26.3.10
joanna newsom makes me feel really happy.
Oh my fuck, I just had the most awesome-weird dream ever. It involved running from a band (ie. musical) of zombies that were "normal" until I turned my back (ie. just like those ghosts from super mario world) and the only antidote was a spray bottle of oil extracted from the corpse of Spinoza. Any time I sprayed them they would scream "not Spinoza oil!!!!" and slow down a little.
Not kidding.
Why didn't I just avoiding turning my back? Because when I did they started singing, which was almost as horrific as being chased.
I am in love with my afternooon-nap-unconscious for having such a grotesque sense of humour.
Speaking of grotesque, one of the greatest images I have come across lately:
"Her teeth are bright and it looks as if she just hit Pause. I want to fill in her gums and smear her teeth with the fish food flakes just for fun. It would look like scabs dissolving. IT WOULD."
-from my newly-purchased copy of Nathaniel G. Moore's novel "wrongbar."
It is very interesting and very well written. He's one of my favourite Toronto writers, for sure. And for those in any way familiar with my preferred poetry-aesthetic you will understand why I wish I had thought of this image before him. That's a sign of a really good writer for me, when I'm jealous of the things they say and wish I'd come up with it. Sometimes I just read and enjoy and bask in something's greatness, and other times some lines grab and pinch me so that it hurts a little and I feel immeasurably insuperior but more complete and a little heavier inside for having read it.
I experience that a lot with Scorch Atlas too, which I am slowly devouring in bits on the subway. Scorch Atlas is dirty and slick and ecstatic. It's hard to describe. I know I'm way behind the band wagon on reading it, but fuck it, better late than never. Now that I have some cash I'm going to slowly purchase books that I've been wanting forever (Shane Jones, Molly Gaudry, etc) so brace yourselves for some good old belated reviews. And please offer me suggestions of things that you think I would enjoy reading.
Not kidding.
Why didn't I just avoiding turning my back? Because when I did they started singing, which was almost as horrific as being chased.
I am in love with my afternooon-nap-unconscious for having such a grotesque sense of humour.
Speaking of grotesque, one of the greatest images I have come across lately:
"Her teeth are bright and it looks as if she just hit Pause. I want to fill in her gums and smear her teeth with the fish food flakes just for fun. It would look like scabs dissolving. IT WOULD."
-from my newly-purchased copy of Nathaniel G. Moore's novel "wrongbar."
It is very interesting and very well written. He's one of my favourite Toronto writers, for sure. And for those in any way familiar with my preferred poetry-aesthetic you will understand why I wish I had thought of this image before him. That's a sign of a really good writer for me, when I'm jealous of the things they say and wish I'd come up with it. Sometimes I just read and enjoy and bask in something's greatness, and other times some lines grab and pinch me so that it hurts a little and I feel immeasurably insuperior but more complete and a little heavier inside for having read it.
I experience that a lot with Scorch Atlas too, which I am slowly devouring in bits on the subway. Scorch Atlas is dirty and slick and ecstatic. It's hard to describe. I know I'm way behind the band wagon on reading it, but fuck it, better late than never. Now that I have some cash I'm going to slowly purchase books that I've been wanting forever (Shane Jones, Molly Gaudry, etc) so brace yourselves for some good old belated reviews. And please offer me suggestions of things that you think I would enjoy reading.
23.3.10
updates
I feel overwhelmed right now.
I have a new job that involves writing and editing very dense material at home for hours. I enjoy it but I feel intellectually exhausted.
I got into all the grad schools I applied to. I decided I'm moving to Western for the Theory and Criticism program. That means I'll only be in Toronto for this summer. Get me while you can. I'm excited, mainly to get my own place and move and be someplace new. Big changes are good for me. I also have dispensible income for the first time in my life, so I've been buying art all over the place.
I have to write 1) A paper on Merleau-Ponty and language. Thinking of throwing some Wittgenstein in there for good measure 2) Harryette Mullen and hybrid subjectivity/resistance of woman-as-poet-muse 3) something that combines emily dickinson with angels in america, bloch, benjamin (konvolut n) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (I'm lost on that one) and 4) something to do with transgender theory.
