Black Robert Journal Issue 2

I have new poems up at Black Robert Journal, Issue 2.

Meow Meow Performs Laurie Anderson

Meow Meow performs Laurie Anderson's "The Dream Before." (Unfortunately, the video only gives selections of the song, which is one of my favorite songs.)

The Stone Roses

I'll admit it: I never really listed to the Stone Roses. I've heard a few tracks over the years, but I've never heard their self-titled album all the way through. What can I say? I'm an American. What American has listened to the Stone Roses?

Anyway, I've decided to, at long last, give their first album a listen. Let's thank the internet for this, the entirety of The Stone Roses:

The Stone Roses |MTV Music

I Wanna Be Adored

The Stone Roses |MTV Music

She Bangs the Drums


Waterfall


Don't Stop


Bye Bye Badman


Elizabeth My Dear


(Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister


Made of Stone


Shoot you Down


This Is the One


I Am the Resurrection

And An Extra Song:

The Stone Roses |MTV Music

Fools Gold

The Idea of the Alien in Jack Spicer's Dictated Books

Wow. I just found something wild.

Excited about Kevin Killian and Peter Gizzi's new collection of Jack Spicer's poetry, I've been reading everything on Spicer that I can find--Spicer's poems and writing about Spicer's poetry. During one of my searches for writing about Spicer, I found a very large PDF file.

The file comes from Simon Fraser University. Apparently, when John Granger was there in 1982, he wrote his Master's thesis on Jack Spicer. Robin Blaser was part of the committee, and someone took the time to scan all 172 pages of the thesis for digital documentation.

I haven't read the text yet, but I'm delighted and excited, since it's so difficult to find critical writing on Spicer. If you're interested, the file can be found here.

Issue 1

Like much of the poetry community, I've discovered that I'm a "contributor" to Issue 1. For anyone who has missed out on all of the brouhaha about this anthology, it's a nearly 4,000 page computer generated work in verse. Each poem in the anthology is roughly one page, and the "editors" of the work have signed each poem with a poet's name. The poets were not told ahead of time that their names would be attached to work they did not write, and there appears to be no relation between the poems in the anthology and the actual works of the poets listed. Issue 1 is, quite simply, a prank.

And it's a prank that has gotten a number of people really angry. The For Godot blog, which produced this anthology, is filled with comments from poets screaming that they didn't write their poems and worrying that their reputations will be compromised. On his blog, Ron Silliman hinted at legal action and posted the home address of one of the contributor's parents.

Personally, I don't think this prank is as layered or intriguing as Kent Johnson's Araki Yasusada, but I'm also not afraid of losing my identity over a joke. If you take a moment to examine Issue 1, you discover that every "contributor" writes with the same voice, and in order for a reader to take this anthology seriously, she would have to believe that Shakespeare wrote a poem titled "Making ceremonies with volubility" or that Thoreau wrote, "Like sauntered blacksmiths/ Like sauntered bobolinks."

I'm amused by the anthology and my inclusion in the anthology, but I don't see it as a powerful critique of authorship, which seems to be a claim being kicked around the internets. It's a prank--enjoyable for a moment but not strong enough to burn down poetic communities or to revise how we go about writing our poems.

And if you are wondering, here's "my" poems in the anthology:

The cool brains

Coming fright
Found
A drunken grave

A brain
Regard
Ravellings turned outside regard
Eternity
Cool dews and
     purple sights

Review of New European Poets

My review of New European Poets, which was published this year by Graywolf Press, is in the October issue of Gently Read Literature. The review can be read at: Gently Read Literature

Cannot Exist 3

I just received my copy of Cannot Exist 3 in the mail, which includes a couple of my poems. It's a nifty journal, and delightfully Andy Gricevich included the previous issues, including lovely writers like Andrew Zawacki and Lisa Jarnot. (This reminds me: if you haven't read Andrew Zawacki's Anabranch, go get a copy--it's one of the best recent books of poetry I've read this past year.)

Take a look at the lineup, and submissions are open for the next issue.

Issue 3:
Alex Burford
Mark Cunningham
Carrie Etter
Lawrence Giffin
William Gillespie
Kevin Killian
Mark Lamoureux
Bonnie Jean Michalski
Sheila E. Murphy
Andy Nicholson
Dirk Stratton

Cannot Exist