sleestack ringer for chris nealon and joshua clover
can be had here, free as in beer . . .
February 22, 2006
Did a search for the word colonialism in Modernism/Modernity on ProjectMuse.
Found Ann Douglas, "Periodizing the American Century: Modernism, Postmodernism, and Postcolonialism in the Cold War Context."
"DuBois said of Belgium in 1921 that the startling size of the Congo, then its colonial possession, was 'destined to make Belgium but a physical fraction of its colonial black self'" (DB, 663).
Over last weekend, finished Charles Pollard's New World Modernisms: T.S. Eliot, Derek Walcott, and Kamau Brathwaite. Really solid research. A huge help. Felt stupid for not reading it before I wrote Brathwaite talk for Poets House. (Had it on my shelf as if that was helping.) Yet once done felt overwhelmed by the limitations of genre in lit crit after reading it. Which sometimes happens to me when reading something that is well done.
From reference in Pollard, then read David Chinitz, "T.S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide." (PMLA 110:2, 1992). "One can only imagine the effect of a long poem called He Do the Police in Different Voices beginning, 'First we had a couple of feelers down at Tom's place.'" (243)
From this article made note on need to read Eliot's essay "Durkheim" and Tom Henighan article on the primitive in modern poetry.
Again from Pollard reference, read Linda Hutcheon's "Colonialism and the Postcolonial Condition." (PMLA 110:1, 1995). Too introductory to help much.
And also from Pollard, David Spurr's "Myths of Anthropology: Eliot, Joyce, Levy-Bruhl" (PMLA 109:2). Super helpful.
Note to get Eliot's The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism.
And also, Christopher Miller's Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French.
Somewhere in all this, remembered Masao Miyoshi's "A Borderless World? From Colonialism to Transnationalism and the Decline of the Nation-State." (Critical Inquiry, 19: 1993). (Might have been citation in Hutcheon article.) Reread that. Remembered again that the first two paragraphs were useful and again got lost in analysis of TNCs. But the question/complaint of the first two paragraphs was what I wanted: why attention to colonialism doesn't happen in the humanities wing of the academy until 1978, years after the end of what he calls "formal colonialism" which he gives as 1945-70.
Then because I was at the Critical Inquiry website, remembered that Sianne Ngai had that article on cuteness that I hadn't read yet. "The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde" (31:4, 2005). And figured that might help get rid of the Eliot infection (reading so much about Eliot in last week made me want to swear off Eliot again because there is so much and it is such an industry, so many men and so many issues and so many... still, even after the age of Eliot might be over). And it did. Right there at the beginning, figures 1a and 1b, there was a frog shaped bath sponge showing "how much the aesthetic depends on a softness that invites physical touching--or, to use a more provocative verb, fondling" (815). A totally unnecessary figuration of complete and total cuteness. So perfect. And, not only that, Eliot shows up again. As not cute at all.
Now I keep thinking to myself--frog shaped bath sponge, frog shaped bath sponge--in attempt to get something interestingly Aware into this writing that feels like pulling teeth right now.
Found Ann Douglas, "Periodizing the American Century: Modernism, Postmodernism, and Postcolonialism in the Cold War Context."
"DuBois said of Belgium in 1921 that the startling size of the Congo, then its colonial possession, was 'destined to make Belgium but a physical fraction of its colonial black self'" (DB, 663).
Over last weekend, finished Charles Pollard's New World Modernisms: T.S. Eliot, Derek Walcott, and Kamau Brathwaite. Really solid research. A huge help. Felt stupid for not reading it before I wrote Brathwaite talk for Poets House. (Had it on my shelf as if that was helping.) Yet once done felt overwhelmed by the limitations of genre in lit crit after reading it. Which sometimes happens to me when reading something that is well done.
From reference in Pollard, then read David Chinitz, "T.S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide." (PMLA 110:2, 1992). "One can only imagine the effect of a long poem called He Do the Police in Different Voices beginning, 'First we had a couple of feelers down at Tom's place.'" (243)
From this article made note on need to read Eliot's essay "Durkheim" and Tom Henighan article on the primitive in modern poetry.
Again from Pollard reference, read Linda Hutcheon's "Colonialism and the Postcolonial Condition." (PMLA 110:1, 1995). Too introductory to help much.
And also from Pollard, David Spurr's "Myths of Anthropology: Eliot, Joyce, Levy-Bruhl" (PMLA 109:2). Super helpful.
Note to get Eliot's The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism.
And also, Christopher Miller's Blank Darkness: Africanist Discourse in French.