Check out Brandi Strickland, the art above belongs to her and the rest of her work is really excellent. I'm not yet sure which prints to purchase, although I'm thinking the entire dark crystal series.
{I feel a high degree of internal peace that is encased and preserved by extreme external chaos. I like the feeling of external pressure, it keeps me from sabotaging myself. Anxiety is often produced by sheer boredom so I need to constantly challenge myself. I'm really happy with everything. I feel blessed.}
20.3.10
Feeling grand. Spending this Saturday night browsing etsy for art, watching Star Wars, drinking hot chocolate and reading Merleau-Ponty in periodic spurts. Everything is so good right now I'm kind of suspicious.
A poem of mine has been published in the Toronto Quarterly journal, which I absolutely love. If you have some extra cash and would like to support Darryl Salach, the founder and editor, and us, the writers, you can buy the e-book or a print copy from here: link. I'll post a free .pdf in the right column later, although its not the same, y'all. Or, those of you who live in Toronto - go get it at one of 3 Bookcity locations in the city. I have a love/hate relationship with Bookcity, but I do admit, its one of the only places in TO that has a wide variety of lit mags and journals.
14.3.10
Poetry as Code/De-Coding
Below is the first part of an unfinished presentation I'm writing for my contemporary poetry and poetics seminar. I'm enjoying writing it and I thought some of you might be interested. The Tapeworm Foundry is a conceptual long poem (fuck, what isn't) available on UbuWeb. Link.
It's strange that my measure of 'presentability' is whether or not I'm comfortable posting something on here. "Is it good enough/engaging enough to be posted on my blog?!" versus "is it good enough to perform in front of 20 people, including someone who will give me a grade?" *rolls eyes at myself and then lights a cigarette*
Also really enjoyed this blog post from a recently-discovered blog that has quickly become one of my favourites. Wicked shit about suicide-art Badiou embodiment etc.
Also just wanted to say thank you to people who read this. My, uh, readership, has drastically increased over the past 4 months and I am genuinely appreciative of all who give a shit. *here I roll my eyes again and feel sheepish*
the word 'sheepish' is strange, yeah?
---
“The issue is not about poetry online. It’s the other thing that’s at issue here: online poetry, a poetry that explicitly includes the processes of coding, programming and designing as part of the creative act; a poetry whose content is, to some degree, specific to the qualities of the environment in which it exists.” DWH.
In “Antifesto,” Darren Wershler-Henry refers to creative writing as “code.” The Tapeworm Foundry engages with this idea and exemplifies "our current confrontation with the codes and code-condition of language, poetry, and digital media" (Drucker). The Tapeworm Foundry performs this process of coding/de-coding the ideological and material foundations of creative production. Each page functions like a screen of data that provides an inventory of information; a list of proposals for art projects and instructions for creating poetry that subvert the traditional modernist definition of art and poetry. In this sense, the poem is radically non-hierarchical, combining low and high culture seamlessly and with great humour. Equally demonstrative of this equalization is the use of “andor” to separate each unit. This strategy implies an opening up of language; the poem unfolds itself and the reader takes up its possibilities.
This focus on form and presentation rather than content emphasizes the materiality of language and poetry-construction/coding. This technique is reminiscent of the language poets attempt to dislodge the signified from the signifier. Similarly, Wershler-Henry shows that language is not inherently meaningful; language is given meaning when positioned within a particular narrative context. Although traditional reading and writing codes typically remain “invisible” and unnoticed, the value of online poetry is that the coding/de-coding is explicit and thus functions as a critique of passive or uncritical reading. Thus, The Tapeworm Foundry challenges and subverts the traditional/modernist narrative codes that condition readers to consume and engage with a text in a predetermined, prescribed framework of reference. The ceaseless flow of text - each unrelated component - prevents the reader from superimposing a linear and all-encompassing narrative onto the poem. As a result, we can't consume the text as we would a commodity. Both the construction of the text as material object and as a narrative is magnified. In this sense, Wershler-Henry decodes how language functions by producing a meta-code that draws attention to its own construction in order to critique how code functions in general.
