Entry 568 — Curriculum Vitae for Upcoming Show
Bob Grumman
Bio: as of the beginning of 2012
Born 2 February 1941, Norwalk, Connecticut. Graduate of California State University, Northridge, with a Bachelor of Arts in English. Worked for about 13 years as a substitute teacher in Charlotte County, mainly at Charlotte High School in Punta Gorda, Florida. Previously worked as a factory worker and security guard in Norwalk, pharmacy helper (in the US Air Force), and computer operator in North Hollywood CA. Began composing visual poetry around 1965, and made his first mathematical poem sometime in the early 1970′s. Participant in international mail art since 1985. Represented in a number of university libraries and the Ruth and Marvin Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry in Miami. Considerations of his work have appeared in Meat Epoch, Factsheet Five, Taproot Reviews and elsewhere. Reference books concerned with him and his visual poetry include Volume 25 of the Contemporary Authors Autobiographical Essays series (Gale research, Detroit: 1996) and A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes (Schirmer Books, New York: 2000). Since around 2001 become more concerned with exhibiting his works as a visual artist than publishing them as a poet, and has contributed to a number of collective shows in visual art galleries.
Lives at 1708 Hayworth Road, Port Charlotte FL 33952.
Professional Positions
Columnist for Lost and Found Times, 1994 to 2009, when the magazine ceased publication
Contributing Editor for Small Magazine Review, 1993 to present
Contributing Editor for Poetic Briefs, 1992-1997
Columnist for Factsheet Five, 1987-1992
Publisher, The Runaway Spoon Press (RASP), 1983 to present
Co-Editor with Crag Hill of two anthologies, Vizpo auf Deutsch (1995) and Writing to be Seen (2001)
Editor of 12 Colorborations (2004)
Editor of Visio-Textual Selectricity (2008)
Professional Affiliations
Member, the National Book Critics Circle, the National Coalition of Independent Scholars, the Peace River Writers Center, the Charlotte County Visual Art Center, the Port Charlotte Tuesday Writers’ Group
Representative Shows
IV Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual/Experimental, 1993 Monterrey, Mexico
Paradise Mail Art Exhibition, Belfast, Ireland, c. 1995
V Bienal Internacional de Poesia Visual/Experimental, 1996, Mexico City
Visuelle Poesie, Berlin, 1997
VI Bienal Internacional de Poesia Experimental, 1999, Mexico City
02txt, Art Academy of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2002
An American Avant Garde: Second Wave, Ohio State University Libraries, Columbus, Ohio, 2002
Writing To Be Seen, New York Center for Book Arts, 2002
Writing To Be Seen, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis, February 2003
WordSeen Diana Lowenstein Gallery, Miami, March 2003
Others in Edmonton, Beacon NY, Port Charlotte FL, Miami, Australia . . .
Publication Credits:
Score, Kaldron, Lost & Found Times, Modern Haiku, The Experioddicist, Transmog, Meat Epoch, Industrial Sabotage, The Subtle Journal of Raw Coinage, Juxta, The New Orleans Review, Kalligram (Budapest, 2000), Das Haupt (Kiel, Germany, 1995), Freie Zeit Art (Vienna, 1992), Sub Bild (HeidelBerg, 1991), Das Haupt (Kiel, Germany, 1995) and numerous other zines and magazines. Also poetry (mathemaku) and a critical essay (on contemporary minimalist poetry) on-line at Karl Young’s light&dust website.
