Adam's Blog

I'm here now:

2011-10-20T19:51:00.001-07:00

www.adamcroberts.com

Painting

2011-08-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

"To me, it's like a painting...fighting Monsanto is like doing a perfect painting"

2011-05-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead

2011-05-02T23:44:00.001-07:00

Why Celebrate?

2011-05-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

http://brianholmes.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/why-celebrate/#comments

GIVE A FIG: Poets' Strike?

2011-04-28T11:07:00.000-07:00

GIVE A FIG: Poets' Strike?: "'Why don't we all refuse to write or read poetry on May 1st and turn our energies towards political acts all over the country and you k..."

Lifting the Veil: Obama and the Failure of Capitalist Democracy

2011-04-18T11:13:00.001-07:00

Privilege Denying Dude (Paul Ryan edition!)

2011-04-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

(Paul Ryan, who himself relied on public programs to put him through college)

*

Rev. Jim Wallis (who is on his 18th day of a hunger fast to protest "austerity" measures) on Ryan: "If you don't understand the struggles of ordinary people in this country, and you call their life a hammock, you've never been any place where there are poor people...Paul Ryan doesn't even know that world, he lives with rich people. Bullies pick on poor people. If he's a budget hawk he should go to where the money is, but he won't because he doesn't have the courage."

Chapbook

2011-03-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

My chapbook, called Poem in Four Parts, is available to order here through Cannibal Books.

Thanks to Katy & Matthew Henrikson...

Poetry and Politics

2011-03-28T10:31:00.001-07:00

"it's not what you write about, it's where you write"

An Injury To One...

2011-03-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

Protesters Hauled Off From WI Capitol ("This Is What A Police State Looks Like")

2011-03-11T12:16:00.001-08:00

Action for Economic Justice at Iowa City Chamber of Commerce, March 10th, 2011

2011-03-10T16:54:00.000-08:00

1

2

3

Coming Down From The Forty Foot Pole (Notes on Zen Buddhism and Radical Tactics)

2011-03-08T14:40:00.000-08:00

1st nen: educate (learn)

2nd nen: agitate (calm)

3rd nen: organize (let go)

MAKE YOUR AUDIENCE NEW

2011-03-08T11:19:00.000-08:00

Tahrir Square --> Madison Capitol -->

2011-03-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

Am blown away by how similar the Egyptian novelist Ahdaf Soueif's description of Tahrir Square's emergent organization/relations are to what I experienced in Madison, while inside the capitol:

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And what did it mean in Tahrir? You were there almost every day. From the day you arrived, I saw you there every day. And it was like a revolutionary republic in there. It was a different Egypt, very different from the one outside on the streets of the rest of Cairo. Talk about what—this kind of new kind of Egypt that was created during these 18 days.

AHDAF SOUEIF: Well, you know, I think that what happened—and this isn’t just me, because at one point, you know, you start thinking that maybe you were having visions or you were, you know—but everybody who talks about it talks in the same terms, that it was: people were rediscovering themselves and each other. It was as though everybody had been locked in solitary in a small little dark box, you know, and told to be afraid of everything else and sort of rattled from time to time. And you’d opened the box and stepped out and found that everything was great. You know, there was light. There were other people.

And what happened was that almost overnight a civic space was created in Tahrir Square that was the ideal space, that one imagined, that everybody imagined how the country should be or how any country should be. People were kind of like really careful of each other. People were overly courteous. People were picking up rubbish. People were bringing things to offer. It very soon became that you didn’t go to Tahrir without something to offer, whether it was cookies, whether it was your effort, whether it was water, whether it was medicines for the field hospitals. In other words, everybody was finding the best in themselves and putting it forward. And that was just incredible.

It is living...

SEE YOU TOMORROW (Anonymous Sign From Inside Capitol, 3/8/11 1:41am)

2011-03-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

"If they cannot push us out of another world, they cannot push us out of this one.

We are still inside the capitol."

Fake Empire

2011-03-04T19:24:00.000-08:00

SEE YOU TOMORROW (Anonymous Sign In Madison)

2011-03-02T07:47:00.000-08:00

"If they push us out of the capitol, then we will find expression on the rest of the capitol grounds.

If they push us out of the capitol grounds, then we will find expression in the rest of the streets and shops of downtown.

If they push us out of the streets and shops of downtown, we will find expression in the rest of the city of Madison.

If they push us out of the city of Madison, we will find expression in the rest of the state.

If they push us out of the state, we will find expression in the rest of the country.

If they push us out of the country, we will find expression in the rest of the continent.

If they push us off of the continent, we will find expression in the rest of the world.

If they push us out of the world, we will find expression in another world.

They cannot push us out of another world."

The Unbreakable Culture of the Capitol

2011-03-01T17:34:00.000-08:00

On why we are winning

Great first person account from a student

Another really wonderful first-person account here, from a teacher in Brooklyn

& a report about the importance about occupying the capitol building itself

Peaceful Shame

Wisconsin 1

2011-02-28T18:53:00.001-08:00

Just got back from spending two nights in the capitol building.

More to come...

Scott Walker: The Drift Right

2011-02-24T14:48:00.000-08:00

Mashup of Scott Walker (Gov. Wisconsin), Scott Walker (musician), and Balthazar (a donkey).

2011-02-20T11:45:00.001-08:00

Solidarity Wisconsin

2011-02-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

Toward A "Hack" Poetics (#Egypt)

2011-01-28T09:16:00.000-08:00

1. Cultural intervention (rather than art OR politics)

2. jeremyscahill jeremy scahill
I couldn't switch the channel quick enough when CNN started interviewing Jamie Rubin. #Hack

3. Hacker/Worker/Farmer v. Vectoral/Capitalist/Pastoralist

4. Not this

5. Not avant-garde/vanguardist. Writer as "hack" or fool...

Eisenhower's Warning

2011-01-17T13:50:00.000-08:00

From Waging Non-Violence: The military-industrial complex, 50 years on.

Naomi Klein: "Being Addicted To Risk"

2011-01-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

Jersey Shore

2011-01-03T09:52:00.000-08:00

Will be over here for the next few days, launching a new project:

http://www.jerseyshorepoem.blogspot.com

Griftopia 2

2010-12-31T13:31:00.000-08:00

1. Imagine a poetry reading in a house that is being robbed.

2. Imagine a poetry reading in which the reader, the audience, and the people in the house are all being robbed and the reading continues.

3. Imagine this reading a number of times.

4. Imagine the reading beginning to take on the content of these surroundings.

5. Imagine the reading beginning to take on the form of these surroundings.

6. Imagine the reading beginning to move like a house.

7. Imagine that there is an interval in which the robber is going out to rob the house, and his own house is left empty.

8. Imagine poetry enters this house.

9. What, at this point, is a poem?

Griftopia

2010-12-31T08:31:00.001-08:00

Best holiday reading so far: Matt Taibbi's Griftopia, a seething account of the financial industry and the "long con that is breaking America."

Taibbi, in addition to explaining the gritty details of credit default swaps and commodity futures speculation, does things like title his chapter on Alan Greenspan "The Biggest Asshole in the Universe," coming up with simple, angry, broadly engaging frames for how our economic system works. The lesson of Taibbi's frames is that as complex as these cons were to pull off, the story of them is in fact very simple: the American financial elite, with the help of government de- and re-regulators, has spent the last 25 years either a) exploiting everyday Americans at a high-stakes casino tilted ridiculously in their favor, or b) flat-out robbing us. The only hope left for our nation's economy, now, (with an eviscerated production and public sector) seems to be that these foxes and bullies will outfox and outbully the financial elite of other nations, and that some of that resultant wealth will trickle down to us.

If this sounds cynical, it's because it is. The American economy has built itself more and more entirely on what Taibbi describes as a kind of elaborate shell-game: with things going to shit long-term, who in the short-term can vacuum up what wealth is left? It's important to note, as Taibbi does, that this creates two real political parties: the Grifter class, and...everyone else. What's brilliant about the Tea Party, from the standpoint of this Grifter class, is that it diverts the potential consciousness of the non-grifters (us), turning substantive grievances against the economic elite (them) into moral grievances against a "cultural elite" ("liberals," urban social planners) and a cultural non-elite (poor minorities and immigrants).** This mobilizes the exploited against the even-more exploited—a classic and horrendously effective strategy of powerful groups throughout history.

What the Tea Party phenomenon (and the whole Democrats v. Republicans thing more generally) misses is that, ideologically, we're not playing on mid-twentieth century terrain anymore, where government regulation = socialism = Stalinism = Hitler (and, for that matter, Republicans = "small government"). By thinking in such anachronistic terms, the screen is set up behind which 21st-century-style domination and unfreedom can continue to take place. The end-game of Tea-Partyers and Republicans (and some Democrats) is not to institute "less" government, but to institute a government that, by selectively "not interfering" in certain sectors (while happily interfering in others), enables and empowers a new class of Dominators. This is the Grifter class, and it includes everyone from Dick Cheney to Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs) to Glenn Beck to Larry Summers to Sarah Palin to, yes, Barack Obama.

