Procedures for Poetry

A list of writing experiments at the Factory School.

Charles Bernstein has a list of things to try.

Bernadette Mayer’s list of writing experiments is pretty well-known.

When experimenting with poetry, remember to wear eye protection.

Exquisite corpses

Here are the two poems we made at our most recent meeting (5/11/7). The second one is the one we made with the Boggle game.

Langston over the intercom so wrong
they call me needle tip
the breeze is mild, my heart is soft
in not so many ways—elated
in times, troubles, temptations, too tends to take place; replace
leaves from a tree vortex
two rival pirate ships upon the high seas
pirate turn to patriot, lover turn to enemy
accented the smell of sunscreen on your salty skin
ever after, ever laughter, overtakes

eros rests ests ens UI
use us, an Ernst, Sr... Jrs an ests rojo Zora rist Zoro
Zora UI zoe ests
The rose estate son of ant, the ritz write son of rojo
Norse Ernst, it srtn biff consume ant
In JZ sit in love, Zowee it’s Zora
srtn sexual healing rests riser spoon consume earn
Sue and Zoe sit in the UI of the US
love spoon, sexual healing suit

Blogger Knowledge

Here’s the article I mentioned on the legal rights and responsibilities of bloggers: “Twelve Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know.”

There’s also some (mostly) good discussion of it over on Slashdot.

Language and thought

I don't want to get all Sapir-Whorf, and I don't have a beef with Dmitri Anastasopoulos's article in Callallo 23.2 from which comes the following excerpt. Nope. It's a good piece. I'm just thinking of the channels of thought our language leads us down, leads me down as I write.



Anastasopoulos's reading leans toward the dialectical attitude of Derrida's White Mythology to describe something that is much more the Deleuzian/Guattarian and-and-and. And I think the wording as much as any theory leads in this essay toward the dead ends I've highlighted.

What if Penguin has an idea and Lambert has an idea? Why can't they share that idea? Anastasopoulos doesn't suggest they can't, but his language seems to lead toward that conclusion.

This is not a particularly astute observation I'm making. It's more of a quibble, but a quibble I may have less qualms about as I write through the play of negatives in the passage in Mackey's novel Djbot Baghostus's Run in which the women of novel reject an eminent gender imbalance.

Pics...finally

Poetry Project for next week

The poetry project we agreed upon for next week is to write a poem about someone we know. There was a strong contingent demanding we write about each other, but there were equally strong objections. So let’s have at it!

Spirit those dewy flowers in it

Spirit those dewy flowers in it

A silent secret you told your spirit-
In the waking hours the speech of those
Will laugh at that which is dull and dewy.
The untamed and untrained worldly flowers
That so haplessly grow and die young in
Wicked winters- the hours define it.

Yet there exists not a reason for it
To compromise with a soulless spirit.
Quarrelling with conflict dwelling deeper in
The accent of sorrow suffered by those
Who shrivel and fold as the world flowers-
Heaven is cursed and the night is dewy.

What encompasses thought is both dewy
And dry. What so menacingly sought it
Sprouts with the tear of that which so flowers
Every year and takes the ghastly spirit
That has trampled apart each one of those
Who fight to be free and close their world in-

To clusters that breed solace and dread in
A mind that is grasping for a dewy
Star speak violent metaphors to those
In my head- cloud the night- yearning that it
May awaken the dead so my spirit
Will weaken that which longingly flowers.

Craft Critique Culture

There’s a conference next weekend “Sex in Public/Sex in Private”; if you want to check out some of the offerings, here’s a link: http://www.uiowa.edu/~c3conf/

minnesota

is where i'll be headed this friday. i'll see if i can get something sent off to jp-- if i do, make sure someone reserves a line for me.
see you next week.

You all should

submit to this here U of Iowa magazine:
http://www.uiowa.edu/~ncte/cognitive_overload/Conitiveoverload/cognitiveoverload.htm

I did, and look at me now.