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.
"The right of freedom of speech consists in speaking the truth."
5.8.10
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.
30.7.10
The Answer Wasn't No But If
This is my jar of pennies,
where yours is, is it messy?
Is it reckless and noisy
like this one?
What a yellow flower
is tomato and we see
salad, the water
in the gourds is stored
but would apatosaurus
mind to be this apple
overnight belonging
to the sun?
If these things be true
our mouth flourishes
and the lesions reply
justice afterall is law.
To wake up on a morning
and realize the roll-over
was real, the hospital
full of bandage was
the hope of other people,
as if change
monitored equals survival.
I signed the last letter
because and forfeited
success, don't you
want some yellow birds
that don't belong here too?
Hilarious antics at the neighbor blog house, disabled posts, angry protests and Kent Johnson/Ron Silliman in charge of channelling the living.
This is my jar of pennies,
where yours is, is it messy?
Is it reckless and noisy
like this one?
What a yellow flower
is tomato and we see
salad, the water
in the gourds is stored
but would apatosaurus
mind to be this apple
overnight belonging
to the sun?
If these things be true
our mouth flourishes
and the lesions reply
justice afterall is law.
To wake up on a morning
and realize the roll-over
was real, the hospital
full of bandage was
the hope of other people,
as if change
monitored equals survival.
I signed the last letter
because and forfeited
success, don't you
want some yellow birds
that don't belong here too?
Hilarious antics at the neighbor blog house, disabled posts, angry protests and Kent Johnson/Ron Silliman in charge of channelling the living.
http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/search/label/Joseph%20Massey
28.7.10
Olson, as far as the eye can see, the New East is the Old West and vice-versa
...shamans who've learned to talk
brightly about tomorrow
from yesterday in India,
before the sun's closed its
occidental eye at dawn in Rivendell. -From Obleo's Lament
http://poemtalkatkwh.blogspot.com/2010/07/back-to-geography-poemtalk-34.html
The shorter the poem, the longer the conversation about it. Seems to me anyway.
So much does depend upon the wheel barrel but so much depends on the wheel as well, the screw and the wedge. You see? The six simple machines of poetry are variables and likely, there are way more than six.
Knowledge, Accidence, Bias, Memory, Inspiration, Time. There's six and they are crucial to the development of any poem be it long or short, stylized or accidentalized.
Knowledge (and truth) comes to us from a variety of places and one could argue, is asociated with all of the other tools of poetry in some way or another. Each of them depends upon the expertise (historical/foundational knowledge) of the poet and their exposure to a variety of pressures be they personal or universal in nature or as well, influence from other poets who also have a certain level of expertise. Some poets, particularly the immature poet, seek to eliminate the influence of all 'old' knowledge by avoidance (I did this at one time) as if knowledge were some type of contaminant to the very nature of poetry itself and in particular, their 'special gift' as individual poets. Some mistake the Make It New poetry fatwa for the idea that there actually is something new to be relayed to the starving readers out there. Luckily, this stance doesn't survive very long out there because poetry is a dog eat dog world you know and there's only so much other poets who have worked hard to obtain a little chunk of knowledge for themselves will or can tolerate. Poets who are necessarily the gatekeepers of poetry inevitably have hyper-sensitive bull-shit meters, but do they also then, have knowledge? Could it be that there's a black hole of intensity just waiting to be filled and it is based on what has been avoided (in history) rather than what has been included? I think so and the New Age of poetry isn't so much "new" as it is "better informed".
Accidence will make or break a poem. A poet not in control of that is one less poet.
Bias will generate more bang for the buck than most poets realize. Bias can betray the poet and the poet should be, if anything at all, aware of their own if not also completely aware of the bias of the reader be it a whole population of similars or a single individual interested in poetry and specifically, that particular poetry produced by that particular poet (the schools of poetry are great machines for the production of such types). The modern salesmanship of poets and the pobiz coerces and has coerced its own readership into a hole that is discussed ad nauseum by those that care about 'what happens to it'. The paternalistic notion that "we" as poets know what's good for a person is evident in anything even remotely attached to a 'school'. Schools of poetry are innately biased toward the paternal notion (and you can ask feminist poets what they think about that!). Furthermore, when a bias is no longer necessary or has been found to be a faulty one (Republican right wing for example), it dies an important if unsightly death. It seems to be blind to its own shortcomings and in a fit of dying passion begins producing a miserable amount of hot air which is known as Cheyne-Stoking.
