Thursday, June 15, 2006
Recent purchases from SPD:
Paramour, Stacy Doris, Krupskaya, 2000
Petroleum Hat, Drew Gardner, Roof Books, 2005
City Ecologue, Ed Roberson, Atelos, 2006
The Weather, Lisa Robertson, New Star Books, 2001
Xing, Ron Silliman, Factory School, 2004
Cells of Release, Fiona Templeton, Roof Books, 1997
*
Finished Xing last night. I love the design of it--the blue is nicely subdued and striking. The text itself is the daily disjunctive run together, wherein the beauty really arrives in the leaps from one sentence to another, as the sentences themselves are not always very interesting on their own, but become interesting by enjambment (encampment?) with the previous and the thereafter. My friend Steve Timm is a terrible lover of the bad pun, and so I've been conditioned to understand the appeal somewhat, though Silliman has a few in Xing that make my eyes roll (a response Steve would love). And, yet, I think, you know, that's how life goes: people are always making half-hearted or eager jokes that are momentary, in context, which is a nice thing to put in poems, even if I will groan now and then. Some enjoyably compressed phrase-making in here, such as "Fedex the tux". Also an embedded horror tale of a botched hospital stay. Life, and life, and life.
*
Began Petroleum Hat last night. Struck early on by the attention to crafting the disparate--oftentimes there is the surrealistic usage of the linking preposition or the tactical drop-in of time changes like "then" which highlight the humor of causality. Also noticed the usage of a repeated phrase to build momentum, rhythm, and to act as a kind of apparant stitching. The infamous "Chicks Dig War" actually seems not so jokey, not as much about simply trading stupidities from others, recyling them, but getting at some perhaps uncomfortable gender assignation material and the continual deployment of bankrupt social roles by men on men, men on women, women on men, and women on women.
Paramour, Stacy Doris, Krupskaya, 2000
Petroleum Hat, Drew Gardner, Roof Books, 2005
City Ecologue, Ed Roberson, Atelos, 2006
The Weather, Lisa Robertson, New Star Books, 2001
Xing, Ron Silliman, Factory School, 2004
Cells of Release, Fiona Templeton, Roof Books, 1997
*
Finished Xing last night. I love the design of it--the blue is nicely subdued and striking. The text itself is the daily disjunctive run together, wherein the beauty really arrives in the leaps from one sentence to another, as the sentences themselves are not always very interesting on their own, but become interesting by enjambment (encampment?) with the previous and the thereafter. My friend Steve Timm is a terrible lover of the bad pun, and so I've been conditioned to understand the appeal somewhat, though Silliman has a few in Xing that make my eyes roll (a response Steve would love). And, yet, I think, you know, that's how life goes: people are always making half-hearted or eager jokes that are momentary, in context, which is a nice thing to put in poems, even if I will groan now and then. Some enjoyably compressed phrase-making in here, such as "Fedex the tux". Also an embedded horror tale of a botched hospital stay. Life, and life, and life.
*
Began Petroleum Hat last night. Struck early on by the attention to crafting the disparate--oftentimes there is the surrealistic usage of the linking preposition or the tactical drop-in of time changes like "then" which highlight the humor of causality. Also noticed the usage of a repeated phrase to build momentum, rhythm, and to act as a kind of apparant stitching. The infamous "Chicks Dig War" actually seems not so jokey, not as much about simply trading stupidities from others, recyling them, but getting at some perhaps uncomfortable gender assignation material and the continual deployment of bankrupt social roles by men on men, men on women, women on men, and women on women.
Friday, June 09, 2006
My microreview of Joe Wenderoth's The Holy Life of the Spirit: Essays for John Ashcroft’s Secret Self is online at Boston Review.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO READING
2006 Bay Area Summer Poetry Marathon
Saturday, June 24th, 7-10 p.m.
The LAB
2948 16th Street
San Francisco, CA
Readers will be: Tanya Brolaski, Brandon Brown, Gillian Conoley,
Del Ray Cross, Patrick Duggan, Larry Kearney, Emily Liechty, and James
Wagner.
2006 Bay Area Summer Poetry Marathon
Saturday, June 24th, 7-10 p.m.
The LAB
2948 16th Street
San Francisco, CA
Readers will be: Tanya Brolaski, Brandon Brown, Gillian Conoley,
Del Ray Cross, Patrick Duggan, Larry Kearney, Emily Liechty, and James
Wagner.
