Crg Hill's poetry scorecard

Visual Poetry 12 Years in the Making: A Classroom

 

Robert Grenier’s Series As Bridge

Two years after moving to San Francisco in 1980, my writing models changed from Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen, Lew Welch, and Gary Snyder to Aram Saroyan, Edwin Morgan, Seiichi Niikuni, Claus Bremer, Ian Hamilton Finlay and many of the other concrete poets in Emmett Williams’ An Anthology of Concrete Poetry. My focus shifted from poem as vehicle of self-expression to poem as pivot of language potential. Driven less by personal/political agitations, the need to voice my outrage, I dug into the material of language itself, sought out strategies to liberate the visual representations of language — the alphabet, words, letters, parts of letters, the spaces between them — from their confining semantic contexts.

How did I make this jump from Beat to concrete poetry, a poetry I had knocked my head up against for years without an answer? (How in the hell could “lighght” be a poem, Mr. Saroyan?) I didn’t leap blindly: a number of writers served as bridges: Ron Silliman, Bruce Andrews, Lyn Hejinian, Larry Eigner, Rae Armantrout, Clark Coolidge, among others. Robert Grenier, in his book Series, particularly in the section titled “FALL WINTER FAMILY HOME,” provided one of the most direct routes into an understanding of concrete poetry. Grenier’s work led me to word level, the seemingly inscrutable substances of individual words, a mind-boggling place for a reader and writer oriented toward ”larger” discourses such as poems, stories, novels, and essays. I rarely studied words for their own sakes, interested in them as parts subservient to the whole. Words were right when they enhanced the larger picture.

But Grenier showed what can be done with words themselves by themselves. They were not so minuscule anymore, no longer simple cogs in a complex machine. They had their own formidable powers, their own energies. They could stand out on their own. Words unshackled from oppressive contexts, a poem such as JOY maple apple frees readers to bring their infinitely varied experiences with “maple” and “apple” into play, or to create new experiences in the reading. If Grenier would have written the poem as ”JOY//red maple//apple blossom,” or something similar in which the meanings of words were more inextricably bound to other words, possible paths of meaning would be truncated. Autumn and spring, two distinct seasons suggested by the adjectives, would have to figure into the equation. Without those constraining modifiers, readers shape their ”maple” and “apple” into the trees, syrups, fruits or whatever else they want to construct and experience. The title, of course, channels meaning by delineating an overarching emotion for the poem — joy — but as a subjective state, tied into “mapleness” or ”appleness,” numerous readings can still be generated. Because Grenier chooses to deploy so few words in many of the poems in Series, he’s taking more risks with each word choice. The fewer words, the more significance each choice carries. A poem such as BLINKING LIGHTS wooden spoons opens itself to myriad readings (or mis-readings, for that matter), not something many writers would want to happen to their work.

Grenier has the nerve to let words and readers do as much of the work on their own as they can. With fewer verbal constraints, many of the poems bubble with a spontaneity rare in poetry. For example: PAINTINGS lamb stew The combinations of words seem incongruous yet natural, impossible yet unpremeditated. Aware of ”painters” who use non-paint materials on canvas (blood, bodily wastes, nail polish, food) — lamb stew could very easily describe a set of paintings -- I can’t help but belly-laugh at the poem. I was initially perplexed by the poems consisting only of titles, words comprised of all capitalized letters: DEVOTION, FINN POWER, SNOW TIRES, LIES, CLAPBOARDS, THROUGH THE SPACE BETWEEN. I couldn’t think of any context in which these words would stand comfortably by themselves (except FINN POWER, they’d all make weird graffiti or bumper stickers), but in the context of a book of poetry, they were especially disconcerting.