Memory is dependent on both knowledge and bias. It is present in a poem whether a poet wants it there or not. The idea that confessionalist work (the largest body of memory based poetry) is somehow the anti-thesis of modern or somehow easier to write is ludicrous and ignores the fact that what is present in a poem is often times much more important than what isn't and that would be alot of stuff including that which is excluded on purpose by the poet writing a great confessional/narrative piece as well as that which is not known by the poet (the future, to name the most important of that which is left out of all poems) which has an inevitable impact on the work over time.
Inspiration isn't something that can be willed into existence and if it could be so, it wouldn't be 'inspiration' or that which unwillingly/unwittingly rises to the top and leaves the pack behind it panting. The most ellusive of the simple machines of poetry. At the heart of a good poem is the angel-dust of revelation both in a mythological sense and an actual historical sense. One could argue that inspiration is a function of knowledge, memory and bias however, if it were the case, we'd have a lot more good work and a lot less junk. The volume would remain the same perhaps but the quality would ultimately be better. It isn't any wonder to me why so many people fail nowdays to see the value of 'modern poetry'. Much of it is generated by the soul-free machinery of the times which includes the machinery of the publishing process itself.
Time. Where would we be without a time, an application of the poem (read: work) in society. The reason some poems feel timeless depends to a high degree on universality or "the human condition" over time. The human condition over time does not change. The circumstances however do and the application of universal themes in context matters more to academics than it does to the general population. The general population is interested much more in their own context and for the most part they have little idea that Mr. Olson was pushing back history with his arms and defining an era in Time as one of change, willfulness and contempt for the ages while simulataneously embracing "the Ages" by mentioning them in the first place, bringing them to the attention of the less well-informed.
So yes. A lot does depend on the wheel barrow. Plus all of the things that the wheel barrow/barrel contends to carry on, forward or around. In the case of this wheelbarrow, the poem is greater than the poet and when that happens, it's a bingo.
The Red Wheelbarrow
-William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Could so much have depended on a rooster? Or a green John Deer?
Probably not.
...shamans who've learned to talk
brightly about tomorrow
from yesterday in India,
before the sun's closed its
occidental eye at dawn in Rivendell. -From Obleo's Lament
http://poemtalkatkwh.blogspot.com/2010/07/back-to-geography-poemtalk-34.html
The shorter the poem, the longer the conversation about it. Seems to me anyway.
So much does depend upon the wheel barrel but so much depends on the wheel as well, the screw and the wedge. You see? The six simple machines of poetry are variables and likely, there are way more than six.
Knowledge, Accidence, Bias, Memory, Inspiration, Time. There's six and they are crucial to the development of any poem be it long or short, stylized or accidentalized.
Knowledge (and truth) comes to us from a variety of places and one could argue, is asociated with all of the other tools of poetry in some way or another. Each of them depends upon the expertise (historical/foundational knowledge) of the poet and their exposure to a variety of pressures be they personal or universal in nature or as well, influence from other poets who also have a certain level of expertise. Some poets, particularly the immature poet, seek to eliminate the influence of all 'old' knowledge by avoidance (I did this at one time) as if knowledge were some type of contaminant to the very nature of poetry itself and in particular, their 'special gift' as individual poets. Some mistake the Make It New poetry fatwa for the idea that there actually is something new to be relayed to the starving readers out there. Luckily, this stance doesn't survive very long out there because poetry is a dog eat dog world you know and there's only so much other poets who have worked hard to obtain a little chunk of knowledge for themselves will or can tolerate. Poets who are necessarily the gatekeepers of poetry inevitably have hyper-sensitive bull-shit meters, but do they also then, have knowledge? Could it be that there's a black hole of intensity just waiting to be filled and it is based on what has been avoided (in history) rather than what has been included? I think so and the New Age of poetry isn't so much "new" as it is "better informed".
