bits and bobs unmolded from the London notebook

I'm testing my banality.

Do you see this moon tissue?

Snail shells were once used as an allegory for both grave and resurrection.

The bright green and orange parrots are outside my window. They are beautifully lost.

There are more things in a closed box than an open one.

Make haste yea gentlemen who ride across the seas. My housemate awakens furniture that once slept.

Every morning I give a thought to saint Robinson Crusoe. Waterbugs floated on the china plate.

----------------------------------------------------
Q: Was I in yr tummy when you were dancing?
A: No!
Q: Where was I?
A: No where.
Q: Where is no where?

----------------------------------------------------

If you want to see the mirror then say please. The banality of the situation requires attention. A small lint free cloth, two pound coins, a small twig, and unresolved scum clogged the washing machine. I cannot proper myself completely. I imagine a forest life surrounded by friends in plaid shirts and muddy boots. That lady told me I lack male role models. I'm still forever spelling my selves. Every poem wants a freedom. Give me back my bones. What hides you? Who is giving you a hiding? How do you hide? Being starts with well-being. Lithocardites are heart shells. Images set verbs in motion. The French proverb says if you steal an egg you steal an ox. Houses are made from liquor and saliva. What is the dreamlife of language? The wing is near the engine. Every land a jigsaw. Etwas schnell. Eat the snail. Listen to me. I need a goading. Will you goad me? A tight squeeze of the lid doth not drive away wrath. Behold my face how it bores me. More and more went in and more and more came out. Folks pay a fortune for their lives.

my intro to poetry blog from 2005

Interesting to revisit this blog for an intro to poetry class I taught at UNC Greensboro. All non-poets and non-English majors. A lot of fun. I miss it!!!


intro to poetry

some pics from Soundeye

Mike Wallace interview with Jack Kerouac (1958)

MW: Sounds like a self-destructive way to seek God
JK: Oh, it was tremendous. I woke up sick about the fact that I had come back to
myself, to the flesh of life...
MW: You mean the Beat people want to lose themselves?
JK: Yeah. You know, Jesus said to see the Kingdom of Heaven you must lose
yourself...something like that.
MW: Then the Beat Generation loves death?
JK: Yeah, They're not afraid of death.
MW: Aren't you afraid?
JK: Naw... What I believe is that nothing is happening,
MW: What do you mean?
JK: Well you're not sitting here. That's what you *think*. Actually we are great
empty space. I could walk right *through* you... You know what I mean, we're
made out of atoms, electrons. We're actually empty. We're an empty vision...in
one mind.
MW: In what mind--the mind of God.
JK: That's the name we give it. We can give it any name. We can call it
tangerine...god...tangerine...But I know we are empty phantoms sitting here
thinking we are human beings and worrying about civilization. We're just empty
phantoms. And yet, all is well.
MW: All is well?
JK: Yeah. We're all in Heaven, now, really.
MW: You don't sound happy.
JK: Oh, I'm tremendously sad. I'm in great despair.
MW: Why?
JK: Its a great burden to be alive. A heavy burden, a great big heavy burden. I
wish I were in Heaven, dead.
MW: But youa re in Heaven, Jack. You just said we all were.
JK: Yeah. If I only knew it. If I could only hold on to what I know. [Then,
casually, rising] "You must meet my friend Phillip Lamantia. He was knocked off
a bench by an angel last week."

soundeye festival in cork

Leaving Wednesday morning. Lots of great poets to mingle with. My first public reading from Godzenie.

