Moure on community
Of course if one is thinking about community/citizen/consumer one must also be thinking about Moure, particularly the trilogy–Sheephish Beauty/Civilian Love, Frame of the Book, and O Cididan. And yes, lets talk about those. But lets start with Furious–or at least I’m going to start there, because it was my introduction to Moure. Posts to come...
More on Community
…the individual is merely the residue of the experience of the dissolution of community. By its nature–as its name indicates, it is the atom, the indivisable–the individual reveals that it is the abstract result of a decomposition.Jean Luc Nancy The Inoperative Community Capitalism and fragmentation…the dissolution of community. Citizen/consumers. Borderless is not a reality (realty)....
Arbitrariness has to do with a generation which has been brought up on shopping for ideas
This last quote from Zaha Hadid and below Robertson’s elaboration: Could we differentiate like this in writing please? Could we recognize that arbitrariness is not in itself liberatory? Is arbitrariness truly attractive? How far can randomness go? How could a text partially occupy a site? By scrupulously pursuing a logic it thus transforms to an...
Lisa Robertson blogging this week!
Check it out. By the way, Lisa, yes, I’ll report on the Zaha Hadid show. And the Eva Hesse too, in short order.
the hound reads at Cornelia Street
Friday, 6pm. $6 bucks gets you a drink and an earful. Followed by open mic. Sign up early. Cornelia Street Cafe is of course on Cornelia Street, in the village.
Someone, somewhere is having this precise thought. Now. Or now. They are thinking it as they peel away a bit of knee-scab. Remnants of a library tumble. The fringed skin. Or now on a train to Rangpur, tugging on his hair, or ear, sucking in his right cheek, thinking why am I not original?
Times Square
Found myself in Times Square this weekend…two Broadway shows: Avenue Q and Faith Healer which couldn’t be more drastically different in terms of a theater experience. Still, neither worth writing about…Sweeney Todd and The History Boys were sold out, but I suspect they would have been worth writing about.
Chroma
Well now. There’s a new queer journal on the scene, and get this, it’s on the international scene, and get this, it’s actually kinda queer. With all the mainstreaming of queer literature these days this could be a cool drink of water…but I haven’t actually seen an issue yet so this is pure speculation on...
mclennan reviews Nathalie Stephens’ latest from bookthug
Those of you in New York will remember Nathalie from the belladonna reading she did last fall with Rachel Zolf. Once again I ask, where does mclennan find the time?
mclennan reviews Nathalie Stephens’ latest from bookthug
Those of you in New York will remember Nathalie from the belladonna reading she did last fall with Rachel Zolf. Once again I ask, where does mclennan find the time?
The desire for a sense of “completeness”
My own comments about Christie’s first book are still rambling around in my head, as is my question about what it is that I desire in a book, as opposed to work one encounters in other ways. What is this “completeness” that I’m after and is it purely subjective. Someone once told me that my...
BorderCrossings Issue 98
Always a good day when BorderCrossings arrives at the door. I’m wondering what “post-minimalist” really is, and kind of excited about this thinking of this, and I’m taken with Fay Heavyshield.
More from Roni Horn’s Wonderwater
Foucault et le NON du pere, by Anne Carson Anne Carson’s offering includes drawings, or as she describes them, “an alternate comic.” Louise Bourgeois chooses red ink. She also plays with the page… from Louise Bourgeois Perhaps what is most enviable about Horn’s project is the sheer joy of it. Recently in an interview I...
BorderCrossings Issue 98
Always a good day when BorderCrossings arrives at the door. I’m wondering what “post-minimalist” really is, and kind of excited about this thinking of this, and I’m taken with Fay Heavyshield.
Bloomsday
A conversation I’ve had often lately with many different folks–from agents to writers to academics–focusses on the right to enter into, quote from, and expand upon the texts of others. Skeptical as I am about the intention of many academics, I do of course, argue for access. Particularly creative access. One Stephen Joyce however, elevates...
sporadic posting ahead
It’s safe to say the summer posts will be random and scattered, but strands of thought will, I hope remain somewhat consistant, if not on one another’s heels… Further to my post on the expectations of “the book” I offer a quote from the recent Lisa Robertson interview in the Chicago Review: My books are...
