen to be a city and a country of natural exiles, all of them escaping some dynasty or t'other) poet, one would hope a citation of Darwish be present in the actual discussion (but this essay was not a discussion so much as it was an honorary and complacent acknowledgement, literally a postcard with a poet in it feeling poetry like). A few lines from Darwish might have set the piece up brilliantly because Darwish was an external internal exile who is mistaken by the un-informed as an 'Arab' or rather, a 'resident' Arab and spokeman. Much like I am an exile in my own country, there are several levels to exilism beyond the merely personal which Ms. Mlinko portrays here in her essay that likely took less than an hour or two to compose from a few journal entries.
"Beirut is a city of gold and fatigue." or "Beirut, our tent, our star." Something along those lines anyway from a rather dated interview given when I too, was just a 'tourist' rather than what I am now, an exile in my own hometown.
On Beveled Glass and Annas
5.8.10
The Boxer C- Male Rebellion
I have a bedridden patient who, as it turns out, is a fabulous but relatively unknown poet. I discovered this on one of my weekly visits to her home (to change things, draw serum, write notes about her survival and looming potential for not surviving) when I mentioned that I was happy that Black July was over. In Black July we lost a couple of nurses to life forces and I had to take over their case loads as well as continue my own. It was horrendous, the paycheck was quite large. I told her that I was a poet and needed the time to moonlight again. And what do you know, she said she is a poet and that day I asked to go through her archives (in a bedside drawer)...mostly written before she began to deteriorate and most of the pieces originate in the liberalism of the Beatles generation. She relates that she used to be involved in Performance Poetry. I didn't expect to find what I found. Not at all. A real poet, a good one. Since that little visit, we've been having readings at her bedside. The first week of course was her work (I had to read it as her eyes aren't so good anymore and she interjected points at which she expected the audience to participate in her performances), the second week I read from my own (Odes and Fight Song) and this week I brought a book I knew she would just love by CAConrad, The Book of Frank and she did. Her favorite poet is Maxine here and I did not have any knowledge of Ms. Kingston so here it is.....what a funny lady. Oh life is delightful and perhaps I will be able to find a way to get my friend published again.....she so deserves it and has no ability to participate in a war except with death anymore. Listen to the poem about the Elephant Seals and it so fits the situation. No wonder my lady loves Maxine. No wonder at all.
I have a bedridden patient who, as it turns out, is a fabulous but relatively unknown poet. I discovered this on one of my weekly visits to her home (to change things, draw serum, write notes about her survival and looming potential for not surviving) when I mentioned that I was happy that Black July was over. In Black July we lost a couple of nurses to life forces and I had to take over their case loads as well as continue my own. It was horrendous, the paycheck was quite large. I told her that I was a poet and needed the time to moonlight again. And what do you know, she said she is a poet and that day I asked to go through her archives (in a bedside drawer)...mostly written before she began to deteriorate and most of the pieces originate in the liberalism of the Beatles generation. She relates that she used to be involved in Performance Poetry. I didn't expect to find what I found. Not at all. A real poet, a good one. Since that little visit, we've been having readings at her bedside. The first week of course was her work (I had to read it as her eyes aren't so good anymore and she interjected points at which she expected the audience to participate in her performances), the second week I read from my own (Odes and Fight Song) and this week I brought a book I knew she would just love by CAConrad, The Book of Frank and she did. Her favorite poet is Maxine here and I did not have any knowledge of Ms. Kingston so here it is.....what a funny lady. Oh life is delightful and perhaps I will be able to find a way to get my friend published again.....she so deserves it and has no ability to participate in a war except with death anymore. Listen to the poem about the Elephant Seals and it so fits the situation. No wonder my lady loves Maxine. No wonder at all.
Notes on the Boxer Rebellion
Man is a wonderful creature; he sees through the layers of fat (eyes), hears through a bone (ears) and speaks through a lump of flesh (tongue). =Emir Ali ibn Abi Taleb, Commander of the Faithful, May Allah be pleased with him, from the ever wonderful and sublime, Peak of Eloquence (Najul al Balagha)
With each one of these instantaneous purviews, I find myself more intrigued with what this earth shattering occurrence means to 'people' (if you could call poets that). It's so bad that I haven't even watched Nancy Grace in two days! This, believe it or not, is more important to me than missing children. Hint: Someone please do the milk carton graphic for me pulease?
This has got to be one of the most brilliantly funny though. It says to me or at least I think it says, Has Ron lost his marbles?
