Just wondering how many microscopic alien life forms are sucking energy from me. And is it maybe coming out my nose? Just wondering.

From Creeley's "Classical" (Memory Gardens)

"...oh youth, / oh cardboard cheerios of time"

then:

"One instant everything must always change,
your life or death, your articulate fingers lost
in meat time..."

Clarity & Obscurity

Your brain is listening to you



Haiku Metaphor

The End of Nature

Purity, Restraint, Stillness

Best of 2010

I posted this "best of" list at No Tell Hotel's blog. I was thinking minimally at the time. Here are a few more I could have / should have also added to the list:

A Cloud of Witness, by Jason Stumpf
--excellent prose poems with a tight rhythmic backbone

Transcendental Studies, by Keith Waldrop
--the complete trilogy by the master of collage

The Cloud Corporation, by Timothy Donnelly
--this book is super hot shit right now, so my natural inclination is to try to be different & say, nah, it's not all that, but I'm really not different, I'm like everyone else, and man, it is all that

No, No Scary by Zachery Schomburg
--a fantastic follow up to The Man Suit, which was itself scary good

The Waste Land and Other Poems, by John Beer
--anyone crazy enough to use this title must be formidable. These talky, sharp poems take me back to sweet home Chicago

The French Exit, by Elisa Gabbert
--Gabbert's deft two-line stanzas are equal parts charm and dazzle as they swerve through observations, thought patterns, and reflections

Reveilles, by Nathan Hoks
--this guy's kind of narcissistic, but the poems aren't bad

I'm sure there's a lot of other good stuff I should add, but I'm still catching up with the best of 1983, so hey, 11 new titles is pretty good.

Ashbery and why to read poems

The lovely conclusion from Megan Snyder-Camp's compelling reading of "Paradoxes and Oxymorons":

Ashbery reminds me why I read poems. It’s not to understand a poet’s intentions, or to get to know the poet. It’s to savor the movement of mind that comes from fully engaging with a rich poem, and tracing the edges of structures whose echoes and ghost-images will appear at surprising intersections in the days ahead, working themselves through in my mind. Work, in that context—the work of bridging gaps, navigating a sharp turn, weighing one thing against another—feels like play. I get lost in it, I resurface, I dive back down. I show up muddy to lunch. I’m not trying to get exactly out of the poem what the poet put in; I’m certain that I won’t. What I get, rather, is exactly what I need, which shifts with each reading. I need a structure strong, engaging, and open enough to lead me beyond my own expectations into an exploration of what it truly means for one word, or idea, or person to connect to another—a chain of those connections strong enough, and flexible enough, to swing out over the vastness of possibility.

I'm normally not one for reader response, but this seems like the way to go--especially her description of the mind working at the "edges of structures whose echoes and ghost-images will appear at surprising intersections in the days ahead," as if prescribing a kind of prescience to the poem that we meaningfully engage with. The chance play that forms our mental and imaginative destiny!

I write as far away from myself as possible.
-Andre du Bouchet (trans. Auster)

Book Launch

I will be giving a reading at Newtonville Books on Dec. 2 With Mark Conway & Jason Stumpf. Come on down.

Reveilles in the blogosphere

Salt has posted a clip of me reading in promotion of the book as part of the blogs launching the Crashaw and Scott Award books.

Reveilles can be purchased here.

Nikki & I saw Kate at Diesel yesterday morning, & this it what she said:

Bevor da war dadda, da dada da.

Recent French film, Hollywood crap, & the plight of British film.

How to back up a blog

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-backup-blogger-blog.html

AN INVITATION

@ http://pippoetry.blogspot.com/

We invite translators to help us in Project for Innovative Poetry gathering major world authors. Please feel free to suggest a poet on whom you're working or have in the past. We need a decent size biography and complete listing of the poet's books of poetry with the titles in the original language, cities of publication, publisher names, and dates and the same for any translations into English. We also need to note the date of birth and death, and would like a picture of the poet if is available.

We also attempt to post English language translations of 3-4 poems, just to characterize the work. These poems may be published elsewhere, and we will list all copyrights and note copyright protections. In any event, if you are working on a translation this site may help to keep other publishers aware of your activities. Please feel free to suggest that they check out our site on a regular basis.

I am open any suggestions, and will attempt to get back to you as quickly as possible. Please send them via email (douglasmesserli@gmail.com).

You might also check our earlier listing of poets listed as we began our site.

Douglas Messerli
Publisher

Arctic Poems

Vieve has designed a very cool cover for my translation of Huidobro's Arctic Poems. At least I think so! I love the geometry of it & the minimalist feel.

10 years of Salt!

American Surrealism