I look forward to seeing who, in the next cycle of political candidates (and spectacle-addicted media coverage), will offer a narrative as candid and forceful and clear as Taibbi's. Because the real we—the not-grifter-class; those without big vacuums—are really, really fucked. Our only hope is to build up viable resistance movements—electoral or otherwise.

On this note, here are three national organizations that are helping build the fight against the Grifter class. Join them. And provide links to others in the comment threads below.

http://demandprogress.org/mission

http://movetoamend.org/

http://other98.com/

**"Revolt of the Elites," in the most recent issue of n+1, illustrates the consequences of an attack on one of these elites (the cultural elite) and not the other.

Re-imagining poetry community, 2

2010-12-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

Great review of Brian Kim Stefan's pamphlet Bank of America Online Banking: A Critical Evaluation in the new Sustainable Aircraft.

Bernie Sanders' Speech on the Bush-Obama Tax Cuts for the Wealthy

2010-12-13T11:12:00.000-08:00

and thanks to him for an actual, old-fashioned filibuster.

Bill McKibben on the Cancun Climate Conference

2010-12-07T18:54:00.000-08:00

Bill McKibben: Climate Talks So Weakened by U.S., Major Polluters that Walkout Could Be Good News for Planet

The Austerity Myth

2010-12-04T19:00:00.000-08:00

Great video on why we should be spending more, not less, on public services at a time like this.

The Watson Institute presents Mark Blyth on Austerity from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.

(And, from the same source, a poem.)

Frank Rich

2010-11-28T11:45:00.000-08:00

on this political season's elephant in the $$$ room.

David Korten on Economic Relocalization

2010-11-22T12:06:00.000-08:00

Watch the full episode. See more NOW on PBS.

7 Poets I Love

2010-11-17T11:21:00.000-08:00

The fifth and final piece in my series on contemporary poetry in The Atlantic.

Part 4 (Eaarth Poetry)

2010-11-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

Part 4 in my series on contemporary poetry in The Atlantic.

Swan Dive 3

2010-11-09T16:58:00.000-08:00

I am and aim to be in middles of the storm;

when it comes and carries and takes me I will have been of you and with it;

together we will have been more and less affected by the floods.

I am so far away, from myself, now,

speaking as if I wasn't living!

While I live, it is a storm I aim to be; a middle.

Paradise blows through my teeth!

Rubbish barrels out of me,

Barrels and barrels of fossils go

into making me, and I am a living

consuming being,

being consumed.

Swan Dive 2

2010-11-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

It is crucial that the angel of history can only see behind us.

Were it able to see now, fully

it would lose its instincts;

the wind would cease to feel on its wings.

Okay, stranger: the breeze has blown us together.

My childhood, now, spins away from me;

You and my childhood spin toward and away from me.

It is never not spinning; tho we tweet and tweet

(the birds themselves tweet! and I do know you)

and tweets themselves proceed from now to backwards, changing

our experience of reading (from up to down

to down to up)...

the breeze is blowing and piling everything up and up.

Swan Dive

2010-11-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

Poems play with our expectations. That is why we read them: to get played.

One line subverts

another: a beach becomes

a log becomes

a kitchen. The poem

builds the kitchen. Swan dive.

A man in a hot tub

riding a motorcycle, holding

a bottle of Old Spice, reading.

The logic of the commercial

is a similar logic to many contemporary American poems today, such as this Heather Christle poem. Compare.

(Look at the Heather Christle poem. Now back to me. Now back to the Heather Christle poem.)

In this case, the Old Spice Man is a forest.

Objects (and setting) swirl and mutate around

it; meaningless and meaningful and intelligible; instinctive;

neural-pathway-forming (and diverting). What is

the core of the poem? Where does the poem stand?

What does it stand for? Where does it move? What about the advertisement?

Is the ad an ad for Old Spice or for masculinity?

Is it a joke on masculinity? Does it work?

Is it a poem?

Similarly, is Christle's poem a joke on culture, or on nature?

A joke on deforesters, or tree-huggers? On me? You?

Is it an advertisement? (Do you want new windows, reader?)

Or do you want to be clean? (I make phone calls for a candidate

who refuses corporate donations over the weekend,

and am advised not to refer to the other, leading candidate;

even a mention of his name increases his chances

of victory.) What are we putting in circulation?

What new pathways do we want to create?

Every poem, and advertisement

answers this, whether it wants to or not.

This seems to be a problem, for poetry.

Still, it can enter the battle in the middle of the fray

or build up new networks from the margins

or build up new networks from the margins of the middle of the fray.

Poetry can divert us from pathways,

change pathways to take us

onto other pathways. "Verse": meaning

the turn

at the end of the row

when plowing. (Might this agricultural remnant

signal a direction for our attention?) Link

to link to link.

Consider what I find

when googling "Old Spice Man" and "poetry".

This cannot help but send me spiraling into 200 other video responses

(are these poems?), not to mention Greg Oden's blog

(these?) and now I'm back to Kanye's tweets,

which certainly play with my expectations.

(Or have I lost you out there, and are you now already spiraling?)

1. There's a layer of... Entertainment... we are entertainers and this is only TV... not the War 9:25 AM Sep 4th via web
2. There's a layer of... hey Kanye said what I was thinking 9:23 AM Sep 4th via web
3. A year later where do we stand? 9:22 AM Sep 4th via web
4. WHO BENEFITED FOR REAL PEOPLE???!!!!!!!! 9:21 AM Sep 4th via web
5. Walk with me people... let's break this down for real now. I might get in trouble again lol? 9:20 AM Sep 4th via web
6. MTV? JAY LENO? BEYONCE? ALL FORMS OF MEDIA? TAYLOR? KANYE WEST? Who gained? Who lost? 9:19 AM Sep 4th via web
7. You've got the Media play... Who benefitted off of the moment? 9:16 AM Sep 4th via web

I do not expect this, from a celebrity!

(I expect a celebrity; that is why I go online and surf through junk

and poetry...) The amount, and directness

and style of the tweets is unexpected! Kanye West

is a poet?

He speaks truths. (Not truth to power,

but power away from untruth?)

Conclusion: our celebrities are our poets?

They have our attention and direct

or redirect it daily.

If there are poems, today, they are an advertisement, spoken by a celebrity, away from untruth. They are the rerouting

of power and of untruth; the plowing and replowing of pathways...

(Not row to row, but link to link to link...)

“Hello, ladies. Look at your poem, now back to me, now back at your poem, now back to me. Sadly, it isn’t me, but if it stopped sounding like a poem and switched to me, it could smell like it’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re on a boat with the poem your poem could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your poem smells like South Africa. I’m on a horse.”

What cruel, twisted creek would our great moral writers of the past find us up!

(In their time, too, atrocity was all around them, and yet they wrote and wrote and wrote.)

What paddles would they have to give us?

What if it wasn't cruel?

I take my paddle from Kanye;

He manufactures paddles daily with his throat.

His fingers fiddle away at pathways;

I wish to be a jumbo paddle up his throat.

Workers fiddle away at pathways;

I am a culture worker whose hook is in my throat.

The great moral writers of the past might sense our situation;

they would be of our situation, utterly, and sense

how to correctly intervene

in time.

IX. A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. (Walter Benjamin)

1. There's a layer of... Entertainment... we are entertainers and this is only TV... not the War 9:25 AM Sep 4th via web
2. There's a layer of... hey Kanye said what I was thinking 9:23 AM Sep 4th via web
3. A year later where do we stand? 9:22 AM Sep 4th via web
4. WHO BENEFITED FOR REAL PEOPLE???!!!!!!!! 9:21 AM Sep 4th via web

Should we use Old Spice Body Wash?

You tell me.

I can only see behind us.

Fast Poetry

2010-11-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

Parallel to the piece on Flarf (part 3 of 5 in my series on contemporary poetry in The Atlantic), I'll be running some more speculative posts here on the blog this week, about what it means to write poetry in high-speed, meme (and capital) driven culture.

Swan Dive.

Post #2: Redefining Accessibility

2010-10-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

What Makes a Poem Worth Reading? - Adam Roberts - Culture - The Atlantic

For Da Iowans — Thicke for Ag Secretary!!

2010-10-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Conventional vs. Organic: An Ag Secretary Race to Watch - Joe Fassler - Food - The Atlantic

51 Ways to Spark a Commons Revolution

2010-10-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

from Yes! Magazine

+ Some Great Tools for the Classroom

2010-10-22T12:12:00.000-07:00

The use of visual media here seems really, really useful here.

