Postcards - Finally doing a close reading

I am just talking a little break from writing in biro on my pad of paper held midair in front of my eyes.

After 2.5 weeks of ModPo, (second time around, called ModPoPlus), I have finally got to the point of slowing down and writing loads of notes all over my page about each single word in front of me.

It feels so good to be able to be on familiar territory, not rushing to gulp down each poem as I have been doing on the 52 Facebook page, or on the new Forum I'm on. There is no way to do more than glance at the river of words there. Quick thoughts, then replies, then move on.

So when you are ready, slow right down and write anything you like about all the associations which come out of the title. I am at line 4 now, but fancied a break to write a blog post.

Back to work.

Postcards - Rae Armantrout

Sounding like your parents - ModPo Plus - Stuck - Live streaming

Sounding like your parents

H and I were hanging around in front of an all male chat show. He told me that he has started to use phrases his father uses, and makes comments like that ad is so sexist just like me. Then he and I both said in unison 'Need to get out more!' So he needs to get away from his parents.

ModPo Plus

ModPo Plus is ready for the 2nd and 3rd timers to study this autumn. An explanation by Prof Al Filreis. I imagine he is having the time of his life being able to share his love for his subject with so many people via all the tech now available. Tech also happens to be one of his things.

Stuck

I'm still stuck on assignment 4 for Iowa. 5 and 6 are needed too. Do I just skip number 4 and not mind? Possibly a good idea. Or post something I am not happy with? Just do it and not mind too much? Focus and make a decision. Any decision. Move on.

Live streaming

It is hugely disturbing to watch live stream on tv from Gaza. In a way it is worse seeing that nothing is happening, that means it is about to happen, the lights twinkle a bit, it is late at night, the stillness is all wrong.

All because of politicians, given the power and responsibility, who don't know what to do. Adults should know what to do, but they don't. They don't with special needs, with countless things, and they don't with whole countries.

A good thing the earth spins without our involvement. Humans just know the absolute minimum to get by. So there's a reason to try to do my best and not fuck up so often.

I helped sort out a 180 degree misunderstanding between 2 non-English writers on Facebook. Probably the most important thing I have done for weeks. Just 2 lines. It has probably only helped by one hair's breadth, but even so, that's worth it.

I want an Arabic/Hebrew ModPo

mptmagazine : from-arabic-to-hebrew-and-hebrew-to-arabic-poetry-translation-as-a-microcosm-of-how-the-world-ought-to-work

Knowing how helpful the English language ModPo has been for my understanding of a culture I have been deeply ambivalent about, why not stand on the shoulders of giants as the saying goes, and start creating something from where ModPo left off?

I would be totally left out as my language skills are not there yet in even one of the languages. But it could inspire others who can work in both.

Our reading today - Kenneth Goldsmith

I love this man, so interesting, so annoying. I recognise his voice, love his thinking, ways of seeing and re-presenting the world to others.

4 min video of a "I feel I must read a whole book approved of by someone else otherwise it doesn't count" type person talking with Kenneth Goldsmith, explaining that what we read all day is our culture and is ok. I was going to type 'vs', but it is not a conflict, more an exploration, so I typed 'with'.

Here's something to stay up very late for - ModPo again - The Beat Poets

"We hope many a ModPo'er will join us for a live interactive webcast on Monday, March 17, at 7:30 PM Philadelphia time. Julia Bloch will be moderator and host; she and several Philadelphia-based poets will talk about the Beats. Discussion will include some of the Beat writings we discuss in ModPo.

All the information you need - including the link to the live video feed - is below. Plan to join us and to call in with your comment or question!

Enrollment for ModPo '14 (starts September 6th) is of course open. We welcome you to join us again! Just go here -https://www.coursera.org/course/modernpoetry - and enroll!

With best wishes from a thawing Philly,

- Al

THE BEAT POETS: A CONVERSATION WITH PHILADELPHIA WRITERS brings together five Philadelphia-based writers to talk about the Beat legacy. We'll consider the significance of the Beats today, from classic figures like Kerouac and Ginsberg to alt-Beats (Baraka, Waldman) to the legacy of Beat poetic elements (babbleflow, the road trip, bohemianism) and beyond.

On Monday, March 17, at 7:30 pm Philadelphia time, join us in-person at the Kelly Writers House for an event that will also be offered as an INTERACTIVE WEBCAST, during which audiences from outside the Arts Café will be invited to join us with their questions and comments!