It's strange that my measure of 'presentability' is whether or not I'm comfortable posting something on here. "Is it good enough/engaging enough to be posted on my blog?!" versus "is it good enough to perform in front of 20 people, including someone who will give me a grade?" *rolls eyes at myself and then lights a cigarette*
Also really enjoyed this blog post from a recently-discovered blog that has quickly become one of my favourites. Wicked shit about suicide-art Badiou embodiment etc.
Also just wanted to say thank you to people who read this. My, uh, readership, has drastically increased over the past 4 months and I am genuinely appreciative of all who give a shit. *here I roll my eyes again and feel sheepish*
the word 'sheepish' is strange, yeah?
---
“The issue is not about poetry online. It’s the other thing that’s at issue here: online poetry, a poetry that explicitly includes the processes of coding, programming and designing as part of the creative act; a poetry whose content is, to some degree, specific to the qualities of the environment in which it exists.” DWH.
In “Antifesto,” Darren Wershler-Henry refers to creative writing as “code.” The Tapeworm Foundry engages with this idea and exemplifies "our current confrontation with the codes and code-condition of language, poetry, and digital media" (Drucker). The Tapeworm Foundry performs this process of coding/de-coding the ideological and material foundations of creative production. Each page functions like a screen of data that provides an inventory of information; a list of proposals for art projects and instructions for creating poetry that subvert the traditional modernist definition of art and poetry. In this sense, the poem is radically non-hierarchical, combining low and high culture seamlessly and with great humour. Equally demonstrative of this equalization is the use of “andor” to separate each unit. This strategy implies an opening up of language; the poem unfolds itself and the reader takes up its possibilities.
This focus on form and presentation rather than content emphasizes the materiality of language and poetry-construction/coding. This technique is reminiscent of the language poets attempt to dislodge the signified from the signifier. Similarly, Wershler-Henry shows that language is not inherently meaningful; language is given meaning when positioned within a particular narrative context. Although traditional reading and writing codes typically remain “invisible” and unnoticed, the value of online poetry is that the coding/de-coding is explicit and thus functions as a critique of passive or uncritical reading. Thus, The Tapeworm Foundry challenges and subverts the traditional/modernist narrative codes that condition readers to consume and engage with a text in a predetermined, prescribed framework of reference. The ceaseless flow of text - each unrelated component - prevents the reader from superimposing a linear and all-encompassing narrative onto the poem. As a result, we can't consume the text as we would a commodity. Both the construction of the text as material object and as a narrative is magnified. In this sense, Wershler-Henry decodes how language functions by producing a meta-code that draws attention to its own construction in order to critique how code functions in general.
8.3.10
carnival carnival carnival
These are some of my favourite bits of Steve McCaffery poems. Click to enlarge.
The best piece from Darren Wershler-Henry's "The Tapeworm Foundry" is
replace sigourney weaver with jacques derrida and then make a film about him chasing hegelians through the airducts of a spaceship in order to immolate these vermin with a flamethrower
This is a really hilarious video. Gotta love bp Nichol. Only poets.
I love my hippie Canadian poets.
5.3.10
It's a good thing I will never have kids because sometimes I look at my cats when they are curled up and rolling around my feet in ridiculous ways, and I feel nothing except heavy pity that living things always need other living things, and I think 'I can never be what you want all the time' and I feel that way with most people. Like this morning when I tried to leave the bed and you, still mostly asleep, grabbed onto my hand really hard and pulled me back into your sleepy unconsious nakedness, still holding tight to my wrist so that it almost hurt. And I wanted to be comfortable there and less restless, I wanted your erection between my legs and your morning shadow rough against my shoulder. I looked at your face for a really long time, and it hurt like the sun and the sky did when I removed myself later and stood on the roof, smoking my first cigarette, burdened by something hard and light in the pit of my stomach.
1.3.10
Happy March. The horrors of February have subsided. This is going to be a big month for me. I have a lot of goals that will inevitably be hindered by a shitload of social and performance anxiety. I'm feeling down today, avoiding school, wanting to be alone.
Good news though: I have two poems published in the March Negative Suck. I just read the new stuff and holy shit, it is super good. I feel honoured to be included amongst such a great group of writers (including Lyn Lifshin - her poems are marvellous). Check it out HERE.
ps. Super happy about Canada winning gold in men's hockey. Fucking love Olympic hockey.
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