Super stellar lineup:

SoundEye #13
8-12 July 2009
Cork, Ireland


Wed July 8 • 18:00 • admission free
Firkin Crane, Shandon, Cork
Reading: Sean Bonney (UK) + Mairéad Byrne (Irl/USA) + Keith Tuma (USA)

Thu July 9 • 18:00 • admission free
Firkin Crane, Shandon, Cork
Reading: James Cummins (Irl) + Frances Kruk (UK) + Keston Sutherland (UK)

Thu July 9 • 20:30 • admission €5
The Other Place Club, St. Augustine St. (just off Paradise Place / Western Rd.), Cork
SoundEye Cabaret (Programmed by Fergal Gaynor)
With Isabella Oberlander (dancer AUT) + Boiled String (performance poetry CYM) + Mathematical Muse (poetry / performance / music) + Retorika Quartet with Camilla Griehsel (baroque and renaissance strings with soprano) + many more

Fri July 10 • 14:00 • admission free
The Guesthouse, 10 Chapel Street, Shandon, Cork
Reading: Swantje Lichtenstein (Ger) + Kevin Perryman (Ire/Ger) + Stephen Rodefer (USA/Fr) + Michael Smith (Ire)

Fri July 10 • 17:30 • admission free
Firkin Crane, Shandon, Cork
Reading: Jerome Rothenberg (USA) + Geoffrey Squires (Ire/UK) + Christine Wertheim (Aus/UK/USA)

Fri July 10 • 21:00 • admission free
Meade's Wine Bar, 126 Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork
Couscous@Meade's with M/C Mairéad Byrne
(Pre-programmed open-mic)

Sat July 11 • 11:30 • admission free
Firkin Crane, Shandon, Cork
Poetry by Default programmed by Jimmy Cummins
Reading: Jim Goar (USA) + Marcus Slease (NIre) + David Toms (Ire)

Sat July 11 • 17:00 • admission €3 (towards the upkeep of the building)
(Sonic Vigil runs continuously 12:00 - 18:00)
St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork
SoundEye/Sonic Vigil sound event
Performance: Jaap Blonk (Nl) + Jerome Rothenberg (USA) + Christine Wertheim (UK/USA)

Sat July 11 • 20:00 • admission free
Eason's Hill Community Centre, Eason's Hill, Shandon, Cork
Reading: Peter Manson (UK) + Maggie O'Sullivan (UK) + Tom Raworth (UK/Ire)
[Tom Raworth's reading is generously supported by Poetry Ireland]

Sun July 12 • 11:00 • admission free
Firkin Crane, Shandon, Cork
Reading: Thomas McCarthy (Ire) + Mark Mallon (Ger/Fin) + Luke Roberts (UK)

Sun July 12 • 13:00 • admission free
The Guesthouse, 10 Chapel Street, Shandon, Cork
Reading: Billy Mills (Ire) + Martin Corless-Smith (UK/USA) + Catherine Walsh (Ire)

[The SoundEye Festival is made possible thanks to the Small Festivals Scheme of The Irish Arts Council]




Soundeye 2009

from Alien Memory Machine (work in progress)

selection from Godzenie

poet and performance artist and musician and music critic Brian Howe

check out Scorpion Whip's first track:

Night Heist

pinhole visions

A pinhole camera is a very simple camera with no lens and a single very small aperture. Simply explained, it is a light-proof box with a small hole in one side. Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the box. Cameras using small apertures, and the human eye in bright light both act like a pinhole camera.


pinhole visions

Tony Tost's America

listen to some great Americana here:

Tony Tost's America

Beyond Good and Evil

"To recognize untruth as a condition of life: that, to be sure, means to resist customary value-sentiments in a dangerous fashion; and a philosophy which ventures to do so places itself, by that act alone, beyond good and evil."
-- Nietzsche

for the usefulness of literature

A terrific interview with Gabe Gudding. Really needed this fresh perspective!!!

Gabe Gudding interview

innovative poetry outside of the academy

A very very well-thought essay here by Peter Philpott.

I share the same concerns. Innovative British poetry MUST diversify!! It is far too tied to the academic world.