WATCH the event live athttp://writing.upenn.edu/wh/multimedia/tv/

To JOIN us by phone, or by Twitter:

Call 215-573-9752
Tweet using ‪#‎phillybeats‬ "

Penelope Creeley

I ran into this essay on Robert Creeley by his wife Penelope Creeley. It is a love song in prose.

http://sibila.com.br/english/robert-and-books-on-creeleys-library/10200

Over the weekend I nearly took out a book of his letters from the London Library, but decided there were too many words in it for me. I got some simple art books instead.

Then a man told the returns desk that he was bringing his mother's books back as she had just died. It was one of those moments when it is ok to look across and acknowledge that I had overheard what he had just said.

I did a card for him at St James' Piccadilly and lit a candle too. No such thing as overkill in those circumstances.

Then I wanted to rest in peace while an orchestra rehearsed. That was when I realised I actually did want to read those letters of Robert Creeley, but I had firmly put him back on the shelf half an hour earlier.

I Know A Man - Robert Creeley

Plus the audio of him reading it - fabulous and disturbing.

Playing with words

A group of us meet online each day to bounce ideas around. There are 2 discussion areas, the 2014 Pushcart Collection and the Objects section of Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein. The discussions get written up and shared online, where else?

Pushcart 2014 - blog written by Karen Carlson

Tender Buttons - blog written by Karren LaLonde Allenier

Forgive some of the language..

This has taken ages to work out

Someone on the ModPo facebook group asked me 'what is your religion?' I have written my reply taking from the 23rd until today. I'm quite surprised that I was able to do it, I thought I'd give up and rely on a one word answer. This is the sort of thing which comes up in our poetry discussions.

To come back to my religion...I was brought up Catholic in London, but went to a Church of England secondary school. I think this was a deliberate choice by my mother. I moved to the Church of England while at university and living abroad, a common thing. Then quickly decided the evangelical approach didn't respect individuals, just regarded them as targets for conversion. Eventually moved to the Quakers and hold on to my disagreements with the word God, and all other dogma. Silence and speaking from people's actual views is all I can tolerate now! So I'm probably not Christian any more, but it's the only religion I have reactions to and a familiarity with. I love the music, hymns, psalms and chants, Christmas carols and Handel's Messiah etc, so can't get away from it. When I visit my parents I sit with them and say all the words, get covered with incense, take communion and do a good impression of being a believer! And I get to hold onto my mother's arm which is lovely 

Next batch of 5 blogs

http://sloopie72.wordpress.com/

http://talkingleavesblog.wordpress.com/

http://solsticemama-nell.blogspot.co.uk/

http://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.co.uk/

http://houseofaimless.wordpress.com/

ModPo classmates...home education....more classmates...

ModPo - Doing the work

4 types of work are listed in this piece I found in a book. The 4th one is applicable to ModPo I think:

http://shinynewcomputer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/four-types-of-work.html

So while we have focused on interacting with each piece done by the poets in the syllabus, 'doing the work' of analysis, personal response and reflection, the team running the course has been doing a greater work.

Jennifer Scappettone

I'm going through the forums on ModPo to read and comment about Scappettone.

Then I went to the rest of the internet and found some great lines from an interview she did:

"LH: When you review, do you focus on a particular text (poem, story), the book at hand, the author’s body of work? Do you think this choice of focus influences criticism, or your own criticism, and if so, how?

JS: I zoom in and out.  My best thoughts arise in states of unfocus, or focus on something utterly unlike (running, chopping, riding a subway), then migrate to unexpected contexts.  It would be interesting to do a publication that “reviewed” single lines or sentences."

My bolding!

"LH: What do you hope to achieve by writing about writing? Do you believe that reviews can actually bring new readers to texts?

JS: I hope to honor marginalized or invisible intellectual and aesthetic labor, attract stranger to stranger, & burn through prior horizons of the possible.  Yes."

More of my bolding.

http://lemonhound.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/on-reviewing-jennifer-scappettone.html

What a relief, I have submitted my assignment

I have been working on this ever since Monday. I could have written reams. The more I wrote and then had to cut dramatically, the more individual words started dancing around in front of me saying 'look at me, explore all my meanings'. The shortest words started to need long paragraphs.

Even the title was a hurdle. First I had a really creative one. Then I decided that anyone given my title to review would give up on the spot. It didn't have words, just symbols. Oh well, I enjoyed typing it out, even if I then deleted it.

The poem was by Frank O'Hara

Why I Am Not a Painter 

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

Now I'd like to look at the actual painting and the actual series of 12 poems.