Links re: Accessibility in poetry

2010-10-22T11:38:00.001-07:00

Getting a lot of great stuff sent my way through this Atlantic article—here's a few great links I just got sent (thanks to Kristin Esch down at The Poetry Foundation).

Matthew Zapruder points to how it should be a critic's responsibility to 'clarify a reading experience': "What is the purpose of literary criticism? Among other things, to guide the reader past his or her resistance." (www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=186047)

Dan Chiasson recommends an accessible poet that "you could recommend to your cousin at a barbeque and, the next day, teach in a seminar for majors" (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=178562)

June Jordan ruminates on the 'inaccessible' canon: "Trying to understand the system responsible for every boring, inaccessible, irrelevant, derivative and pretentious poem that is glued to the marrow of required readings in American classrooms, or trying to understand the system responsible for the exclusion of every hilarious, amazing, visionary, pertinent and unforgettable poet from National Endowment of the Arts grants and from national publications, I come back to Walt Whitman." (www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=178489)

"The Righteous Skeptic's Guide to Reading Poetry"

2010-10-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

Part 1 of a 5 part series I'm doing for The Atlantic on contemporary poetry.

Zizek on Democracy Now

2010-10-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

"we, the leftists, we have no right to have this arrogant view that intolerant people [anti-immigrationists in Germany; Tea Party here] are horrible...we should ask the question how we enable it"

Questioning Audience in "New American Poets": A Public Space

2010-10-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

In his intro to some "New American Poets" in Issue 11 of A Public Space, Stephen Burt asks, "When we ask how to connect a poem to an idea about poetry in general, we are also asking about an implied author, and about her implied audience. For whom, and to whom, does each poet write?"

It's good to hear Burt contextualizing his usually-perceptive questions about speaker with regard to audience. For about forty years now, poets and critics have built bodies of work on ideas about "speaker" (whether slippery or stable). It seems to me that this focus on speaker has overshadowed more urgent rhetorical issues, and that it has also run parallel to the overshadowing of the commons in practically every other arena (from the privatization of the amount of carbon in the sky to the privatization of the human genome). It makes sense that our (poems'; poets') civic antennae would be eroded in an era like this one; it makes sense, now, that we might want to rehabilitate them.

Burt begins with the seemingly solid fact that "good poems try to be as unlike one another as possible," and "We do not want poems to be wholly like one another—we take an interest in how they diverge—for the same reasons that we do not want our friends, our acquaintances, to be too much alike" (78). But what if this quest for "being-unlike" (rather than being-differently-with/within) mirrors all too perfectly the 'consumer choice' ideology of the 90's and 2000's? Are these poems offering, in fact, very similar choices, marketed (like brands) under the banner of individualistic difference?

In light of their "imagined audience," it seems to me that the representative poems are still, somehow, VERY akin to each other. Not wanting poems to be "wholly" like one another seems a world away from saying that "good poems try to be as unlike one another as possible." And like or unlike each other in what ways?

If the even "very good" poems in this selection produce difference at the levels Burt identifies—what fundamental sameness might be going unnoticed? (Not whether the poet eats toast or oatmeal or nasi goreng for breakfast, but whether the poem, for the reader, is toast, or oatmeal, or nasi goreng?)

What would great poems do?

*

Burt is absolutely right to suggest that, if the poem "works as an individual poem, it will at once prompt, and frustrate, the best answers we can give."

But what if the poem wants to work, not as an individual poem, but as part of a kind of commons?

In other words: what are the questions?

Works in Progress Festival 2010!

2010-10-14T21:27:00.001-07:00

If you're in or near Iowa City, or interested, keep tabs on this year's WiP Festival here.

(I'll be doing something—not sure what—Saturday at 6pm, at PS1.)

Section 3: The Democratic Potential of Form

2010-10-01T12:51:00.000-07:00

SECTION III
THE DEMOCRATIC POTENTIAL OF FORM

(OR, LOVE AS THE CONCEPT THAT COLLAPSES THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE POETIC AND THE POLITICAL AND RISKS LIBERATING US ALL)

NOTE:

In this section, I will shift gears a bit in order to talk about Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri's new book Commonwealth, in which they attempt to lay some of the theoretical foundations for a transition out of capitalism.

First and foremost, Hardt & Negri get play here because I find many of their formulations for politics wonderfully (if implicitly) analogous to poetics, and would like to explore these connections. Most exciting of all, perhaps, is their insistence on rehabbing the word "love" as a political concept. In their Spinozan formulation, love = joy (the increase of our capacity to think and act) + the recognition of an external cause. I am interested: how would this apply to poetry? And how might this help us reformulate a distinction between the poetic and the political?

Where Hardt and Negri are at their most interesting is in their desire to think through the actual "training grounds"-- the new institutions-- that would make up this transition out of capitalism. They do not want to simply overthrow the system, only to have it be replaced by another version of its own logic. Rather, they want to painstakingly create the conditions for new subjectivities, ones that would actually be able to constitute a true democracy. So how might poetry be -- or become -- such a training ground?

Much of the work in this section has been excised, or is not yet written. Think of these pages as stars, in a constellation, in a cloudy sky.

THE DEMOCRATIC POTENTIAL OF FORM

What are the formal structures with the most democratic potential?
To me it seems like meter, under the rule of Tradition, as it is less recognizable (if not less feelable) by a general public, is a less potentially successful physical mode than those of rhyme and repetition, parallelism....though I am open to argument on this** & think it would be interesting for someone to think it through, using multiple case studies, talking to readers from a wide range of backgrounds, etc. But to me it is at least intuitively clear that it is not meter as such but rhythm that absorbs readers, and that rhythms formed in tension with meter in the English (capital T) Tradition are more absorbing to certain kinds of readers (and, for this very reason, risk excluding certain others). The "common heritage" of meter, as an apology for its democratic potential, strikes me as either naive or irresponsible (though potentially well-meaning).

Equally naive or irresponsible is a kind of poetry of the (academic) left that ignores its context, ignores its duty toward (possible joy of!!) engaging more diverse readerships. This seems to me to be an analogy to authoritarian leftism, in which there are certain gatekeepers who "keep language safe" from violations/violence, creating a very insular network of understanding and losing a true contextual sense of what "violence" actually means. Now, this may be well-intentioned, and I simply point out that, as an inheritor of a (aesthetic) leftist current in poetry (which I believe has contributed both constructively and destructively to the possibilities of a more just or caring language network), I wish to preserve the constructive and single out and leave behind that which obstructs flow; namely, that many of us in the academy too often accept the condition of a small, insular (usually "liberal" and well-educated, and often predominantly white) readership, and that we would do well to imagine and create other kinds of texts and other forms of textual situate-ion.

So if meter-- as well as a kind of insular fetishizing (and consumption) of "difference" prevalent among the academic left-- represent insufficient forms of formal democratic tendencies, then what is our constructive formal innovation for the new century? What are the forms that will invent a new possibility for subjectivities, create subjectivities who would then be more capable of constituting democracy?
I think this is the major question for our generation to think (and do) through, by writing and by talking to one another and through the poetry communities we form. But I will suggest two possibilities, each of which I hope will contribute toward an eventual reconfiguration of our sense of form as such.

1. Collaborative work
2. Children's poetry

I think I have talked some about the former, and would like, actually, to focus here on the latter, as it may seem the more surprising, out-of-left-field (no pun intended) option of the two.

What is so potentially transformative about children's poetry? Well, for one, I think it links back up with this question of form very nicely. If you can think of one defining feature of the children's poem (or story, for that matter) it is its extreme formalism. Take a look at Shel Silverstein, or the limerick! Or the deliberate pace of a picture book.

Almost all children's work takes on forms that are at once immediately-able-to-be-apprehended and allow for "adult" fluctuations (inventiveness) from within. And they place yet another limit on themselves, in terms of vocabulary, and presumption--- if something exceeds a child's capability to conceptually process, it must be articulated in such a way to be intuitively accessible to the child on other levels. This is the wonderful dimension of good children's literature: it connects with the child and exceeds the child's understanding simultaneously. We could say this about good poems in general: they must both connect with us and exceed our understanding.
This seems to me an exciting form (and it is not a "form," such as meter or "sestina," but a category of form---- which is contextual----a contextual constraint placed on formal constraints----- the employment of specific and multiple formal constraints under immense contextual pressure).

Such a poem would be able to connect with the adult and child (and teen / college undergraduate!), and absorb and challenge their understanding simultaneously. It would draw its readers into new ways of thinking and perceiving in language, into new relationships with each other (ah, Harry Potter & Twilight! such potential!), and into new configurations of themselves, training them for a democracy of the future...

(This seems to me to be a totally respectable poetry to write, especially in times of political urgency!)

