Wednesday 23 July, 2008 Tonight is an Openned Night with an excellent line up: Sascha Akhtar Sean Bonney Frances Kruk Scott Thurston John Wilkinson And others. Don't miss it. Check the Nights page for directions. Admission is free.
Tuesday 22 July, 2008 'The good news about blogging is that it's extraneous to what really matters: poems. We move through phases of conceptual and complex thought, and oftentimes poems are products of complexes. Sometimes the conceptual (theoretical? is theory always conceptual?) gets in the way of the poems. I think it's important to maintain these categories and/or compartments in order to work better. Less can be more. Etc.' - Laura Carter 'It's worth noting as an aside that the most pernicious conspiracy theory about the 9/11 attacks was promoted by the American state. In the run-up to the Iraq war every effort was made to link Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. Those who want to debunk conspiracy theories have an awkward time with this one - that particular paranoid fantasy wasn't pushed by the tinfoil hat brigade, but by a highly focussed and skilled group of people working in secret to manage the perceptions of the American and global public ... A conspiracy to promote a (false) conspiracy theory.' - Dan Hind
Monday 21 July, 2008 B.S. Johnson's The Unfortunates I normally rail against the book as fetish object but sometimes there are objects worth forgetting principles for.
Saturday 19 July, 2008 'Using a 1957 Chinese Manual as it were, (based on surviving soldiers' reports) for instructing interrogators, the Americans claim that though they copied a Chinese Torture How-To Book, the Guantanamo-carried out copying of its teachings is "NOT torture." This raises an interesting question: does the translation and copying of texts absolve the texts of the "evil" of the Original? Does this mean that when the Chinese used the Manual it was "Real" torture, but when Americans use the translated copy, it is NOT "real" torture but a kind of "play acting"? A Simulation of torture being taken to be "not the same thing" as the Original? .... In short, what is being performed at Guantanamo really is NOT torture, but "de programming."' Brutal interrogation by David-Baptiste Chirot. Set aside half hour and read it three times, then repeat in darkness with a bag over your head, sucking your cheeks in.
Friday 18 July, 2008 '6) A poet and a philosopher are looking at the same clever drawing. One of them does not see two profiles, and the other the stem of a vase. The philosopher sees lines on a piece of paper. The poet sees a piece of paper marked with lines.' Not sure whether this is clever or pure tosh. But I like what I see, and so I post it for you.
Thursday 17 July, 2008 There's so much good stuff on this one page that I almost burst with goodness, like a Ribena berry. If you watch carefully the new Ribena advert, you will see a Westie getting splashed the sugary concoction, and he is not best pleased. Get the RSPCA on it.
Wednesday 16 July, 2008 'There seems to be a lot of misunderstandings of "gurlesque" (and it appears I've only added to the confusion). Gurlesque is not a movement (like Surrealism etc), it's a frame Arielle Greenberg thought up to read some of the most interesting contemporary poets in America (as possibly elsewhere). I think the concept has promise, though it hasn't yet been made much more than a category.' A word that has been making the rounds recently amongst a certain group of as yet uninterconnected posting. I'm not too sure at all, but make what you will when you investigate the Gurlesque.
Tuesday 15 July, 2008 A couple of choice highlights from Jerome Rothenberg's superlative blog: Gematria (1): Seven in Dedication Reconfiguring Romanticism (5): Dionysios Solomos Poem & Commentary
Monday 14 July, 2008 Featuring Rothenberg, Flarf, Creeley and myriad other voondars. Link (iTunes Podcast)