Accidence will make or break a poem. A poet not in control of that is one less poet.
Bias will generate more bang for the buck than most poets realize. Bias can betray the poet and the poet should be, if anything at all, aware of their own if not also completely aware of the bias of the reader be it a whole population of similars or a single individual interested in poetry and specifically, that particular poetry produced by that particular poet (the schools of poetry are great machines for the production of such types). The modern salesmanship of poets and the pobiz coerces and has coerced its own readership into a hole that is discussed ad nauseum by those that care about 'what happens to it'. The paternalistic notion that "we" as poets know what's good for a person is evident in anything even remotely attached to a 'school'. Schools of poetry are innately biased toward the paternal notion (and you can ask feminist poets what they think about that!). Furthermore, when a bias is no longer necessary or has been found to be a faulty one (Republican right wing for example), it dies an important if unsightly death. It seems to be blind to its own shortcomings and in a fit of dying passion begins producing a miserable amount of hot air which is known as Cheyne-Stoking.
Memory is dependent on both knowledge and bias. It is present in a poem whether a poet wants it there or not. The idea that confessionalist work (the largest body of memory based poetry) is somehow the anti-thesis of modern or somehow easier to write is ludicrous and ignores the fact that what is present in a poem is often times much more important than what isn't and that would be alot of stuff including that which is excluded on purpose by the poet writing a great confessional/narrative piece as well as that which is not known by the poet (the future, to name the most important of that which is left out of all poems) which has an inevitable impact on the work over time.
Inspiration isn't something that can be willed into existence and if it could be so, it wouldn't be 'inspiration' or that which unwillingly/unwittingly rises to the top and leaves the pack behind it panting. The most ellusive of the simple machines of poetry. At the heart of a good poem is the angel-dust of revelation both in a mythological sense and an actual historical sense. One could argue that inspiration is a function of knowledge, memory and bias however, if it were the case, we'd have a lot more good work and a lot less junk. The volume would remain the same perhaps but the quality would ultimately be better. It isn't any wonder to me why so many people fail nowdays to see the value of 'modern poetry'. Much of it is generated by the soul-free machinery of the times which includes the machinery of the publishing process itself.
Time. Where would we be without a time, an application of the poem (read: work) in society. The reason some poems feel timeless depends to a high degree on universality or "the human condition" over time. The human condition over time does not change. The circumstances however do and the application of universal themes in context matters more to academics than it does to the general population. The general population is interested much more in their own context and for the most part they have little idea that Mr. Olson was pushing back history with his arms and defining an era in Time as one of change, willfulness and contempt for the ages while simulataneously embracing "the Ages" by mentioning them in the first place, bringing them to the attention of the less well-informed.
So yes. A lot does depend on the wheel barrow. Plus all of the things that the wheel barrow/barrel contends to carry on, forward or around. In the case of this wheelbarrow, the poem is greater than the poet and when that happens, it's a bingo.
The Red Wheelbarrow
-William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
With the white chickens/beside the rain glazed wheel barrow/so much depends upon a red.
Could so much have depended on a rooster? Or a green John Deer?
Probably not.
27.7.10
Monsoon-Lotto
The jazz of the ottery all
is pinning with lightning
in the sky outside. Azz
of ottery all is pinning,
that's right third followed
by the fourth, fifth and sixth
otto 41, 33, 23, 12, 44 and 11
and the azz of ottery is pinning
some one out there is getting
hit and someone is getting it.
Quid falls gently as quails,
treads sweetly over the sails,
the green near blinds the eye
drags grass right out of the sky.
The jazz of the ottery all
is pinning with lightning
in the sky outside. Azz
of ottery all is pinning,
that's right third followed
by the fourth, fifth and sixth
otto 41, 33, 23, 12, 44 and 11
and the azz of ottery is pinning
some one out there is getting
hit and someone is getting it.
Quid falls gently as quails,
treads sweetly over the sails,
the green near blinds the eye
drags grass right out of the sky.