BIOPOLITICS AND/OR REFORM(AL)ISM

For H&N's clarification of Foucault's notion of biopolitics (the ability of bodies to resist from within biopower (bodies "under the influence" of—controlled and constituted by—the state/multi-national corporation)), we can analogize a poetry that resists ideological formations of language (both its own and that of the associate language network it triggers/exists within) through insisting on the power of bodies. How does this happen, in a poem? One way I think of immediately is music: rhythm in the breath and the chest; sound in the mouth

which may be one reason to remain skeptical of -- tho not reactionary to -- a poetry that foregrounds the visual at the expense of music. This "at the expense of" is huge----because there is no reason music needs to be lost, and it in no way has to be opposed to the visual.

Similarly, we would have to rethink our notions of the visual as non-bodily. Because bodies of words/text are felt visually, as well -- in the eye but also in the viscera of the reader--- as well as constituting the "bodily" dimension of language on the page (as opposed to heard--- which only happens when text passes into the auditory realm).

Poetry, then, has the potential to exist bodily in each realm. There is no reason our resistance from within form cannot be both visually bodily (when on the page) and auditorially bodily (a potential inscripted into the page, as well, but also channeled during readings and performance).

But I do think it is important to ask: of these realms, which is more neglected today? Which is privileged? And does poetry has an obligation to its own neglected realms? (And to resist privilege---

The other way I see biopolitics being relevant is through H&N's reformulation of identity politics as a politics of singularity. The end goal, here, is not to reaffirm but abolish identity as a category. At the same time, H&N are also careful to recognize that identity remains an important mobilizing tool for oppressed groups. A poetry that is biopolitical, then, would have to steer through and out of identity rather than around it. [If H&N urge us, eventually, to become "monsters"--singularities without identity--- poems seem like a pretty great ground for monster-testing!]

But more important, in a biopolitical respect, than any zany formulations I come up with here is the simple statement that poetry is not apart from, but participates in and can help change, structures of power that subordinate some bodies to others on the basis of the racism, classism, sexism, etc.

To participate in this change through poetry is not an oppressive constraint on language (as some poets might fear), but rather a fertile, joyful one!

TOWARD AN ALTERNATE CONCEPTION OF "FORM"

"We have frequently printed the word Democracy....It is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten, because that history remains to be enacted."
(Whitman, Democratic Vistas)

When I say “the democratic potential of form,” I am also pointing to the democratic potential for form itself as a concept. What if "form" were liberated from its purely textual formulation, and extended to mean the shape language takes (and the shape language makes) within larger bodies of discourse (itself) and subjectivities (person-bodies). A poem, as such, would be any imaginative (loving) intervention/reconfiguration within this social-linguistic body.

Deleuze: " If you believe in the world you precipitate events, however inconspicuous, that elude control, you engender new space-times, however small their surface or volume.... Our ability to resist control, or our submission to it, has to be assessed at the level of our every move."

What if Whitman's famous quote became inverted-----and we had to write democracy before it could, in fact, become?

"Democracy... remains to be enacted, because it has yet to be written."

Adorno: "Language itself speaks only when it speaks not as something alien to the subject but as the subject's own voice"

Perhaps we are still waiting to speak

BIOFORMALISM

Thinking form without context (what I'll call "unsituated form") preserves the opposition between the poetic/aesthetic and the social/political. What I am suggesting is not a subordination of poetic activity to the political (or vice versa), but rather a reconfiguration of our notion of "form" so as to situate poems within language-social matrices, and think their imaginative interventions (insurrections?) from within this as the exact degree to which they are "poetic"---or rather, the degree to which they love. Love, here, in the Spinozian sense-- as joy (the increase in our ability to think and act), externally oriented-- supplants "the poetic" and "the political" as the category of primary interest.

This, I hope, deepens Adorno's conception of poetry as counter-ideology, in that it recognizes how "counter-ideology" has become a recognizable mode of poetry today, and thus risks being absorbed right back into ideology. Poetry should resist its current familiar self, and not be "counter-ideological" but, borrowing again from Hardt & Negri, alter-ideological. That is, it should not simply unmask the ideological but find ways to actually reinvent it---i.e. create language-sites which have a pull that is even more absorptive than ideology , in which diverse subjectivities can actually become-different (rather than simply have their position of knowing dissent confirmed).
This is, probably, the hardest thing ever.

And that's why as poets we need to be bodies of love---or, in other words (to come full circle), healthy.

Love is imagination moving structures. For that to happen-- for poems, bodily, to empower us (as singularities and as "institutions" in H&N's sense)--- the new poem will have to recognize---wake up to---more and more, its situated dimension----how, and who, it engages as readers. The good news is that this does not mean losing any of the intelligence and nuance we have invested in traditional conceptions of form. It will be, rather, an increase in intelligence--- an emotional intelligence, newly rising. This emotional intelligence begins in our lives, in our everyday practices with one another, and, most of all, in our bodies. We also create it through the bodies of our texts. This is an immense responsibility--but an immense joy, too! Because, even if we fail to remember it, poetic practice is in proximity to love.
Remember?

This is the most trivial essay you have ever read.

"...it was just impossible at that time to imagine that anything would come out of it. And that was wrong, a lot came out of it--not out of what I did, but out of what lots and lots of people were doing all over the country. A lot came out of it. So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope" was much too pessimistic..." (Chomsky, 181)

o people people that I know
I sniff your footprints in the snow
sometimes you're buried like a rag
or carried like consumer tag

I'm part of that, I'm like a dad!
of world of world the falling snow
but purer still, the infidel
who loves and loves to overthrow

the tiny dogs within my heart
who teach and ruff! and make small art
you've got a helluva a leash, mister
to bind and bound, and take part

If you go on further and turn your body about, no place is left where you are not the master. But even so, tell me, how will you go on further from the top of a hundred-foot pole? Eh?

[INTRO] [SECTION I] [SECTION II] [INTERLUDE] [SECTION III]

Interlude

2010-09-30T20:48:00.000-07:00

INTERLUDE

HOW TO NAVIGATE THE REALM OF NOT UNDERSTANDING; OR, JOY

A joyful poetry is able to do all things. It can get almost anybody to read it, cause it's got that much (& that kind) of energy.

It doesn't have to be shallow. In fact, it can't be. Joy is deep --- it comes from there. (A kind of duende.)

Joy motivates people to read. When it goes somewhere terrifying, it can take you. You trust it.

(No one trusts the person who is shouting as if the world is ending, even (& especially) when it is.)

So you shout as if it is just beginning. You make it begin. (Where do you get this kind of energy? How does it happen?)

Like when you're in a room and someone's being negative and wouldn't it be so much more interesting (and difficult) to imagine a way out.

(Esp. cause all the absurd stuff is there.)

I find this emotional intelligence rare & the true brilliance of any time. I see it often in poems, but sometimes I see other kinds of "intelligence" that seem to me pretty dumb.

We don't bend down enough.

What a poet who can see everything clearly & still keep afloat & moving quick, without sacrificing depth!

For the language and for the approaching language and for those approaching the approaching language | and for the place in which it is read
and for the places, esp., in which it won't be

[INTRO] [SECTION I] [SECTION II] [INTERLUDE] [SECTION III]

Section 2: Engage! (Poetry and Power)

2010-09-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

SECTION II
ENGAGE!

(POETRY AND POWER)

"I mean, I do something basically less important-- it is, in fact....it's extremely important for people with power not to let anybody understand this, to make them think there are big leaders around who somehow get things going, and then what everybody else has to do is follow them. That's one of the ways of demeaning people, and degrading them, and making them passive. I don't know how to overcome this exactly, but it's really something people ought to work on." (Chomsky, 321-322)

one of the principal | big big | tasks of a poet today, as I see it | is to not demean people
now | there are many ways of not demeaning | of "activating" | and I think one way that the contemporary poetry community succeeds very well is on a purely textual level | i.e. there are many really interesting texts that are just fundamentally concerned with activating language | keeping it from closing down. This is a huge kind of activity
but then the question becomes | how can we more often (& deeply) pair this with a willingness to engage with (be engaging to!) different readerships | i.e. what if this kind of language-activation was more broadly and multiply situated | now | this is a problem of community as much as it is one of text | but as writers & readers & people | in the poetry community | we can approach the problem from all angles
and I think people are (rightly) afraid of writing something absorbing precisely because it would risk making its readers passive | and here's a sort of big paradox we run into | which is how can something be absorbing | i.e. completely grab the reader | and also make them active
I think it's an easy opposition to re-enforce | which is exactly what's happened | i.e. I'll either write dense complicated language that forces its reader to be active | or I'll give in and write something "entertaining" or (worse) "reductive" | but there are ways of becoming absorbed in the process of disruption (c.f. Bernstein, Artifice of Absorption). Now that's exactly what we're looking for
but I think we're in a different time now, and more is actually possible. Because I think poets are pretty absorbed in a particular rhetorical form of absorption in disruption right now, and there is quite a large counter-mainstream that I think has its foundations in exactly that procedure--- quite a few sub camps and styles, as well as all sorts of stuff that doesn't fit at all -- but what's missing, I think, is a really compelling call to write in a way that's more widely (and multiply) legibly complex ---- to ---- carefully, joyously, interestingly --- expand and rethink poetry audience & place within the community ---- and that requires a different kind of focus on these terms "absorption" & "disruption"

we might call this "disrupting (self)absorption in disruption by being absorbingly disruptive"
!!
or just -- engaging