Somewhere in all this, remembered Masao Miyoshi's "A Borderless World? From Colonialism to Transnationalism and the Decline of the Nation-State." (Critical Inquiry, 19: 1993). (Might have been citation in Hutcheon article.) Reread that. Remembered again that the first two paragraphs were useful and again got lost in analysis of TNCs. But the question/complaint of the first two paragraphs was what I wanted: why attention to colonialism doesn't happen in the humanities wing of the academy until 1978, years after the end of what he calls "formal colonialism" which he gives as 1945-70.
Then because I was at the Critical Inquiry website, remembered that Sianne Ngai had that article on cuteness that I hadn't read yet. "The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde" (31:4, 2005). And figured that might help get rid of the Eliot infection (reading so much about Eliot in last week made me want to swear off Eliot again because there is so much and it is such an industry, so many men and so many issues and so many... still, even after the age of Eliot might be over). And it did. Right there at the beginning, figures 1a and 1b, there was a frog shaped bath sponge showing "how much the aesthetic depends on a softness that invites physical touching--or, to use a more provocative verb, fondling" (815). A totally unnecessary figuration of complete and total cuteness. So perfect. And, not only that, Eliot shows up again. As not cute at all.
Now I keep thinking to myself--frog shaped bath sponge, frog shaped bath sponge--in attempt to get something interestingly Aware into this writing that feels like pulling teeth right now.
February 20, 2006
The blurb project is done. Or what I am now in retrospect calling the blurb project. It has been fun. But I also need a few months off to just power through this prose ms and get some progress on the dumb critical project. So as much as I enjoy the reading, and I've read some good stuff this year in manuscript, I'm making myself say no.
This one last week:
Jessica Smith's Organic Furniture Cellar takes on big issues, such as how to write about the place where you live with all its distractions, beauties, and limitations inact. And she writes out of these questions a beautifully fragmented series of page aware poems. A stunning and necessary first book.
Or what I meant to say, there is something shockingly sweet about this book.
Also last week wrote something out of a readers report for Rachel Blau DuPlessis's Blue Studios.
I wrote this:
Rachel Blau DuPlessis is one of the majors of contemporary US poetry. Her work is a nuanced and responsible calling to feminist consciousness that is never narrow and is always challenging any of our preconceptions. In her critical work over the years she has patiently explained the centrality of female poets and their feminism to the innovative tradition. In her creative work, she has insistently examined questions of what it means to have an ethics, a kindness, in these complicated times. This new collection of essays stunningly continues these reconfigurings, these questionings. Here DuPlessis charts how she became a feminist critic (this essay alone should be required reading), challenges the continuing gendered assumptions of early twenty first century poetries, and also wonderfully and generously reads the work of poets such as Lorine Niedecker, Barbara Guest, and George Oppen.
It was cut to this by the publisher:
Over the years DuPlessis has patiently explained the centrality of female poets and their feminism to the innovative tradition. In this stunning new collection she charts how she became a feminist critic (an essay that should be required reading) and challenges the continuing gendered assumptions of early 21st century poetries.
I can't seem to do blurbs without shaping them like an hourglass: the huge overview gesture, then the detailed this book does this, and then the large optimistic statement at the end. And they keep getting longer and longer.
This one last week:
Jessica Smith's Organic Furniture Cellar takes on big issues, such as how to write about the place where you live with all its distractions, beauties, and limitations inact. And she writes out of these questions a beautifully fragmented series of page aware poems. A stunning and necessary first book.
Or what I meant to say, there is something shockingly sweet about this book.
Also last week wrote something out of a readers report for Rachel Blau DuPlessis's Blue Studios.
I wrote this:
Rachel Blau DuPlessis is one of the majors of contemporary US poetry. Her work is a nuanced and responsible calling to feminist consciousness that is never narrow and is always challenging any of our preconceptions. In her critical work over the years she has patiently explained the centrality of female poets and their feminism to the innovative tradition. In her creative work, she has insistently examined questions of what it means to have an ethics, a kindness, in these complicated times. This new collection of essays stunningly continues these reconfigurings, these questionings. Here DuPlessis charts how she became a feminist critic (this essay alone should be required reading), challenges the continuing gendered assumptions of early twenty first century poetries, and also wonderfully and generously reads the work of poets such as Lorine Niedecker, Barbara Guest, and George Oppen.
It was cut to this by the publisher:
Over the years DuPlessis has patiently explained the centrality of female poets and their feminism to the innovative tradition. In this stunning new collection she charts how she became a feminist critic (an essay that should be required reading) and challenges the continuing gendered assumptions of early 21st century poetries.
I can't seem to do blurbs without shaping them like an hourglass: the huge overview gesture, then the detailed this book does this, and then the large optimistic statement at the end. And they keep getting longer and longer.
February 16, 2006
February 12, 2006
Dan Hoy on flarf. Don't need to add to the discussion. But should confess I feel more guilty of not critiquing Google than I feel the flarfers are. Parodic critique seems built into that project. Article also did that classic move of not distinguishing between the artists and the comments on the artists so the comments about the artists get used to show how stupid the artists are. (Have heard so little utopian said about flarf by those who write it; the opposite, the anti-PC, has always been what has worried me about flarf.)
