tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55541747889401348002024-02-18T23:14:04.460-06:00Kyphotic Hermit"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-56325866662272454502009-06-16T21:10:00.005-05:002009-06-16T21:18:49.347-05:00Brands by Dave Oliphant<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS2Kg-tXw_eW8ECDJCYQkXjXpsDzC8o25eCGtI4Xbu8T5nk_SQD12xPMfKREcSmlcp3pMTsBATc_rl3aG01QV6ZtIE5fN0tYGpp-NUy6dzBBMxL-grM2pM8uYrVEWTNc0riJLJPl46d60/s1600-h/covers+017.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 251px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS2Kg-tXw_eW8ECDJCYQkXjXpsDzC8o25eCGtI4Xbu8T5nk_SQD12xPMfKREcSmlcp3pMTsBATc_rl3aG01QV6ZtIE5fN0tYGpp-NUy6dzBBMxL-grM2pM8uYrVEWTNc0riJLJPl46d60/s320/covers+017.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5348093367801298930" /></a>
<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
Cover design
by Jim Jacobs
after Pancho Villa's
death's head brand
When I last awoke this morning, thunderstorms were blustering thru,
so I spent some of that time reading Dave Oliphant's <i>Brands</i>, a
chapbook published by Road Runner Press in 1972. In it I noted his
"Padding" poem had four lines which were obviously too long for the
page and therefore had their ends tucked under to the far right.
It could be they are supposed to be that way, but I will be sharing
"Padding" here with the lines full out. He was in Malta, Illinois,
at that time. Ten years later, when I was briefly in Austin, Texas,
I had a short visit with him. His chapbook's title comes from a
sequence of six cattle brand poems in it. He is a native Texan who
for many years was the editor and publisher of Prickly Pear Press.
-
PADDING
anything to make it easier on the mind
to keep the real thing out of the crush
block passage on the House & Senate floors
in verse Unamuno justified / found it fitting
but for none / not one of the reasons above
& o what stoic Spanish tho't would've been his comfort then
lined / laced with arabesques / Moorish words like <i>almohadas</i>
on hearing me declare verbiage to be the lot / the lonely
the only stuff for making song / when what he wanted
was marrow / a little <i>carne</i> along with the bone
just to get free from figuring it out
I'd say / well / waste is the American way
cardboard-box a tree & save a buck eighty
but that won't do & neither will asylum walls
this banging unbruised into devils inside our cells
when everywhere it's plugging up or knocking holes
in the Giants' / the Rams' / the Jets' defenses
covering up for the collected poems can't even copy <i>lux fiat</i>
under the stoop leaves & twigs hibernating the frogs
string & straw soon to hatch a singing in the eaves
kh00032
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-76998000510647797252009-06-07T16:20:00.001-05:002009-06-07T16:21:42.612-05:00Eliot O'Hara Radiohead connection<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
*
<a href="http://adamfieled.blogspot.com/2009/06/edgy-emotions.html">See Adam Fieled's Edgy Emotions</a> post.
*
kh00031
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-36179116129782621652009-06-06T15:00:00.005-05:002009-06-06T20:56:30.860-05:00ragged publication list<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
Haven't been a conscientious record keeper, but I have some
informative index cards here from the years when I cared and
was more actively trying to publish my writings in literary
journals and elsewhere. So this is a convenience exercise.
Most of what I have had published appeared in various issues
of <i>Wisconsin Review</i>. In the late 1970's and early 1980's
I was publishing under the pen name of Alden St. Cloud, a
name derived from a family history fact and a supposed fact.
However, I have used other pen names on occasion, but only
once was anything legitimately published that way.
* Reviews
-
Marvin Bell's <b>The Escape into You</b>
Atheneum, 1969, 1970, 1971)
in <i>Road Apple Review</i> Vol. III No. 4
Winter 1971-1972 pp. 48-50
-
"Keeping Us Mad"
Peter Wild's <b>Magical Book of Cranial Effusions</b>
New Rivers Press, 1971)
in <i>Wisconsin Review</i> Vol. 7 No. 2
Spring 1972 p. 32
* Cover designs
-
<b>Their Place in the Heat</b>
<i>Road Apple Review</i>
Spring 1971 Vol. III No. 1
-
<i>Road Apple Review</i>
Winter 1971-1972 Vol. III No. 4
* poems in anthologies
-
"February" and "September"
(as by Alden St. Cloud)
<b>Wisconsin Poets' Calendar: 1982</b>
and "Snow" (Alden St. Cloud)
<b>Wisconsin Poets' Calendar: 1983</b>
Tom & Mary Montag, editors
Midwestern Writers' Publishing House
Fairwater, Wisconsin
-
"Where Once the Old Mill"
and "307. November 2nd"
(as by Alden St. Cloud)
<b>Poetry Out of Wisconsin V</b>
edited by Mardi Fries & Jeri McCormick
Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, Madison, 1980
-
"The Mind Has Seasons Out of Time"
"Beauty" and "Being a Poet"
<b>Minnesota Poets Anthology—1973</b>
Vol. 2 No. 1 St. Cloud State College
-
"Woodland Shades" (sonnet)
National High School Anthology 1959
* poems in magazines and newspapers
-
"Woodland Shades" (sonnet)
<i>Marquette Journal</i>
-
"Into the Marsh" and "Solitudo III"
<i>Marquette Journal</i>
-
"The Lone Pine Tree"
<i>Pursuit</i> Spring 1963 Vol. III No. 2
-
"To John Keats"
<i>Pursuit</i> Spring 1964 Vol. 4 No. 2
-
"After Almost Five Years"
"Rome, 300 A.D."
