Works Retrieved

Way, way, way back in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was just beginning to dupe the populace into thinking (if the populace ever thinks), as straight-shooter of the cold war, that he was one of the greatest presidents of all-time, I set out to upend the political spectrum through a found/edit series of reading/writing. Like Bern Porter, I was interested in exposing what in public/published work that the work itself was not aware of, putting a context into out-of-context. I intended to read the right-hand of a leftist text, the center of an apolitical writer, and the left-hand of a neutral/neutered text. For this proposed trilogy, I also added another level, me, as editor, selecting out of the results the findings that didn't startle me.

Looking to counter/re/act the right of the spectrum, I tipped the scales by reading/writing the right-hand margin (covering the rest of the page with a folded sheet of paper) of Ron Silliman's Tjanting, resulting in "Reading His Margins," a chapbook published by Geof Huth as dbpq #120. To titillate the center, the tepid moderates of our world, I worked on a reading/re-writing of James Joyce's Ulysses, a work that over several years and incessant cutting (all the words remained Mr. Joyce's) appeared as a nine prose poems in "Yes James, Yes Joyce," a chapbook published by Steve Tills' Loose Gravel Press. One of my favorites, though, the one I invested the most time in, was a methodical "leftist reading/writing of Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Yes, I read the whole dictionary, page by light-weight page, but just the left-side of each entry). Dict, published by xexoxial editions, was the result.

This is all to say, despite George's slippage, I'm on the hunt for some more political voodoo. Who do? Where?

Comments

[mIEKAL aND]

I'm really hoping to get all of the old XE titles digitized & downloadable in the next couple years. DICT is my fav CrHl book too, so I definitely would like to see it get more distribution.

[Geof Huth]

Ah, Crag, great memories. I never saw your Joyce chapbook, but "DICT" is one of my favorites of your works! When I get the dbqplist blog up to date, I'll have some bibliographic info up about "Reading His Margins," a chapbook I published (as dbqp # 120), I believe, without your permission--and intentionally without decoration. Unfortunately, I haven't done a good job distributing this historical chapbook, so anyone interested in a copy should drop me a line. Geof