I decided then that they were poems intended to throw the context of poetry itself into question. How are these poems? (How is anything a poem?) You can’t take anything for granted. The more I thought, the more I was intrigued by this section of Series. These poems were stripped down; words stood exposed; the poet’s voice muted, virtually absent, the strategy shifted weight from authorial personality to the character of words themselves. Grenier accomplished a lot of different things in Series, but one that influenced my writing was his ability to let individual words assert themselves. Once I grew accustomed to looking at language microscopically, I only had to take a short step to understand concrete poetry. When I again leafed through the Williams’ anthology, the poems were not so esoteric. I sought out books by those poets and found Aram Saroyan’s delightful Pages. I was struck by similarities between Grenier and Saroyan. (I wondered if Grenier knew Saroyan’s work, or if Saroyan knew Grenier’s work.) Grenier could have written any one of the following Saroyan poems: Not a cricket ticks a clock * something moving in the garden a cat * incomprehensible birds * night so daylight * However Saroyan came to make decisions similar to Grenier’s, or at least arrive at similar results, he clearly was also a master of poems with few words, as were many other concrete poets. Concrete poetry, or visual poetry as it is known by its contemporary practitioners, is particularly trenchant in its investigations into the bodies of words, continuing to manifest what the words have always known.

Grenier bridged my writing and reading from Beat poetry to visual poetry. I wonder now where his scrawl writings, perhaps the most intriguing visual poetry now being produced, will take writers and readers in the future. I’ll be learning from them, wherever they go.

Jennifer K Dick looking into The Last Vispo Anthology

 

http://jenniferkdick.blogspot.fr/2014/03/looking-into-last-vispo-anthology.html

 

Last Vispo Contributor Brian Dettmer has New Show at MOCAGA

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Brian Dettmer Elemental 2011/2012 Working Artist Project   Detail view of new work by Brian Dettmer. Image courtesy of the artist. MOCA GA exhibition dates: October 20, 2012 - January 5, 2013 opening reception: Friday, October 19th, 6:30-8:30pm artist talk: Thurs, Nov 29th, 6:30pm reception, 7pm talk (free admission)   Interview | City Cafe on WABE 90.1 FM, "Book Carver Brian Dettmer" Interview | Sculptcast hosted by Joe Bologna   ABOUT Elemental Material and history are being lost, slipping and eroding, from a tangible constant to an endless series of mutations. The richness and depth of older books is universally respected yet often undiscovered as users need a quicker, slicker bite of information. The book’s intended function has decreased. Its relevance is still vital but the content stays sedentary and the form remains linear in a non-linear world. We are left with raw material.   In my upcoming show for MOCA GA I continue to question the past, present and future of the book by exploring and expanding possibilities and perspectives of the book’s form and its content. In this show iconic forms and symbols from early childhood education are deconstructed and represented in new ways. Encyclopedia sets merge to form tall towers and pixilated patterns as the symbols and ideas from the past are broken down to basic elements. Long rows of paperbacks are compressed and sanded into solid wooden forms. Books on games reveal new matrices as a result of strategy and chance. A chart inspired by a thesaurus follows thousands of potential paths of meaning that spring from a single word. Images of state flags are dissected and reconstructed to present a new vocabulary about locality from existing symbols of authority. Authoritative materials and images adapt to amplify their own physicality while raising questions about their own internal meaning and the structures they rely on to communicate. In the past, ideas were recorded and saved in solid forms but in today’s intangible world we may be left with nothing. Foundations are threatened and history is lost as formats change and structures erode. We are at a pivotal moment as the monopoly of the book breaks down and elementary concepts and symbols are losing their traditional forms to be reformatted for the future.   ABOUT Brian Dettmer Brian Dettmer is known for his detailed and innovative sculptures with books and other forms of analog media. Dettmer has had solo shows in New York, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco, Atlanta and Barcelona. His work has been exhibited throughout North America and Europe at galleries and museums including the Museum of Arts and Design (NY), The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute (DC), the Museum of Contemporary Art (GA), The Chicago Cultural Center (IL), and Museum Rijswijk (Netherlands) among many others. His work has been featured on the CBS Evening News, The New York Times (US), The Los Angeles Times (US), The Guardian (UK), Chicago Tribune (US), Art News, Modern Painters, Wired, and National Public Radio among others. Earlier this year Dettmer had a solo show at the University of Maribor in Maribor, Slovenia as part of its celebration as the European Capital of Culture for 2012. Dettmer is originally from Chicago. He currently resides in Atlanta where he is represented by Saltworks Gallery. His WAP Studio Assistant was Ashley Schick.