"Sea Shells Are for Hiding"
"The Evening Soliloquy of Samuel Portal"
<i>Pursuit</i> Winter 1964 Vol. V No. 1
-
"Symphony"
"The Rock Garden"
"The Mind Has Seasons Out of Time"
"The Purple Fox"
<i>Pursuit</i> Summer, 1965 Vol. V No. 2
-
"Cave" and "Swallow Bend"
<i>Wisconsin Review</i> Vol. 3 No. 1 Fall, 1967
-
"Beauty"
(first published as "The Swans of Winnebago")
<i>Karamu</i> No. 4 June, 1968
-
"Sitting at My Desk"
"A Dream of Collaboration with the Muse"
(Is now simply "Muse Dream" but was
first published as "A Dream of Collaboration")
<i>Karamu</i> Vol. II No. 1 April, 1969
-
"Starting Over"
<i>Road Apple Review</i> Vol. II No. 4
Winter 1970-1971
-
"Behind the Garage" and "Transferal"
<i>Wisconsin Review</i> Vol. 6 No. 2 Spring, 1971
-
"The Mystics"
<i>Small Pond</i> Spring 1971 #22
-
"Notes at the Watershed"
(Christmas Season 1970-1971)
<i>Wisconsin Review</i> Vol. 6 No. 3 Summer 1971
-
"Being a Poet" "The Maverick" and
"Imagining Myself on a Hill near the
Old Mill Stream, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin"
<i>Wisconsin Review</i> Vol. 7 No. 1 Fall 1971
-
"Revealing the Source"
<i>Yes</i> Vol. Two No. One Autumn 1971
-
"Martha,"
(accepted by <i>Free Debris</i>, 1972)
-
"After the Funerals of a Friend and an Uncle"
<i>Sou'wester</i> Winter 1972
-
"Prosody"
(a broadsheet in Oshkosh, 1972)
-
"Words for Walt"
<i>GPU News</i> May/June 1973
-
"Tonight"
<i>Saltillo</i> Vol. 2 No. 3 Winter 1974
-
"Apology of a Hypocrite"
<i>Mouth of the Dragon</i> #6 Sept. 1975
-
"20° Breeze"
<i>Abbey</i> #20 October, 1976
-
"82. March 22nd" (for Sandy Troedel)
"Funeral Words" "Admonition"
and "The Administrator"
<i>The West Bend News</i>
in "Spice of Life" section, Feb. 4, 1977
-
"61. March 1st" "69. March 9th" "137. May 16th"
(under a pen name I never used again)
<i>River Bottom</i> Vol. IV No. 2 Summer 1977
-
"105. April 14th" "106. April 15th"
"110. April 19th "112. April 21st"
<i>Song</i> #2 1977
-
"Watermelon" and "The Mystery"
<i>Wisconsin Review</i> Vol. 8 No. 3
-
"Child" and "A Wall"
<i>Wisconsin Review</i> Vol. 12 No. 4 1978
-
"Michelangelo," and "Four for John Ashbery"
(as by Alden St. Cloud)
<i>Wisconsin Review the fifth season</i>
Vol. 14, Nos. 2 & 3 1980
-
"248. September 4th"
<i>Ramada Regular</i>
Vol. 6 No. 7 November 1980
-
"The Barn Was Cold"
<i>RFD</i> Fall, 1985
-
"December 26th"
<i>The Sun: A Magazine of Ideas</i>
issue 124 March 1986
-
"Saying Good-bye" "Pride"
"Axiom" "Then Millicent Said"
<i>Studia Mystica</i> Poetry and Mysticism
Volume IX, Number 4 Winter 1986
*
kh00030
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-60860258758009125942009-05-30T11:12:00.004-05:002009-05-30T11:20:32.474-05:00Coteries Categories Individuals<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
See prior Stephen Burt posts: kh00027 and kh00028.
As strongly as I am against literary packaging,
which arises from the human need to label things,
I cannot figure out why I consistently allow the
ruminations of others to draw me into that habit.
Yes it is a memory aid, and yes in the sciences it
is essential, but it tends to limit the scope of
what a given maker actually makes. Scientifically,
I am in the category of humans who are less than
five feet tall. In the realm of poem-making are
those who prefer to be members of a coterie and/or
to be identified as being a maker whose works are
examples of a specific categorizable nature. I
find nothing wrong with that. But yesterday
Mark Wallace led me to a post by none other than
that erudite independent John Latta, a post I had
already read or at least glanced through. I read
it, and realized that my willingness to let Burt
or whomever have hir say without my trying to be
confrontational lessens the worth of what I say.
So this is how on <a href="http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html">Wednesday, May 27, 2009</a>
Latta wins.
kh00029
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-53466300447469762782009-05-29T21:48:00.000-05:002009-05-29T21:49:21.199-05:00Regarding Burt's The New Thing<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
essay in <i>The Boston Review</i>, which I read today
via a link at Silliman's Blog, several thoughts:
Stephen Burt did a lot of research.
-
His essay is therefore historically valuable.
-
Establishing and supporting the existence of a
poetic trend requires a node of activity dedicated
to making poems of a particular kind. That, as Burt
recognizes, poems of the kind he discusses have been
made for years do help to support his position; they
are not sufficient to establish a trend.
-
Anthologies, presses, journals, blogs, poet-to-poet
communications are the means by which trends are
established.
-
I and many, many others are among those who for
years have written poems of <i>The New Thing</i> kind;
but it wasn't until recently that numerous poets
began writing entire books of such poems. *
Stephen Burt notes that the two best books are
Mark Levine's <b>Debt</b> and Rae Armantrout's <b>Next Life</b>.
kh00028
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-1440966520091323772009-04-24T13:29:00.002-05:002009-04-24T13:31:12.902-05:00Stephen Burt Elliptical<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
For those of you, who like me, are lagging:
<a href="http://www.webdelsol.com/Perihelion/p-verbatim9.htm">Joan Houlihan interviews Stephen Burt</a>
-
<a href="http://bostonreview.net/BR23.3/burt.html">Stephen Burt reviews <i>Smokes</i> by Susan Wheeler</a>
kh00027
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-5249301354054863632009-04-21T21:36:00.002-05:002009-05-30T09:18:59.941-05:00John Latta post for today<pre><font face=Verdana size=3><p>
will be of interest to all who hold a view
similar to mine. What view? I think that
if you read his post you will figure that
out easily enough. I'm having my usual
evening breathing difficulties. So there
are circles and squiggles and interior
rattlings, and semi-conscious rockings I/
find hard to stop even though I know that
they exacerbate my breathing difficulties.
Well, don't just sit there,
<a href="http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html">hop on over to Tuesday, April 21, 2009</a>.
