POETICKS » infraverbal poetry

Entry 620 — Getting Enough Sleep

Bob Grumman — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:00:28 +0000

A little while ago (it is now around 9 P.M., 9 January) I was feeling good. I attributed this to my having gotten two naps today, one of an hour, the other of one or two hours. And I had gotten six hours of sleep last night, which is about as much as I generally get. I had just about finished backing up my blog entries and was very pleased at how good many of my poems seemed to me when I noticed them during the process. Unfortunately, I got the dates up my upcoming entries wrong, and in correcting them, lost what I had written for this entry. That pretty much wiped out my mood. I can’t stand screwing up like that, but I do it all the time!

This is a pwoermd I stole from Geof Huth’s blog–because it has become too sophisticated to accept comments from dial-ups like my computer, and I wanted to comment on it. It’s by Jonathan Jones, lately of Brussels, but a citizen himself of the United Kingdom. What I like most about it is that it’s lyrical–as too many pwoermds are not. It wouldn’t be a visual poem for me, but an illustrated poem, except that I subjectively feel “apri’ll” is producing the wonderful colors of spring it is slanted into a portion of (through sheer will-power). Hence, in my taxonomy it is an infra-verbal visual poem.

Precision M4400 Laptops

Entry 584 — An & & My Full Triptych

Bob Grumman — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 05:00:57 +0000

It seems that almost every time I seem to be getting productive, something knocks me down. This time it’s only a lost entry–this one, that I was trying to correct some detail of and lost in the process–without realizing it, so was not able to try to find the lost material by backing up until it was too late. So now I have to spend an hour or so, restoring what I can recall of what was here two days ago.

One item was this by Moribund Face:

And all three of my frames of “Triptych for Tom Phillips”:

About the ampersand, I commented something about how it expressed the essence of “andness.” I loved the way its bird regurgitated what looked like all of itself, while looking to continue “anding” forever. I said little about my full triptych except that if you click on them, you’ll see a larger image of them which may be helpful although still very small–and in black&white. The original frames are each eleven by seventeen. Oh, one thing I did point out was that the frames are about, “departure,” “journey” and “arrival,” and are intended to be about them in the largest sense, but particularly about them with regard to arriving–for either an engagent of it or its author.

* * *

Sunday, 4 October 2011. Sunday is hazy to me now, three days in the past as it is. I played tennis early in the morning–badly. I didn’t return to my Shakespeare book, but evidentally got a blog entry posted, and probably wrote an exhibition hand-out or two.

Engagement Rings

Entry 579 — The Bleed 0.1

Bob Grumman — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 05:00:24 +0000

A few days ago I got a beautifully packaged hard copy of the webzine, The Bleed 0.1, from its editor, John Moore Williams. It’s a terrific overview of current visual and related poetry and art. I got the hard copy because my computer wouldn’t let me view the whole magazine at its website–due, apparently, to the fact that I’m still on dial-up. Anyway, Eric Goddard-Scovel has five infraverbal gems in the issue that became instant favorites of mine. Here are two of them:

Minor quibble: I would have had one more numeral 1 and two less exclamation marks in “11!”

* * *

Tuesday, 29 November 2011, 3 P.M. Tennis in the morning, errands, then a nap. After the latter, I felt pretty good, but was slow getting into any of my projects–after fairly quickly getting my blog entry for the day done and posted. I just now took care of a very short exhibition hand-out. I seem now to have 17 little comments on various poems of mine plus a Curriculum Vita ready for the show. I’ve started to other hand-outs. I’ve avoided my book so far, which has become a major drag. But I expect eventually to get to it.

Okay, it’s two hours later. I did a little futzing around with the section of my book I’m having trouble with, then went to bed for a little while. Couldn’t really sleep although I’m sleepy and did doze off for a few minutes once or twice. I tried to think methodically about my problem section, then abruptly concluded that I need a break from it. So I’m going to stop work on it until I feel I’ll be able to get somewhere with it. Maybe I’ll work on the essay I need to write in response to an essay of Jake Berry’s. I should watch some tv, too, or something. Get into another cumb Clancy novel . . .

local activities

Enter 550 — Marton’s “Cursive” Again

Bob Grumman — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 04:00:36 +0000

Marton got back to me about his “cursive” yesterday, giving me enough material for a full entry.

He pointed out the direction of the leaves is not consistent. I had not noticed it. Which is a good lead-in to one of my much-repeated dogmas: there’s more to every good poem, however seemingly simple, than even a good critic will find on his own. Marton believes that “the first and the second leaf are connected in a way which is not possible in nature.” Hence, for him, the poem is displaying “the surmounting (or appeasing) of that impossibility.” This is a reading in addition tomine, not a counter-reading since it is does not contradict my reading. (Dogma #2: there is more than one good reading of any good poem-but there is only one main reading–to which all the other readings must conform. That said, I read the change of the direction of the ellipsis to suggest oneleaf’s rebelliousness. It doesn’t want to be part of an ellipsis. Or, in my main reading, it it is eager for winter, and the other two leaves are not? as for the linkage of the leaves being impossible in Nature, I’m confused: I view their stems as touching. But is the image of a vine? These leaves don’t look like a vine’s leaves to me.

