Silliman's Blog

"An anti-flarf /anti-conceptual howl
so pained
it’s nearly flarf itself"

The end goal of this piece seemed to be: get your ASS down to K-Mart, and find out what the fuck the motherfuckers buying cheesepuffs and trans fat instant biscuits want in their poetry.

# posted by

0000000 : July 17, 2009

I very much endorse the post on Geoffrey Young -- the first listed link today.

However, that appreciation doesn't mention what might be Young's most recently published poem -- a poem that's one of the most memorable individual works I've read so far this year.

It's titled, "When The Air of the Arbitrary Ignites" and it's the last thing in That Hat # 8.

# posted by

Steven Fama : July 17, 2009

Oh cripe. I meant above, not That but, The Hat. Edited by Jordan Davis and Chris Edgar. ISSN: 1522-3310. Etc.

Sorry about that.

# posted by

Steven Fama : July 17, 2009

G.M. Palmer...

a b r e a t h of
Fresh Aire!

and

Trover is "out" shit!

I got books in my library that I bought there in early 60's!

# posted by

Ed Baker : July 17, 2009

WHOA, sometimes reading these lists are fun in themselves, but THIS TIME you get to Milton's angels having gay sex, and, well, it's something lovely, isn't it?

Ron, I LOVE that you put Magdalena Zurawski's post up about INNOVATION and (HEHEHEHEHEHE) Biran Allen Carr's poem right after it with "NOT THIS" oh my god I'm still laughing at that one!

HEHEHEHEHEHE!
CAConrad

# posted by

poet CAConrad : July 17, 2009

"...the motherfuckers buying cheesepuffs and trans fat instant biscuits [at Kmart]..."

There are people who shop at K-mart who like (and even write) Flarf. And plenty of people who only shop at Whole Foods are total assholes about art.

# posted by

Annandale Dream Gazette : July 17, 2009

Having made my way through many of the links, I'm thinking that the links listed as:

Insult poem leads to jail

An ode to the prez
yields 3-year sentence

maybe should have been placed up close to the top, or at the very bottom, or maybe even a post by itself. Foreground the links more, somehow.

There is much authoritarian repression today, and there always has been, but that story: three years for a poem "insulting" the President, really pisses me off.

"Write a poem, go to jail."

I wish somebody would translate the poem into all the world's languages, so it could be posted everywhere.

Here's a bit of the poem, in English, the only bit I could locate on the web

Shine, shine whom you shine on all of us / Shine, shine whom you shine wherever you go / No one can shine like you shine / You made people feel confused and lost / You made people feel happy and lost

# posted by

Steven Fama : July 17, 2009

A little part of me just died upon noticing that "Strong Poetry" is published by Orson Scott Card, whose Ender series was extremely important to my youth. It's kind of like finding out, years after the fact, that the man in the Santa suit was Dick Cheney.

# posted by

uncomplicatedly : July 17, 2009

Well, Ron, maybe you could tell us how horrible Lowell's poem The Mills of the Kavanaughs really is--iambic pentameter filled with a thousand piquant details, written by a half-mad, ghost-ridden poet in his early '30's at the height of the McCarthy era.

I'm sure we'd all be the better for it.

I still can't figure out your vindictive vendetta against Lowell.

What rule did he break, other than writing inside a different tradition than yours?

The poem could indeed be as consciously macabre as it may be unconsciously absurd. Either way, wouldn't we rather have this, than another handful of chaotic Cantos from an equally mad Pound?

# posted by

Curtis Faville : July 17, 2009

"There are people who shop at K-mart who like (and even write) Flarf. And plenty of people who only shop at Whole Foods are total assholes about art."

What is this information supposed to do for me?

# posted by

0000000 : July 18, 2009

It was to point out that where a person shops has more to do with how much money he or she has, and very little to do with aesthetics. To portray the "motherfuckers buying cheesepuffs" as some kind of lowest common denominator seemed classist. Maybe I misinterpreted your comment. I do agree with you that the anti-flarf/conceptual article was ridiculous.