Note: his archive information is at the bottom of his page.
kh00026
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-32986355246142726742009-04-15T19:49:00.002-05:002009-04-15T19:51:47.709-05:00Post-Industrial World and Poetry<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
<i>Natura naturans</i> (the Coleridgean ongoing) lies outside us;
and yet we are part of it, and more and more are changing it to
meet our perceived needs. If we get there, the post-industrial
world will find us more intimately connected to machines than we
have ever been. So much so, actually, the industrial world will
seem ancient to us. Imagine weather control, an Edenic planet,
immortal or nearly immortal bodies, brains far superior to even
the best now. Homo <i>sapiens</i> will likely be discarded in favor
of a more appropriate name. Will poem-making disappear? No.
Will there be poem-making contests between humans and robots?
If you have been paying attention to Blogger word verifications,
there already are. The Flarf, then, and Conceptual modes are
precursors. Each, however, while able to accommodate varying
approaches, is specialized. Practitioners have an affinity for
what they do.
**
Had planned to write a lot more, but between my body concerns/
nothing.
kh00025
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-17960755773492930942009-04-11T18:21:00.003-05:002009-04-29T21:14:17.778-05:00Cover scans plus five poems<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
2009-04-03:
Yesterday was cloudy windy and later rainy, and
tomorrow will be clear cool early, then up to 70
under 100% cloudiness, then rainy late w/temps
moderately cooler.
Scanned the covers of 15 books. Most are books
of poems. Among them are <i>Another Song I Know</i>,
short poems by William Michaelian, <i>Hardwood</i> by
Gary B. Fitzgerald, <i>Instead</i> by David Lunde,
<i>Perdition's Keepsake</i> by Charles Behlen, and
<i>Making Hay & other poems</i> by Tom Montag.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikIyhTNLvsF24OOlTqxtj1XFpuZ45bq1mtc1a_HW5S6ZitdhSuPGyqgsA9yl7M82hznXHPyO0ebjb6jaXTZekWkSf31HxHQ7orqtNPBVnvNCdkofiTb85_sK0Rp8Q-OqacbkCB-Jf3wEw/s1600-h/covers+001.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikIyhTNLvsF24OOlTqxtj1XFpuZ45bq1mtc1a_HW5S6ZitdhSuPGyqgsA9yl7M82hznXHPyO0ebjb6jaXTZekWkSf31HxHQ7orqtNPBVnvNCdkofiTb85_sK0Rp8Q-OqacbkCB-Jf3wEw/s320/covers+001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320634359129160098" /></a>
See <a href="http://recently-banned-literature.blogspot.com">this William Michaelian site</a>.
From page 62 of this 2007 Cosmopsis Books book:
The Age of Us All
My father is a boat
no longer fit to sail.
He sits in the harbor,
rocking in a wooden chair
by the fireplace,
waiting for the tide
to take him out.
If both of us survive,
come spring, I'll lift him
out of the water
and scrape the barnacles
from his feet.
He will like that,
and I will too.
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQi0Ipxo5vm9w0GxOfCP3AKmvCYNS4RrA66xcCvpSz5Nqp0P41IktC_-yEh2g1ryb9eLKl-VgD1Jn15bR7D0TbaO3PCwkwQDnwILSsjVxELYw4Ym8__RYvxOEY1QI8ugLgGrehykbPDJE/s1600-h/covers+006.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 219px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQi0Ipxo5vm9w0GxOfCP3AKmvCYNS4RrA66xcCvpSz5Nqp0P41IktC_-yEh2g1ryb9eLKl-VgD1Jn15bR7D0TbaO3PCwkwQDnwILSsjVxELYw4Ym8__RYvxOEY1QI8ugLgGrehykbPDJE/s320/covers+006.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320636744329129618" /></a>
See <a href="http://middlewesterner.blogspot.com">Tom Montag site</a>.
From this 1975 Pentagram Press book:
Rain: an Old Hat
rain: an old
hat caught by
wind, tossed
down the street
into the face
of an old man.
i chase the rain
as if my hat
& find it fits
that old man's brow.
***
David Lunde
</p></font></pre><pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNKo7VTKKxFVnkYNBQf7YFcnKKSPrz-iQcNyvziXVs6Uso8Si-E1teztR2NyS32Kal6vNzRTnrlqB4i_bvURrWvLXjHwkezRkPDHCFQULQMyvciXv3Htcncgcgz8pYazVHUsoHmxzoE3U/s1600-h/covers+009.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 140px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNKo7VTKKxFVnkYNBQf7YFcnKKSPrz-iQcNyvziXVs6Uso8Si-E1teztR2NyS32Kal6vNzRTnrlqB4i_bvURrWvLXjHwkezRkPDHCFQULQMyvciXv3Htcncgcgz8pYazVHUsoHmxzoE3U/s200/covers+009.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320663223789349586" /></a>
"Fruitful is the Vine":
cover art by David Lunde
Exit
The four red letters, lurid
in the dark theater,
the only distraction,
a subliminal reminder
that every story
has an end. And though optimism
calls each death a birth,
still there is the disorientation,
that readjustment to the world
which exists. It is not the one
you lived in; it will not be.
You try to hold on, imagining perhaps
a repeat performance,
but when the time comes
nonetheless you Exit, determined
to love the new, asking yourself
what it was you used to love
as if you didn't know.
***
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiRx-4OXraAVnRAxDdiT4SJoaAAXR64b712qz0zimpseUnWmrDRT0WMurCTQj_jzuCQanu961ZiRVX2BrAqCKagGzHkqv8av6IZPttYB2MRVlvo4_C3qf8Dbye73ibdQzJGGp3PXMfLPY/s1600-h/covers+011.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiRx-4OXraAVnRAxDdiT4SJoaAAXR64b712qz0zimpseUnWmrDRT0WMurCTQj_jzuCQanu961ZiRVX2BrAqCKagGzHkqv8av6IZPttYB2MRVlvo4_C3qf8Dbye73ibdQzJGGp3PXMfLPY/s200/covers+011.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320663930135763778" /></a>
Charles Behlen
Dust Storm/Slaton, Texas
I kick the earth,
the dust, a ghost,
leaps at my face,
reminding me
with gritty tears
of lovers, whores,
friends and kin,
gone to the ground
before I was born.
