Limp Lamp of Paris

So sorry to have dropped out of sight, everyone -- what with no computer at home anymore and three classes' worth of students bombing my inbox I've been hard-pressed to

(apply electroshock nodules to my flaming armpit).

Plus the plastic owl flies so fast! I was thinking about beauty and stuff and then jumped back on and found that beauty was yesterday's news. Then all this new stuff piled on and the blog became a colossal pyramid that I was supposed to military-press up over my head somehow. Or not lift. I wish I could, though -- address all the wonderful flying debris of such great people -- this is really my favorite crossfire anywhere, pretty much.

Lauren, you'd asked about the Creeley reading I caught last summer, so here's what I remember: The location was a huge old mansion, now converted into a Latin American cultural center, which hid behind a stone wall on one of the larger West Bank boulevards (St.-Germain, maybe?). Cole at one point mentioned that it was one of the grand houses Proust used to sneak into soirees at, which was funny because I felt like I was doing exactly that: the interior was all bright creams and oranges and chandeliers were sparkling and it all felt unbelievably sumptuous -- meanwhile here I was in my grimy plaid shirt, reeking of pizza, every inch the interloper. I arrived early and sat in the back row by myself, feeling very agitated not knowing whether I should try to befriend French poets as they filed in or something, and so it was strange but nice when Cole arrived -- talk about out of context. The room was very warm, I have to add, and it was right around dinnertime, so by the time Creeley and Clayton Eshleman (did I spell that right?) finally arrived with their translators I was getting pretty sleepy. Creeley was of course wonderful and read mostly early poems/greatest hits, as I remember. His translator would then read the same poem but in French, and then Eshleman and HIS translator would take their turns. After a couple of go-rounds I began to doze off each time Creeley would finish and then I'd snap awake again as soon as he started another one.

As for his reading itself, I wish I had more to say: my lingering impression is just one of a gentle, sincere man reading strange and barbed poems -- I've associated a certain cruelty with Creeley (or at least with his work) ever since we talked about him a while back, but as he read it struck me as being more a really bright candor that was streaming out of the poems.

When the reading was over I stood around awkwardly for some time. There had maybe been 50 people at the reading and now a number of them wanted to speak with the poets or have books signed. Finally I gave up and left the room, but before I'd made it to the street I changed my mind and went back (this might have been at Cole's urging, come to think of it). The last person was just finishing up with Creeley by this time, so I introduced myself, and he was very gracious and curious to hear my impressions of Paris as a first-time visitor; I remember him saying as we walked downstairs that "No other city can transform you as utterly, or as quickly," and there was a wondering quality in his voice. Oh, I also put my foot in my mouth right off the bat when I mentioned that I would have loved to hear him read "The Death of Venus" -- he grew a bit confused because he had read it, only I'd slept through that one completely, a little slumbering babe in the back row. Needless to say, I changed the subject before his befuddlement had completely cleared.

The sad moment for me came as we reached the ground floor: Creeley, Cole, her two friends, and I. Creeley was in mid-sentence when a door in the hallway next to us suddenly opened and people in formal clothing came out. In an instant several of them had shunted Creeley away from our little group, leading him by the arm, and as he disappeared into the dining room there was a split-second of awkwardness (and I'll delude myself that his eyes betrayed a profound regret) as he glanced back at us, everyone in that second knowing full well we couldn't accompany him.

Ah, if only I had more of the Proust in me, to have bullshitted my way in as his handler or gopher or something! And now I regret enormously not at least getting a photo with Creeley while we were upstairs -- my camera was sitting in my backpack the whole time, gathering backpack-dust... The whole encounter took maybe three minutes, if that. But he did convey in person the same distilled blend of courtliness and camaraderie, of edginess and calm, that I detect as the background radiation of his poems. It often seems to happen that way, and I'm glad for it, that the few times I've met poets I've found they make a certain sense.

Me what whoosis?

This Creeley article Jared and I are working on is kicking my ass around. But it's been great to read some of the Creeley/Olson letters - Creeley has some incredibly funny riffs on rejection letters that were making me yell with laughing. I read them to Catherine on the phone last night and she agreed. Here are a couple (first, an actual rejection letter w/C's comments, then his made-up rejection letter). Robert Creeley!!!!!!! It makes me happy and sad how awesome he was.

here's rejection #1, the real rejection letter:
---------------------------------------

{Handwritten by magazine editor on top of printed slip:}

Thank you for your trouble.
-The editor.

THE EDITOR OF "VARIEGATION" WISHES TO THANK YOU FOR SUBMITTING THE ENCLOSED MATERIAL AND REGRETS THAT HE IS UNABLE TO USE IT. YOUR INTEREST AND ACCOMPLISHMENT ARE APPRECIATED; YOU ARE HELPING IN THE CREATION OF A WHOLE NEW WORLD OF FREE VERSE VOICES.


{Added by Creeley:} Me what whoosis?

o really ........... no trouble at all

_______________________________________________________



here's #2, Creeley's invented rejection letter to himself:
______________________________________________________

Well, THAT story. I think the sooner we leave out the 155 million
people who MIGHT read any given work, etc., and get back to who
WILL: namely, yrself, etc.: the cooler/things will be/all round. I
enjoy it. I like it fine.
________________________________________________________________

from a blog called "earthgoat"

Notes from Jim McPherson's seminars

While I'm cleaning out my desk... I took two seminars from Jim: "Humor" and "Mythology." I'm going to stack these things that came out of his mouth as they appear in my notebook, randomly, and see what happens. Half of these came from the weeks and months before and after 9/11.

