from Spanish Fork Video from May 19, 2012 11:37 AM

Jim Brodey's lost on larrabee

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blue bus reading 15 may 2012

Reading from Godzenie and Smashing Time at The Blue Bus. A reading series in north London run by David Miller. 15 May 2012.

The Blue Bus Reading

LONDON WC1: The Blue Bus

7.30pm, Tuesday 15th May, 2012Venue: The Lamb (in the upstairs room), 94 Lamb's Conduit Street, London WC1Entry: £5 (£3 concs)The Blue Bus

 Marcus Slease        Fran Lock             Lesley McKenna 

I will read a bit from Godzenie (2009) and then my new ms The Creature. Should be fun fun!!

Come on out if you are around . . .

from Godzenie (BlazeVox 2009)

from Godzenie (BlazeVox 2009)

top of the pops

My right knee is popping it has popped before but it is really popping and when it pops it is a painful pop. I'm afraid of it exploding. My left knee also pops. It is not a painful pop. After the pops in my right knee my leg gives out or up. I can't put much weight on it. In 1995 it blew up like a balloon. I don't remember a pop.

from The Creature (still in progress)

A Hut is Constructed of Loose Stones

this is part the story of Genesis 

a human is being collected 

the book of things 

the book of bodies 

a pool of chlorine 

the skull of a Frank 

or the skull of slug 

a lover gives love 

while snoring 

while thinking about England 

one has to become very small 

with closed eyes 

one becomes the cat 

or the toothpick 

badly one listens to things 

like toffee pudding 

or top of the pops 

the silver button on a plastic box 

where the living rubs against the skin 

an uproar and din 

who speaks when you are not speaking 

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 

near the chirping or rattling of things 

near the barking 

obscurity filled the atmosphere 

there is nothing 

the nearest desert 

can explain to the mountain 

a bad sunning lizard 

like an accident 

we never saw coming 

Mitchen’s monster 

or a new dust devil 

dropped plush with the desert’s breath 

a whistle of wind 

through cool ridge 

a poem about mint 

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 

we all like it for longest breath 

naked 

withered down 

& desolate 

in the nearby past 

hedge tree shrub house hut or 

enclosure

from The Creature

formally The Grand Tour . . .

Greensboro, North Carolina

I think of you often Mona and Iris and Tiffany 

in the justlings of the world 

I have taken the golden boy’s virginity 

a daughter of early puberty 

I’m in love with the hands of my old best friends 

a love intoned like a man who’s married 

or a man with a steady 

we are eating a name not our own 

the triumphs of true feminine 

to sleeve out when she comes in 

skipping ropes on Carr Street 

poems written in lipstick for a mystic 

move away to another state 

and then you’ll write a poem 

with an old bottle of coco butter 

our incarnations like so many BBQs 

jerka oh nosa and the smell of Pernod 

freeze freebie 

William May forthwith with Angie Decola 

we have eaten with our foot on the gas 

too early for whiskey too late for the rocking chair 

mint juelps on my chin 

all that bad grammar like banjo Joe 

maybe I’m slinging country 

to hold a steel bowel I have it loosely like 

old bull lee on the ribs 

a pinata of old flames 

I wanna give to you so hard 

light anoints me the sex toys 

cutting off the motor and floating it 

I am a wonderful woman in jeans 

a ripped leather 

little tinkering doodle bell 

I’m on star search 

at the centre of this music box 

a wingless bird like a prophet descended from 

clouds or a chinese jacket 

we’ve dubbed it the wet dishcloth 

buffed up for Dante 

is this a ghost or your ghost? 