***
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQjopmtmfCXTqcloMX5LNPhFcsoEaQxJeLXY6epsE9_hXTu3IqWX9DBQpGxzl8epVKgOHR1s_Vs22R5-cJDTaJIVkE0BQkVo_a9g7sYyoN6ythmnC5cdyrHgMuD6Z7EyWyOK-jjP9-hI/s1600-h/covers+003.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 136px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQjopmtmfCXTqcloMX5LNPhFcsoEaQxJeLXY6epsE9_hXTu3IqWX9DBQpGxzl8epVKgOHR1s_Vs22R5-cJDTaJIVkE0BQkVo_a9g7sYyoN6ythmnC5cdyrHgMuD6Z7EyWyOK-jjP9-hI/s200/covers+003.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5320665100515263506" /></a>
Gary B. Fitzgerald
Hello
Hello, everybody.
I miss you all.
I'm sorry I haven't been
to see you, but
it's not my fault. After all,
you're buried all over
the damned country.
I can't drive that far.
But being that you're dead,
I figure you can hear me
anyway.
Hello, everybody.
I miss you.
---
Please see my comment.
---
kh00024
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-56062945847954737272009-03-29T09:41:00.001-05:002009-03-29T09:41:30.516-05:00Toward morning while<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
still on my bed I began to feel unusually cold;
so I pulled the top fold of the comforter I was
on/ off to the right and slipped beneath it and
pulled it back over me.
My bed, which is big enough for two sleepers,
has two comforters on it and the mattress just
beneath them has a white fitted sheet on it.
The bottom comforter's fold is on the left side
because I'd roast if I tried to sleep under three
comforter flaps. To be clear, the left side is
the right side when one stands at the foot of
my bed. That is the side where, for a number
of reasons, I get in and get out.
A couple minutes after 7 this morning I pulled
the drape cord--there is only one window in this
room--and was greeted by patches of snow. The
sturdy bush continues to grow, become more green
and less white since while new blossoms appear
on it/ its blossoms have for the most part dis-
appeared. In the distance is a tall tree that
still looks like a winter tree. At its top was
a single silent crow. In its silence it said to
me: I am your new Christmas angel. Given the
state of this union of states I live in, I was
reluctant to disagree. In fact, I began to see
that crow as my nation's new national bird.
Then a second crow alighted at the top about
two feet to the west. Together they reminded
me of a chicken wishbone. Some minutes later
three more crows flew in beneath them, but did
not stay long. Still, I heard no caw. Then
after more minutes, the crow that had been
there when I opened the drapes/ flew off to
the east, and soon the second crow flew off
to the north and then to the west.
kh00023
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-89417274919917504642009-03-11T21:12:00.002-05:002009-03-23T10:27:53.141-05:00twenty influences on my writing<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
were not 20 books as such, but were collections
mostly in the form of anthologies. Still, I'm
going to just sputter along here instead doing
any research to get the details right.
01 nursery rhymes, especially "Mary Had . . . ."
which I've used as a base several times
ex.: Mary had a little lamb,
and Charlie had some beef.
02 In our house was a small print single book
edition of Shakespeare's works. Unlike
Mr. Z, I have never read all of what he
(the 17th earl(?)) wrote. I tended to
read certain poems and plays over and
over.
03 In our house was a set of E. A. Poe's works.
Never read all of those either, but I did
discover that he wrote humorous stories.
04 I was 11 or 12 when I attempted to write my
first poem. It was about the Milky Way
because at that time I thought I wanted
to be an astrophysicist.
05 In high school the desire/need to attempt to
write poems grew, but that school was a
Roman Catholic one outside a small and
mostly conservative Fox River Valley city,
and I didn't aggressively scour libraries
or magazines for poems, but somehow the
first poet I tried to learn from through
an effort at imitation was Charles Péguy.
06 Did find out about a national high school
poetry contest. Sent in my first sonnet.
Got an honorable mention, as I recall, &
it was published in that contest's book.
Am sure I read most of the poems in that
book, but the book at some point wisely
disappeared.
07 Then for one year/ I studied at the physical
Marquette University. While there, two
books by Alan Paton influenced me, and I
wrote a freedom poem for Southern Africa
which was partly influenced by the drum
rhythms Vachel Lindsay used.
08 During my second semester I took an English
class taught by a Jesuit. My term paper
was on Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i>. I wrote
a 9-line prologue for my paper, using a
difficult rhyme scheme I think I invented.
09 Further, that teacher told us that anyone
who had poems accepted by the Marquette
Journal, the student magazine, would get
an A for the course. So I got three of
mine accepted, but I am here to tell you
that a poem by another student, a student
I am pretty sure was in the dorm wing I
was in, is far better than any of mine.
"Pride's Offering to the Gods" is its title.
10 During my shortened two years in a Jesuit
Novitiate near St. Bonafacius, Minnesota,
Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Keats.
11 Forgot to mention I took Latin in high school
and so <i>Arma virumque cano</i> preceded and may
have been why I chose to read Dante.
12 Then it was three years at Wisconsin State
College–Oshkosh where two of my teachers
were Iowa Workshop graduates. Oddly I
don't remember what poets we studied,
but my teachers encouraged me to seek
admission to the Iowa program.
13 At Iowa circumstances kept me isolated from
other student writers; but George Starbuck,
who was my mentor my first year there, was
the sole reason I made it through.
14 Marvin Bell was my second year mentor; but
W. D. Snodgrass, and fellow students such as
Phil Hey and James Tate and Michael Dennis
Browne, and hill courses like the one that
introduced me to Ben Jonson and highlighted my
trauma-caused (due to my being too sensitive)
lack of self-confidence// held sway.
15 And yes there was Lowell, Bly, Wright, Plath,
and numerous anthologies; and I do not know
what order all these came in; but T. S. Eliot
had been and remained important to me.
16 Dylan Thomas was another early influence, and
Auden and his circle, and E. A. Robinson,
and Whitman, and Dickinson, and Homer and
beyond. Had taken a Milton course when I
was an undergrad. Even Edith Sitwell.
17 Once had the original Donald Allen anthology,
and the Rothenberg anthologies, and Kelly
and Leary's <i>A Controversy of Poets</i>, and the
first edition of <i>The Princeton Encyclopedia
of Poetics</i>. I read far and wide, yet there
were many I was not aware of.
18 I did have Ginsberg's <i>Howl</i>. I do have a
selection of Lorca's poems. Tom Montag
gifted me with a copy of <i>Lorine Niedecker
Collected Works</i>.
19 Even though I have a poor rote memory, poems
and lines from poems are more important to
me than books of poems. Among the poems I
have a special feeling for is:
"The Ship of Death" by D. H. Lawrence.
