rocket to nowhere

Alice Notley visited DU for a week. Here are my notes from her

reading:

an historic time of world wide massive immigration
it will probably be all right
jobs of small movements
proofs vs. Prousts

lecture:

oblique dialogic
impossible speech
into the reader’s ear and mouth
potential endlessness
trying to be as fast as thought • a quality of graven-ness
simply had to discontinue
all of our lieders are mute here
we should think about what we’re doing
speed as memory aid
walking across the street is a story and then we’re always to break out of those stories
memorization of what we write
they actored them
you kind of [gaze] into the computer
does thoughtfulness equate to strong fingers?

workshop:

the poetry pole / rhythm vs. cadence
rate
you feel as though you have depth and surface @ the same time
your interior is always surrounded
and sometimes always that surrounding is surrounded
in the moment (Buddhism?) • coming from the poet head
one has to allow one’s friends to break up
anything that affects you deeply / and yet we’re talking about surface
your = one’s
yr = thine
deliberate vs. deliberative
making a mistake and deciding to save it is genius
diction: there’s that word again. does it yet have a meaning?
always read aloud / always read aloud
prose can use variation of a line length, but you must know you’re working with lines.
poetry distracts you from meaning
Content?
Mediterranean Homesick Blues
das Wochenende (ich lebe fürs Wochenende)
“the whole bent of the 20th century was to make things sound natural”
working w/line and sentence in simultaneity
Witmanic impulses
everything I know how to do
you can’t do it without doing it
in the music of the paragraph, you have to be aware of where you want the breaks (in the rhythm?)
so many people have died around her and she is aware is aware and steeped in it and unforgetful
true civilization lies in the symbolic sacrifice
music is the art of grief (have I been grieving?)

surface is content
it’s always good to bang your head against the wall of a form
I recommend it as a sound

I don’t care if you have to stand in line.
I don’t care if it’s cold, raining, snowing, thundering, hot, humid, bug infested, or simply unpleasant.
I don’t care if you have a day job.
I don’t care if you have classes.
I don’t care if you can’t read.
I don’t care if you’re agoraphobic.
I don’t care if you think you have some sort of excuse—YOU DON’T.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY (J and I have), VOTE TOMORROW.
DO YOU DUTY AS AN AMERICAN CITIZEN.
VOTE DAMMIT
VOTE DAMMIT
VOTE DAMMIT
VOTE

thank you.

fabulously well-done:

just over a week to go . . .

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thanks Micah!

Hooray! An excerpt from my epic novella A Determination of Parts (aka my master’s thesis, aka my highly constrained exploration of Mark Rothko’s painting #19) has been published in the ekphrasis issue of MississippiReview.com! In fact, editor Jane Armstrong has put together a fantastic issue full of awesome awesomeness: Check it out.