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© The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia 75 Bennett Street, Suite A2, Atlanta, GA 30309 / 404.367.8700 tel / 404.367.1477 fax / [email protected]g

Got my own advance copy of The Last Vispo Anthology in my hands!

Last night I held in my hand an advance copy of The Last Vispo Anthology. I had high expectations for Fantagraphics--designer, production team, printer, publishers Gary Groth and Kim Thompson; what I held in my hand was a quantum leap above my expectations. The cover is to die for, vispoems pop off the varnished pages, and the binding is sewn to last for years (if this is the last, we want it to have a shelf-life, eh?).

I want this to be the first of many toasts and huzzahs and hurrahs to Nico Vassilakis, my co-editor. Editing poetry publications for the last three decades has been a joy, but this experience has been particularly joyous. Kudos and hugs, Nico. We done good. A project conceived during or after several conversations with Geof Huth and Jim Andrews (as we prepared for an ensemble poetry performance in Seattle), has been over four years in the making. All that time and space--the sporadic back and forth, quiet and sparse and then furious, at a distance or face-to-face--buoys every page of this anthology. I look forward to the less-than-quiet times ahead as this book marches off into the world.

Now out from Otoliths: *Densities, Apparitions* by William Allegrezza

80 pages Cover image by Deborah Meadows ISBN: 978-0-9808785-8-5 $13.45 + p&h URL: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/densities-apparitions/17278481 This book explores influence by crossing out or responding to poets who have influenced me. The Whitman and Andrade pieces are cross-outs, and anyone familiar with the first version of C*alamus* will notice that I did not respond to the entire collection. I left out pieces that I did not think would cut well for my project or pieces that have too much personal meaning for me. The response pieces to Leopardi and Neruda are probably even more telling, for in these pieces, it is sometimes difficult to see how the pieces directly relate to the original. Still, the influence is there reworked through my experience. —*William Allegrezza* *William Allegrezza* edits the e-zine *Moria* and teaches at Indiana University Northwest. He has previously published five books, *In the Weaver's Valley*, *Ladders in July*, *Fragile Replacements*, *Collective Instant, *and *Covering Over*; two anthologies, *The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century **and **La Alteración del Silencio: Poesía Norteamericana Reciente*; seven chapbooks, including *Sonoluminescence*(co-written with Simone Muench) and *Filament Sense* (Ypolita Press); and many poetry reviews, articles, and poems. He founded and curated *series* *A*, a reading series in Chicago, from 2006-2010. In addition, he occasionally posts his thoughts at http://allegrezza.blogspot.com.

 

20% Sale of Nico Vassilakis' Text Loses Time

 

In 2008, ManyPenny Press released TEXT LOSES TIME by Nico Vassilakis. This necessary work spans roughly 15 years of the author’s efforts in both textual and visual writing. It is Vassilakis’ first full-length book.

 

TEXT LOSES TIME

Afterword by Nick Piombino

188 pp.

ISBN-10: 0-9798478-0-X

ISBN-13: 978-0-9798478-0-6

 

CONTACT AND ORDERING INFORMATION:

 

ManyPenny Press

 1111 E. Fifth St.

Moscow, ID83843

 

 

$12.76 ( + $3 postage (Order directly from the press and we'll include previous issues of SCORE).

Make checks payable to Crag Hill

 

Bookstores should contact Crag Hill

at [email protected]

to arrange for discounts.