Or it might be saying, is Ron Silliman pointing a finger at all of the er...friends...who communicate via his comments box...and they deserve so much blame and are so utterly blameworthy as to warrant a cut off of electrical power to their slums?
http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2010/08/he-that-gathereth-togither-nothing.html
The gods and goddesses, who attend to the spurious and foolish (and all the accompanying -fuel’d antics)’d probably conclude Jessica Smith and Ron Silliman a match made at heaven’s gate, that glory-portal to exaggeration and deceit. (Like Dylan’s Desolation Row, nobody knows if the aim’s to enter or exit.) Smith, sounding the alarums: “poetry’s youth is being trampled, discouraged and undermined with a potential long-term detrimental effect on Poetry.” Or: “If a talented young poet like Massey is turned off of writing for even a few days or weeks as a result of being skewered by a few robotic-hearted cyberbullies, even that brief interlude is a loss for Poetry.” (Great wringing of hands, tearing out hair, &c. in a maenad frenzy for Poetry.) I suspect that high-mind’d rhetorical claptrap’s a direct descendent of Silliman’s own “tactical” excesses—just how many extravagant claims’s he made? (Something I entirely suspect’s a disservice particularly to younger poets, stymieing or stultifying one at some “minimal” point (de repère) rather than spurring one onwards.) Statements like Silliman’s “I routinely reject a half dozen comments every day that are sexist, homophobic or anti-Semitic. Moderating the comments stream at times makes me want to take a shower” smack of the kind of “unverifiable” governments routinely use to prop up security arguments. (Silliman’s odd brand of “govspeak” is evident, too, in awkward phrases like “gender rebalancing” and “the self-destructive credo of the poet-as-addict.”)
And I might add...you have just got to take a look at the photo at the bottom of that wonderfully wonderful acerbic wordfest with the caption:
Ron Silliman Caught Stowing Public Comments in a Bag
Man is a wonderful creature; he sees through the layers of fat (eyes), hears through a bone (ears) and speaks through a lump of flesh (tongue). =Emir Ali ibn Abi Taleb, Commander of the Faithful, May Allah be pleased with him, from the ever wonderful and sublime, Peak of Eloquence (Najul al Balagha)
With each one of these instantaneous purviews, I find myself more intrigued with what this earth shattering occurrence means to 'people' (if you could call poets that). It's so bad that I haven't even watched Nancy Grace in two days! This, believe it or not, is more important to me than missing children. Hint: Someone please do the milk carton graphic for me pulease?
This has got to be one of the most brilliantly funny though. It says to me or at least I think it says, Has Ron lost his marbles?
Or it might be saying, is Ron Silliman pointing a finger at all of the er...friends...who communicate via his comments box...and they deserve so much blame and are so utterly blameworthy as to warrant a cut off of electrical power to their slums?
http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2010/08/he-that-gathereth-togither-nothing.html
The gods and goddesses, who attend to the spurious and foolish (and all the accompanying -fuel’d antics)’d probably conclude Jessica Smith and Ron Silliman a match made at heaven’s gate, that glory-portal to exaggeration and deceit. (Like Dylan’s Desolation Row, nobody knows if the aim’s to enter or exit.) Smith, sounding the alarums: “poetry’s youth is being trampled, discouraged and undermined with a potential long-term detrimental effect on Poetry.” Or: “If a talented young poet like Massey is turned off of writing for even a few days or weeks as a result of being skewered by a few robotic-hearted cyberbullies, even that brief interlude is a loss for Poetry.” (Great wringing of hands, tearing out hair, &c. in a maenad frenzy for Poetry.) I suspect that high-mind’d rhetorical claptrap’s a direct descendent of Silliman’s own “tactical” excesses—just how many extravagant claims’s he made? (Something I entirely suspect’s a disservice particularly to younger poets, stymieing or stultifying one at some “minimal” point (de repère) rather than spurring one onwards.) Statements like Silliman’s “I routinely reject a half dozen comments every day that are sexist, homophobic or anti-Semitic. Moderating the comments stream at times makes me want to take a shower” smack of the kind of “unverifiable” governments routinely use to prop up security arguments. (Silliman’s odd brand of “govspeak” is evident, too, in awkward phrases like “gender rebalancing” and “the self-destructive credo of the poet-as-addict.”)