Roni Horn
Roni Horn’s Wonderwater: Alice Offshore is a project consisting of a text annotated by four different writers (Anne Carson, Louise Bourgeois, Helen Cixous, and John Waters) and presented as a collection. A beautiful one at that. I’m fascinated by Horn’s work, how her practice enfolds not only other artists, but other genres, how she gets...
Poetics.ca
Hey kids, rob mclennan has updated his poetics site. How does he manage to update his blog so often and thoroughly, as well as produce so much? I have mclennan’s new book, published with Stride of the UK, and will post on that shortly too. Still working on Marlatt, who I hear has been given...
a door red read for the offering annotated who is more red than she? coming soon to a bookshelf near you…
Canada Post, Jason Christie
Jason Christie’s debut collection Canada Post, is a lot of fun. This is apparent in the whimsical cover: an Etch A Sketch floating in white space. There are poems in here, like “Swerve (Steeper Grade),” that excite me: Rough music motivates our gentle recapitulated social need for norms and critics like Ebert and Roeper at...
Silliman takes a long, lingering, look at Robertson
And likes what he sees! And sees what he likes, and who wouldn’t?
frogments from the frag pool
Gary Barwin & derek beaulieu have created a fun little book here. There are so many variations on Basho’s frog jumping into the pond, each more inventive than the last. Here the linguistic play has more resonance: even if one has no idea who Basho is (is that possible?), or hasn’t read the haiku (I...
The Daily News & The New York Post
Here are the images that we have seen all over New York today. The covers of these “papers” are so vile that I have to make an effort NOT to see the cover most days, but once in awhile they get you. This is so problematic I have no idea where to start…They have both...
My Parent’s Bedroom
This week’s New Yorker has an unbelievable story by one Uwem Akpan, a story that part of me love’s and part of me detests, for its brutality and narrative power, for its absolutely awe-inspiring grit, how the narrative never falters, and yet a kind of predictability, a kind of western frame: as if story never...
apostrophe!
apostrophe is a kick-ass book, with a kick-ass search engine. How many books of poetry can say that they come with a search engine? How many books of poetry even know what a search engine is? How many books of poetry allow a reader to enter into and create their own poem? Oh sure you...
Peter Viereck
Regarding the conference that went ahead without Olson, Layton had this to say:“Viereck, I knew some of his poems that I liked, I didn’t think he was an important poet, but I certainly turned out to hear him…and Auden of course.” To be fair to Dudek, the notes in Line suggest that he had no...
West Coast Line
derek beaulieu** writes to say that Line has merged with West Coast Line–the very fine journal out of SFU that I thought was edited by Roy Miki, but since he was the editor of Line I’m not sure this can be true. In any case, do check out West Coast Line, always engaging, and for...
thinking with a small “t”: or the small “t” of missed opportunities
Reading through an old copy of Line, the excellent journal out of SFU (is it still running??), in preparation for a post on Daphne Marlatt I find a series of letters from Charles Olson to Irving Layton of all people… This I found fascinating. Olson and Layton? Who knew. And it made me wonder how...
Emily Carr
I was in the Met yesterday, in the American wing, looking at all those early landscapes and interiors, and it struck me how very different the history of Canadian painting would look next to American. I noticed the tell-tale signs of a voyageur across the room, and sure enough, there was one in a canoe,...
Stunning Statistic
It’s hard to shock me, but the BBC did today with the headlind “Global migrants reach 191 million…” That’s just crazy…I’m clicking my heels and nothing’s happening…nothing at all…“
Griffin Winners
Well that was a bit of craziness…winners and information here. One thing I can say for sure: poets dance. Poets dance. Wow.
Women and Power, Sara Diamond
Madame President. Has a ring to it, no? Sara Diamond is one of my heros, a great inspiration for women, especially women artists and writers. She has been inspiring me now for, well, over 20 years, and watching the transfer of power today at Roy Thompson Hall was no less inspiring. The language she chose...
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