 

If you would like to order on-line,

go to: http://www.lulu.com/content/1233754

 

 

SAMPLE OF WORK FROM “TEXT LOSES TIME”:

 

 FROM “THE SCAFFOLDING”

 

 The Rhymes of Vellum

 

A boy or girl, Vellum, blows a few papers in the wind   It answers noise   Hopping, hopped. Tapping, tapped   Swim sweet twins swing twig   Think of losing, serendipity or the wings of a sentence   He will get them, but not tell you where they were   I like to drink through my brother’s center   A finger’s rose begins   A shadow grows down the sidewalk   Clapping, clapped   It helps to rip this box open   Sound harbor, sound hole   Blind rose is a very shape friend   I want a shirt to visit my slacks   Moon noose soon loose   A good look at the cookbook - lots of o’s - ghost epaulets on the shoulders of a paragraph   Dishes mixes, buses guesses   I sit down to work; I draw with my right hand   The response sadly is never   Living as wide as it gets   Think sift   You could fault the long moth, the dog lost in soft fog, but it’s the song’s cost, its crust   I got frogs in my throat, a forehead throat   Boris said, “Your throat’s red.”   Timothy hums a nail into the wood   I run uphill swimming   The test isn’t over   The floor’s hard   The new girl at school   Can you look at a book without getting caught on a line?   Like radio, writing is a broadcast   They found people in the mailbox   A huge gem in a cage   Susan flips back to the glossary   Only a certain type of fastener   The letter “R” in each corner of a page   Unexpectedly the middle is empty   Next, write your best trick   Most banjo   Odd pretty piece asleep   A drum whisking discard into cream   In this way we raise our pigs on fire & Kenny is always six yards old   The donkey said, “Enough.” The donkey said, “English.”   Dark thoughts won’t cure light sickness   The ladder moved slightly throws the world in disarray   The teacher’s a bird and flies out the window   They had found their clown center   Art will say, “I like to pitch. What is your name?” Art will say, “Hi, I’m Art. I like to pitch. What’s your name?”   Slowly toward a large bird   Paper hats, cats   A lot of noise comes to visit Long thin water in a line of people   I called you once today to say geese make a village of gold & both of my little friends like to sing. Their secret voices are beautiful   Spray Spray Spray 

 

AUTHOR’S STATEMENT:

 

This book intends to present both verbal and visual poetries as equal. Though notions of poetics have shifted and swerved, what has stayed solid throughout is that the alphabet, the word – however arranged – contains, within it, dual significance. First, the proto-historic role of the visual conveyance of represented fact. Second, the overriding desire of human utterance to substantiate existence. In conjoining these two models this book hopes to form a third, blurred value. Thought and experience are factors that accrue, while staring and writing help resolve and conclude. Text itself is an amalgam of units of meaning. As you stare at text you notice the visual aspects of letters. As one stares further, meaning loses its hierarchy and words discorporate and the alphabet itself begins to surface. Shapes, spatial relations and visual associations emerge as one delves further. Alphabetic bits or parts or snippets of letters can create an added visual vocabulary amidst the very text one is reading. One aim, to this end, is to merge and hinge visual and textual writing into workable forms. This book collects some of these experiments.

 

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY:

  

Nico Vassilakis was born in New York City in 1963. He has co-written and performed a one-man play about experimental composer Morton Feldman. Vassilakis is co-founder and curator for the Subtext Reading Series and editor of Clear-Cut: Anthology (A Collection of Seattle Writers). He has been a guest-editor of WOS#35: Northwest Concrete and Visual Poetry and his visual poetry videos have been shown worldwide at festivals and exhibitions of innovative language arts. In 1998, Vassilakis co-produced, with Rebecca Brown, a 24-hour “Gertrude Stein-a-thon.” His work has appeared in numerous magazines, including Ribot, Caliban, Aufgabe, Chain, Talisman, Central Park and Golden Handcuffs Review. He works for Fantagraphic Books and lives in Seattle with his son, Quixote. With Crag Hill, he edited The Last Vispo Anthology: 1998-2008, a major anthology of visual poetry, due out in 2012 from Fantagraphics.

Chapbooks:

Askew (bcc press), Stampologue (RASP), Orange: A Manual (Sub Rosa Press), Diptychs: Visual Poems (Otolith), Pond Ring (nine muses books), sequence (Burning Press), Enoch and Aloe (Last Generation Press), The Colander (housepress), Flattened Missive (P.I.S.O.R. Publications), Species Pieces (gong press), KYOO (Burning Press) and others.