And I might add...you have just got to take a look at the photo at the bottom of that wonderfully wonderful acerbic wordfest with the caption:
Ron Silliman Caught Stowing Public Comments in a Bag
The Case of Jughead and Veronica versus Nagasaki, the Jim Behrle chronicles
A Kent Johnson flashback to the days when disruptive behavior was the norm or at least, the norm at Silliman's house. The party is over. The world is now a much better place thanks to Ron Silliman.
http://www.skankypossum.com/pouch/archives/000099.html
"Yet what is perhaps most astonishing about all this is the following: Behrle carries out his activities with hardly a peep of objection from the "politically progressive" post-avant poetry community. He even has, in fact, the open endorsement and admiration of some of the most prominent bloggers (not least a few who are fond of engaging in solemn ruminations about ethics and the building of tolerance and community). What I suggested somewhat fancifully in one of my postings on Silliman’s blog bears saying again in more straightforward form: The tacit acceptance on the part of such a large and supposedly "socially sensitive" community of such abusive, manipulative, and figuratively violent conduct is disturbing to say the least. I don’t mean that all concerned approve of Behrle’s behavior: there is no doubt (and I know of more than a few examples) that some are intimidated into silence by his wildly vengeful histrionics. But beyond the silence, there are, as I said, prominent figures who do openly praise and coddle Mr. Behrle, despite regular, bountiful examples of the conduct I have outlined above--and despite the fact that his "poetry blog" seems almost totally uninterested in poetics except as a social network for the propagation of his egocentric excitements. All of this, I’d argue, is worth reflecting on.
I believe this little flame-incident of the past few days, then (one fresh enough so that erotic lingerie souvenirs, bearing my name hand-sewn by Mr. Behrle himself, can still be purchased—"this will be the closest Kent Johnson ever comes to rubbing his face against human genitals," as he charmingly puts it on his blog), points up a certain "problem" in the still infant world of poetry blogdom. It might be good for other poets to begin thinking a bit more about it. If one or two people do, then I am glad I "lost it," as they say, and gave Mr. Behrle a brief but healthy taste of his own distasteful tonic.2 " -Kent Johnson, 2004
A Kent Johnson flashback to the days when disruptive behavior was the norm or at least, the norm at Silliman's house. The party is over. The world is now a much better place thanks to Ron Silliman.
http://www.skankypossum.com/pouch/archives/000099.html
"Yet what is perhaps most astonishing about all this is the following: Behrle carries out his activities with hardly a peep of objection from the "politically progressive" post-avant poetry community. He even has, in fact, the open endorsement and admiration of some of the most prominent bloggers (not least a few who are fond of engaging in solemn ruminations about ethics and the building of tolerance and community). What I suggested somewhat fancifully in one of my postings on Silliman’s blog bears saying again in more straightforward form: The tacit acceptance on the part of such a large and supposedly "socially sensitive" community of such abusive, manipulative, and figuratively violent conduct is disturbing to say the least. I don’t mean that all concerned approve of Behrle’s behavior: there is no doubt (and I know of more than a few examples) that some are intimidated into silence by his wildly vengeful histrionics. But beyond the silence, there are, as I said, prominent figures who do openly praise and coddle Mr. Behrle, despite regular, bountiful examples of the conduct I have outlined above--and despite the fact that his "poetry blog" seems almost totally uninterested in poetics except as a social network for the propagation of his egocentric excitements. All of this, I’d argue, is worth reflecting on.
I believe this little flame-incident of the past few days, then (one fresh enough so that erotic lingerie souvenirs, bearing my name hand-sewn by Mr. Behrle himself, can still be purchased—"this will be the closest Kent Johnson ever comes to rubbing his face against human genitals," as he charmingly puts it on his blog), points up a certain "problem" in the still infant world of poetry blogdom. It might be good for other poets to begin thinking a bit more about it. If one or two people do, then I am glad I "lost it," as they say, and gave Mr. Behrle a brief but healthy taste of his own distasteful tonic.2 " -Kent Johnson, 2004
Kirby Olson at lutheransurrealism blog lets off a little steam and garners the Prize for Best of Comment Box Comments which shall be awarded daily until they stop appearing. I do believe it is a bit of a protest, oddly enough that may have started in the year 2007.
http://lutheransurrealism.blogspot.com/2007/11/comments-box-over-at-sillimans-blog.html
"I think poetry would be better if it cooled it with the attempt to curtail freedom of speech and instead just spilled over into Rabelaisian grotsqueries in which greater and greater forms of uglinesses were not only permitted but encouraged and there was no attempt at all to teach but rather the mode of delight was turned up full blast. Then maybe I could stand to read poetry again. Right now it's all nice thoughts, and there's nothing in there to break up the boredom. Since Plato there has been this attempt to get poetry and its fans to behave, and to stay within some square ideological deal set out by some benign imperatrix or another. Could poetry please bust out into Rabelaisian populism?