They don’t look like autumn leaves, as my main reading of the poem has it, either. But they are detached leaves, so can’t be summer or spring leaves.

Marton also reminded me that he had dedicated the poem to me. That, he added, “is an important piece of information. ” I was being modest, but I see that the dedication actually is important, for it connects the poem to my series, “Cursive Mathemaku.” Thinking about that connection, I thought of something else to mention about the poem–the fact that cursive writing is personal. The Nature in the poem is not a machine typing out falling leaves but an individual writing a poem with her leaves.

Discount Electric Fireplaces

Entry 548 — “Failed Ellipsis”

Bob Grumman — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 04:00:22 +0000

The work below was inspired by a new punctuational poem of Marton Koppany’s. I’ll show that when I feel up to wirting a proper appreciation of it. I’m still a bit out of it from my surgical procedure. The anaesthesia? It never bothered me before. Whatever it is, I’m in a whole new kind of Null Zone. But I think I’m coming out of it.

Chemistry Dating Service

Entry 455 — Another Masterpiece

Bob Grumman — Mon, 30 May 2011 04:00:28 +0000

Four Seasons Poem Number One Zillion Two

live

love

leve

lve

.
.
I’ve done six or seven 4 season poems, I would guess. Now I’m thinking of trying to work up enough for a little book of them. I really do think this one is a masterpiece.
.
.
.

Entry 377 — Two Other Alphabets

Bob Grumman — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 05:00:19 +0000

This one by me:

And this alphabetized one by Gary Barwin:

Entry 375 — An Infraverbal Poem for bp

Bob Grumman — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 05:00:42 +0000

Note: this poem happened into my head while I was thinking about the alphabet, specifically about the fact that it seemed to me to qualify as a word (one meaning “letters in order”). Hence, Aram Saroyan’s four-legged m, as a fragment of the alphabet (m combined with n), is a word-fragment, and thus verbal enough to qualify, by my criteria, as a visual poem.

After that, my over-active mind thought again about Geof Huth’s stipulation that a pwoermd (like Saroyan’s) could not have a title, one of many things I’ve long argued with him about. First thought: all poems have titles, it’s just that some have explicit one, some implicit–usually its first line. So there’s actually no such thing as a one-word poem. However, in favor of Geof’s stipulation is the fact that some poems considered one-word poems that have explicit titles would not work without their titles and are therefore not truly one-word poems. For instance, the following:

Is It Possible To Write A One-Letter Poem?

“i” without its title would not be a poem. But what about my poem for bp? I would claim that it consists only of one word, although that would is a fusion of two, “yes” and the alphabet, and–because its title is without effect on its content but only serves to identify it (and add background as a date might)–it is as much a pwoermd as any without an explicit title is.

Entry 154 — Number into Mathematics

Bob Grumman — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 00:00:43 +0000

I’m bothered to note that I have failed to blog two days in a row. What really bothers me is that I didn’t even notice I hadn’t blogged. Oh, well, I have something for today.

I scribbled this for the graffiti wall at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York where some of us will be doing some sort of reading 10 July. Go to Gregory Eratio blog to see the wall. (I don’t think my poem is on it although I sent it to John sims, the organizer of the reading and in charge of the wall, and asked him to add it to the wall.

Recently I also wrote the following:

. insigh(insigh(insigh)t)t)t

I’m not sure what it is. I lean toward believing it “just” the representation of a rilly great insight that expands–and not a mathematical poem although I’d like it to be one.

. . . explan

Entry 118 — Geof Huth’s Collected Pwoermds

Bob Grumman — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:10:02 +0000

I haven’t started my trip yet. My body conked out before I could–some kind of virus, I guess. So I’m still at home. Should be leaving in a couple of days.

I was feeling too lousy to post anything here for two or three days, and wouldn’t today, either, although I feel a lot better. However, today I got a copy of Geof Huth’s NTST, the subtitle of which is the collected pwoermds of geof huth. It’s perfect for a blog entry because I can quote whole poems from it quickly, and because I found some pwoermds I can be quickly insightful about. So, here’s one page:

an/atomy

shadowl

rayns

watearth

upond

psilence

These pwoerds are absolutely representative of the many (hundreds?) pwoermds in the collection, which I mention in case anyone suspects I chose them to show him at his very best. Two thoughts: that he misspelled “psylence,” and that “shadowl” is such an especially good pwoermd that it ought to be on a page by iself. The selections on this page are intended, I’m sure, to be stand-alones, but they also look like and work as a five-line poem. That I find “sahdowl” better clearly by itself is ironic, for I’ve several times opined that while pwoermds could occasionally be terrific, they work best as part of longer poems.

Oddly, I find evidence for this (in my opinion) on the very next page of NTST:

Pebbleslight

stilllllife

I like it much better as “pebbleslight stilllllife.” Of course, with the title (and Geof defines pwoermds as one-word poems without a title), one still reads pebbles into the still life. I just like the linkage closer. I’d like a detail or two more, too–really, I’d like a full-scale haiku using “pebbleslight stilllllife.” Which is absolutely not to say I don’t extremely like the piece exactly as Geof has it.

Oh, NTST was published in England by if p then q (apparently not an offshoot of Geof’s dbqp press). Its website is at www.ifpthenq.co.uk.