 

DVD:

CONCRETE: Movies

(Sub RosaPress)

 

COMMENTS ON TEXT LOSES TIME: 

“Part nested Minimalist cubes and part laser light that won't diverge across distance, Nico Vassilakis' poetry seems to ask whether we are primates at play on a baseball diamond of memory and desire beside mural-lined public structures slipping toward infinite regression.

 

Richly iterative, these pairings and alphabets escape the mirror to thrill us with variation and sting all forms of complacency. Vassilakis extends Oulipian strategies:  Perec references, lamellisections, crystalline build-outs and transpositions, a scat of nonrepresentational vocables, lettered whirlwinds giving speed for legibility, --  "extracting the gem through layers of gauze" and, other times, lowering a gem into a fold.

 

Can an argument between a machine that produces texts and "longhand into tiny notebooks" wake us up?  In pain, "the throbbing thumb" makes us "attend to the living."

 

If Vassilakis revises the rock lyric "meet-the-new-boss, same-as-the-old-boss" to "meet the solipsistic era. same as the old solipsistic era,"  is treatment to be had in a bar, a science lab, or will it reach us over the radio?  Try a road trip, so "you can't afford to blink, to be blind for even a second" going through a colander out where dust is breeding and "glass traps lighting" like no scene you've seen in quite this way. Through crevices, perforations, punctures, piercings, pinholes, see neighborhoods as "that place where organized sleeping happens." So, look for a faceted colony that "sometimes congeals."”

 

--Deborah Meadows

 

“Nico Vassilakis' Text Loses Time unhinges the folds of the book and the word; as the 'folded loose leafed sheets whiz past your ears' you can hear the echoes of meaning. The words flake off the page like aged paint leaving a patina of colour and meaning on the surface and a growing heap of signification at our feet. Here the means of writing rise up and turn against our expectation, lurching into new spaces. Letters become tactile, meaning becomes rubbery, and both reading and writing become a new collaboration.”

--derek beaulieu

 

First Rush: Crystal Curry's Our Chrome Arms of Gymnasium

Received a copy of Crystal Curry's Our Chrome Arms of Gymnasium from Slope Editions some months ago. I can't get down to writing much about it.............BECAUSE I can't stop reading the damn book aloud and aloud and aloud...

Winner of Slope Editions 2009's book prize, selected by Dara Weir, Curry's book is a robust, baroque romp. Language as body, words, phrases, lines commingling, sensual--sexual, but not in the pedestrian carnal sense...

Typically, alliteration and assonance in such heavy doses is a cold shower; in this collection, these sterile devices flirt and tease and tickle (my glee was continual, tantric)...

...Look for a more extensive review forthcoming once I can stop myself from reading these poems ALOUD!

Dmitry Babenko's New Artist Book:

http://overtext.livejournal.com/98734.html

With images such as this:

 

Now Available: Scott Helmes' Poems From Then To Now

 


Visaul poetry / Collages and rubberstamping.
A6 format - 48 pages - laser printing.
Thread and quarter cloth binding
December 2010
price: 15 euro / 20 US $ / 13 UK Sterling



 . . . . . . 

Concrete Poems

 . . . 

Haikus


 

Rubberstamp Poems



Since 1976, Scott Helmes has been a leading international 
figure in experimental poetry. Work has been published 
in notable magazines, including Poetry, Paris Review, 
Tam Tam and the Notre Dame Review. Recent poems have 
been published or exhibited in India, Turkey, Cuba, Russia
and England. 

He is also a founding member of the Be Blank Consort.
As a writer, his work has appeared in Print, Minneapolis-
St. Paul, Minnesota Monthly, and Whistling Shade, 
including non-fiction and fiction.

As an artist, mail artist and photographer, he exhibited
throughout the world. His work is included in museum collections world wide 
and his writing archive from 1972 to 1997 is in the Avant 
Writing Collection of The Ohio State Libraries. 
Scott Helmes lives in St. Paul, MN, USA.

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