"Now, you can ride the crest of the wave and try to use it to get power, which is the standard thing, or you can ride the crest of the wave because you're helping people that way, which is another thing. But the point is, it's the wave that matters" (324, Chomsky)

there are all kinds of possibilities that poetry simply all-the-time has its blinders on to
and it moves sluggishly (who can see that quickly????)
through what-it-is, to what else it could be...

all of us have to contend with that from within our own body of work
lest we become cliches of ourselves
it sounds easy
but it's of course immensely difficult (as you know!)
because as we try to carve out these spaces within language that DO feel new and true
we grasp what is new and true about them
and de-activate it (by immediately trying to replicate our success)

this is just completely how power works
and so poetic language provides a crucial analog for political work
in terms of how to keep power from consolidating

& what the specific obstacles are to that
which is the point
they're always specific
they're rotational
even now they get away
(take back over)

okay?
"that is just completely how power works"

so at the moment of the poem giving up power
(Spicer)

it gets it back but as the power of a wave rather than the rider

"Or take a look at the intellectual left, the people who ought to be involved in the kinds of things we're doing here. If you look at the academic left, say, it's mired in intricate, unintelligible discourse of some crazed post-modernist variety, which nobody can understand, including the people involved in it--but it's really good for careers and that sort of thing. That again pulls a ton of energy into activities which have the great value that they are guaranteed not to affect anything in the world, so therefore they're very useful for the institutions to support and to tolerate and to encourage people to get involved with." (Chomsky, 328)

making something strange
& legible

legibly strange

rather than elaborately cloaked and "interesting"

"your interesting friend isn't interesting"

complex thinking and feeling in simple strange language

:

language strange and complex and simple

easily apprehensible / felt
difficultly thought

unknown

"Incidentally, I should say that my own political writing is often denounced from both the left and the right for being non-theoretical--and that's completely correct. But it's exactly as theoretical as anyone else's, I just don't call it "theoretical," I call it "trivial"--which is in fact what it is. I mean, it's not that some of these people whose stuff is considered "deep theory" and so on don't have some interesting things to say. Often they have very interesting things to say. But it's nothing you couldn't say at the level of a high school student, or that a high school student couldn't figure out if they had the time and support and a little bit of training.
I think people should be extremely skeptical when intellectual life constructs structures which aren't transparent--because the fact of the matter is that in most areas of life, we just don't understand anything very much." (Chomsky, 229)

Be very skeptical of my poetry.

[INTRO] [SECTION I] [SECTION II] [INTERLUDE] [SECTION III]

Section 1: Health (A Lecture)

2010-09-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

New Series of Posts

2010-09-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

About a year ago, as a 2nd-year student in the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop MFA program, I was required to write a 10-15 page essay articulating my "poetics."

I think that this might be a good forum in which to post my response. If it were today, I might formulate some things differently (or more specifically), but the early sketching out of the problematic/desires I find myself writing into is there (I'll try to update/footnote/extend some things in the comments section). The whole exercise is maybe interestingly symptomatic, too, of what it means to write and exist ambivalently (/amorously) within the particular institution of the Iowa Writers' Workshop; I imagine that this is both usefully representative and divergent from the experience of students in other MFA programs, poets writing in the contemporary US, and others' within the Iowa program itself—so I'd welcome all those other perspectives into the fold. That said, my approach was to try to imagine ways out of the ideology of contemporary American poetry, as I experienced it. What was deemed impossible, within its borders? Wasn't that, in some respect, exactly what we wanted to be trying to do?

The essay comes in three sections, with an appendix (and an intermission!), but there are natural breaks—I'll try to post it so you can have a sense for the pacing.

[INTRO] [SECTION I] [SECTION II] [INTERLUDE] [SECTION III]

Direct Action in the Climate Movement

2010-09-21T09:43:00.001-07:00

A Call for Direct Action in the Climate Movement from Bill McKibben of 350.org, Becky Tarbotton of the Rainforest Action Network, and Phil Radford of Greenpeace USA

+ Lady Gaga performing out against Don't Ask Don't Tell.

=

Lady Gaga Direct Action for the Climate Movement (supported by large, dispersed networks of coordinated local action)?

What could she/we do?

What's the state of American poetry?

2010-09-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

Clayton Eshelman, Annie Finch, Ron Silliman, and Danielle Pafunda weigh in in the first installment of a multi-installment feature on Huffington Post.

And some stuff about The Cloud Corporation, which just came through Iowa City, here.

Rule The Air

2010-09-19T16:13:00.000-07:00

Because the ground doesn't give up its yards without a fight.

That is, until you rewrite the playbook,

change how you see the game, and realize

that when you rule the air, anything is possible.

Rule The Air.

Why the victory of the Tea Party extremists (backed by Big Oil) over the slightly less extreme GOP establishment (also backed by Big Oil)

2010-09-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

is good for progressives, but bad for climate and clean energy.

Food

2010-08-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Vandana Shiva on Monsanto

Appropriating Ethics...

2010-08-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

And an interesting debate here on the ethics of appropriation.

Inversion

2010-08-21T17:21:00.000-07:00

"Poetry is not politically efficacious in countries where it is not valued as a cultural necessity by the general populace." --Jennifer Moxley

Poets are not poetically efficacious when they do not value their country's general populace, and do not take them as a necessity other cultures than their own.

Creative Commons

2010-08-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Interesting debate on commons licensing happening here.

David Segal for Congress!

2010-08-08T07:44:00.000-07:00

David Segal has proved himself far and away the most exciting candidate in my homestate's Democratic primary (Rhode Island).

Nobody's Puppet from Nobody's Puppet on Vimeo.

Follow the comment thread at dailykos, and read David's statement, here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/7/15351/08590?new=true

And learn more about how to get involved with the campaign here:

http://votesegal.com/

Rethinking Poetics

2010-06-14T11:28:00.001-07:00

Went to a day (Friday) of the Rethinking Poetics conference.

Highlights:

1. Rodrigo Toscano / Alan Golding's (tongue in cheek?) suggestion for a "report back from our industries." More useful to share experiences from within our positions as neoliberal-subject-people than rationalizing anxious circles through aesthetics around the scraps of privilege ($$ & social/intellectual capital) that are left?

2. Joshua Clover's insistence that we stave off endless nuance and keep antagonisms alive, and fresh.

3. Jena Osman's provisional term "echolocation."

Thinking a lot about MOBILIZING as an alternate term to either "antagonism" or the kumbaya-like "coming together" (preserve the antagonism, but orient it better, tactically?).

Wish I had been there for the ecology panel. Would've loved to hear Andrew Schelling talk about bioregionalism, in particular.

Manureism (or, some manure): A Response

2010-06-05T10:24:00.000-07:00

I wrote this directly after I returned from AWP, in response to (and following the form of) Vanessa Place's piece at the Flarf v. Conceptualism panel. I do not know what Manureism is, but sometimes I think I see it places.

flarf is a cake fart.
conceptualism is shit.
what is manure?