POETIC SPECIATION AND DIVERSIFICATION

From today's reading notebook

"There is a black box inside the sun. / The wreck of an earlier universe / is recorded there. There is a black / door at the center of the sun. / Seven steps lead up to it."
-- Joseph Donahue's Terra Lucida

"Hermes, whisper to us like the sun at night. / Hermes let the soul be wired for sound."
-- Joseph Donahue's Terra Lucida

"We hover between awareness of being and loss of being."
-- Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space

"All values must remain vulnerable and those that do not are dead."
-- Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space

"It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality."
-- Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space

"A daydream of elsewhere should be left open at all times."
-- Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space

"Millers, who are wind thieves, make good flour from storms."
-- Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space

"Consciousness rejuvenates everything, giving a quality of beginning to the most everyday actions."
-- Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space

"The Housewife awakens furniture that was asleep."
-- Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space

"Every morning I must give a thought to saint Robinson Crusoe."
-- Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space

"Asking a child to draw his house is asking him to reveal the deepest dream shelter he has found for his happiness. If he is happy, he will succeed in drawing a snug, protected house which is well built on deeply rooted foundations."
--Anne Balif

Alien Memory Machine (South Korea Section)

MEMO BOOK JAN 2006

my address is 813
Dae Yang Nice
Gae Sang
Gye Yang
Incheon

Joe is a veteran of the gulf and cooks big plates of rice
Shane has a ponytail and refuses a Korean look
Tim meets us on the roof and runs through the numbers

Wonderland is a scam!!!

my ipod contains:



Jesus the Mexican Boy
Good for Good
Ocean Breathes Salty
King of Carrot Flowers
Promising the Light
Kissing the Lipless
Somebody that I used to Know
Junkyard
Bird Stealing Bread
Bridges and Balloons
Lion's Mane
Naked As We Came
He's Simple He's Dumb
I Don't Blame You
Float On!

Greenline to Shinlim Station
Exit 3
Bus 5529

Date with Beth 3:45PM at Gangnam Exit 1

Saturday 2PM Yeoksam 3
blind date from Korean Friend Finder

250 grams of meat

wed meet landlord
for hanging closet

Mike and Shane:

Go to Wal-Mart. Stand outside front doors. With Wonderland on the right, walk left. Building has huge number 201!!! There are 5 entrances. Ours is the last.

from Alien Memory Machine (South Korea Section)

Mu (dream) So(window)

I think I
utter butter
what exactly
this is just
what must be
spoken
I'm fed with
multi-spoons
what ghosts
my friend
in our battles
for the sun
I I I I I I I i
will not paint
dream brothers
dream lovers

from Alien Memory Machine (South Korea Section)

The dentist and I are eating our bulgogi and bean sprouts. Need visions. The small pickles and quick sushi. Korean bread baskets. When you come undone you come undone. You know you know jack shit. How far can we go? What sinks? Balloon based action reaching new heights. Are you aware of the costs? Look at this river. The children splash. The wet gaggles. Our atoms will implode. A never ending line. Welcome to the Korean summer. Keep it neon. Keep it light. Soft face fucked by soft thoughts. Just look at us. Hand in hand. They gave me prozac. We couldn't read the signs. You threw shit around the room. I bought a tiltable screen. I masturbated. No memories. Fade. Only. For. Today. Now I can look you in the eye.

Godzenie now ready to order

I am going to buy copies for the Soundeye festival in Cork. So if you are at Soundeye, you can buy the books direct from me if you wish.


Link for ordering is to the right. Amazon.com is the easiest way right now.

But I just purchased some of my books and placed them with small press distribution. Small Press Distribution is a terrific organization. It keeps small presses alive. Very very important. My book will be available in the next few days from SPD. This is way to order for bookshops, libraries etc.

Very happy and grateful that i finally have a book in print. Very grateful to
Stacy for creating the artwork for the cover.

and of course Geoffrey at Blazevox.

I just hope some folks get something useful from it (pleasure for example).

Polish literature in translation

Polish literature in English

art/life

"An artist does not create the way he lives, he lives the way he creates."

-- Jean Lescure

Alien Memory Machine (South Korea section)

When I first arrived in South Korea I went into downtown Seoul with one of the Korean teachers named Vicky. Actually, it was literally the day after I arrived in Korea. I had just moved into my flat. I didn't know my address. I just knew that I lived near a Wal-Mart and a Japanese restaurant. I lost Vicky in the crowds. I had no mobile phone. I knew I lived in Incheon. So I told the taxi driver to take me to the Incheon Wal-Mart. He took me to a different Wal-Mart next to a different Japanese restaurant. It was quite a distance. I paid $60 and got out because he didn't know the other Wal-Mart in Incheon. He said the other Wal-Mart in Incheon didn't exist. I wondered if he was right.