I suppose it’s a phone 

it is not a meme

pass the cookie dough 

the ferry is cancelled 

a little creature drops into my lap 

a lightning bug has crash landed 

moon faced by television 

racked up and licked 

an orgy of worms 

spring and all that 

we must have kissed a hundred times 

a cicada has landed on my pa tay ta 

we’ll sort you out down under 

an anywhere road for anywhere anyhow 

I am ready to leave or get thrown out 

a car is spinning around the bluff 

the supreme being of elephants

I’ve bought it at Krispy Kremes 

no hey a tart over the tea waves 

sing into my little horny box 

the real white stripes 

kudzu or herbatka 

now it’s duze password French entry 

all the eyes all the tails 

sing into my little horny box 

beef tacos hard or soft behind St. Mary’s 

what has happened to his thumb 

it’s went swimming with her loins 

running on nuthin but tongues 

at the Old Town Draught House 

we come mid-week after workshop 

bashful loving feelings 

Fred Chappell is the mid-quest 

I have eaten his cake 

we are speaking to a recorded voice 

for a pre-determined number of minutes 

his hair made him bigger than my problems 

wag and mosey wag and mosey 

gone over the horizon 

twice as fast as we had hoped for

happy May DAY!!!

The Poetry Foundation and Dirty Money???? . . .

"Poet Laundromat" by Don Yorty

Now here's an ear . . .

Don Yorty reading "Poet Laundromat" in Philly's Chapterhouse Cafe

Maintenant Croatia - Jeff Hilson

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Maintenant Croatia - Tim Atkins

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Maintenant Croatia - Marcus Slease reading from The Heyday

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men of sticks and mud

poem written from a prompt in new issue of HOUSEFIRE. Check it here:

HOUSEFIRE

The Corruption of the Poetry Foundation

"Kenny Goldsmith was correct in saying that poetry is fifty years behind visual art. Both he and the poetry foundation are, in a certain respect, the vanguard of poetry as it enters a phase wherein its absolute nullity is realized and becomes immediately displaced into these forceful gestures of grandeur which are not too different within the symbolic order from a middle-aged crisis sports car purchase. Visual art assumed the cool smile of complicity decades ago. It’s about time that poetry caught up." (Brooks Johnson)


So what are we, who care, to do?


How do we rise up?


What is poetry and how does it relate to revolution? Of the mind? Of the "spirit?" Of the socio-economic sphere? 


Check out this terrific interview with Brooks Johnson (by Linh Dinh):


poetry foundation and corruption

One of my poems from The Heyday in RealPoetik magazine

Roman Ruins

One of my favourite living poets on planet . .

This makes living in the U.K. worthwhile.  One of my favourite living poets. He is an unforgettable reader/performer.

check it!!!

Poetry and interview over here.

interview with British poet Jeff Hilson

some sample poems from Rinker with the interview:

Jeff Hilson poems from Rinker

Vallejo Speaks!!!

The Claudius App is proud to announce the publication of César Vallejo's "Lost" Interview, published in the Heraldo de Madrid in January 1931, recovered, translated, and generously annotated by Kent Johnson. Over coffee with the Heraldo's interviewer (Q: César Vallejo, why have you come here? CV: Well, to drink coffee.), Vallejo discusses precision,Trilce in relation to its predecessors and contemporaries, and a non-extant then-forthcoming volume of poems, The Central Institute of Labor. This is the sole record of the great poet's conversation, and the first appearance of it, unabridged, in English.

from The Grand Tour (second manuscript of travel poetics)

remixed from my journals and notebooks from travel, 18th century travel handbooks, current music on the spin (this one was influenced by Le Tigre), Basho, Herodotus, Buddhism, google sculpting, and of course memory . . . mapping new maps into the present rather than clinging to the past. . . another attempt at an expansive poetics to move away from the constricted mind and ego . . .

this one was re-sampled, re-mixed this morning . . . Milton Keynes and Bletchley . . .



