25 April 2011
from Smashing Time (revised)
on the third day I walked again to the rynek of Rybnik and met a girl who told me to come to the electricity plant and I asked her about poetry and she said Milosz and I said I know and she said that was all she knew plus someone named Szymborska and I said I know but I wanted the underground and she said she could show me the electricity by the lake and I could take a bike or bus and meet her brother who spoke English and all this more or less took two or three hours of hand gestures in the rynek of Rybnik
on the fourth day I rolled up my sleeves and went into the rynek of Rybnik and combed the place and ate at an Egyptian chain shop called Spinx and they gave me little bits of meat with three different sauces: hot, garlic, and another one I can’t remember and I went again to the discotech which was down down down in the basement in the underground like most Polish pubs and clubs and I saw all the flowers and some statues and I pulled out my camera in the rynek of Rybnik where they minted their own money for the summer and everything seemed named after bugs like Biedronka or amphibians like Zabka and my guidebook to pronunciation didn’t help an iota and I met a 19 year old who gave me her father’s jumper and I felt like her father but ate her dinner and she told me of her modeling ways as we wandered the rynek of Rybnik after 2am in the fog
on the fifth day I did nothing but sweep the room and plan how I could say slices in Polish and count to ten and count change but on the fifth night I returned again to the rynek of Rybnik and drank drinks and looked at the beautiful peeps gathered in groups to drink and behold there we did dance again in the rynek of Rybnik
on the fourth day I rolled up my sleeves and went into the rynek of Rybnik and combed the place and ate at an Egyptian chain shop called Spinx and they gave me little bits of meat with three different sauces: hot, garlic, and another one I can’t remember and I went again to the discotech which was down down down in the basement in the underground like most Polish pubs and clubs and I saw all the flowers and some statues and I pulled out my camera in the rynek of Rybnik where they minted their own money for the summer and everything seemed named after bugs like Biedronka or amphibians like Zabka and my guidebook to pronunciation didn’t help an iota and I met a 19 year old who gave me her father’s jumper and I felt like her father but ate her dinner and she told me of her modeling ways as we wandered the rynek of Rybnik after 2am in the fog
on the fifth day I did nothing but sweep the room and plan how I could say slices in Polish and count to ten and count change but on the fifth night I returned again to the rynek of Rybnik and drank drinks and looked at the beautiful peeps gathered in groups to drink and behold there we did dance again in the rynek of Rybnik
Tomas S. Butkus
20 April 2011
playful good snuff!!!
this poet just keeps on keeping on and spurns out some seriously good language play
Clark Coolidge chapbook
Clark Coolidge chapbook
17 April 2011
16 April 2011
15 April 2011
On a Whalen and Koch kick
Friday night. A week drawing to a close. Indian stomach rumbles again from the buffet. Settling in with some ginger tea and reading some plays of Kenneth Koch collected in The Gold Standard. Leaning over bed in this small North London room to type on laptop which rests on a foldable chair.
Will return to Koch's play George Washington Crossing the Delaware very soon.
As we all know it is information overload. So much on the internet. Jacket 2. MFA programme grads. it is nice to hunker down with something like Kenneth Koch's collected and his plays. Focus attention.
Just ordered Philip Whalen's collected with parent's gift certificate for 37th birthday. Be here in a month or less. Whalen's and Koch and Padgett and Mayer are opening me up.
I am weighed by memories. So many lifetimes, identities, experiences, countries. I am finding writing as a way to let them go. See them as me and not me. That flickering between existing and not existing. In short, I am finding my way back to writing as life and life as a practice and that practice ultimately as spiritually but not spiritual in the sense of separate from the body. An expansive spirituality. All encompassing. More a perspective. A mindfulness.
And so it goes . . .
back to George Washington.
He just chopped down the cherry tree . . .
some interesting essays over at Big Bridge (perhaps actually much more enjoyable than Jacket in many ways):
Philip Whalen essays at Big Bridge
Will return to Koch's play George Washington Crossing the Delaware very soon.
As we all know it is information overload. So much on the internet. Jacket 2. MFA programme grads. it is nice to hunker down with something like Kenneth Koch's collected and his plays. Focus attention.