Could comments boxes?
Ron has made many remarks in favor of Jefferson and such but were they just appetizers and the main course total suppression of dissent? I'd like him to prove that Pol Pot is his truest colleague, not Jefferson. Pol Pot said to the prisoners in Prison 17 (or am I thinking of Stalag 17?) that even to roll over in their sleep without permission would lead to a hundred lashes. 3 prisoners of some 14,000 processed in that prison survived it. Perhaps they had mastered the art of sleeping without movement, or they had actually gotten their written requests into the state for permission to turn over. Only problem: the ability to write was itself sentenced by capital punishment! Catch-22 at Prison 17!"
Kirby Olson, long time participant in the blog comments box wars, from November 2007
http://lutheransurrealism.blogspot.com/2007/11/comments-box-over-at-sillimans-blog.html
"I think poetry would be better if it cooled it with the attempt to curtail freedom of speech and instead just spilled over into Rabelaisian grotsqueries in which greater and greater forms of uglinesses were not only permitted but encouraged and there was no attempt at all to teach but rather the mode of delight was turned up full blast. Then maybe I could stand to read poetry again. Right now it's all nice thoughts, and there's nothing in there to break up the boredom. Since Plato there has been this attempt to get poetry and its fans to behave, and to stay within some square ideological deal set out by some benign imperatrix or another. Could poetry please bust out into Rabelaisian populism?
Could comments boxes?
Ron has made many remarks in favor of Jefferson and such but were they just appetizers and the main course total suppression of dissent? I'd like him to prove that Pol Pot is his truest colleague, not Jefferson. Pol Pot said to the prisoners in Prison 17 (or am I thinking of Stalag 17?) that even to roll over in their sleep without permission would lead to a hundred lashes. 3 prisoners of some 14,000 processed in that prison survived it. Perhaps they had mastered the art of sleeping without movement, or they had actually gotten their written requests into the state for permission to turn over. Only problem: the ability to write was itself sentenced by capital punishment! Catch-22 at Prison 17!"
Kirby Olson, long time participant in the blog comments box wars, from November 2007
4.8.10
atlas/atlas
What holds up
life not limbs but illusion
in time stretched
forward past center
poles and paradise
with worms and thread
in reverse and standstill.
So drifty as the stars may be
above when able-bodied
progenitors without
skeletal axis
without axis,
stapes or digit ride
upon a road with
continuous lack of end and lap
each other in constance,
kiss in their small collision
with futile precise precision,
they cry importantly
as iron gods do.
Yet this is already here,
an arrow in the spine
of your longing.
What holds up
life not limbs but illusion
in time stretched
forward past center
poles and paradise
with worms and thread
in reverse and standstill.
So drifty as the stars may be
above when able-bodied
progenitors without
skeletal axis
without axis,
stapes or digit ride
upon a road with
continuous lack of end and lap
each other in constance,
kiss in their small collision
with futile precise precision,
they cry importantly
as iron gods do.
Yet this is already here,
an arrow in the spine
of your longing.
3.8.10
TIMBER!or it 'appears so' anyway.
Photo showing an Israeli crane obviously reaching into Lebanon to remove a tree (as they have relieved Palestinian people of so many olive trees (and economic stability) in their numerous 'good will' gestures towards their feisty prisoners who sided on the side of their own manifest destiny when they elected Hamas to represent them in free and open democratic elections) ....the photo has a very telling caption:
AP – Israeli soldiers use a crane as they appear to cut a tree on the Lebanese side of the border in the southern …
The deceptive language of the article from the AP is obvious:
"It was over the fence but still within Israeli territory," the
military spokesman's office said. He said the tree cutting was coordinated with
the U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, UNIFIL.The 'close' reading:
"The military spokesman" is left out there in the mind and a person might
believe this is a legitimate 'spokesperson' for legitimacy and in the same
breath denotes the provocative action in a matter of fact 'but still
within' Israeli territory. Huh? And it was 'coordinated' with
the UN gives the reader the feeling that the smiling Nepalese UN forces were
there assisting with the oiling of the chainsaw blades.