I walked for a few hours through all the neon lights and Friday party crowds. Finally I gave up. Got another taxi. I told him I needed the Incheon Wal-Mart. He took me to the same wrong Wal-Mart. Another $60. I got out and went into the Wal-Mart. I at least needed some snacks for the journey. It was about 4:30AM. I wanted to find some ham to snack on. Alas, no luck.

Eventually, I found a night stocker. He was cutting boxes with his box knife. He cut a wee piece of cardboard for me and wrote the address of the other Wal-Mart in Korean on the cardboard. I went outside. No taxis. Walked another two hours. Through the drunk Friday night crowds. Got a taxi. Gave him the cardboard. He drove me to the right Wal-Mart. That was only the beginning of crazy world adventures!!!

Here is what I wrote in my notebook the next day. From 2006:


Incheon Wall-Mart

The weather had kidnapped me. Buzzing around with taxi after taxi. Bridge after bridge. Looking for the familiar.

bloated on elephant wings
bloated on lost brides
bloated on nan

The most wrong love found in cellophane.

Eggshells broke. Live animals crawled thru the shops.

I searched for ham but only found spam.

from Alien Memory Machine (South Korea section)

I lived in a tiny tiny room called a Goshiwon for 2.5 months. Just a bed. Couldn't stretch my legs all the way. A bar above my head for clothes. A shower shared by 50 or so Koreans. Very very little contact with other English speakers.

It is still a first draft. Here it is from the notebook from 2006:



Gyesan Goshiwon

We walked in water, not on. We worked the washers with foreign signs. We reeked of kimchee. A turtle pillowed me. You must understand how the clothes hung above me. We didn't throw fevers at the moon. Crazy horizons. My street eyes on plastic toys. Dog-eared my inner ear. Florescent coins. We met in a tunnel while snow licked my lashes. Strike that. We met in a coffee shop. They followed me up and down a step ladder. I received my papers. You must answer me now. How did I end up so far from other foreigners?

Some Polish Avant Garde

Tymoteusz Karpowicz (1921-2005)

ABOUT

Some poetry



Witold Wirpsza (1918-1985):

ABOUT

Some poetry

Polish punk legends

BRYGADA KRYZYS

Halina Poswiatowska (1935-1967)

Bio

Critical intoduction

Some translated poems

More modern Polish poetry

R. Wojaczek (1945-1971)

bio

You Have to Fear the Rose

I, Kafka

four poems by Andrzej Bursa

Bursa is becoming one of my favourite modern poets. Check out "Night of the long Knives" below. Translations seem quite good (always tricky of course).

(1932-1957)

All his short life he lived in Cracow. He made his debut in the press in 1954, although he never wrote praises of socialism. Three years later he died because of problems with his heart. The first book of his poems appeared after his death.


Andrzej Bursa

The Barbarian Poets (some now institutionalized)

Now that I am in London and Godzenie is about to be published I am on fire again. All is possible. There is so much to explore in Poland in terms of neglected interesting poetry. So many interesting poets in the big world!!!

The poet Grzegorz Wroblewski has opened my eyes to Polish poetry I couldn't find when I lived in Poland for two years. It's another word/world.

I just can't get enough!!!!

Grzegorz and I are planning to do joint readings in Warsaw, Copenhangen, London and maybe somewhere in the states (North Carolina).

Yeah!!!

Freedom that elusive word. That much abused word. That overly politisized word. We want it in our daily lives. Some seem to give up. Nothing is worth more! There is nothing to achieve!

The Barbarians

literature of the Polish underground

BruLion Magazine

Terra Lucida

At last. It's arrived from America. Abandon all other reading projects!!!

