Currently reading:: The Return of the Real, Poetry and Pedagogy, The Transformation, Pale Fire.
Finally at semester's end, with enough time to splurge a wayward word or two toward the waning blogosphere. In recent weeks, Ithaca has been all shades and variations of chill, ice, chiaroscuro—it's lovely when you're not looking. One might be idling along, a rustle of warmth in the darkening year, the dead leaves still fresh enough in the air.
I've been spending more time than ever reading and reading lately—all types of bits and bobs, really—with a view toward my A exam. Just now I am enamored with Hal Foster's The Return of the Real, a collection edited by Spahr, Poetry and Pedagogy, and a number of volumes by Johanna Drucker. Two colleagues have given excellent talks in recent memory, Theo Hummer on Harryette Mullen's Sleeping with the Dictionary, and Chris Nealon on Lisa Robertson. All four, of course, are forces to be reckoned with, both as poets and as thinkers.
The poetry scene in town has turned a little with the leaves this fall: Josh Corey has moved on to his first academic appointment, and his fellow SOON member, Aaron Tieger, has left Ithaca for Boston, I heard. Both will be duly missed, and I hope that even in their absence, the series will evolve and continue on. And for me personally, two important colleagues in verse have left—Marisol Baca and Tien Tran. But one might as well revel as wallow in twilight.
So far the fruits of my own return to the real have been exciting. I have now filed The Adjacent Possible with the university and soon hope to see it listed in the library's catalog. It's a silly thing, no doubt, but it was undeniably fun to see the thing bound in black with gold lettering. The project itself, however, remains unresolved—the book has always been meant to culminate in an edition of twelve hand-constructed, hand-painted books, all of which I have scheduled for production over the winter break. Before I can begin final typesetting and printing, however, there is the matter of a few revisions to the poems and the painting of twelve landscapes, one for each copy. Still, so far so good. In other good news, I recently received word that Columbia Poetry Review will publish one of my poems from Rhetorical Theater in the spring 2008 issue. RT is a book close to my heart, as it's the first significant collection of poems I wrote here in Ithaca and the first time I asked myself an important question: just what and how much, exactly, can I write? Until then, I hadn't ever thought to really challenge myself to the point of unease.
Had a pleasant (and as usual, informative) chat over coffee with Alex today. Mostly about this or that, he brandishing his uncanny recall of vast amounts of poetry verbatim and his rather odd taste for surreal B movies, and I sipping my tea with a smirk. What I like so much about him—or I should say, one of the things I like so much about him--is the way in which our frames of reference simultaneously overlap and diverge just enough, so that we have a common language, but also plenty to learn from each other. He's able to chart contemporary and avant-garde trends in British poetry in a way which eludes me, while I sometimes fancy I might know a titch more about visual-verbal relations. I have him to thank for calling J.H. Prynne to my attention, and today he mentioned the journal Quid, out from Barque, which looks quite tempting. He also suggested Hass' collection, Praise. I don't know why I'm dubious, but I admit I am. All the more reason to check it out and prove my prejudgment faulty.
It's all winding down nicely, as only Ithaca can. The rush of sleet, friends convening a last time before jetting off to distant parts of the country, the horizon shot vermilion with oncoming night, even before four in the afternoon. I'd almost forgotten to mention—I recently began reading Nabokov's Pale Fire. A rich resonance with Ithaca, and the prose—a real stunner.
Now, to the leaves. Soft—
Finally at semester's end, with enough time to splurge a wayward word or two toward the waning blogosphere. In recent weeks, Ithaca has been all shades and variations of chill, ice, chiaroscuro—it's lovely when you're not looking. One might be idling along, a rustle of warmth in the darkening year, the dead leaves still fresh enough in the air.
I've been spending more time than ever reading and reading lately—all types of bits and bobs, really—with a view toward my A exam. Just now I am enamored with Hal Foster's The Return of the Real, a collection edited by Spahr, Poetry and Pedagogy, and a number of volumes by Johanna Drucker. Two colleagues have given excellent talks in recent memory, Theo Hummer on Harryette Mullen's Sleeping with the Dictionary, and Chris Nealon on Lisa Robertson. All four, of course, are forces to be reckoned with, both as poets and as thinkers.
The poetry scene in town has turned a little with the leaves this fall: Josh Corey has moved on to his first academic appointment, and his fellow SOON member, Aaron Tieger, has left Ithaca for Boston, I heard. Both will be duly missed, and I hope that even in their absence, the series will evolve and continue on. And for me personally, two important colleagues in verse have left—Marisol Baca and Tien Tran. But one might as well revel as wallow in twilight.
So far the fruits of my own return to the real have been exciting. I have now filed The Adjacent Possible with the university and soon hope to see it listed in the library's catalog. It's a silly thing, no doubt, but it was undeniably fun to see the thing bound in black with gold lettering. The project itself, however, remains unresolved—the book has always been meant to culminate in an edition of twelve hand-constructed, hand-painted books, all of which I have scheduled for production over the winter break. Before I can begin final typesetting and printing, however, there is the matter of a few revisions to the poems and the painting of twelve landscapes, one for each copy. Still, so far so good. In other good news, I recently received word that Columbia Poetry Review will publish one of my poems from Rhetorical Theater in the spring 2008 issue. RT is a book close to my heart, as it's the first significant collection of poems I wrote here in Ithaca and the first time I asked myself an important question: just what and how much, exactly, can I write? Until then, I hadn't ever thought to really challenge myself to the point of unease.
Had a pleasant (and as usual, informative) chat over coffee with Alex today. Mostly about this or that, he brandishing his uncanny recall of vast amounts of poetry verbatim and his rather odd taste for surreal B movies, and I sipping my tea with a smirk. What I like so much about him—or I should say, one of the things I like so much about him--is the way in which our frames of reference simultaneously overlap and diverge just enough, so that we have a common language, but also plenty to learn from each other. He's able to chart contemporary and avant-garde trends in British poetry in a way which eludes me, while I sometimes fancy I might know a titch more about visual-verbal relations. I have him to thank for calling J.H. Prynne to my attention, and today he mentioned the journal Quid, out from Barque, which looks quite tempting. He also suggested Hass' collection, Praise. I don't know why I'm dubious, but I admit I am. All the more reason to check it out and prove my prejudgment faulty.
It's all winding down nicely, as only Ithaca can. The rush of sleet, friends convening a last time before jetting off to distant parts of the country, the horizon shot vermilion with oncoming night, even before four in the afternoon. I'd almost forgotten to mention—I recently began reading Nabokov's Pale Fire. A rich resonance with Ithaca, and the prose—a real stunner.
Now, to the leaves. Soft—