Israel is compelled to cut down a tree in Lebanese Territory that they insist is in a 'disputed' zone (look up disputed versus occupied territories) and on their property so to speak but inside the neighbor's fence. Mm hmm....we've heard this so many times before from Israel. It will be interesting to hear the reason for cutting down this tree. Was it offending something? Blocking drainage or leaving leaves and tree junk inside of Israel's well manicured garden? Did they ask the Lebanese government to do something about this 'offensive' tree first? Did they contact a governing body when the neighbor refused to do something about this noxious tree?
Never mind that Israel went on a killing spree in defense of their woodwork by killing a journalist, bombing a Lebanese home and knocking off a few soldiers in the immediate afterglow of calling out TIMBER!
The pattern of Israeli atrocities committed against the sovereign country known as Lebanon has always been to disrupt the peace of the Lebanese people at the height of summer vacation activity in the southern heartland. This year is not different.
It is a highly symbolic and significant act which will likely go unnoticed by the average observers in the Western media and by their constituents. It is also how the Golan Heights was slipped into Israeli pockets (another bulldozer gardening story that warms the cockles of my heart) some forty years ago at the end of the Six Day War.
Israel has been thwarted on all fronts in it's cosmological battle against their arch-rival Iran who now controls several important fronts and territories in the battle for social/political/religous dominance in the Middle East and none of those fronts is more important or more strategic than the one in South Lebanon where it is as common to see an Iranian flag flying as it is a Lebanese one.
"Tensions along the border have risen in recent months. Israel claims Hezbollah guerrillas have significantly expanded and improved their arsenal of rockets since 2006. Among other things, Israeli officials have accused Syria and Iran of supplying Hezbollah with Scud missiles capable of hitting anywhere in Israel, a claim Hezbollah has refused to confirm or deny."
"Adding to the friction, more than 70 people in Lebanon have been arrested since last year on suspicion of collaborating with Israel."
"Lebanese President Michel Suleiman denounced the fighting and urged the army commander to "confront any Israeli aggression whatever the sacrifices." "
Israel should be made aware that the Arab world is alot more coordinated now. The resistance movement (al moqawama) is not just a local and highly coordinated nationalist movement but an international one as well. There's a young man in my small American town who happily places Hezbollah graffiti on his facebook wall, there's alot of that now all the way over here. Inside of Lebanon, the government (who is expecting a public accusal by the "UN" against Hezbollah in the Israeli engineered execution/assassination of Rafik Hariri) has gone on the record ordering all Lebanese citizens to get on the right side of this one this time but you'll only know that if you read 'their' news, 'their' public addresses which the Zionist controlled media tries to obscure from your view. I assure you, if Israel blows it this time, its over and they've been told so up front and in no uncertain terms.
I'll be there in'sha'allah in a little over a month...or maybe not!
Death to Zionism, it's time has also come as all bad things go by the way-side. And they all inevitably do.
The End of an Epoch
Poet Jessica Smith Moderates Controversial Deletion of Major Poetry Archive
looktouchblog
Ron Silliman and the School of Quietude, are they one in the same? The very nature of the "us versus them" mentality of Ron Silliman's cosmological battle with the 'powers that be' is such that it creates an adversarial relationship between those who pose themself on one side or the other. The fact that Mr. Silliman promotes an artist (too often) or disses one (too seldom) leaves a group of followers in a state of perpetual conflict without one whit of hope of resolution. By definition, association with one of the 'schools' (arbitrary seating list if you ask me) , the partisanship that results as a direct consequence of Mr. Silliman's positional statements (that never end) is the same damn thing he despises i.e. a confessional membership in a power block rather than an earned place in hard copy due to poetic prowess, intellect or sagacity. The salesman in Mr. Silliman (who decries the death of the little press, the little book store and the unknown poet) desires no moral or ethical change in the process.....no. That is an illusion. He embodies the status quo of the market itself and apparently does not really care as much as his followers think he does, about their opinions.
http://www.wetasphalt.com/?q=node/118
In my opinion, the definition of SoQ poetry has been a type of poetry which eschews the less popular opinion for the one that is more socially acceptable, "for the times". In other words, 'better for us'. It hasn't however been practiced (the counter shiuhen of anti-SoQism-ness) as much as it has been preached. And especially by Mr. Ron Silliman on his blog through countless articles that supposedly stand for the less than generally accepted 'norm' of poetry and society as opposed to the status quo (politically correct) and has chosen now after 2,000,000 plus hits to delete the entirety of the conversation. Why?
Because it isn't pretty enough to suit the goal of the market.
Well, if Language School stands for VALUE then apparently the values have changed and left the pack of value-minders behind. The only value seems to be in the extent to which Mr. Silliman's opinion can successfully drown out the contrariness of public opinion, a public composed almost entirely of poets or poetry lovers.