TERRA LUCIDA, Joseph Donahue's ongoing magnum opus, is an astonishing work in which psychopompic dispatch and apocalyptic portent, by turns audacious and distraught, mix worldly exactitude with vatic unrest. Striking in its range and compression, its culling of contemporary grist and archaic light, its reportorial tone's melodic reach, it allies an unforced, unforeclosed spirituality with sifting intelligence of the severest kind. Long awaited, volume one is a beautiful, bracing, desert island book"--Nathaniel Mackey. Donahue's most recent book, INCIDENTAL ECLIPSE, is also from Talisman House and also available from SPD.

Author Hometown: USA

Terra Lucida Review

art in Denmark

Denmark Portal

Grzegorz Wroblewski

Some poems translated from the Polish:

From Mercury Project

ten poems

currently reading

1) The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg by Mark Twain

2) The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard

3) Prop by Peter Jaeger

4) Proper Name and Other Stories by Bernadette Mayer

5) Quaquaversals by Geraldine Monk

6) The Land Between by Wendy Mulford

7) Banquet by Geraldine Monk

8) Rapid Eye Movement by Peter Jaeger

from When Romanticism is no Longer the National Avant-Garde by Piotr Parlej

The situation is made more paradoxical if one recalls that the other option, in Poland at least, has coexisted (precariously marginalized) with the emerging powerhouse of parnassian poetry. Miron Bialoszewski's "Pamietnik z powstania" ("A Memoir of the Uprising"), an account of the Warsaw Uprising, suggests an alternative perspective on the same national trauma, from the point of view of a truth that does not allow itself to be extrapolated, generalized, sloganized, and reproduced into aesthetic manifestoes. Sadly an exception in Polish poetry, Bialoszewski continued an avant-garde tradition of considerable merit within a national aesthetic climate that spurned such experimentation, which it considered simply inadequate to the task of uplifting and perfecting the national soul.

Another measure of the situation, although an indirect one, is the following regularity: when the avant-garde did make an impact, and earned a place in the tissue of national existence, it was not in verse but in drama. In poetry, the nation was prepared to recognize itself only in a conservative (classicist/romantic) mirror; playwrights were the ones who were tolerated, or accepted, in their avant-garde robes.

When Romanticism is no Longer the National Avant-Garde!!!

Postmodernism in Central and Eastern Europe

Projekt 1

Video from avant-garde album PROJEKT1 (SoulCraft Rec.)

Grzegorz Wroblewski-poems

Bobi Peru-Music and production.

Check it:

Between directed by M. Klinger

From Alien Memory Machine (South Korea section)

from 2006:

all you liked about trees
the light like slanted rain
the dark inside the body
we've walked along this road
the moon throws fevers
across florescent cement
pink rivers in your carpet
there is something special
in your membranes
a bench was a special possibility
I could smell the soap on your neck
I'm choked by my inner speed
you tossed simple objects into the air
you put your hands into your pocket
to test its hardness
you added new vowels to my alphabet
should I wait for you to stab me?

Paul Green's Dream Lab

FROM PAUL GREEN

For those of you interested in hybrids of poetry/audio drama/science fiction/surrealism...

I've just exhumed an early radio drama of mine and posted it on my podcast as follows:

"Paul A Green's "auditory assault for voices & media" was broadcast by CBC Radio Canada in 1972. It features Don Harron as Director of the Lab, probing and remixing the dreamlife of his subjects..."

The piece has obvious flaws but also has its moments, notably in the soundscape devised by composer Denis Laurin and producer Alan Yates. As for the text, imagery starts veering towards the surreal as the Lab gets to work. And the echoes of Ballard and Burroughs are now audible. Dr Nathan, I think, is lurking...

Don Harron was the father of Mary Harron, who directed "I shot Andy Warhol" while the narrator role was taken by Bud Knapp, who played the pilot in the TV version of "Quatermass and the Pit", a connection which gives me a certain obscure pleasure.

Apologies for the faint crackle. It's been transferred from vinyl LP. CBC broadcast it domestically and then sent vinyl copies to scores of radio stations for unlimited broadcast. Whether any of them did, I don't know. I was told a few years ago that bits had been sampled in a dance mix somewhere.