20 Unlike many, I am less attracted to jazz than
to classical music, and I am not into movies.
Guess I'm not with it, but I'm not against it
either.
-- So, given that for 20+ years poets and poem-making
were incidental interests, I am playing catch-up,
an endeavor I know is totally futile. --
a toy ot!
kh00022
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-15900824990387201252009-03-04T10:00:00.002-06:002009-03-04T10:02:04.481-06:00their conversation continues<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
Now into a <i>greatness</i> phase, the conversation
between Joseph Hutchison and Adam Fieled has
moved me to share two recent posts
<a href="http://perpetualbird.blogspot.com/2009/03/greatness-debate.html">a response from Joseph Hutchison</a>
<a href="http://adamfieled.blogspot.com/2009/03/never-now-or-now-or-never.html">a response from Adam Fieled</a>
and to cease making comments beneath their
posts relating to this conversation. If I have
anything to say, I will say it in this blog.
kh00021
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-17958215361940533512009-03-02T22:05:00.001-06:002009-03-02T22:06:26.831-06:00Denise Low's blog<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
is next door in Kansas. She posts about what is
happening there and near there. She often will
showcase a particular poet. A cowboy poet is or
was the current feature.
<a href="http://deniselow.blogspot.com/">Take a look.</a>
kh00020
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-39312698877335212452009-02-22T17:33:00.001-06:002009-02-22T18:35:03.912-06:00James Wright James Wright Robert Bly<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
In my original <b>Rooted Sky</b> (1972) is a poem written for
the poet James Wright. Years later it also became for
a quasi-neighbor named James Wright as the result of a
conversation between my father and that man's father.
Aware of my poem, the father of that James Wright had
asked my father if I had written the poem for his son.
In informing me about the conversation, my father said
he told Mr. Wright that I had. Softly shocked, I was
about to ask him why, but the wow of knowing my father
had a sensitive side moved me to explain to him it was
for a poet named James Wright but--that's okay--I'll
just change the dedication. <a href="http://thinkinglizard.blogspot.com/2007/01/sw00065rs-s1poem2.html">The Maverick</a>.
Another poem in that book is for the poet Robert Bly.
Its title is almost longer than the poem, so I won't
reveal the whole of it. <a href="http://thinkinglizard.blogspot.com/2007/01/sw00106rs-s3poem11.html">Imagining Myself on a Hill</a>
kh00019
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-8660162729105001492009-02-21T19:11:00.001-06:002009-02-21T19:12:42.555-06:00K Silem Mohammad on Flarf<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
In 2005 Tom Beckett conducted an interview with KSM.
A link to the entire interview will be the focus of
what is in this post, but so that you have an idea
of what to expect, these excerpts:
*
"Form makes us feel."
-
". . . it just means we all use what we've
got in whatever way we can."
-
". . . curiosity. . . ."
-
"The first thing I try to do as a writer
is surprise myself."
*
<a href="http://willtoexchange.blogspot.com/2005/06/interview-with-k-silem-mohammad.html">My point is to forward the human behind the artifact.</a>
I don't care if I have trouble appreciating what results
from acts of flarfing. That is for me to deal with over
time. I do care about the process, about the efforts a
flarfist makes to create an artifact that communicates,
that has value for those who can appreciate artifacts
of that type. Artistry is artistry, no matter its origin.
I was 18 or 19 when I first heard music by Stravinsky,
and I thought/ what in the--. With help from two other
students, and through listening to it several times, I
began to understand and feel why it was highly touted.
During my last years in Gainesville, Florida, the San
Francisco Symphony presented a series of radio pro-
grams moderated by a woman whose name escapes
me. It was about American maverick composers.
Read the interview.
kh00018
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-41348577665818538132009-02-14T19:52:00.001-06:002009-02-14T19:53:23.641-06:00I Cant Stand Being Human<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
anymore: so weak, so stupid, so full of false pride.
Humans are too adept at fashioning idiotologies: I-
am-better-than-you-are power fantasies: globalized
ickonomies / inhumane religions / suicide deceits.
If I can not be a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King--
who who-a-who who-a-who-a-whooo
who who-a-who a-who-who
who who-a-who who-a-who-a-whooo
who who-a-who a-who-who
-
who who-a-who who-a-who-a-whooo
who who-a-who a-who-who
who who-a-who who-a-who-a-whooo
who who-a-who a-who-who
The rings of my life are riddled with errors. So
I surmise I am an average human. Say ah. Say oh.
<i>Giants and Dwarfs</i> is a book of essays (1960-1990)
by Allan Bloom. A hardbound copy of it has been
in my meagre library for some years. Recently I
began reading it. Have so far read the Preface
and Western Civ. He is a believer in knowledge
derived from the greatest thinkers of important
Western civilizations. Cultural persuasions are
passing power-oriented missteps. Promoters of
such--let's just say he doesn't trust them. In
turn, of course, they tend to misunderstand <i>him</i>.
Western Civ was an address Bloom gave at Harvard
University on December 7, 1988. On page 18 in the
book, this sentence from it:
Pascal's formula about our knowing
too little to be dogmatists and too
much much to be skeptics perfectly
describes our human condition as we
really experience it, although men
have powerful temptations to obscure
it and often find it intolerable.
From page 23:
What we are witnessing is the Quarrel
of the Canons, the twentieth century's
farcical version of the seventeenth
century's Quarrel between the Ancients
and the Moderns---. . . .
From page 27, however, this caution:
It is a grave error to accept that
the books of the dead white Western
male canon are essentially Western---
or any of those other things.
From page 29:
Each must ultimately judge for him-
self about the important books, but a
good beginning would be to see what
other thinkers the thinkers who attract
him turn to.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Bloom">Allan Bloom</a> wants us neither to be "culture-bound"
nor to miss the "great dialogue".