Tossing at night in their own traps. I couldn’t cut a straight line. In this corner of Europe one sees little in the light. An Englishman does not travel to meet an Englishman. In a place that used to be a monastery more than 55 languages are being spoken. We are only looking at the chaise. A man can churl on the sign. You suffer Mon. Dessein. Table tennis at the Bletchley swimming pool. Hot chocolate comes from the machine. The stuffing was coming out of the sleeping bag. It is a dead man’s bag from World War Two. Who shot J.R. Ewing? Being but a poor swordsman I led her up the door to remise. Curse be my gods. Curse  . . one two three four. I have withdrawn my hand from across my forehead. We are all ninjas in a cobweb. I fancied it. The characters from a widowed book. Who took the ring from the ram-a-lang-a-ding-dong? Pulling out my tour. The poor monk does not blush. Edit. Remix. I have laid my hand upon your cuff. Sprightliness the prey of sorrow. The poor monk does not blush. Off-setting the new vineyard. We met at the Coffee Hall housing estate. There is no nation under heaven.

upcoming reading with some fab Croatian and British Poets . . come out if you around in London .

Maintenant Croatia

in association with the the Croatian Writers Association

April Thursday 26th 2012 - 7pm - Entrance Free –

at Europe House

32 Smith Square, London SW1P near Westminster / Pimlico tube stations

 

from Croatia:

Damir Sodan - Tomica Bajsic

Ervin Jahic - Ivan Herceg

 

not from Croatia:

Tom Warner - Marcus Slease – Tim Atkins

Mark Waldron - Claire Potter – Saradha Soobrayen

and more tba…

 

Four remarkable Croatian poets visiting London to read for the very first time will be joined by a half dozen London-based poets to celebrate the new generation of Croatian poetic brilliance which has flowered into the beginning of the 21^st century. As ever the Maintenant series strives to promote some of the most striking and diverse poetry Europe has to offer.

www.maintenant.co.uk

from The Grand Tour (in progress)

This is an apology for the Quakers. I have mounted my horse. This is a beautiful picture of a wail. The fire door says keep shut. My interest is to ungain a name. I leave the house to walk the public streets where animals and children disappear. Forced into blocks with blankly confident boys. To display unconsciousness like the lunch hour crowd. To learn the push of age in the crowd’s unconcern. An easy sided gate. I like a dog alone near which I creep.  

3rd revision Today I am a Rouged Dowager

TODAY I AM A ROUGED DOWAGER

Today I am a rouged dowager. After getting up, I, maid of the paternity lie, will climb on the face, powder on the cheeks and the palm and paint a little rouge. I have come out from the refuge of Bilkent. To break wax to break the oozing from the nose I have covered my face with white cake make-up. Patches of cherry rouge on my cheeks and lower lip. Miles and miles to the stepping stone I am in the hot house with a white kilt. I confuse my lover for the kettle drums beating for Ramadan. I have slept on my rectum at Eski Yeni. The Turkish eye has followed me. A very fat man is repairing the highways. Oh little girl little girl little girl the men here are lonesome too. Looting is a purple pose. The Greeks have called on the saints but the see-saws are rusting. I meant to write east but mis-typed feast. The photons of happiness are scraped from a licking horse. The bark on the trees are forming a painting. This is where I sleep. Ears and hands are hazards. The Turkish salute is a hand on the breast. Between continents and between loves I’m working with two blunt pencils. The windmills are squeezed against the mountains. A bright fluid circulates among the soldiers. They are roasting rebels in the snuffbox. I’m carrying a flagpole without a flag. 

Today I am a rouged Dowager 2nd revision

2nd revision with some splicing/sampling from my own travel notes from living in Turkey. The other versions were from a 19th century handbook of travel.

TODAY I AM A ROUGED DOWAGER

Today I am a rouged dowager. After getting up, I, maid of the paternity lie, will climb on the face, powder on the cheeks and the palm and paint a little rouge. I have come out from the refuge of Bilkent. To break wax to break the oozing from the nose I have covered my face with white cake make-up. Patches of cherry rouge on my cheeks and lower lip.