Then around same time Drew Gardner's Petroleum Hat came in mail. Whooza. The first thing I noticed something was up was in the blurbs by Ashbery and Mlinko. Ashbery sees jokes (I think that is it). Mlinko sees a new protest poetry (I think she is clear on that). I was struck by how beautifully clear it was. A whole new Drew Gardner! "Chicks Dig War" is an anthem. None of the copy on the book confesses to being flarf. And I am not so deep into flarf that I can tell when someone is using internet/social language or pretending to use internet/social language. (Had discussion with this with Bruce Andrews when he was here; he was claiming he "writes" (thinks up on his own? does not use collage in other words) all his lines; Stephanie and I were arguing with him about whether turns of phrase count as "writing" or not.) Is social language correct term? No. Want something term for work that is collecting what is out there in a wider way than most poetry of the everday did in the past. (Although still there are boundaries set about what gets in in this work.)
Then around same time Drew Gardner's Petroleum Hat came in mail. Whooza. The first thing I noticed something was up was in the blurbs by Ashbery and Mlinko. Ashbery sees jokes (I think that is it). Mlinko sees a new protest poetry (I think she is clear on that). I was struck by how beautifully clear it was. A whole new Drew Gardner! "Chicks Dig War" is an anthem. None of the copy on the book confesses to being flarf. And I am not so deep into flarf that I can tell when someone is using internet/social language or pretending to use internet/social language. (Had discussion with this with Bruce Andrews when he was here; he was claiming he "writes" (thinks up on his own? does not use collage in other words) all his lines; Stephanie and I were arguing with him about whether turns of phrase count as "writing" or not.) Is social language correct term? No. Want something term for work that is collecting what is out there in a wider way than most poetry of the everday did in the past. (Although still there are boundaries set about what gets in in this work.)
February 08, 2006
February 02, 2006
Steve Evans at his best: "A speaker feels remorse for having a crippled piglet put down." Crucial reading. I am begging for an entire book by Evans on Poetry Kulture. Please Steve! More!
I've saw Bruce Andrews read 2x this week. And had endless discussions about his work.
Introduction @ New Yipes reading (apologies to Jeff Hull):
Bruce Andrews is best known as the inventor of a colorless white crystalline solid better known as salt. You might have heard a rumor that salt was invented by students in a workshop at the Poetry Project in the 1970s that was lead by Bernadette Mayer and that salt could not have existed without Bernadette. Or that salt was invented by Iowa writers workshop students Bob Grenier and Barrett Watten. Or that salt was invented in the Bay area—perhaps Berkeley, perhaps Albany—and it shouldn’t even be called salt and so to be proper one should always say so-called-salt whenever one says the word salt. But I can assure you that Bruce Andrews replaced hydrogen in a metal to form salt and he did it in the 70s on the east coast and he has been doing it again and again ever since. Bruce spells salt s=a=l=t. Ray diPalma claims to have showed him how to do this one afternoon but I’ve heard Bruce deny this. I’ve also heard that it was Susan Bee who first did this on her IBM seletric. But no matter how you spell it, and I prefer s=a=l=t, salt is the secret ingredient in most recipes. It is essential to good cooking, for it brings out the flavors of foods. Just a pinch boosts the flavor of almost everything, from simple, sliced tomatoes to complex sauces, soups, stews, and even sweets.
I've saw Bruce Andrews read 2x this week. And had endless discussions about his work.
Introduction @ New Yipes reading (apologies to Jeff Hull):
Bruce Andrews is best known as the inventor of a colorless white crystalline solid better known as salt. You might have heard a rumor that salt was invented by students in a workshop at the Poetry Project in the 1970s that was lead by Bernadette Mayer and that salt could not have existed without Bernadette. Or that salt was invented by Iowa writers workshop students Bob Grenier and Barrett Watten. Or that salt was invented in the Bay area—perhaps Berkeley, perhaps Albany—and it shouldn’t even be called salt and so to be proper one should always say so-called-salt whenever one says the word salt. But I can assure you that Bruce Andrews replaced hydrogen in a metal to form salt and he did it in the 70s on the east coast and he has been doing it again and again ever since. Bruce spells salt s=a=l=t. Ray diPalma claims to have showed him how to do this one afternoon but I’ve heard Bruce deny this. I’ve also heard that it was Susan Bee who first did this on her IBM seletric. But no matter how you spell it, and I prefer s=a=l=t, salt is the secret ingredient in most recipes. It is essential to good cooking, for it brings out the flavors of foods. Just a pinch boosts the flavor of almost everything, from simple, sliced tomatoes to complex sauces, soups, stews, and even sweets.
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