This curious work lives on at:

SURREAL DREAM LABS

slim down!!!

A nice short article by one of my favourite poets Linh Dinh about living a more simple life. My life philosophy exactly!!! I couldn't agree more!

Check it out:

Slim DOWN

creative writing programs

Interesting article about the institution of creative writing in universities. It's spreading. Is it a good thing???

I am undecided, but for sure I have learned the most about writing and poetry outside of the university in artist and poetry communities (Lucifer Poetics in North Carolina, Openned and Crossing the Line reading series in London etc.)

Should Creative Writing be Taught?

Silesia

This is the area I lived in for two years. I actually miss it sometimes. Although maybe better to visit for a month or so rather than live forever. I recommend visiting. It is not touristy. It has its own strange industrial charm at times.


Wojciech Wilczyk

crossing the line

Peter Jaeger on 1 mp phone

crossing the line

great reading at Crossing the Line tonight in London. Near London Bridge. In the leather district. At "the leather exchange." Cris Cheek and Peter Jaeger. Love the presence and work of Peter Jaeger. Some pics from 1.2 mp phone. This is not Peter Jaeger.

David Bromige 1933-2009

Sad to the see David Bromige has left us. An amazing poet. Generous and awe-inspiring!!


A nice send off from the poet and publisher Ken Edwards here:

David Bromige

Brian and Ashley Howe Video

video art from friend and Lucifer Poetics poet Brian Howe (and Ashley). Brian is the man coming out of the cabin in the picture heading of this blog :-)

UP

some fantastic visual art from the Polish poet Grzegorz Wroblewski

Grzegorz Wroblewski

and now to complicate things in a good way :-)

From the Polish poet Grzegorz Wroblewski:

Jacek Podsiadlo (for many critics a typically 'Polish New York School' poet), is a 'new generation' poet but he uses the some poetic strategies like old poets before him but with new ' language effects' etc.

Rozewicz was born before WW II. He is a Polish classic poet, but different. He is not the same as the Polish 'monumental poets' (Milosz-Herbert).

Swietlicki is a Polish Beat poet

I think this is not a question young-old, not a generation confrontation, but something else.

Public language versus private language.

Nation versus the individual etc.

the new Polish poets

After 1990 Polish poetry shifted big time. It is a damn fine shift. A shift that SHOULD draw more attention from American and UK poets. And MUCH more attention from the literary world in Poland. Poetry in the education system in Poland seems to be even worse than in the UK and US. The more exciting Polish poets are rarely taught. I have spoken to a few folks who said it was very very very hard to get materials on the Beats while doing an MA at university. But I think some Polish literature professors might have made it to the 1970's in Polish literature. But it seems, from talking to others, that they are mostly clueless.

This is a quick rough summary of the landscape taken from an essay on Post-Colonialism by Anna Kałuża.


1.

After the horrors of WWII Polish poetry as a whole showed a desire to be settled and find a place. Nation building. Space through similarity and a desire for stable meaning (Milosz in exile etc.) A desire for community. "Similarity perceived in "the other" becomes a condition for an assimilatory understanding of otherness" (Anna Kałuża). Poets in this group included:

Zbigniew Herbert, Czesław Miłosz, Jacek Podsiadło

I feel very little for the work of these poets. Most of their work bores me to tears. Poetry with a capital P. They have a few ok poems. Much like Seamus Heaney has a few ok poems. But as a whole, their work does nothing new or interesting.


2.

Before 1990 there were also poets who used the language of otherness. Some are like the American poets Dean Young, Tony Hoagland etc. A dirivitive and often stale use of otherness. Others are more interesting. One of the influences seems to be the NY school. Hybrids. The more interesting poets in this group include:

Tadeusz Różewicz (otherness in a more classical vein)i, Marcin Świetlicki (a beat poet)


3.

The new other is very exciting. Their work takes off after 1990 (along with the static otherness in the second grouping). And builds more after 2000. I don't think they are taught in school. I think most Polish students are taught poets from the first group. The nation builders. BORING!!! But this group is hot hot hot!!!