Is drunk a kind of weather? Grandmother Jean has cut the cards. Miles and miles to the stepping stone. I am in the hot house with a white kilt. I confuse my lover for the kettle drums beating for Ramadan. I have slept on my rectum at Eski Yeni.


Do you think of us as a family? The Turkish eye has followed me. A very fat man is repairing the highways. Oh little girl little girl little girl the men here are lonesome too. 


Looting is a purple pose.The Greeks have called on the saints but the see-saws are rusting. I meant to write east but mis-typed feast.
The photons of happiness are scraped from a licking horse. 
The bark on the trees are forming a painting. This is where I sleep. Ears and hands are hazards.


The Turkish salute is a slight inclination of the head. A hand on the breast. Between continents and between loves I’m working with two blunt pencils. The windmills are squeezed against the mountains. A bright fluid circulates among the soldiers. They are roasting rebels in the snuffbox. I’m carrying a flagpole without a flag.

Today I am a Rouged Dowager 1st revision

TODAY I AM A ROUGED DOWAGER

Today I am a rouged dowager. After getting up, I, maid of the paternity lie, will climb on the face, powder on the cheeks and the palm and paint a little rouge. I have come out from the refuge of Jehol. 
A fortified town, in a wild and rugged mountain pass. 
I have covered my face with white cake make-up and placed patches of cherry rouge on my cheeks and lower lip. Grandmother Jia has cut the cards. 

I have been pre-occupied in the hobhouse. With a white kilt and kettle drums beating we are forming a new delightful spectacle. I have slept on my rectum. A man very fat and not very tall with a fine face is repairing the highways. The women here are lonesome too. 

I am among the most war-like subjects of the Sultan. The Greeks have called on the saints. The see-saws are rusting. I meant to write east but mis-typed. Fletcher has taken the protons of happiness. A licking horse. A bolt of sick neckties. I refuse to wear a suit. Ears and hands are hazards. The bark on the animation tree is forming a painting. I’m writing in a shady room of the English consul.

Between continents and between loves I’m working with two blunt pencils. The windmills are squeezed against the mountains. A bright fluid circulates among the soldiers. They are roasting rebels in the snuffbox. I’m carrying a flagpole without a flag. The Turkish salute is a slight inclination of the head. A hand on the breast. 

listening to Tim Hecker and this came out . . .

TODAY I AM A ROUGED DOWAGER

I have been pre-occupied in the hobhouse. Consisting of a white kilt and kettle drums beating we are forming a new delightful spectacle. But for who? I have slept on my rectum. A man very fat and not very tall with a fine face is repairing the highways. The women here are lonesome too. I am among the most war-like subjects of the Sultan. The Greeks have called on the saints. The see-saws are rusting. I meant to write east but mis-typed. Fletcher has taken the protons of happiness. A licking horse. A bolt of sick neckties. I refuse to wear a suit. Ears and hands are hazards. The bark on the animation tree is forming a painting. I’m writing in a shady room of the English consul.

My eyes were hurt by the light. Or crying. They are cruel but not treacherous. Our next conversation was of war and traveling. Between continents and between loves I’m working with two blunt pencils. What will become of the horses in Van? The windmills are squeezed against the mountains. A bright fluid circulates among the soldiers. They are roasting rebels in the snuffbox. I’m carrying a flagpole without a flag. The Turkish salute is a slight inclination of the head. A hand on the breast. Heat and vermin lie in the cottage. 