So I should read his essays, though I cannot be sure
I will.
kh00017
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-7060645341710752962009-01-24T17:07:00.001-06:002009-01-24T17:07:59.093-06:00Theme Variation<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
<a href="http://www.readprint.com/work-1563/William-Wordsworth">The world is. . . .</a>
Well through ill, the journey of my life has/// been a piece of cake;
but, I tell you: You would not want to eat it. Recently, I have
found myself often re-imagining incidents in my life based on the
old saw: Knowing what I know now, if I could live my life over
again, I would. . . . *** Reflecting on this, I have arrived at two
conclusions: 1) "Knowing what I know now" cannot be substituted
for knowing what I knew then -- 2) "If I could live my life over
again, I would" do exactly what I did. Even if I grant that all my
choices were made/ selflessly, I could only have made them as the
wisdom I had at those moments moved me to. I am a creature
of a continuum of present moments exiting from and entering into
present moments, and the excellence of my memory and/or ability
to devine the future notwithstanding, the best I can do is the
best I can do at the moment of each choice because I am not a
perfect being. "All you who are without sin cast the first stone."
So, the idea that I should not fuss over a choice I have made
because the past is past is inconsequential. I am not a Fatalist.
In spite of the barriers against it, I know it is possible for me
to improve, and to that end/ re-imagining an event which cannot
be changed is not without value.
About my memory: My memory tends to be tied to the traumatic,
to those occurrences which impact my emotions. I do not have
a strong rote memory. Only the first line of the poem linked
to above remained available to my consciouness. Therefore,
when I read the entire poem earlier today, I was shocked by
a reference to a mythical being in it. A verse I included in
my 1982 Alden St. Cloud <b>First Pick</b>, a verse written when I
was in high school, appears to have been directly influenced
by that poem. A mere twenty or twenty-five copies of <b>First
Pick</b> were printed, and since I no longer had any of those
copies, I have picked that book apart, placing what is in it
in other books. Being a selected and new book, most of what
is in it is from yet other books anyway.
About my IQ: My first recollection is 117, but I have
scored as low as 100 and as high as 150. Big deal. The
only important test of that nature I did well on was the
1984 GRE I took at UF in Gainesville, Florida. I was 43
then, and had been motivated by a lawyer I knew to seek
a degree in Accounting. In preparation I took several
computer and accounting courses at the local college.
I also studied rigorously for the exam. This is not
the first time I have written about this online, but I
scored 740 on the Verbal section and 630 on the Quant.
I was accepted by the University of Florida's Fisher
School of Accounting but I couldn't even muster the
energy to make it through one semester. So I thought--
since Donald Justice, whom I had missed at Iowa, was
conducting a workshop at UF--I should try to get into
the university's Doctorate in English program. With
help via a letter from Marvin Bell, I was accepted.
However, unknown to me until after the fact, I chose
to take a course in non-Shakespearean Renaissance
Drama, a course presided over by that department's
most difficult professor. Not that that would have
made any real difference since even though I did get
through the semester, I knew I would not be able to
muster the energy to continue. The drama professor
said I should continue writing poems. My spurt in
Accounting, alas, had me in the stock market; and
the GRE preparation had me into heuristic delvings
in mathematics. I wrote some papers and a tome on
the latter, and I built a tomb in the former.
Back to the GRE. Online is a site which shows the IQ
(using 2 measuring methods: Wechsler and Stanford-Binet)
and also the Percentile a GRE score approximates. <a href="http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx"> *</a>
Rather silly, but hey.
Onward is the only direction: which means/ ever, ever
closer to being no longer Earth-alive; which is why I say:
Death is the only life worth living.
kh00016
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-69733674123212770272009-01-19T10:26:00.001-06:002009-01-19T10:27:29.912-06:00In Remembrance<pre><font face=Georgia size=3><p>
Somewhere I heard the voice of a man charge
the world; somewhere I heard a voice of might.
Somewhere I heard the voice of a man large
and deep; somewhere I heard a voice of light.
Somewhere I heard the voice of a man word
on word well up in me; somewhere I learned
how the right words can turn the one who's heard
inside out. Somewhere I heard; somewhere yearned.
-</font><font face=Verdana size=2>
The above, the octet of "January: Year-day 15"
<i>remembering Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.</i>,
was written in 1976 and is in my <b>1976 Today</b>.
**
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk">"I Have a Dream" speech (17 minutes)</a>
kh00015
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-49881464227507660182009-01-17T19:59:00.004-06:002009-01-17T20:10:42.193-06:00A disheveled life<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
is a sad life. Or is it? Here at the beginning
of my 69th year as an Earth-alive human, I have
set upon this rumination meaning to bemoan many
of the choices I have made, believing them to be
deleterious, and yet I know that had I not made
them I would not be here as I now am: physically
(i.e., bodily), geographically (i.e., in this
bedroom in this apartment in this city, et, et,
et), mentally (i.e., the locatable but intangible
me, the "I am thought" as Rimbaud wrote), and/
spiritually. So: Were my sometimes outright
hurtful choices necessarily without-redeeming-
value choices? This morning while combing my
hair, I broke my habit of always trying to make
a straight part, and sought out how my hair
wanted to part--I have a nasty cowlick. Voila!
Odd, but: much better.
A truly wise human--it could be asserted--is
one who is able to learn quickly and thereby
structure his/her life diligently. Were I to
detail my life journeys/ it would be evident I
am not a truly wise human. So what kind of
human am I? I am a well,-that-didn't-work;-
so-let's-try-this-approach guy. Result? A
vast unevenness in antithetical disciplines.
A hiatus of twenty years (approximately 1987
into 2007) from the realms of poetry. And
what of my constant buying and moving and
general fiscal irresponsibility? But Brian,
how often must you go over these? Do you
think you are a tragic hero? Were there no
joys amid your so-called errors? Get a fife.
Nonetheless, my major regrets: -- Stop! I
just recalled an incident where I should have
raised a question, but didn't; and recalling
this incident has made me realize I cannot
have any regrets/ because I would not have
done anything other than what I did. I am a
flawed being, and the flaws I had and have/
always impact my judgments/ positively, nega-
tively, inconsequentially. So: where to/ then?
There were the many relevance and categorization
discussions. Now there are <a href="http://donshare.blogspot.com/">Don Share's</a>
recent posts on a variety of topics in the air;
<a href="http://perpetualbird.blogspot.com/2009/01/open-and-closed-part-2-another-response.html">Joseph Hutchison's</a> openness/closure conversation
with <a href="http://adamfieled.blogspot.com/2009/01/playing-catch-with-charles-simic.html">Adam Fieled</a>; the new multiplicities
conversation about younger authors between
<a href="http://wallacethinksagain.blogspot.com/2009/01/some-new-multiplicities-conversation.html">Mark Wallace and Joseph Mosconi</a>.