For reference: Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein

Tender Buttons

Ongoing close readings are here at The Steiny Road

I'm going to suggest to myself that I write out each one by hand as I get to it, starting from the current one, Mildred's Umbrella, and catching up as and when.

ModPo....join if you dare...putting the link again would be overkill, so I won't.

---

I now see there are three parts to Tender Buttons: Objects, Food and Rooms.

ModPo - I am wondering how it will change

The class finishes on 18th November. I wonder how the discussions will continue on the forums. Will we continue to focus on each poet and be able to add new threads to widen those discussions?

Last year the built up volume of discussion was deleted the day before this year's ModPo started, so I assume the same thing might happen again.

I have read that the videos and sound links will stay live right until ModPo starts again next year too. If I go to Breakfast 2.2, the second timers' conversation, I might find out a bit more.

By the way, to anyone reading this, do consider joining the course while it's still possible to do so, then you'll have free access to the syllabus and discussion forums for a good few months of study in your own time. How good is that?

ModPo2013

Ezra Pound and the hundreds of essays submitted last weekend on ModPo

I have been working on these 20 words for over a day. I didn't really want to move beyond the title! It is 'In a Station of the Metro' by Ezra Pound. Actually, let's add in the 4 spaces and the 3 pieces of punctuation.

In a Station of the Metro

BY EZRA POUND

The apparition       of these faces       in the crowd   :

Petals      on a wet, black    bough   .

The essay assignment on 'I taste a liquor never brewed' by Emily Dickinson was due last weekend. I did one! The number of assignments listed per page, 25, multiplied by the current number of pages listing individual assignments, 78, = 1950. Can you even imagine that number of 500 word essays? Each of the assignments are allotted to 4 other people to peer assess. I did my 4 peer assessments. That was a very hard thing to do. I agonised and fussed and deleted and altered mine.

I deliberately decided to do mine raw. So I didn't look at any other reviews, just worked it out for myself. Since then I have done maybe 3 more. From just reading 7 or so essays I am amazed at the sheer variety in thought processes between different people. My thing is the vocabulary the writers' use. It shows so clearly the qualities they value. Based on the same short poem we were asked to do a close reading on, out came an endless stream of different takes on the world. Does English have enough words to cover the variety of views? Clearly, yes.

The main lesson of this course so far is "focus". It is absolutely impossible to do all the work. Dealing with this impossibility is crucial. I still feel like a horse which went out for a canter and found itself on TV doing the Grand National. Pleased to have finished standing! That was week 3 and there are 10 in all :)

Attention switch

This feels odd. Because I am taking part in ModPo my focus is on writing comments over there on their 2013 site. So any reading I'm doing is linked to that and I have no time left over!

The other thing is that the Arabic course for this autumn, my second academic year, has been cancelled and we are yet to make concrete plans for classes with our teacher in Oxford. So my focus on writing out the alphabet each day of I can and going through previous chapters of vocab has gone.

Just writing this reminds me of how far I have come and how a lack of current classes is not a dead end, just a detour.

I'll remind the world of the numbers now, 1 to 5:

واحد  اثنان  ثالثة  اربعة  خمسة

Totally engrossed in ModPo

I can't believe it, I am part of a project linked to the University of Pennsylvania. It is an online course on Modern American Poetry. You should see the titles of the discussion threads! Emily Dickinson was the last few days, now we are in Walt Whitman land.

Someone suggested writing poems ourselves in the style of each poet. I couldn't believe I was simply taking blank bamboo paper out of my printer and just writing. I have done 2 in Dickinson's style and 1 in Whitman's style so far. I found myself going out for a nighttime walk in order to prepare for the Whitman one. Very appropriate, all that nature and rain outside our door.

The enthusiasm and openness of the contributors to the threads is so encouraging. I am a very happy person. Please give it a go. The less you know about American literature, history or poetry the better, the more there is to interact with as a fresh mind, taking it all in for the first time.

https://www.coursera.org/

Just listening to someone's voice

I am preparing for the online poetry course by coursera which starts in September. It is called ModPo and not surprisingly is all about Modern American Poetry.

My ears are very unattune to American accents. I thought I had lived my whole life with all the different varieties of American language, Nixon on the radio to Obama and Jay Carney.

I find I really need to see the words in front of me, but they are not there. All I can do is shut my eyes so that all of my brain is trying to follow the words. When it is unfamiliar poetry the result is that I'm simply experiencing the sound of the poet's voice as he or she speaks her soul to a room in a live performance. I miss so many words that I can't get the meaning at all!

John Ashbery audio clips on PennSound