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Today I am sporting a painted complexion

Today I am a tapestry

Today I am a rouged dowager

After getting up, I, maid of the paternity lie, will climb on the face, powder on the cheeks and the palm and paint a little rouge I have come out from refuge of Jehol, a fortified town, in a wild and rugged mountain pass. I have covered my face with white cake make-up and placed patches of cherry rouge on my cheeks and lower lip. Grandmother Jia has cut the cards. 

coming soon . . . hot hot hot . . .

from Dzanc Books:



A Question Mark Above the Sun

Documents on the Mystery Surrounding a Famous Poem “by” Frank O’Hara

Expanded Second Edition

Kent Johnson

Preface by Eric Lorberer Foreword David Koepsell Afterwords by Jeremy Noel-Tod and Joshua Kotin

“At the end of last year, an extraordinary work of detective criticism briefly ap- peared, despite legal threats. Kent Johnson’s A Question Mark Above the Sun (Punch Press) movingly speculates that Kenneth Koch forged one of Frank O’Hara’s greatest poems as a posthumous tribute to his friend. A noir-ish middle also recounts some very funny run-ins with the English avant-garde. Shame on the poets who forced its redaction and suppression.”—Jeremy Noel-Tod, The Times Literary Supplement, including a previous edition of A Question Mark Above the Sun as one of its 2011 Books of the Year

What you have in your hands is a kind of thought-experiment. It proffers the idea that a radical, se- cret gesture of poetic mourning and love was carried out by Kenneth Koch in memory of his close friend Frank O’Hara. I present the hypothesis as my own very personal expression of homage for the two great poets. The proposal I set forward here, nevertheless, is likely to make some readers annoyed, perhaps even indignant. Some already are. A few fellow writers, even, have worked hard through legal courses to block this book’s publication. The forced redaction of key quotations herein (replaced by paraphrase) is one result of their efforts.

In this self-described “thought experiment”—part fiction, part literary detec- tive work, and always daring—Kent Johnson proposes a stunning rewrite of literary history. Suppressed upon initial release, this is a one of a kind book by one of our most provocative contemporary authors.

Kent Johnson is the author, translator, or editor of over thirty books of po- etry and criticism, including Beneath a Single Moon: Buddhism in Contemporary American Poetry (Shambhala Publications, 1991), Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada (Roof Books, 1998), and his most recent collection of poems, Homage to the Last Avante-Garde (Shearsman Books, 2008). Best Known for his radical ideas about authorship, scholarship, and experimentation, it was with his translations of Hiroshima-survivor poet Araki Yasusada that Johnson became both celebrated and castigated. Only after Yasusada’s poems were published in American Poetry Review did readers learn there was no Yasusada, and that Johnson was not a translator on this project, but the author. Johnson is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Translation. He lives in Illinois, where he is a faculty member in English and Spanish at Highland Community College.

Was a beloved Frank O’Hara poem written by Kenneth Koch? Kent Johnson guarantees . . . you’ll never see poetry the same again.

some of my poems translated into Polish

Some poems from Hello Tiny Bird Brain (Knives Forks and Spoons 2011) in fab Polish magazine HELIKOPTER.

Thank you Adam Zdrodowski, Grzegorz Wroblewski, and the editors of HELIKOPTER!!!


poems from Hello Tiny Bird Brain in Polish magazine

As Frank said

Grace to be Born and Live as Variously as Possible


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where did that come from?

where did i get the fear of acting socially respectable. from looking toward the British as a child in Ireland? As an Irish child in Milton Keynes?

When I emigrated to America we landed in Vegas. July. When we stepped off the plane it was like stepping into a warm engine. We couldn't find any grass but we found Carl's Junior quite quickly. My mum became addicted to the fried zucini and buttermilk dip. I was the eldest of three when we landed. Rocky was my hero. So I lifted rocks in the desert. I stole a pair of boxing gloves from K-Mart. Or my friend did. I can't remember. I spiked my hair like the Russian Ivan Drago cause I felt Russian. More Russian than Irish in America. Even though I had never been to Russia. When I became Mormon I thought the Mormon prophet might send me to Russia on a mission. But that's another story.

The next eldest was my brother Aaron. He would run up and dow the hallway for hours. He had some kind of mad energy inside him. And then Shantell. Shantell popped out with a personality all ready to go. She was not afraid to speak out and say exactly what she wanted. I kept quiet. Did what I was told. Tried to be perfect. Thought I might be Jesus. Literally. Re-incarnated. I don't think this anymore.