TOWARD A COMMUNITY GARDEN
(through, not against, conceptualisms)

1. Conceptualism asks what is poetry.
1. Manureism asks where is poetry.
2. Conceptualism is allegorical. It is about things other than poetry itself.
2. http://gardennotesforrelocalisation.blogspot.com/
3. Conceptualism courts jest, but is not the king's dog.
3. Manure is a wolf dressed up in jester clothing. It cares for sheep.
4. Conceptualism is composed.
4. Manure is composted.
5. Conceptualism employs a variety of techniques that compromise and complicate the question of excess text, of unreadability, of extra-textual narrativity, of the need for and love of categories and the acategorical, of the false and adored divide between praxis and other praxis, addition and subtraction, theory and things with two types of teeth.
5. Manureism employs a variety of techniques that compromise and complicate the question of excess text, of unreadability, of extra-textual narrativity, of the need for and love of categories and the acategorical, of the false and adored divide between praxis and other praxis, addition and subtraction, theory and things with two types of teeth.
6. Conceptualism is sexy. The penis is a dildo.
6. Manureism = cross-pollination.
7. Conceptualism loves poetry enough to put it out of its misery.
7. Manure is your neighbor (who might annoy you, but, is still there).
8. Conceptualism wants.
8. Manureism eats.
9. Legit.
9. Trying things out.
10. Conceptualism has no answers, but is, instead, interrogative. Through the deployment of multiple strategies that serve to destabilize text (extant or made) via reframed reiterations and multiple sites of rhetorical deployment, conceptualism is neo-Kantian, epistemologically concerned with the ongoing sobject and the instantiation of radical evil, in other words, the affirmative will to evil that manifests the fact of will itself. In other words, the instantiation of that which is consciously contra-textual in the sense of all that has made text make contextual sense, the rendering immaterial of every materiality of poetry. The contra-text being the new con-text, con-, as I have pointed out elsewhere, in the sense of being a cunt. Conceptualism is, as the term indicates, primarily a cortical engagement.
10. "Manureism seems like it would have to involve a certain degree of experimentation, like: will this straw insulate or smother this chard? But within a frame, right? Its desire is to nourish, explicitly. If it fails, or if it poisons, which is likely, or if it trips the sensitive intaker out, those are unexpected consequences of a fairly composed experiment. But conceptualism is of course wide open. Wait--is it? Does not having answers indicate openness?"
(Primarily a physical engagement.)
11. Conceptualism is Lacan in a mirror, the discourse of the slave.
11. Manureism is shit on a stick.
12. Conceptualism is Lacanian in the sense of desire by way of the Law by way of the petit objet a. As such. La donne
12. Manureism doesn't need you to have read Lacan. Probably.
13. Flarf plays Cuzin while playing it off, it speaks to people in people-voice okay, it’s the first to suggest titty beer bong hits and butterscotch Jell-O shots, it wants to stay up late and bitch bitch bitch, it might bleed out but nothing’s permanently stained, it surfs like point break without leaving a wake, it goes Louey-Louey and blows O.C. pretty, it would like you to like it, really?, it wants to be kinda Dada but it’s not that fucking desperate, wants to play it black but mostly lays trick pussy.
13. Conceptualism repeats the above.
14. In this sense, conceptualism is a fart.
14. Manure is poop.
15. Ron Silliman does not like conceptualism.
15. Dale Smith likes manure.
16. The best conceptualism is failure.
16. The best manure is neither virtuostic nor failure, though it may be both.
17. Poetry looks like conceptualism.
17. Poetry smells.

Q&A
18. Conceptualism and flarf evade the question of world (/community) peace and global (/local) justice (as ill-formed as it can be). Their stance is too often flatly ironic (sarcasm); a disguised form of earnestness (look at me mom, I get it).
18. Manureism does not evade the question, but engages with it at the level of artifice (linguistic, social, political). Manureism is deep irony: not what else does this mean (pointing to context), but what else might this do? (activating context)

Manureism cannot pass around conceptualism, and may have to go through it.

The two may also work alongside one another, performing different work.

In this sense manureism represents a possibility for love, in poetry.

April 22nd, 2010

*note: Many of the individual writers and work under the terms "flarf" and "conceptualism" might also be "shitty."

Many might be if they were situated differently.

How to sort out waste from waste; the plastic bottle from the apple core (from the banana peel)?

two words / thirteen ways of laughing at a white bird

2010-06-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

two words / thirteen ways of laughing at a white bird from Adam Roberts on Vimeo.

Brenda Hillman - Bookworm on KCRW

2010-01-16T12:35:00.000-08:00

Brenda Hillman - Bookworm on KCRW

UC Protests

2010-01-07T16:20:00.000-08:00

Schwarzenegger Seeks Shift From Prisons to Schools

“Those protests on the U.C. campuses were the tipping point,” the governor’s chief of staff, Susan Kennedy, said in an interview after the speech. “Our university system is going to get the support it deserves.”

It's good to see that large, sustained, strategic protests can make an impact through and for our university systems. Let's see other states keep this model rolling! (And California actually follow through with its pledges...)

a quick summary

2010-01-01T08:01:00.000-08:00

The Real Top Ten Stories of the Decade

Art and Life

2009-12-29T17:25:00.001-08:00

Message to World Leaders

2009-12-29T16:05:00.001-08:00

links

2009-12-21T21:13:00.000-08:00

Diagnosing the Obama Administration, Year 1

Diagnosing the Establishment Media's Coverage of Health Care

Who Created Major Hasan?

2009-11-22T09:51:00.001-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/opinion/22wright.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Where The Wild Things Are

2009-10-29T22:44:00.000-07:00

One of the more inspiring movies I have seen in a long time.

Alan Grayson for President in 2012

2009-10-23T07:54:00.000-07:00

More of this kind of energy from the Dems, please!

350 Poems

2009-10-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

For the next couple weeks, I'll be over at the 350 Poems site.

Check it out--- and contribute something!

And look for other 350.org-sponsored actions in your area, as we gear up for the 24th...

Obama, the world doesn't have time for you to be wasting time on a war in Afghanistan

2009-10-09T21:57:00.001-07:00

New Climate Study reports 100% emissions cut needed in 10 years

It boggles my mind that this administration, facing massive national debt & an economic crisis, would continue to blow billions on an unpopular war started by a previous administration (tho it is quickly earning the title "Obama's War in Afghanistan"). In this perfect moment to start funneling some of our taxpayer money (which has largely gone toward the war) toward job creation in the green sector here at home, our Nobel Peace Prize winning president has just taken troop-reduction off the table.

Where do we live? How will we be looked at?

Robert Greenwald's new documentary, Rethink Afghanistan, makes a lucid & powerful case against the war, one that is worth spreading.

Meanwhile, what are the counter-mainstream mainstream poets doing about any of this?

Eliot Weinberger excoriated us for our complacency & insularity 6 1/2 years ago, in his "Poetry Is News." I was in my freshman year at Brown University back then, baffled by a newly begun war in Iraq-- and I do mean baffled. I didn't know what to think.

It feels like an increasingly untenable route to take--whatever this route I & we are taking-- and yet even now I can't see any good way out of it.

Weinberger provides three alternative models for action: 1) political poetry (of which he says 95% is bad, but, in effect, who cares); 2) Oppen (i.e. quit poetry altogether & organize); or 3) Vallejo (keep writing poetry, but also write vigorous political prose alongside).

And talking to my friend Melanie the other day it seemed clear that laughter was a way, woven into these.

Works in Progress!!

2009-10-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

The first annual Works in Progress Festival was a giant success-- many thanks to Richard and Andrew for putting together such a wonderful weekend.

Orlando White read on night one

Lake Erie was read to

a shape note singing workshop took place

Luke Fischbeck / Lucky Dragons closed

& there was a village of poems

(& much much more)

This morning's notes toward a new poetry

2009-09-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

I imagine much different poems than Andrew Joron’s
being surrounded by a much different essay.

These newborn poems will be filled with a wily imagination, primarily, though they will carry the bagged head of a sadness & lament (of mortality, & for political mistreatment). They will keep moving, & they may even be joyous & pleasurable & strangely accessible, carry non-poetry readers through them even as they make us feel & think

The essay will not be properly philosophical, but will be properly political, as it will expose in clear and critical language something specific that is happening & our place within it & a potential exit

That is, it will be fundamentally critical AND imaginative

But within a very basic language. It will be, perhaps, another absorbing narrative. But it will have a weight & insistence & explicitness that the poetry, perhaps, manages to carry only indirectly.

If it has the insistence & explicitness, then perhaps it does not even need the weight, & can move quickly

*in response to Andrew Joron's Fathom
** & Calvino's Six Memos for the New Millenium

Time to step up & lead, Barack

2009-09-04T15:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barton-kunstler-phd/time-for-obama-to-fight-a_b_275332.html

President Obama is the boxer who came out with one big swing (the crowd roars-- Guantanomo closing!), settled into his more conservative game plan based on scouting reports, and then, after a couple bloody rounds, finds himself in worse shape than he thought---- but who still has the capacity to fight, and to get the crowd on his side---if he would just show a little life

CUBE SONG

for Eric

You put a cube in the desert.

It starts to melt.

It fills with water.

It makes the desert colder.

Leaves don’t really exist

The animals are drifting

A few still come to drink at the windows

*

I know I said that

I know I don’t remember

Bill Moyers gets it right

2009-08-31T11:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/29/moyers/index.html

2009-08-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

autumn breeze--
I go to market
in my pajamas

on play, everything

2009-08-27T22:15:00.000-07:00

http://swoonrocket.blogspot.com/2009/08/panel-was-called-influence-and.html

(Juliana Spahr)

The Low Anthem

2009-08-06T13:14:00.000-07:00

's set at Newport Folk Fest

am very proud of these folks

Three Poems

2009-08-05T13:52:00.001-07:00

Have some poems up at the New Yinzer, check it

Thanks Claire!

