Esther Press

I will also be reading at the Zinc Bar in New York, at 7 p.m., Sunday, April 30th.

My second book of poetry, Trilce, should be appearing in the next month or so from Calamari Press. I will be reading from Trilce on April 29th, 2 p.m., in NYC, at The Four-Faced Liar, with ELÉNA RIVERA, SELAH SATERSTROM, and JONATHAN SKINNER & JANE SPRAGUE (in collaboration). It is a series put on by the editors of Tarpaulin Sky.

I will also be reading solo, later that same day/night, at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn, at 7 p.m.

There may be an additional reading on one of the following days.

To read ten Clayton Eshleman translations of César Vallejo poems, you can go here.

In the Adding Insult to Injury Department, Israel is now removing skeletons from Muslim graves to build a "museum of tolerance". (Anyone for horrible irony?) I especially enjoyed the final comments from Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israel Antiquities Authority...which, of course, leads one to the obvious response: if there must be ancient cemetaries built on, why not build on a Jewish one, if the supposed "museum of tolerance" is an Israeli idea, approved by the Israeli government, and funded by the Jewish (not Muslim), Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles? That, though, would make too much sense.

One of the rare photos where Cheney's soul is actually captured in his face.

A co-worker of mine once remarked to me in jest--or?--that no one really cares what you think. Which is a freeing remark, indeed! I have read with some interest the issues revolving around flarf and have found I have very little to say. In part, I say nothing out of respect for these writers, but also because I haven't read a great deal of their work. I have read K. Silem Mohammad's Deer Head Nation, and I've read various pieces by Gary Sullivan, Nada Gordon, Drew Gardner, and so on. So, it isn't substantial, but, to be honest, my interest really isn't substantial. This is not intended as a drive-by criticism, truly, but more or less an honest statement (really?) of where my interests lie at present.

I have tried to figure out what bothers me most about what I've read, and I think there are a couple of issues. I am all for the use of google and other means to generate text. I am all for the use of any means to generate any kind of different forms. It seems, though, one of my issues is in the specific words used for googling. I think I would like flarf much more if the words and juxtaposed phrases made weren't so consistently--by my ears--positioned to create humor. This sounds like a ridiculous, curmudgeonly comment, but it's not what I mean entirely. I guess what I'm interested in, is a mixture of more serious phrases/comments and the comic alongside of them. I think I must get bored with too much laughter, or I feel that though the content is nicely disjunctive that the actual overlying mood/mode/feeling is mostly comic. And this tends to structure the work for me. Of the work I've seen, I should again say. When I continue to read the work, I feel the earnestness of the maker coming through, and this is something I don't care for. I feel like the humor is overwhelming the possibilities.

On one comments field, I remember one participant--an avowed flarfist?--saying one of the goals he/she was interested in was to disrupt a solid identity, to say things in the poems that one's ego would normally not allow. This I found very interesting. And, ultimately, I think this is where a great work could be centered in the flarf field--not to say that there haven't been: I wouldn't know, unfortunately. I would love to see more emotionally-in/direct words googled, alongside the more decidedly comic or quirky or pop cultural.

I am not one to quote Pound, but one thing he said that's stuck with me is that it's the emotion that's remembered. He was speaking of a much different poetry back then, but for me it is still valid. And this is, of course, not to say the flarfists are emotional zombies. It's just a point I'd like to put forward, because I think there can be very interesting things done with the methods they are using and discovering. Maybe all of this is naive, and I shouldn't say anything. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it is-isn't.

Who among them will break free from the MFA group hug?

MRS NOU


She told him that she had lost all respect for him. He told her he was glad to be unencumbered.

MR. SQUOR


We must remember him as a man who would sometimes quote others' favorable comments about his own person. He would actually quote other people's beneficient remarks about him to others still. What was the reason behind this? What was under his little pillow and downy momma?

When someone with very modest success in one field (oh, let's say, poetry, for instance) suddenly begins talking like he's done post-doc work at the Vienna Neurological Policlinic, and speaks with all those assurances, is the best thing to do to explain to him that he did not, actually, even study psychology at all, or does one just move around the corner very quickly?

The extreme farce that is the United States government continues along at the well-known speed of hypocrisy. The U.S. has meddled with, toppled, killed leaders in democratically-elected governments all across the globe, supported folks like Hussein when it was convenient, Pinochet, Suharto, Bin Ladin, Pol Pot, etc. We now see propaganda ads (sometimes called articles) appearing in the national papers, like the New York Times, reporting, in hushed astonishment, of a link between Iranian nuclear development and the Iranian military. See article here.

Nowhere does it mention in the ad--excuse me, in the article--that since WWII the United States has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, about six times over.

The daily hypocrisy of Rumsfeld speaking of Iranian plans to redraw the Mideast to its own interests, given the most flagrant abuser of such practices is his/our own government, is almost amazing in its tribute to nonsense.