Why am I writing in memoir mode? I have no idea. In this age of "creative non-fiction" and me me me me. Hm . . what could I do any differently than all those identity driven novels and youtube videos spread out all over the world like a sickness.

Is all writing personal?

Does it matter?


I remember during my MA studying all that rhetorical analysis stuff so i could grow up and teach college composition and thinking maybe I have made it. The only kid out of an eventual 7 to go to university. Where did it come from? I wanted to do something more manly. I worked construction as a teenager. I worked many many jobs. Some of them were:

1) Burger King hamburger cook

2) Sizler disher washer upper

3) concrete mixer and framer

4) cleaner (hospitals and factories)

5) factory shrink wrap worker

6) telemarketer (3 years) (Burpie Seeds, All-State Life Insurance, Direct TV)

7) cleaner, movie introducer at visitor centre of Zion National Park (one of the more interesting jobs. Made friends with Gerald. A Navajo. Went to a sweat lodge etc.)

8) chevron gas attendent (graveyard shift sometimes. listened to alien abduction stories on the radio)
9) J.C. Penny Shoes salesman

(many many many more . . .)


I think the idea of the American dream fueled my desire for university. The idea as the eldest to succeed.

Would I have went to university if we would have stayed in Northern Ireland? Or Milton Keynes? No way of knowing of course.

In some ways I think it is less likely. But in other ways I think I had a "natural" desire to work with the mind more than the body. It wasn't really in my environment. I mean the desire to be "intellectual" or read a lot. But somehow I think I felt an inclination towards it. I wasn't discouraged from reading at home of course. But I think I found I got praised for it a little in school. I was good at English. That was my subject. And later anything in the humanities came naturally. Maybe that encouraged me. Also the escape into the imagination. Like most kids I wanted to be someone else. I think it became an obsession. I had natural inclinations towards obsessions. Collecting things. Writing goals all over my walls. I convinced all the people in my middle school when I came to America that I was a real ninja and if the Irish ninjas came looking for me to keep quiet. I was exotic with my Northern Irish accent in Las Vegas so I think the kids believed me. My parents were called in because the teacher thought it might lead to trouble. We were in a somewhat rough immigrant neighborhood in Las Vegas. Someone might call me on it.

But I remember believing this. Really believing I was ninja. Or earlier in Milton Keynes a jedi.

I believed I had some special powers until maybe age 20. Those powers shifted. Once I became a teenager is was more special spiritual powers. Like maybe immortality. Or the ability to heal people with my energies/priesthood.

My identity shifted a lot from Northern Ireland to England to America. From Protestant to Mormon.

Shifts in accents and cultures and so on.

I needed a hero narrative to keep me going.

And I think that is partly the wall I run up against now. What to project onto the future. I have a hard time believing in life after death. Or the personality of "me" continuing outside my body. Never mind from year to year. So there is the now. In the face of complete annihilation even the now seems absurd.

Life at all seems absurd.

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I was obsessed with the future until the future caught up with me. I wanted to achieve achieve. I wanted to get a running scholarship to college. So in high school I ran 5-8 miles a day, swam a couple of miles a week etc. The track team also had many kids who wanted to make it by getting a track scholarship to college. We were all in the same boat. Except as the only white kid on the team I had a distinct advantage. Sure my background was working class and I didn't have examples of family going to college. But being white did make it easier in America of course.

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What does it mean to write a life? What is a writing life? I am not writing a life. I am writing on a blog. Blogs are personal. Well not all of course. And there are millions of blogs out there writing the personal. But maybe it is not personal versus "non-personal."  Maybe more about interesting or not interesting? What is interesting? Well depends of course on your audience. And maybe your goal. What is the goal of this? To make sense of time. To make sense of personal narratives? To make sense of memory?

