I’ve Moved! Go to passiontask.com

I’ve moved most– if not all– of my bloggy writing to Passion Task. I hope to see you there!

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Links, Links, Links (weekly)

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RIP: David Markson (1927-2010)

David Markson
[CC licensed photo by adm]

David Markson passed away last Friday. I have recently had reason to think about Markson’s work, in particular Wittgenstein’s Mistress, which—like many—I came to thanks to David Foster Wallace’s high praise. At the time I found Markson’s experimental novel mostly confusing… I could never get my mind around the work as a whole, though it was clearly composed of many brilliant pieces.

Over the last six months or so, as I’ve started to think more seriously about art through accretion—collage, assemblage, bricolage, etc—and pondering, among other things, the creative blog as an aspect of genre and work like David Shields’s Reality Hunger Wittgentein’s Mistress has started assuming more importance.

It’s sad to learn of Markson’s passing… but I am exhilarated at the prospect that there is much more of his work to discover than I realized.

UPDATED: New York Times obituary for David Markson

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on the Persistence of Poetry (Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin)

“There is a relation between language and truth that is very subtle and is always changing. For the reader or listener who can appreciate the constant shifting, each new poem one finds is a fresh statement of that relation.  Because in poetry there is a focus on language, the relation can be seen very clearly; also because in poetry one never has to say more than one means. We live our lives to a great extent through language, and so it must be forever fascinating to watch it, like watching the waves.”

[via James Finnegan]

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“June”

56362610_39e2d8e08c
[
CC licensed image by Ko An]

“June”

It’s hard to imagine that
in just a few months it
will be 45 degrees below zero
and my breath will freeze
and fall to the ground with
the sound of distant surf.
Now, a hidden bird sings
a sighing, dog-like whine
from the trees and the bees,
who will live only a few days,
move from flower to flower
touching them like thoughts.
If they could, they would each ask
me how I’ve survived so long and
and what it’s like to expect so much.

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Links, Links, Links (weekly)

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“12 Years Old”

[resurrecting some old poems for historical purposes]

dandelions
[CC licensed photo by davebluedevil]

“12 Years Old”

…and in a few minutes we’ll be crushed
together in the tool shed’s crawlspace,
oily gray floorboards above us and
your perfect peach hair pressed against
the petroleum smelling dirt below,
awkwardly fondling one another’s
newly protruded nubs like huge toddlers
just discovering their own faces.
But for now there is the single sound
of your voice from the electric chair
and the neon buzz of desire I’ve
just that moment learned to recognize.
I smear your name on the corrugated wall
with the bleeding head of a dandelion.
The milky-white wine drops of my efforts
seep from stem to hand which I touch to
your greedy lips, letting you taste them
with the undisguised need of the human.

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Links, Links, Links (weekly)

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Links, Links, Links (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Links, Links, Links (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Twitter has destroyed my writing… (Sommer Browning)

“Twitter has destroyed my writing, but not as much as interacting with people has. Interacting with people has destroyed my writing, but not as much as being in love has. Being in love has really destroyed my writing, but not as much as not writing has. Not writing has destroyed my writing, but not as much as paralytic anxiety has. Paralytic anxiety has destroyed my writing, but not as much as the absolute disappearance of my fingers.”

Sommer Browning
found in “Richard Hugo Didn’t Twitter”

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Links, Links, Links (weekly)

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“To the New Year” (Graham Foust)

[since I can’t write a poem to save my life, might as well share a good one I just tripped over. Maybe my new writing year will start tomorrow…]

"To the New Year"

Comes upon and at me
does your gone-tinged promise.
I’ve got a train to miss.
Can I buy you some rain?
In drams, days, this life’ll
feed me to the keyholes:
I’m in a basement
conquering atlases;
I’m in an attic
putting money on a god.
Formless, but possible–
that’s all tomorrow’s problem.
I’ve made us phrases, flaws
the hours fall from and into.

–Graham Foust
found in Open Space (no. 10, 2010)

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Making Showering Awesome

making-showering-awesome

Have to say, Hyperbole and a Half’s “How to Make Showering Awesome Again” made me laugh and wince in recognition… the clip above doesn’t even scratch the surface. Go read it. You know you want to.

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Book Planters

While I’m on the subject of physical books—you know, the kind with paper and pages—here’s a cool looking project from gardenkultur… book planters:

gardenkultur-book-planter

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Not Your Grandma’s Book Shelves

From inhabitat, two innovative design for book shelves. The more practical is the book shelf of books (how meta):

bookshelf-of-books

Somewhat less practical, unless you live in a trendy, furniture-free loft where you squat in conversation with your Bohemian friends, but still cool to look at, is the circular rolling book shelf:

rolling-bookshelf

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Links, Links, Links (weekly)

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“Thy Voice in the Garden” (Sally Smith)

from a reader:

“Thy Voice in the Garden”

My mother dipped me in the river, too,
because she was afraid.
But her hands were large, and so was I (by then)
and much of me the water never touched.

Walking back, the dust made mud socks
on my feet and on my ankles
and my mother smiled
thinking of how she had protected me.

In the days that followed she would push me out,
rearing back as I braved the adders that riddled  my path.
When I returned she would touch my sweat in an off-handed way
and send me to peel the fruit, never imagining what I had skirted around.

Why should I die before my time?
Yet tomorrow I will shrug and go again,
mud socks chipping off of my feet
as I tread those under that rise up against me.

Though, even now, I can feel the light of the world on my calves.
I can feel the sting of arrows in places that have always been dry.
Because perhaps tomorrow my time will be at hand.
And too, because a city that is set on a hill can never be hid.

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NaProWriMo 10.13 – “B-Movie Personal”

The thing I am
mistaken for human,
wrapped to heal then
wrapped some more.
The long winding of gauze
creates a convincing shape,
human-ish with a muffled voice,
navigating by guesswork,
staggering into walls,
turning and lumbering on.
Zombies won’t have me nor
mummies claim me, the living
dead that never lived,
aborted in Technicolor.
The daubs & de-screened dots
dance in the faces
of horrified passers-by
who shout "It came from the deep,"
in 72 point extruded Gotham,
who trample their neighbors,
shouting "It lives,"
half right and
completely wrong.

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Second-Hand: Vanessa Place, Conceptualism, & Flarf

I have almost no idea what Conceptualism is and understand nothing at all of Flarf, but Joshua Corey’s notes on Vanessa Place’s recent AWP presentation “Notes on Why Conceptualism is Better than Flarf” are still delightful:

Vanessa Place’s paper is killer: "Notes on Why Conceptualism Is Better Than Flarf." A few gems:

  • "Flarf is a court jester. As such, it is still a member of the court."
  • "Flarf is a one-trick pony that thinks a unicorn is another kind of horse."
  • "Flarf still loves poetry. Conceptualism loves poetry enough to put it out of its misery."
  • "Flarf wants to be funny." "Conceptualism wants."
  • Flarf engages the amygdale, conceptualism the cortex.
  • "Flarf is a whoopee cushion in the world of the new and old lyric poetry. Conceptualism is a fart."
  • "Ron Silliman likes flarf. Ron Silliman does not like conceptualism."
  • "Flarf looks like poetry." "Poetry looks like conceptualism."
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