Replace life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness with immortality, freewill, and access to grace.
The universe is always being created by abrupt surprises and jolts from crisis to crisis.
Calamity is permanent.
Antigone symbolizes the remnant of the Mother Goddess. Sitting Bull, white squaw, Eileen Pollack, Gish Jen.
Transcending of tragedy makes for metaphorical meaning.
Novella is like a drop of water holding its shape. A novel loses its form.
Uniqueness of American culture means unique humor. We're all outsiders. If humor fails here, it really fails. The only model for real multiculture.
Old cultures live on cyclical time. No escape from history.
Before the nation-state there were the sect nations. Bin Laden is resurrecting the sect nation.
Corporation state: Writers must either join in or imagine beyond.
Macedonia was more like Cleveland than Greece. But Alexander slept every night with his copy of The Iliad.
Myth is a narrative linked to a rite.
Romantic love will kill the West.
Men and women lived in different camps. To get a wife, cross the river and steal a virgin.
Look for ritual in modern life.
Involuntary Creation, Indian myth of origin. Vishnu, Shiva, Brahman.
Old Testament has a bias toward chaos.
Ritual dance of aggression on Indian-Pakistani border.
Hesiod: First god was chaos, then Gaia.
5 sheaths of human, from outside to inside: Food (body), Breath (air), Mental, Wisdom (genetics), Bliss.
We join the dragon.
Ghandi was a high-class lawyer who worked for a white government. Read his autobiography.
We had no moral code, so we imported the Victorian one.
We worship the cult of the Ideal.
American humor comes from a synthesis of its various vernacular styles.
America has no tragedy. Though African-Americans and Indians do. The Romans also did not develop tragedy. Maybe it's because our roots are in the future -- you can always pull up stakes and move, change everything. We are not fixed.
Vitality in this country stopped in 1976. There was the Patty Hearst hideout massacre, and from then on the white kids never made a peep.
Did you hear about the old lady put off the plane with her knitting needle? Said she was going to knit an afghan.
Lowering the basement floor: "We were so poor..."
Baltimore dope dealers now selling flags.
We laugh when the mechanical meets the organic.
"I happened to stumble across a case of bourbon and went right on stumbling for several days thereafter." -- W.C. Fields
She's so fat, when she wears high heels she strikes oil.
"I bought a used car and my wife's dress was in the back seat. Was in a hotel that was so bad, they stole my towel." -- Rodney Dangerfield
He's a drunk - they found an olive in his urine specimen.
She's so ugly, when she walks in a room the mice jump on chairs.
She's been picked up so many times, she's starting to grow handles.
"Stay out of the Bushes" -- Jesse Jackson. "Same to you, fella." -- George W. Bush
We must develop what Ralph Ellison called the omni-American sensibility.
Affirmative action has become a product. It should be a process.
Laughter is a corrective.
"America never looks back until there's a crisis." -- Constance Roarke
An old man once told me to "play hide-and-go-fuck-yourself.

Donald Revell News

Donald Revell has been one of the most important poets in my life, so I was pleased to hear that a "new & selected volume" called -pennyweight windows- was just released by alice james books.

yay
YAY
where are steve and catherine? donating donuts?

More Words From Creeley

Williams says he'd rather go off and die like a sick dog than be a well-known literary person in America. A poll taken on the streets of Manhattan discovered that less than one percent could tell who Norman Mailer was. Poets write, I do believe, because they have to—it's something nothing else quite satisfies. One has to do it — compulsively. I remember Carl Rakosi saying before we were to teach at Naropa some years ago ( we were musing over just how to proceed): "Well, the last thing poets need is encouragement!" They'll do it come hell or high water. My own "acceptance and recognition" came from peers, as Olson, Duncan, Paul Blackburn, Denise Levertov, Cid Corman—and elders like Williams and Zukofsky. The company is what matters.

quoted from silliman's blog

FOR GODDES SAKE!

WHO THE FUCK IS IN CHARGE HERE? PRICK CHENEY?

ted kooser won the pulitzer. and not only that, he gets compared to wallace stevens on the basis of employment:

Mr. Kooser, of Garland, Neb., is the poet laureate of the United States. Like Wallace Stevens, Mr. Kooser, 65, worked in life insurance for much of his career.

this man's writing is like a lukewarm gob of porridge dried on a pair of khakis lying on a beige linoleum floor. shocking and pathetic. at any rate, a good reason why poetry should not be part of the culture. let's throw dirt on our heads and become green men of the forest. i choose to take this personally.

this man's ilk is an example of what t.j. jackson lears calls "evasive banality." shameful.

conjunc

conjunctions

it's too much

saul bellow?

i never really interacted w/frank when we were at school,
but the memory of him at those terrifying initial meetings
is pretty wild. he seemed to terrorize and inspire the fiction
people in a special way. and i loved _stop-time_.

let's send good thoughts out to neil young and all others
who are recovering or ailing - my guilt and paranoia,
i guess, but it seems almost like a punishment or a warning
to have all these great people go. clearly we've been
fucking up on a national scale, but they shouldn't have
to suffer for it...