Just ordered Philip Whalen's collected with parent's gift certificate for 37th birthday. Be here in a month or less. Whalen's and Koch and Padgett and Mayer are opening me up.
I am weighed by memories. So many lifetimes, identities, experiences, countries. I am finding writing as a way to let them go. See them as me and not me. That flickering between existing and not existing. In short, I am finding my way back to writing as life and life as a practice and that practice ultimately as spiritually but not spiritual in the sense of separate from the body. An expansive spirituality. All encompassing. More a perspective. A mindfulness.
And so it goes . . .
back to George Washington.
He just chopped down the cherry tree . . .
some interesting essays over at Big Bridge (perhaps actually much more enjoyable than Jacket in many ways):
Philip Whalen essays at Big Bridge
14 April 2011
in and out
what will and what won't go. Books are coming in again. All those hundreds upon hundred of books let go in North Carolina to travel the world.
On the way from parent's gift certificate:
Collected Poems of Philip Whalen
still reading collected poems of Kenneth Koch (the "short ones")
wondering about getting Joanne Kyger's collected poems.
These are huge books. Whalen and Kyger. "Zen cowboys" as Silliman likes to say.
Work work work. How much time is spent thinking of "the work." Whether writing or the day job etc. etc.
and somehow getting as close as possible to life itself. That membrane of language between. Sometimes in the way. Experience. That is what we crave. Why organized religion does not satisfy. Why anything doesn't. Including poetry. As it develops into rigor mortis. Keep it fluid. Life is fluid whether we like it or not.
is anything new? What I am typing as I am looking at the door to catch the tube for a 1 hr 20 min ride on the tube for work is NOT NEW.
I listen to zen lectures almost every night. Zencast. I want to get closer to life. To you.
On the way from parent's gift certificate:
Collected Poems of Philip Whalen
still reading collected poems of Kenneth Koch (the "short ones")
wondering about getting Joanne Kyger's collected poems.
These are huge books. Whalen and Kyger. "Zen cowboys" as Silliman likes to say.
Work work work. How much time is spent thinking of "the work." Whether writing or the day job etc. etc.
and somehow getting as close as possible to life itself. That membrane of language between. Sometimes in the way. Experience. That is what we crave. Why organized religion does not satisfy. Why anything doesn't. Including poetry. As it develops into rigor mortis. Keep it fluid. Life is fluid whether we like it or not.
is anything new? What I am typing as I am looking at the door to catch the tube for a 1 hr 20 min ride on the tube for work is NOT NEW.
I listen to zen lectures almost every night. Zencast. I want to get closer to life. To you.
8 April 2011
top dog!!!
best and most interesting literary journal . . perhaps . . . full stop . . .
with a new look . .. and layout . . . get your fill . . .
Jacket 2
REVISED FOUR DAYS LATER:
OH NO, HAS JACKET DONE A MERGER TO BECOME AN INSTITUTION. WHO'S IN AND WHO'S OUT. AGH! THE SAME, AGAIN?
SO IT GOES . . . .
with a new look . .. and layout . . . get your fill . . .
Jacket 2
REVISED FOUR DAYS LATER:
OH NO, HAS JACKET DONE A MERGER TO BECOME AN INSTITUTION. WHO'S IN AND WHO'S OUT. AGH! THE SAME, AGAIN?
SO IT GOES . . . .
7 April 2011
3 April 2011
cathy Wagner on blogtalk radio
books coming this week with the brown santa for 37th b-day:
1) The Sore Throat and other poems by Aaron Kunin
2) The Gold Standard a book of plays by Kenneth Koch
3) Pink and Hot Pink Habitat by Natalie Lyalin
4) My New Job by Cathy Wagner
interesting radio reading and talk with Cathy Wagner over here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/joe-milford-show/2011/04/01/joe-milford-hosts-catherine-wqagner
Cathy Wagner rocks!!!
1) The Sore Throat and other poems by Aaron Kunin
2) The Gold Standard a book of plays by Kenneth Koch
3) Pink and Hot Pink Habitat by Natalie Lyalin
4) My New Job by Cathy Wagner
interesting radio reading and talk with Cathy Wagner over here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/joe-milford-show/2011/04/01/joe-milford-hosts-catherine-wqagner
Cathy Wagner rocks!!!
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