All such--and there <i>are</i> like others--are good
for the communities of poets.
kh00014
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-52294645548647582282009-01-12T22:12:00.003-06:002009-01-12T22:23:20.058-06:00Sometimes I think<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
an important part of who I am is stuck in my pre-teen
and teen years. Why? As it pertains directly to me
I am not sure, but as it pertains to others when they
are compared to me by me in particular/ it seems they
are--no matter their age--more serious in their daily
doings than I am. Strange. My temperament is not a
sanguine one. Lonelinesses are my milieux. Yet I am
riddled by a playfulness that undercuts my sadnesses.
And I never know when or how it will show. Most often
it enters spontaneously. It is in its way a safety
valve I ought to be grateful for, but I sense others
see me as silly and insincere because of it. Perhaps
I am wrong as no one has ever said anything more than:
"That's not funny." Of course, what I blurt isn't
supposed to be funny, just goofy. My humour is of
the dry British sort. Sometimes I would say: "Well,
I got it from the Imp from the Garbage Universe, and
when I die I am going to kill him." Poor Shakespeare,
or the 17th Earl of ?. One day a coworker's remark
led me to say: "I once read that Hamlet had a weight
problem; so this is what I did with the 'To be or not
to be' soliloquy: Tubby or not tubby, that is the
question. Whether 'tis better to go on a diet, or
build a kite, and fly it." See what I mean. Another
day when I was with two coworkers who were talking
about the movie, <i>Amistad</i>, and one of them said the
main character knew only 5 English words, I immediately
responded: "Yes: 'You stupid. I go home.'" It is for
reasons such as these that I have concluded it is best
to read many of my poems with an accent quite unlike
one's own. The resulting angularity juices them.
kh00013
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-81458898412035318012008-12-02T22:46:00.002-06:002009-02-14T19:54:21.358-06:00I cannot be consoled<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
and so if it seems I have thereby condemned myself to a kind of
eternal hell, then is does. Why? Primarily because I have made
too many self-destructive choices, but angers not directed by me
at me but by me at others are also part of the why. Read this
<a href="http://thinkinglizard.blogspot.com/2006/11/sw00011v-homily.html">vestibular homily</a> which serves as the first page of my Venturings
book. If you don't, you will not be able to properly understand
the rest of this rumination.
Today (2008-12-02) over at KSM's Lime Tree I came upon a link to
<a href="http://www.rubbaducky.org/pamphlets/NeoliberalPoetryBroadside.pdf">this</a>. One sentence in it is: "It's all a question of where you
put the emphasis: on the self or on the poem; on the art product
or on the shared activity of making." After all the opinions I've
encountered about language these past two years, this is the one
that broke the proverbial camel's back. Will get to it later.
First, me. In approximately six weeks, birthday 68. I am a small
human. A frail human. My physical back has been broken several
years. My body has other ailments. -- I was raised in the small
(30,000+) Fox River Valley town of Fond du Lac, WI, situated at
the southern end of Lake Winnebago. The Roman Catholicism which
I absorbed made it difficult for me to be honest with myself.
Being somewhat intelligent, I allowed too much false pride to
reign and not enough integrity. So the sources of my/ disruptive
choices: sexual, financial, day-to-day. From this vantage, some
of them prove that at those moments I was "verifiably" insane.
Neoliberal Poetry Broadside. The authors of this straw clearly
enough indicate what poetics they prefer though they do admit
that anathema transgressions occur there too. The problem for
me is that I am not committed to one way of expressing my It
Poetics. Therefore, all the labels flitting about and about
strain my tolerance beyond annoyance since their flip existence
undermines the arguments of those who fling them. Talk about
ego. Anti-I? anti-capitalist?: with <i>that</i> kind of hegemonic
staging!? I just don't get it. Sure, those who are in with
what these authors espouse, generally love what is in their
broadside. Poets who align themselves with this group or
that group/ do so because they feel comfortable there. It
isn't easy--and scientific studies say, not even healthy--to
be isolated. One of the finest statements Ron Silliman ever
made was the praise he accorded the late Quietist (yet not
so quiet) Reginald Shepherd. That is where we should be.
Fine poems can be wrought in any style, and every day are.
The more ways found to make great poems, the better. Is not
each poem an experiment, an innovation. Have you not noticed
how often the most loved song by a rock band is that band's
quietist one? Bang, bang, bang / bing, bing, bing / trang,
trang, trang / yangy, yangy. That's noisy. Oh huff 'n' puff.
"Revolving door."
kh00012
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-58792467129231035922008-11-10T23:14:00.002-06:002008-11-10T23:19:26.426-06:00sullen grey<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
Today began as partly cloudy, and then became mostly clear,
but by early afternoon was overcast. Yesterday and the day
before were overcast just as large swaths of my life have
been. Two minutes ago 9:41 PM passed. Earlier today I read
through an AOL picture-post about handwriting. Guess I had
it in my head I might find something there that related to
me. Nevertheless, when I was quite young I let a sporadic
question: "Can't you ever do anything right?": traumatize
me; and I now suspect that most of the poor choices I have
made were the result of my stubbornly trying to prove that
indeed I could do things right. In other words, instead of
allowing reason to guide me, I allowed emotion to, thereby
undermining my efforts to attain certain goals I had set.
Would I have attained those goals had I been willing to view
with a colder eye opportunities I was looking at? Without
a doubt. What opportunities? Not sure I want to say, but
there were at least a dozen of them presented to me, and
had I recognized them as worthy of a small risk--a risk I
could afford to take--I would have been, if all the other
events of my life had remained as they turned out to be,
a wealthy person before the diseases that forced me into
early retirement impacted me. As it is, it may be I am poor
beyond repair, which doesn't mean I haven't made good
choices or haven't been inexplicably blessed because of
certain other efforts of mine. I have. I have. And yes,
I am being blessed right now.
Do you know who God is? No. Nor do I. But I do not go
with coincidence, or with fate, or with luck; therefore, God
for me is that power which makes possible everything;
is that power which most makes its presence visible when
inexplicable blessings enter one's life at those moments
when one is most in need of them, whether or not they are
recognized for what they are. Watch God moments is what
I have come to call them.
This is my ruminations den, and I decided tonight to hide
the comments option for this location.