# posted by

Annandale Dream Gazette : July 18, 2009

"To portray the "motherfuckers buying cheesepuffs" as some kind of lowest common denominator seemed classist."

I think you're carrying political correctness/whatever you want to call it to an absurd place. My point is that this guy blames poets for the ignorance of the public. Is it your opinion that being poor justifies ignorance? (this would include areas other than food as well; see: racism, homophobia, so on, on top of poetry) I also know a fair number of below-the-line people who don't buy unhealthy foods, so it's not specifically aimed at those in poverty.

# posted by

0000000 : July 18, 2009

I think his point was that it's the poets' fault that the public does not read poetry.

My point is that shopping at Walmart is not equivalent to being ignorant. Where one shops these days is a matter of how much money you have or don't have, where you live, and how concerned with appearance you are. Aesthetics run far deeper than style & taste & certainly socioeconomic status.

# posted by

Annandale Dream Gazette : July 18, 2009

I really really like Bunting's
from Chomei at Toyama

Just the first stanza alone
has got to be one of the best
descriptions of the quantum
matter frame ever written:

Swirl sleeping in the waterfall!
On motionless pools scum appearing
disappearing!

It also illustrates the grotesque paradoxicality of all life
uniting Heraclitus and Lao Tzu,
east and west, changeless in changing, absence in presence,
fullness in void etc.. Pure movement enshrined, a kind of contrapposto / yin-yang thang.

This is a Modernism transcending
style and entering somethng closer
to historical perspective, or just plaine olde wisdom.

I dig Basil.

# posted by

phaneronoemikon : July 18, 2009

Phantasiamagoric:

you might "dig" Terrell's
9the editor of)

Basil Bunting Man and Poet

especially

Carroll Terrell's Introducction and opening chapter:

"An Eccentric Profile (Biography)

and in same book

Cid Corman's "take on ...." called Earwork

also there is Caddel's "thing"

Basil Bunting UNCOLLECTED POEMS (Oxford University Press, 1991

Bunting was among so much else otherwise a master at self editing

etc

# posted by

Ed Baker : July 18, 2009

Ed, I really appreciate
the references, but "self-editing"
is for "little folk".. you'll
notice a long list of names
studying the 'little folk'
because they feel 'non-threatened'
by the 'size' etc..
or some other equally goofy interpersonal politicky-horse pudah..

who cares what poet X, or writer Y
does in terms of volume, or anything else, really..

the interest
the ONLY interest

is that there is

ANY

EVENT

whatsoever..

I would've thought
a divine-worm-vehicle
your age

would've learned
the 'great secret'
by now..

one must
take the final
journey

to foo-chem

(get it? fukem)

# posted by

phaneronoemikon : July 19, 2009

"My point is that shopping at Walmart is not equivalent to being ignorant. Where one shops these days is a matter of how much money you have or don't have, where you live, and how concerned with appearance you are."

It's certainly not equivalent but it's a symptom of some ignorance. Even if you shop at wal-mart you can buy relatively healthy. I'm singling out those who buy "cheesepuffs and trans fat instant biscuits"--the latter of which is plainly only done by those ignorant, or by those, as I said, self-destructive. What you eat, as the ancients knew, is related to everything else. They also stock entirely poisonous "literature" at Wal-Mart.

# posted by

0000000 : July 19, 2009

Ron, Just wondering why no mention of poet Terrence Winch for the Geoff Young and Ted Berrigan guest posts on the Best American Poetry blog (considering you lead on the Berrigan with Aram Saroyan's byline)?

# posted by

Lally : July 20, 2009

Terry Winch? a "blast from the past..

wasn't he (also) around U of Md and D.C. in the

"swinging" SIXTIES and the
"smoking" Seventies" ?

# posted by

Ed Baker : July 20, 2009

Still is.

# posted by

Lally : July 22, 2009

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