22.7.10
SURPRISING POEM
John Gunboat Pauker
I looked, and looked again. There were no people.
The people had disappeared. The people were gone.
But the things they had created were still there,
A suit of clothes and a gown walked arm in arm
With a dog at the end of a leash. The dog was there
And snarling. In the street, vehicular traffic
Flowed as usual but without drivers or riders.
Inside buildings, doors opened and closed.
Cigarettes smoked, telephones rang, receivers
Slammed as usual, and on television
Something of all this showed, but without people.
--The fifth of scotch went on diminishing.
Electric razors razed and revolvers fired
As Usual. The things went through their paces
And seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely.
I longed to look in a mirror but did not dare.
BROTHERLY POEM
All men are brothers
Like Cain and Abel.
"This couplet constitutes John Pauker’s entire “Brotherly Poem,” and encapsulates both his idealism and his bitter realism. He helped more poets and writers around the world than anyone else alive in his time. Some were American, and free to write as they wished and to travel on international cultural exchanges. Others lived under threat of imprisonment in their own lands. Many were young and little-known, others older and revered, often neglected and persecuted by their country’s establishment."
John Gunboat Pauker
I looked, and looked again. There were no people.
The people had disappeared. The people were gone.
But the things they had created were still there,
A suit of clothes and a gown walked arm in arm
With a dog at the end of a leash. The dog was there
And snarling. In the street, vehicular traffic
Flowed as usual but without drivers or riders.
Inside buildings, doors opened and closed.
Cigarettes smoked, telephones rang, receivers
Slammed as usual, and on television
Something of all this showed, but without people.
--The fifth of scotch went on diminishing.
Electric razors razed and revolvers fired
As Usual. The things went through their paces
And seemed to be enjoying themselves hugely.
I longed to look in a mirror but did not dare.
BROTHERLY POEM
All men are brothers
Like Cain and Abel.
"This couplet constitutes John Pauker’s entire “Brotherly Poem,” and encapsulates both his idealism and his bitter realism. He helped more poets and writers around the world than anyone else alive in his time. Some were American, and free to write as they wished and to travel on international cultural exchanges. Others lived under threat of imprisonment in their own lands. Many were young and little-known, others older and revered, often neglected and persecuted by their country’s establishment."
21.7.10
I wear my cap backwards
so I don't burn my neck.
I wear my cap forwards
'cause I don't like Glen Beck.
I eat at the D-FAC
makes me poop alot
that's because it's Minot
and the food's never hot.
These combat boots
hurt more than shoes,
I read Vonnegut
then Doctor Suess,
I work in the office
in green camoflauge,
my girl didn't want
the matching corsage.
Call me a kid
but to tell the truth
I refuse to grow
out of my youth
but the boots still hurt
and the food makes me poop,
I wear my hat backwards
and Glen Beck's still
an asshole.
-Airman Sowid, Minot AFB, North Dakota
so I don't burn my neck.
I wear my cap forwards
'cause I don't like Glen Beck.
I eat at the D-FAC
makes me poop alot
that's because it's Minot
and the food's never hot.
These combat boots
hurt more than shoes,
I read Vonnegut
then Doctor Suess,
I work in the office
in green camoflauge,
my girl didn't want
the matching corsage.
Call me a kid
but to tell the truth
I refuse to grow
out of my youth
but the boots still hurt
and the food makes me poop,
I wear my hat backwards
and Glen Beck's still
an asshole.
-Airman Sowid, Minot AFB, North Dakota
18.7.10
Make it New!
if I spoke gibberish to you
would you then listen
even at last to me?