I could have and probably did, warn of this type of thing. I'm not the only one either (I'll bet Mr. Gould is just wringing his hands and slobbering with delight) and it is entirely possible that this is the death knell for a partisanship that has long outlasted its actual vitality that was born and bred in the Vietnam era.
Poet Jessica Smith Moderates Controversial Deletion of Major Poetry Archive
looktouchblog
Ron Silliman and the School of Quietude, are they one in the same? The very nature of the "us versus them" mentality of Ron Silliman's cosmological battle with the 'powers that be' is such that it creates an adversarial relationship between those who pose themself on one side or the other. The fact that Mr. Silliman promotes an artist (too often) or disses one (too seldom) leaves a group of followers in a state of perpetual conflict without one whit of hope of resolution. By definition, association with one of the 'schools' (arbitrary seating list if you ask me) , the partisanship that results as a direct consequence of Mr. Silliman's positional statements (that never end) is the same damn thing he despises i.e. a confessional membership in a power block rather than an earned place in hard copy due to poetic prowess, intellect or sagacity. The salesman in Mr. Silliman (who decries the death of the little press, the little book store and the unknown poet) desires no moral or ethical change in the process.....no. That is an illusion. He embodies the status quo of the market itself and apparently does not really care as much as his followers think he does, about their opinions.
http://www.wetasphalt.com/?q=node/118
If Jorie Graham isn't the Headmistress of The School of Quietude, then I don't know that such a school exists as Mr. Silliman constructs it. What I do know is that one construction of the School of Quietude is that it is "those poets who hold the purse strings and tend to promote work that is familiar rather than work that is good."
In my opinion, the definition of SoQ poetry has been a type of poetry which eschews the less popular opinion for the one that is more socially acceptable, "for the times". In other words, 'better for us'. It hasn't however been practiced (the counter shiuhen of anti-SoQism-ness) as much as it has been preached. And especially by Mr. Ron Silliman on his blog through countless articles that supposedly stand for the less than generally accepted 'norm' of poetry and society as opposed to the status quo (politically correct) and has chosen now after 2,000,000 plus hits to delete the entirety of the conversation. Why?
Because it isn't pretty enough to suit the goal of the market.
Well, if Language School stands for VALUE then apparently the values have changed and left the pack of value-minders behind. The only value seems to be in the extent to which Mr. Silliman's opinion can successfully drown out the contrariness of public opinion, a public composed almost entirely of poets or poetry lovers.
I could have and probably did, warn of this type of thing. I'm not the only one either (I'll bet Mr. Gould is just wringing his hands and slobbering with delight) and it is entirely possible that this is the death knell for a partisanship that has long outlasted its actual vitality that was born and bred in the Vietnam era.
WARNING: you won't know where to turn next but it is such that you are in a welkin of some definite plausibilities. Not for the faint of heart or the archaic. It isn't that type of place. There are so many brothers in the world, blood brothers, half brothers, dead brothers and Jacks. There are always the Jacks. You have the doogs and the Lanny's and the brothers of the elk which is a rhyme to the starry blisses. It is a long story of beginnings, endings, tragic and blistering comeuppances. There are no politics in this world. It might be said that Carmen is a fine place to be when one trades one's soul with sisters and mothers, darling kittens. You've got so many Mira Labs but it is only the current one that matters her eyes full of shame and contagion. You help up that dog in the rain: Pip on down through to the bassett hound with three legs moving through a steady course to the most Noble Imposters and Just Buddies. The tricks are all there but you don't know where to turn next. Is it the sea calling? What is it that is ringing? It must be the lilacs again, always ringing and the peaches falling. A rhubarb tale disguised as a hallowed pie. A baptist pie, a cherished fruit. This is the last one of its kind. The machine ex post facto of the Anchorites with the tiny windows, peeking out into freshly fallen snow....freshly fallen snow. A silent kind of reverence towards the ancients of Mogollon where in the deep hollows of summer, fresh from the fears of gypsies up near the creaks, a lonely man sells his Russian memorabilia declaring he is being chased by the wealthy landowners who know for certain Rasputin. Hunted. He is wanted. He believes this with his almighty heart. His windows are boarded up. Butterfly mimics in the flowers have utensils that listen and pray to whatever is going on up there in the lava bombs, a sister walks by because she is in on it. She is totally in on it but we've got to go. The man mentions a place called Hafr Al Batn and we agree to never meet again but only silently. Only in the perfect sun.
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