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My goal in America was to succeed. Not by making lots of money. Although I had fantasies of making some money and sending it to my family so they could get out of America debt and have less stress in their life. It was more about making it in terms of cultural capital. Maybe becoming a professor. Or an artist. Or a psychologist. Doing something interesting. But that changed. I wanted to write. And I wrote starting early. Like most of those boring interviews with writers where the writer says oh I have been a writer since the age of 3 blah blah blah. But whatever. I wrote and I wanted to remake the world through writing. Like the books that shaped and re-made my world. I wanted to participate in reading through writing.

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And now many years and countries and a divorce later what is the goal? How is success measured? Or happiness?


I am adjunct intructor in academic writing at a small private college in London. I make enough to live in a somewhat rough area of London in a one bedroom flat. It is giving me enough money (at the moment) to buy some poetry books. Something I haven't done in almost six years. I am also in a good relationship. All of that is very important for my happiness. The job is rewarding in that I sometimes get to do something interesting. And it gives me more time than I have had in the last six years of teaching ESL in various countries.

But making it? Or becoming sucessful? That has completely changed since I left America and its dream behind me.

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My students are doing their in-class essay as I write this. I don't know where this came from. Maybe it will lead to a larger project. Maybe it is only an emptying out.

But I do think "creative non-fiction" is boring to me mainly because of the form. The craft aspect. And also the idea of specialness. There are millions of immigrant stories in America. There are millions of me. I am not special. But how the story is told and why. That might be something different.

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from The Heyday (travel poetry in progress . .

Olympia, Turkey

two hundred fifteen years ago 

we crossed a large court and entered a large door

they could tell where we were by the barking of dogs

Jenny exclaimed “why these weeds are grapevines”

tanglesome and troublesome we passed among the houses

seeing no road we took a large hill to the left 

it was in the time of great floods

part of the way was covered with large loose stones

we trod on them

we hurried across the ravine and up a winding road

to get a drink we opened the merchant's freezer 

we left him a note

after a while we arrived at eternal torches

we took to the brambles

the gate lead to ancient temples

the orifices were no longer marble

BlazeVOX and the NEA

some ridiculous policing by the NEA. Well behind the times:

NEA shoots itself in the foot!

Maintenant for Offpress: Marcus Slease (Grzegorz Wroblewski and Yu Jian in English translation)

TEXT

from Hermit Kingdom (south korea 2006)

Still revising The Heyday. Lots of re-seeings, re-readings, re-samplings, mixings and so on.

The Heyday (2005-2012) is travel writing. Basho.  Walt Whitman.  Herodotus. 18-19th travel handbooks, Buddhism, ethics and suffering and so on.

My experiences in South Korea, Katowice Poland, Elblag Poland, Ankara Turkey, Rome yadda yadda . . . .

Sometimes living in extreme circumstances without contact. Sometimes less extreme.

Creative translations from books and life and memories and experiences . .. blurring the lines . . . getting slippery . . . all writing as translation . . all words as already in the public sphere . . . including all poetry . .

The above picture is from visit to a Buddhist temple in South Korea in 2006 (Bongeunsa).

My hands are spread out for different turn-tables, mixing decks and so on.

Lots of books spread out on my table. Including my notebooks of travel notes and musings and poetry scraps. Travel handbooks from 18th century. Various 20th century books of poetry. Basho and Herodotus. Sometimes the music of what I am listening to makes it in the poem as well.

The present and the past collapse.

Here is one still in progress from one section of The Heyday called The Hermit Kingdom (South Korea 2006).  Written 2006. Revised through the years.

A bit of Mr. Lautreamont in 2012 gave me the goading I needed . . .

He will perhaps goad me some more!! It is not yet finished:

Ordinary Sun, Coeur De Lion, Off Press, Calvert Gallery

The end of week is coming fast. It has been my spring break. I got an HIV test (negative), some blood tests for all sorts of goodies (awaiting), vision test (and a new pair of glasses coming in two weeks), 20 new poems (and revisions). So a health check and writing week.