-Darla Whitehead, Book of Evaluations
If you could see that has been seen by those of you who have died, you would be puzzled and troubled. Then you would have listened and obeyed; but what they have seen is yet curtained off from you. Shortly, the curtain would be thrown off. You have been shown, provided you see and you have been made to listen provided you listen, and you have been guided if you accept guidance. I spoke unto you with truth. You have been called aloud by (instructive) examples and warned through items full of warnings. After the heavenly messengers (angels), only man can convey message from Allah. (So what I am conveying is from Allah). - Ali ibn Abi Taleb, Commander of the Faithful
Knowing which of the nafs to pay attention to, that's the thing.The one that blames, the one that loves too little or too much, the one that writes poetry or reads it to oneself or to the others. The one who sits inside a room with other nafs, converses and betrays the self, the honest nafs cannot get along except with other nafs of the same discipline because they are all true to the unique Allah and the instructions of same. This is the teaching. It is the learning and from that the nafs of the poet monitors each strange thing, with or without knowledge, with or without specific strengths and weaknesses and uses the language, the language genie to perform the necessary not obligatory acts of poetry. It is the deceptive activity of the heart and the hearts of others that teaches ignorance by ringing all the right bells and whistles without risking the hard task of truly teaching through poetry what there is to know in the proper language that only the nafs can truly understand and we physical selves master without knowing the import upon the disingenuous nature of our souls, that group of related things. We instruct our own selves: deception, apathy, remorse....we encourage desire and her cousins jealousy and greed.....but that we as poets teach others both unremarkable or absolutely poisonous lesson is to be made a matter of because, in modern poetry....there is an utter lack of proof that what is being taught is actually being known, at first, by the teachers of wit and wisdom (ruination and salvation, lack and presence, agreement and disengagement)....known more commonly as poets.
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.' -W.H. Auden
How honest and true that is but written with only a superficial knowledge of the spheres, the archetypes and most importantly, the trusts that bond certain types of nafs together.
Archetypes upon which the new foundation of modern poetry are built (imagery) are only stable as processes within the writing of a new mythology that pleases certain groups to a much greater or much lesser degree. Make it New! is the dictate and within the fabric of that simple statement made by the Godfather of a great number of younger poets, Ezra Pound, is a profound truth and lesson. What does that dictate intend? To the impossible, unimaginable or simply, the unknowable commerce between souls? They should perhaps instead refer to themselves as Pentacostals for it is true that they speak in tongues impossible for most of us to decipher unless we practice the art of the 'close reading' when in fact most of them are entirely uninvolved in the act of 'close writing'.
That there is something old, something predated that requires a new disguise? Why yes, of course. And imagery as well as Objectivist mannerisms are suggested as the most fitting alteration in the garment of poetry...or languagism in which poets learn to converse not with other people but with other nafs. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes wrong but it is never really clear to me when they mean to.
And I guess poetry ought to at least mean to. It ought to take its share of the responsibility involved in disseminating both popular and unpopular ideations. The ubiquitous languagist school makes it new alright but keeps it the same by suggesting there is a wrong and right way to do things, record things. That there is a party to which everyone else belongs and they are somehow exempt from the rules of trade and barter in which the only currency might be a clippy tongue or savage intelligence able to distill prose into a hitherto uncharted and nonsensical poetic mind drill...well. There are several schools of thought that prove that poetry can be generated from overheard conversations all the way to computer search engines. It is not however proof that what is said within that context of accidentalism is either understood or apprehended by the party to whom poetry is actually addressed (when it is done well) and that would be the nafs.
Getting it half right (they were wrong i.e. the SoQ) is not the same as getting it right themselves and the nafs bicker incessantly not only within the individual but with the nafs of others. The untrained nafs who is not the captain of the ship but just one of the slaves who stole onboard as one of the crew with a variety of functions both good and bad, in need of a leader and a ship.
if I spoke gibberish to you
would you then listen
even at last to me?