-----------
kh00011
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-13360036410720003912008-11-01T18:55:00.003-05:002008-11-01T20:34:38.433-05:00Poets are conduits<pre><font face=Verdana size=2><p>
On October 24, 2008, on his <b>not poetry blog</b>, Bill Knott
posted <i>which is too much</i>. Through an anecdote from the
<b>Selected Writings of Walter Benjamin</b>, the practice of
Mallarmé initiates what soon becomes a serious discussion
about poets and what to him are the two core esthetics.
-
<a href="http://billknott.typepad.com/notpoetryblog/2008/10/which-is-too-much.html">Thus</a> Brecht versus Rilke and their associated ramifications.
See the Selden Rodman quote taken from the Preface for
his 1949 Anthology: <b>One Hundred Modern Poems</b>.
Reading Mr. Knott's words hit me in the head much as
(when we were in grade school) Markevich's glove did
in what was supposed to be a controlled boxing match
I immediately stopped, knowing I would not be able to
defend myself against his longer reach. Honestly, I
do not intend to counter Bill Knott's thinking here
either; but I will be sharing past and present turns
of mine that will include some poems because of the
ideas in them. Stunningly--to me at least--back in
the 1960s I wrote <a href="http://thinkinglizard.blogspot.com/2007/02/sw00141p-poem3s1.html">this sonnet</a> and in the 1970s <a href="http://thinkinglizard.blogspot.com/2007/01/sw00071rs-s1poem8.html">this</a>
<i>for Doug Flaherty</i> poem; but just so you can grasp--
should you prefer to ignore them--why they matter
now, here are their titles: "The Future Belongs to the
Rilkeans" and "The Marriage of God and Money". *
I was raised as a Roman Catholic.
Knott: "The question then as today seems to be, what
'faith' should one aspire to 'contribute' one's artistic
efforts toward the furtherance of: individual (spiritual)
or collective (socialist)?" And later: "'Individual
faith' versus 'Collective faith.' Capitalism (Religion/
Fascism) versus Socialism. Or: Style versus Content."
What is difficult for me now is that I cannot take one
side over the other. Further, equating Religion with
Fascism forced me to seek an extended definition of
the latter. I found one. It is at Old Amercian Century.
14 Points are listed. However, under each point are
numerous links to copyrighted material. I suggest you
read only the <a href="http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm">14 points</a> and what the final link zaps to.
Humans are humans, and while extensive quality-of-life
changes continue to occur, quality-of-thought changes
have taken on different faces but essentially remained
the same. Know that I say this, hoping I am wrong. -
Still, poets are conduits. Some are so of <i>this</i>. Some
are so of <i>that</i>. Some consistently/purposely change.
Some are so of <i>whatever</i>, or like to imagine they are.
I am among those. Accordingly, the aesthetic I support
is: Write as you are moved to write.
Here are three more Knott statements:
-
"In fact, in this dispensation, in this scale of esthetics,
the more insignificant the ostensible subject is, the better."
-
"The more boring the content, the more intriguing the style
(theoretically)."
-
"Content/subject/intent are excrescences that burden the work
with extraneous matter."
Finally, as befits him, Bill Knott ends his post with:
-
"Form is never more than an extension of breakfast. As
shown in this poem by Jacques Prévert, trans. by the
forgotten poet Selden Rodman:"
The translated title of the poem is: LATE RISING
Kh00010
*
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-66442688139849378332008-09-27T23:40:00.002-05:002008-09-28T17:36:19.286-05:00My routine for visiting blogs<pre><font face=Georgia size=3><p>
got interrupted during the summer. Tonight,
starting near the bottom of my lengthening
Blog List, I reinstated that routine. This
post, however, is not going to be about my
routine or about my being remiss.
When I arrived at <a href="http://wallacethinksagain.blogspot.com">Mark Wallace's blog</a>
I encountered an opinion post preceded by a
cartoon that made me laugh. I paraphrase:
Is making a poem a form of work or a form
of play? It may not seem so, but to me
this is a complex question; therefore, my
answer will be complex.
-
I make poems, or objects like poems, using
what I will call here an open aesthetics
because any object I am making, or which I
am participating in making, takes precedence.
I have sometimes called it my It Poetics.
Do I care how good it is? Yes, but only to
the extent that it is true to itself. As a
result of my openness, all manner of objects
occur: ditties, muttobs, multimedia poems,
picture poems, phonetic poems, silly poems,
varing degrees of serious poems. Further,
I contend that some of those objects are
best read with an accent or in a tone that
is unlike my accent or the tone I would
normally use. Point: the perceiver of an
object ostensibly from me becomes that
object's judge and jury; so let each such
perceiver interpret it as s/he wills. I, while
I am Earth-alive, can make known my
insights about it and can change it if I
so desire; but after that it is in stasis
until it is perceived.
-
So, is my making/ work or play: both. A
poem may come to me in its final form, or
it may take years for it to attain a form
I am satisfied with, or I may let it out
to be seen even if I'm not satisfied with
it, or even if I am satisfied with it/ I may
never let it out. Do I ever use a set of
constraints prior to making an object?
Yes I do. See my alphabet experiment in
<i>the ghost in the dumpster</i>.
kh00009
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554174788940134800.post-21413996173980546772008-09-14T21:54:00.001-05:002008-09-14T21:58:46.090-05:00Somewhat likeable but inconsequential<pre><font face=Georgia size=3><p>
is how i feel most bloggers regard me,
and i think i know why; but it doesn't
matter/ because the only person i am
competing against is me: the silence
in the showy fields. In an old poem
of mine i compare my voice to a pale
blue moth. It isn't that i can't go
on at length as so many do, eliciting:
"Oh, oh, that Dragon Cecropia is here
again." Or maybe it is. Admittedly
i have been until recently/ away from
the fray. Admittedly i am not about
promoting a manifest point-of-view.
Admittedly i could never fit in with
certified groups, which does not mean
i am uninterested in what members of
such groups make. The isolation i've
chosen undermines those urges in me
to complain; and that, actually, is a
good: it frees me. Still, i know my
long absences (along with my decision
to exit from submitting to editors)
may have cloaked my freedom, made it
impossible for any of my artifacts to
ever be taken seriously. Talk about
a game of chance. Whatever happens,
it will be as it will be.
kh00008
</p></font></pre>brian (baj) salcherthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11649691450577647656noreply@blogger.com5