'Tis with mixed emotions I greet Jackson MacLow's Doings: Assorted Performance Pieces 1955-2002 published by Granary Books. First the delight: "The book contains recent work as well as substantial sections from the near legendary 'Vocabulary Gathas' and includes a studio-quality CD of audio recordings, produced by Charlie Morrow, several of which are co-composed and co-performed by Mac Low together with his wife, the poet, composer, and visual artist Anne Tardos." Yow! These are monumental works under-appreciated, under-performed. I'm gleeful they are being re-released onto to the respecting and unsuspecting public. My sadness? The book costs $50. That price chops off most of the poetry reading public. Rather than making MacLow's work precious, the fetish of collectors, we need inexpensive editions that can land into the hands of poets and performers who can continuously breath life into the works, blowing off the mausoleum dust that often chokes off the work's vitality.
So here's to this edition of Jackson's work! Here's a call, too, to the publisher who gets his work into performer's hands, young, old, and middle.
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