Music Links

2009-06-10T21:39:00.000-07:00

der, i have put some sound stuff on myspace music, under Adam

and then here is some crazy drone metal

"preventive detention"

2009-05-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

Well, it's summer again, and maybe I'll try to resurface a bit on the old bloggy-poo. And, after all, it's thing's like Obama's new plan for justifying indefinite, preventive detention of terror suspects that make taking loud public stances on things seem, not obnoxious (as one poet in me may feel), but kinda necessary (as another poet in me is pleading).

Glenn Greenwald makes a clear case here for how unacceptable Obama's speech, and plan, was/is.

I think it's important for all of us to be loudly and articulately opposing Obama's plan in the days/weeks/months to come. And while the whole thing makes me lose plenty of faith in the Obama administration, there's still time to change public perception on this issue----something to which Obama is perhaps more sensitive than his predecessor. The NYtimes (online) headline today reads:

President’s Detention Plan Tests American Legal Tradition

Determining the constitutionality of President Obama’s proposal for “prolonged detention” of terror suspects without trial is likely to require a national look in the mirror.

If a major media news outlet is framing this as questionable from the outset, then there's at least some hope here. Let's be vocal.

R.I.P. Inger Christensen

2009-01-10T17:08:00.001-08:00

Inger Christensen, a deeply important poet for many of us-- the kind who managed, somehow, to engage both language and politics with equal force-- has died.

http://greeninteger.blogspot.com/2009/01/danish-it-girl-on-death-of-inger.html

http://www.norddahl.org/english/2009/01/inger-christensen-1935-2009/

http://www.erasmuspc.com/index.php?id=18273&type=article

A New Year...

2009-01-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

As Israel continues its offensive/massacre/"retaliation" (the language around this is particularly interesting), major US politicians (Democrat & Republican alike) continue to support, whether explicitly or not, these actions. Another win for ethnocentrism & terror-- as deeply folded into Western democracy and state power as it is more conventionally recognized in the hands of the dispossessed. I thought this article did a good job summing up the political nature and timing of the assault.

In the meanwhile, I return from a three-day New Year's celebration in Atlanta.

Re: Minneapolis

2008-09-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

Glenn Greenwald on new military deployment powers given to the head of state

Women against Sarah Palin

2008-09-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

Women against Sarah Palin

David Foster Wallace

2008-09-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

This interview with David Foster Wallace is crazy and so freaking real-- what a loss.

Links

2008-09-08T20:03:00.000-07:00

Merce Cunningham

The Frank Stanford Literary Festival, in Fayetteville, AK, is approaching...

Werner Herzog's Bells From the Deep...the bell ringer

Spread this.

2008-08-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

Police & FBI agents in Minneapolis have raided several RNC protest mobilizing sites, in a move that seems deeply unconstitutional.

Minneapolis police raids

Links

2008-08-28T14:16:00.000-07:00

Why Obama's economic policy might be better for liberals and conservatives...and just flat out better

a cool podcast

lisa robertson on the weather, sincerity

Why we need to NOT build new prisons

2008-08-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

This NY Times article, on a proposed prison closing in Pontiac, Illinois, hits on just how hard it is to shift away from reliance on prisons. In towns where prisons supply a big enough proportion of jobs, the entire town's working class is ruined if the state closes one. In other words, once you have built prison infrastructure, you find yourself in a catch-22: fuck over the working class by closing it, or keep fucking over those deep in poverty by keeping it open (and thus maintaining a demand for "supply").

There's no good solution here. But there is an even stronger imperative to actively resist the building of any new prisons. For more information, or to get involved, visit the Prison Moratorium Project (California is one of the biggest fronts on this issue right now.)

8G:1 Syllabus!

2008-08-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

Wish I knew how to transfer my formatting & font sizes in here, but oh well. Here's the syllabus for my first class.

Interpretation of Literature
8G:1 Section 38
Fall 2008
MWF 11:30-12:20
in 202 EPB

Adam Roberts, Instructor
Adam-Roberts@uiowa.edu

In this course we will aim to develop ways of reading that can help us better understand, and question, our relation to the world. We will begin by considering where we stand, personally, as readers: what influences how we read? How can we look to challenge, or extend, that position? From there we will seek to develop critical reading practices and to explore the many ways in which language can operate, drawing from various genres and styles (from poetry to short stories to popular media). Finally, we will engage with the “real-world” contexts of these sources, asking (of both the historical and the contemporary): to what is this responding? What kind of intervention does it—or might it—make?

Students will themselves respond both analytically and creatively; writing assignments will range from formal academic papers to informal reading journals. As members of a supportive learning community, everyone is expected to participate energetically in discussions and come to class prepared and with an open mind.

Course requirements: regular class participation, a response journal, two formal essays, and a final exam. The University expects a three-hour course to require at least 6 hours a week of outside preparation. Expect to put in approximately 4 hours of reading and 2 hours of writing each week for this class.

Course Objectives:
-To build fluency reading, talking about, and writing about literature
-To learn to see ourselves as readers; to read slowly and closely, and to enjoy reading in this way
-To recognize the influence of our own backgrounds, beliefs, and assumptions on the way we read/look at the world
-To question these ways of seeing, and to explore other perspectives/ways of looking

Books:
Literature: A Portable Anthology, eds. Gardner, et al, St. Martin's Press
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five, Laurel / Dell
Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red, Random House (available at Prairie Lights)
Moleskine Journal (available at Prairie Lights) or other spiral bound notebook

THE RESPONSE JOURNAL

What is the response journal?
This is the most exciting part of the class. The response journal is your place to engage with the readings in whatever way you find meaningful. That can mean personally (how does this relate to my life? what does it mean to me?), speculatively (by asking questions of the text), analytically (by making some sort of argument), or creatively (with poetry, a drawing, etc.). I will often give you a specific prompt to respond to, but you are always free to write on something you find more interesting.

Why?
The response journal will help you relate course readings to one another. It will also help you engage with these readings on your own terms. It’s very rare to have the chance to write informally for an academic class, and my belief is that this can be an important part of making literature truly relevant to our lives.

How often will we write in our response journal?
You should have one entry for each class (in other words, three per week).

How long do our responses have to be?
A paragraph is fine; a list of a few questions is fine; a poem is fine. Don’t spend more than 25 minutes on an entry unless you feel like it.

How will the reading journal be incorporated into class?
Each day we will begin class with 5-10 students sharing from their response journals. Everyone is responsible for stimulating discussions. If this kind of thing makes you nervous, please come talk to me during the first week and I will help you come up with a good solution.

Wait, so what’s actually going to fly?
Any response is acceptable…so long as it displays effort and thinking. Engaging in the PROCESS of learning is more important than any finished product here. Is there something you’re struggling with? Something you don’t understand? Work through it in the response journal.

Okay, I am totally nervous about this response journal thing now.
Try not to be. I can’t stress this enough—you are not being evaluated on how “good” your response journal is, only the depth of the connection you form with it. Have fun, be honest, ask questions. You’ll be fine.

GRADING POLICIES

Paper 1 (due 9/26)= 20%
Paper 2 (due 10/31)= 25%
Final Exam = 15%
Response Journal = 25%
Class Participation/Attendance = 15%

• A work is excellent. It notably exceeds minimum expectations. It is original, thoughtful, and well–developed.
• B work is good. It exceeds minimum expectations. It is thoughtful but not particularly nuanced. It is organized logically and has few errors.
• C work is average. It meets minimum expectations. It offers some insight, is reasonably clear, but lacks the overall consistency and depth of B-level work.
• D work does not meet most expectations, but it is developed enough to earn some credit. It may have noticeable organizational problems or offer little more than summary.
• F work is either so incomplete that it does not deserve full credit, or it does not resemble the particular assignment. Errors may be so distracting that they detract from content.

Papers:
Late papers/assignments will be marked down a half-grade for each day that they are late. If you would like an extension on a paper due to legitimate extenuating circumstances, I am open to that, but you must let me know at least 24 hours before the deadline.

Response Journal:
I will collect your response journal three times over the course of the semester. You will receive full credit for all complete entries, and zero credit for any missing entries. Credits will be added up at the end of the semester and averaged into your final grade. I will give you a heads-up of how you are doing mid-way through the semester. Everyone should aim to get the full 25% here; all you have to do is make sure to engage & put something thoughtful down every time you sit down to read.

Class Participation/Attendance:
While it is true that not everyone likes to speak in class, you must be actively engaged with classroom discussion. If you are not speaking, you should be actively listening, taking notes, etc. If you are speaking, you should be contributing thoughtfully and constructively, as well as trying to include others in the discussion.
Showing up to class is extraordinarily important. We are building a community of learners, which takes everyone getting to know each other, and a good deal of consistency from week to week. If you do not show up consistently to class, you will receive a zero for your participation/attendance grade, and it will most likely endanger your chances of passing the class.