-Darla Whitehead, Book of Evaluations
If you could see that has been seen by those of you who have died, you would be puzzled and troubled. Then you would have listened and obeyed; but what they have seen is yet curtained off from you. Shortly, the curtain would be thrown off. You have been shown, provided you see and you have been made to listen provided you listen, and you have been guided if you accept guidance. I spoke unto you with truth. You have been called aloud by (instructive) examples and warned through items full of warnings. After the heavenly messengers (angels), only man can convey message from Allah. (So what I am conveying is from Allah). - Ali ibn Abi Taleb, Commander of the Faithful
Knowing which of the nafs to pay attention to, that's the thing.The one that blames, the one that loves too little or too much, the one that writes poetry or reads it to oneself or to the others. The one who sits inside a room with other nafs, converses and betrays the self, the honest nafs cannot get along except with other nafs of the same discipline because they are all true to the unique Allah and the instructions of same. This is the teaching. It is the learning and from that the nafs of the poet monitors each strange thing, with or without knowledge, with or without specific strengths and weaknesses and uses the language, the language genie to perform the necessary not obligatory acts of poetry. It is the deceptive activity of the heart and the hearts of others that teaches ignorance by ringing all the right bells and whistles without risking the hard task of truly teaching through poetry what there is to know in the proper language that only the nafs can truly understand and we physical selves master without knowing the import upon the disingenuous nature of our souls, that group of related things. We instruct our own selves: deception, apathy, remorse....we encourage desire and her cousins jealousy and greed.....but that we as poets teach others both unremarkable or absolutely poisonous lesson is to be made a matter of because, in modern poetry....there is an utter lack of proof that what is being taught is actually being known, at first, by the teachers of wit and wisdom (ruination and salvation, lack and presence, agreement and disengagement)....known more commonly as poets.
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.' -W.H. Auden
How honest and true that is but written with only a superficial knowledge of the spheres, the archetypes and most importantly, the trusts that bond certain types of nafs together.
Archetypes upon which the new foundation of modern poetry are built (imagery) are only stable as processes within the writing of a new mythology that pleases certain groups to a much greater or much lesser degree. Make it New! is the dictate and within the fabric of that simple statement made by the Godfather of a great number of younger poets, Ezra Pound, is a profound truth and lesson. What does that dictate intend? To the impossible, unimaginable or simply, the unknowable commerce between souls? They should perhaps instead refer to themselves as Pentacostals for it is true that they speak in tongues impossible for most of us to decipher unless we practice the art of the 'close reading' when in fact most of them are entirely uninvolved in the act of 'close writing'.
That there is something old, something predated that requires a new disguise? Why yes, of course. And imagery as well as Objectivist mannerisms are suggested as the most fitting alteration in the garment of poetry...or languagism in which poets learn to converse not with other people but with other nafs. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes wrong but it is never really clear to me when they mean to.
And I guess poetry ought to at least mean to. It ought to take its share of the responsibility involved in disseminating both popular and unpopular ideations. The ubiquitous languagist school makes it new alright but keeps it the same by suggesting there is a wrong and right way to do things, record things. That there is a party to which everyone else belongs and they are somehow exempt from the rules of trade and barter in which the only currency might be a clippy tongue or savage intelligence able to distill prose into a hitherto uncharted and nonsensical poetic mind drill...well. There are several schools of thought that prove that poetry can be generated from overheard conversations all the way to computer search engines. It is not however proof that what is said within that context of accidentalism is either understood or apprehended by the party to whom poetry is actually addressed (when it is done well) and that would be the nafs.
Getting it half right (they were wrong i.e. the SoQ) is not the same as getting it right themselves and the nafs bicker incessantly not only within the individual but with the nafs of others. The untrained nafs who is not the captain of the ship but just one of the slaves who stole onboard as one of the crew with a variety of functions both good and bad, in need of a leader and a ship.
17.7.10
AMERICA DECLARES COVERT WAR
ON IRAN, FAST TRACK
DIPLOMACY IN PROGRESS
US support for Jandallah, Al Qaeda, Israel. The blueprint and fingerprint of US support for the Taliban repeats itself and if Seymour said so, it's true.
Iran vows revenge upon the United States and from where I stand, they mean business and it will come when the US leasts expects it and without warning whatsoever.
ON IRAN, FAST TRACK
DIPLOMACY IN PROGRESS
US support for Jandallah, Al Qaeda, Israel. The blueprint and fingerprint of US support for the Taliban repeats itself and if Seymour said so, it's true.
Iran vows revenge upon the United States and from where I stand, they mean business and it will come when the US leasts expects it and without warning whatsoever.
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