As a whole the work of these poets does not take an overt ethical interest in building Polish society. Otherness and playfulness is different than the language of otherness in Tadeusz Różewicz and Marcin Świetlicki. The crucial and most interesting difference is:

difference is more strongely emphasized though it is not made static

The influences on both of these new poetries (1 and 2) are varied but one big influence seems to be the NY school poetry (1st and 2nd and 3rd generations).

Some of the poets in this group of non-static otherness include:

Andrzej Sosnowski, Marcin Sendecki, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki,

and my new friend

Grzegorz Wróblewski

you can check his poetry, and others, in the Jacket issue of new Polish poets here:

The NEW Polish poetry

Ealing Broadway. Poco Loco. 13:02. 25/5/09

Form an “O” with your mouth, raise your eyebrows and then back away slowly. Do not show teeth. Do not unhinge your mouth. Remain calm because loud noises, flailing your arms or quick movements such as running will cause other animals to feel threatened.

"this time I really trust you"

there there wake up
mr smarty mr chocolate
cum oh cum oh cum
you're a fool to whistle
at the flattened bums in Ealing
soap scum in the bath
bubbles in the beer
there's no way out of this twister
touch me as an animal
we're makin our way back to the city oh little fish
buckle-up, buck up, dry those ducts
I'm a love boat in yr gravy

nomadic poetics

This idea, overall, is quite close to how I experience poetry, culture, the 21st century:


Nomadic Poetics

30th May 2009 09:03AM, London, UK

Jukebox tears. We never blamed it on the soil. We filled up. Flowers are coming bees are sucking pollen.The man in the Matrixx needed purpose. Purpose is more important than free will. I'm torn. Saint brother. Be well.

The avant garde still lives! Long live the avant garde!

Nice review by John Latta here

John Latta's review of Kent Johnson

I don't know why but somehow every time I read Kent Johnson's projects (or books) (or about him) I have a bit of hope. There really is an avant garde. I hate the term Post-Avant. There is no post. I don't even think there is a post-modernism.

There is much work and play still to be done. I especially love the story of when he visited the soviet union with the big guns of American avant garde poetry in 1989. Read the Latta review if you don't know already. He is the best of the tricksters.

And kent Johnson, like Duchamp before him, shows us that context is everything.

We gotta get rough. Nothing is too precious.

streetcake magazine

Hello talented writers, fans and friends,

this is a quick email to let you know that Issue 5 of streetcake is now on the site!

Please do give us a visit and have a read. We also have the biographies up for all the writers included this issue.

Our talented roll call is as follows:

sean burn, stephanie codsi,
trini decombe, nikki dudley,
kyle hemmings, P.A. levy,
anna mckerrow, angela readman,
sarah shaheen and lora stimson.

Also, we'd like a bit more feedback. So if you have any thoughts on the issue, please give us an email or find us on facebook/twitter and share your thoughts.

All the best and happy reading,

Nikki and Trini

--


check out the latest issue

early morning dream (scribbled in haste in the notebook)

a mother and her daughter came to visit. It was a university campus. We went to a building called Cunning linguist. The mother pointed to a ski lift. We rode the ski lift and a sufi said welcome to BFI. We rode the ski lift through a jungle a sign read NEW TURKEY. We fell into a river. A shrunken river. A mini Thames full of mud. We crashed into the river and I lost the mother and her daughter. Men with thick torches waded in the river and I was suddenly seized by child sized frogs. I couldn't shake them. The frogs wouldn't budge. I had no torch. Just groping in the river and feeling the frogs on my body.

onward to Turkey

Just accepted the offer to teach at METU/ODTU in Ankara. Will leave in September. New frontiers coming.

Maybe one book per country. Almost finished with my London ms. Poland ms (Godzenie) will appear in print soon. Still finishing up Korea (Alien Memory Machine). Never mind the beasts (the United States) is making the rounds at publishers.

google's assault on freedom

Google's assault on writers' copyright ...


Google and greed