THE FINE PRINT

1. Plagiarism: DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. At all. Period. Please read the guidelines carefully, and ask me any questions, if you are worried about a specific paper, before you hand it in. (Remember, I grant extensions if you come to me at least 24 hours before a deadline. Come talk to me!) If you plagiarize on an assignment, you will receive a zero for that assignment. It also means that you and I must have a painfully embarrassing and awkward conversation, and afterwards, I have to do lots of paperwork that labels you as a “problem” student for the rest of your college career. Plagiarism guidelines can be found here: http://www.english.uiowa.edu/gel/resources/PlagiarismPolicy.pdf

2. Additional Contacts: 1) General Education Literature Director: Brooks Landon, brooks-landon@uiowa.edu, 376 EPB, 335-0641, HOME: 338-8233 2) General Education Literature Program Associates office phone: 335-0484, 64 EPB

3. Grade concerns and complaints: Arrange a time to talk with me in person, during my office hours (i.e not by email). From the university: “Students should always first bring such concerns to their instructor. If no satisfactory resolution is gained from discussing the problem with the instructor, students should contact one of the following Program Associates in 64 EPB responsible for grade complaints: Victoria Sprow, Carolyn Hall, LeDon Sweeney.”

4. Students with special needs: Please come and speak to me during my office hours if you have a disability that may require seating modifications, testing accommodations, or accommodations of other class requirements, so that appropriate arrangements may be made. It is the responsibility of students with disabilities to register with the Office of Student Disability Services (3101 Burge Hall, 335-1462) and to present a Student Academic Accommodation Request (the SAAR form) to the instructor when discussing specific requests for accommodation. See the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences requirements at http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/faculty/teaching/classroom_p&p/disabilities.shtml

5. Controlling policies for students from other colleges: This course is given by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. This means that class policies on matters such as requirements, grading, and sanctions for academic dishonesty are governed by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Students wishing to add or drop this course after the official deadline must receive the approval of the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Details of the University policy of cross enrollments may be found at http://www.uiowa.edu/~provost/deos/crossenroll.doc

6. Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment is reprehensible and will not be tolerated by the University. It subverts the mission of the University and threatens the well-being of students, faculty, and staff. Visit the sexual harassment awareness site at http://www.sexualharassment.uiowa.edu/ for definitions, assistance, and the full University policy.

7. Tornado: The University of Iowa Operations Manual section 16.14 outlines appropriate responses to a tornado or to a similar crisis. If a tornado or other severe weather is indicated by the UI outdoor warning system, members of the class should seek shelter in rooms and corridors in the innermost part of a building at the lowest level, staying clear of windows, corridors with windows, or large free-standing expanses such as auditoriums and cafeterias. The class will resume, if possible, after the UI outdoor warning system announces that the severe weather threat has ended.

8. Writing Center: The Writing Center is an important resource that can help many students. For more information about the hours and offerings of the Writing Center go to its website at http://www.uiowa.edu/~writingc/

SYLLABUS

Subject to change. Note: Readings & assignments listed on a date should be completed by the beginning of class on that date. Page numbers refer to Literature: A Portable Anthology unless otherwise noted.

Unit One: Laying the Frameworks

WEEK 1: Introductions
8/25: Introductions. Course Themes. Goals.
8/27: Buy a reading journal and bring it to class. Response Journal: Timeline of “Reading” Preferences. Share reading timelines.
8/29: Share reading timelines (cont.)

WEEK 2: Laying the Frameworks: Reader, Text, World
9/1: No class (holiday)
9/3: In class: Practicing reader/text/world in analysis. Sherman Alexie, Postcards to Columbus (p. 714), Joy Harjo, She Had Some Horses (p. 675)
Response Journal: bring in at least three thoughtful questions about the text.
9/5: Reader/text/world cont. Response journal: practice text/world analysis. One paragraph.

WEEK 3: Poetry (1): The Romantics
9/8: Wordsworth: Lines (p. 423-427), Preface to Lyrical Ballads (ICON)
9/10: Shelley: Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind (438-441)
9/12: Whitman: Song of Myself (467-478)

WEEK 4: Poetry (2): “Modern” American Poetry
9/15: Whitman: Crossing Brooklyn Ferry (ICON)
9/17: Dickinson: all poems (488-490)
9/19: Whitman and Dickinson (cont.) RESPONSE JOURNALS COLLECTED (1).

WEEK 5 : A play. Writing the first paper.
9/22: Oedipus Rex (719-762). No response journal; work on paper.
9/24: Oedipus (cont.), questions about papers. No reading journal; work on paper.
9/26: PAPER 1 DUE. Receive response journal (1).

Unit Two: Forms of Protest

WEEK 6: Writing War (1): Slaughter-House Five
9/29: Vonnegut, Slaughter-House Five: Chapter 1 (p. 1-22).
10/1: Chapters 2-3 (p. 23-71)
10/3: Chapter 4 (p. 72-86)

WEEK 7: Writing War (2): Slaughter-House Five (cont.)

10/6: Chapter 5 (p. 87-135)
10/8: Chapters 6-7 (p. 136-161)
10/10: Chapters 8-10 (p. 162-215)

WEEK 8: Poetry (3): American Poetry in the 50’s and 60’s
10/13: Allen Ginsberg (ICON)
10/15: Robert Creeley (ICON)
10/17: Robert Creeley (cont.)

WEEK 9: Writing War (3)
10/20: James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues (p. 220-247)
10/22: Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (332-346)
10/24: Yusef Komunyakaa (657-658)

WEEK 10: “Quiet Protest”: Minimalism in Poetry & Music
10/27: Paul Celan (ICON). RESPONSE JOURNALS COLLECTED AT END OF CLASS (2). No response journal, work on paper.
10/29: Inger Christensen (ICON). No response journal, work on paper.
10/31: PAPER 2 DUE. Response journals returned.

Unit Three: (Un)Tying It All Together
(or, Working for Something Else)

WEEK 11: An Election Week Special: Literature and Politics
11/3: In-class discussion on presidential election. Response journal: Use your time outside of class to think about who you’re going to vote for…and to go out and vote!
11/5: In class response journaling and discussion: reflections on the election; what’s ahead.
11/7: TBD

WEEK 12: Autobiography of Red (1)
11/10: Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red: Introductions, Appendices, Chapters I-V (p. 1-36)
11/12: Chapters VI-XXIV (p. 36-75)
11/14: Autobiography of Red discussion, cont.

WEEK 13: Autobiography of Red (2)
11/17: Chapters XXV-XXXII (p. 76-107)
11/19: Chapters XXXIII-XLVII (p. 107-146)
11/21: Autobiography of Red discussion, cont.

WEEK 14: Analyzing Contemporary Popular Media
12/1: TBD
12/3: TBD
12/5: TBD

Week 15: Response Journal Reflections/Exam Prep
12/8: TBD
12/10: TBD
12/12: TBD

Dirty Projectors - Rise Above

2008-08-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

Quirky, hypnotic, energetic, and (at times) beautiful....I really like this record. David Longstreth, the principal creative force behind the Projectors, sings, alternating (as is his thing) between warbling vibrattos and careening screeches. This can be, I admit, a bit of an acquired taste, but it's also kind of a cool game: unstable vocal leaps, as they get close to something beautiful, splinter into pieces...then, when they do splinter, they're mutated in turn (by gorgeous vocal accompaniments) into harmonies that seem exponentially more full...as if they could only get there by bursting ugly first. It's great, and what drives everything is the truly inventive rhythm on this album-- weird jangly guitar runs, drumming that alternates subtle and relentless.

In the bits and pieces I've heard of the Dirty Projectors, I've always been drawn in by the wonderful precision of their messiness-- songs that begin to emerge, duck elsewhere, lose themselves, find something (different) again. It can be exhausting listening, but I always find the uneven spits of beauty well worth (and probably caused by) the effort in between.

From the reception of Rise Above, people seem to be relieved at the kinder balance; many of the songs are not only stylistically tight, but downright catchy. The album is conceptually tight, too-- a near-complete remaking of Black Flag's Damaged (1981).There's a shared spirit of resistance here, although Longstreth obviously takes it well into his own direction. What's so interesting about the project is that in contrast to Damaged, Rise Above's urgency comes less from anger than from, I think, creativity. That this urgency might actually be a response, albeit two decades removed, to the same source-- i.e. authority in its dehumanizing forms--is what gives the creative peaks of this album their own, peculiar, power.

Understand, we're finding a war we can't win

They hate us, we hate them

We can't win