Books and Chapbooks
Poemns (visual haiku), privately-printed, 1966; reprinted by RASP, 1997
A StrayngeBook (a children’s book), Score Publications, 1987
An April Poem (visual poetry), RASP, 1989
Spring Poem No. 3,719,242 (visual poetry), RASP, 1990
Of Manywhere-at-Once (memoir), RASP, 1990; 2nd edition, 1991; 3rd edition, 1998
Mathemaku 1 – 5 (mathematical poetry), Tel-let, 1992
Barbaric Bart Meets Batperson and her Indian Companion Taco (a play), Stage Whisper, 1992
Barbaric Bart Visits God (a play), Abscond Press, 1993
Rabbit Stew, an Excerpt (a play), Hairy Labs Publishing Company, 1994
Mathemaku 6 – 12 (mathematical poetry), Tel-let, 1994
Of Poem (conventional poetry), dbqp press, 1995
Mathemaku 13 – 19 (mathematical poetry), Tel-let, 1996
min. kolt., matemakuk (translation of mathematical poetry), Budapest: Kalligram, 2000
Xerolage 30 (visual and mathematical poetry), Xexoxial Editions, 2001
Doing Long Division in Color (mathematical poetry), RASP, 2001
Mathemaku 20 – 24 (mathematical poetry), Tel-let, 2003)
Cryptographiku 1- 5 (cryptographic poetry), Tel-let, 2003
Excerpts from Poem’s Search for Meaning (conventional poetry), Sticks Press (on the Internet), 2004
Greatest Hits 1966–2005 (mixture of poetries), Pudding House, 2006
Shakespeare and the Rigidniks (theoretical psychology), RASP, 2006
From Haiku To Lyriku (literary criticism), RASP, 2007
April to the Power of the Quantity Pythagoras Times Now (collection of mathemaku), Otoliths, 2007
This Is Visual Poetry (visual Poetry), chapbookpublisher, 2010
Poem Demerging (conventional poetry), Phrygian Press, 2010.
A Preliminary Taxonomy of Poetry (Poetics), RASP, 2011.
Anthologies
Visuelle Poesie aus den USA (Germany: 1995)
a haiku celebration of fall (Napanee, Ontario: Haiku Canada,1996)
WORD SCORE UTTERANCE CHOREOGRAPHY (London: Writers Forum, 1998)
Loose Watch (London: Invisible Books, 1998)
The Secret Life of Words (San Diego: Teaching Resource Center, 2000)
Another South (Tuscaloosa AL: The University of Alabama Press, 2002)
A Brief Artist’s Statement
I’ve long composed visual poems–poems, that is, that do things visually that are as important as what they say verbally. In the past few years, I’ve become almost exclusively a composer of mathematical visual poems–visual poems, that is, that are as mathematical as they are visual and verbal. My aim with these “mathemaku,” as I call them, is to play mathematical elements off the (hopefully rich) sensory effects of painted images and poetic phraseology. My main hope for them is simply that they come across as visually appealing. But it’d be great if they also jolted an observer or two into interesting new experiences beyond the visual alone–or the verbal or mathematical alone.
–Bob Grumman, 25 December 2002
Diary Entry for 18 November 2011, 9:30 A.M.: I just ran out of gas, but expect to get back in gear before too long. I listed my fifteen framed pieces. I thought I had seventeen but was probably counting three in those cardboard frames I can’t remember the name of–and forgot to count another. My next exhibition chore should be easy: just write at least one short commentary daily on each piece I’ll be using (I don’t expect to use all the ones presently framed–some I’ll replace, and I hope to frame a few more piece).
3 P.M.: I have now made two commentaries of framed mathematical poems. I feel good about them, and semi-ready to do more. But I have to work on my book at some point, and I don’t wanna. (I hate to admit it, but I’m playing Civilization daily again. I’ve won my last two games and am doing well in my latest. So far I’ve rarely done more than dip into it while waiting for downloads, or resting from some reall accomplishment like one of my poetry commentaries.)
Final note: I did get an adequate amount of work done on my book. I’m still not done with the socioplex, but should be in two days at the very most. Meanwhile, I have new term to announce: “conseplex” for “consequential knowleplex.” This I needed to represent a vocation or avocation that is at or near the center of a person’s life. Every conspiranoid has one, one the conspiranoid is attached with exceptional intensity to.
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