Got two terrific books in the post today. Matthew Henriksen's Ordinary Sun (from Black Ocean) and Ariana Reines Coeur De Lion. Last week I got Destroyer and Preserver by Matthew Rohrer (Wave Books).

So when the madness starts next week with 3 hours of daily commuting, I am well armed with mighty fine books!!!

Next week I will be going to a Vispo celebration/exchange with 75 or so poets. SJ Fowler has put it together.

Ewa and I are working on Freudian supermarket comics (from Spanish Fork) for the occasion.



Tomorrow I'm reading some Grzegorz Wroblewski (translated by Adam Zdrodowski) and Yu Jian (translated by Ron Padgett) in East London. Calvert Gallery. Off Press.

I am reading in the second half as part of Steven Fowler's Maintenant Series. Other British poets reading translations are: Gabi Labi, Patrick Coyle, SJ Fowler, and Tim Atkins.

Here are the details if you around (from the main organiser Marek kazmierski from Off Press):



The event is the culmination of a two-month contemporary arts programme at the Calvert 22 gallery in Shoreditch, and we want to round things off with an intelligent and impassioned bang. 


I will start by screening a tiny clip from a Polish political gangster film, using it to develop a discussion on untranslatability. 


Next, we will have a slot called "Polish literature around the world in 80 seconds", looking at the myriad of Polish writers who went into exile in the 20th century (and mostly never came back), the literary, historical, gender, ethnic and other aspects of this flood of "lost" writers. 


The following discussion will be led by Dr Ursula Chowaniec from UCL/SSEES, who has written a lovely critique of both Wioletta Grzegorzewska's book and the introduction in it.


Then we will read some of Wioletta's poems, 


Then drink some wine, smoke some fags, sell some books...


Then we turn over to Maintenant Series - taking the celebration of translated verse beyond my tiny publishing house and opening it up to new languages, interpretations and possibilities. 


marek kazmierski
www.off-press.org

Just ordered Ron Padgett's translations of Yu Jian

Looks mighty good!!!

some samples here:

Ron Padgett's translations of Yu Jian

old blog post from 18th March 2006

Ｉ‘ｍ　ｉｎ　Ｏｓａｋａ，　Ｊａｐａｎ　

SLEPT　in　a　capsule．More　ｌａｔｅｒ．

Ｊａｐａｎ　is　ｖｅｒｙ　ｃｌｅａｎ．


乗れ　そおｎ

paul blackburn

the possibility of warmth & contact                                                                        in the human relationship : as juxtaposed against the materialistic pig of a technological world, where relationships are only   ‘useful’   i.e., exploited, either          psychologically or materially.                                                                  20, the possibility of   s  o  n  g within that world: which is like saying ‘yes’ to sunlight. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- YES YES YES!!!! This makes me want to write! See more over at Jacket Magazine: Paul Blackburn: the purpose of poetry

nice review of Jim Goar's The Louisiana Purchase at The Rumpus

re-enjoying The Louisiana Purchase. Purchase The Louisiana Purchase if you haven't purchased it already!!!

fab review here (one of many):



review of Jim Goar's The Louisiana Purchase

Some terrific new poems of Grzegorz Wroblewski in The Corpse

Grzegorz Wroblewski in The Exquisite Corpse

review of from Smashing Time

A big thanks to Michael Zand for such an insightful review of my book and work and also Tom Chivers for publishing it in the magazine Hand+Star:

review of From Smashing Time by Michael Zand

Those itchy feet

 There is nothing new under the sun

etc.

Pictures from Camarade II

me and Peter Jaeger at Camarade II. Photo by Alexander Kell. Special thanks to S.J. Fowler (Steven) for making it all happen!!

Open Ealing Poetry - Marcus Slease

last night  15th Feb 2012