Archive for the ‘Announcements’ Category
Entry 434 — More Time Off
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
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I’ve decided I need more time off from my blog. I seem to have less than zero energy, at least for any kind of productive writing or other art-making. Could be gone a week or more, who knows.
Entry 413 — Another Holiday
Thursday, March 31st, 2011
I’ll be out of town for the next couple of days, and recovering from the trip the third, so probably won’t post here again until 4 April. I’ll be visiting with Marton Koppany and Clark Lunberry. Should be fun.
Entry 412 — Commercial Activity of Sorts
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
Just a small announcement: if you go here, you’ll find my new agent’s author’s box for my Shakespeare and the Rigidiks. Whitt Brantley is my agent’s name. I had a nice conversation with him on the phone yesterday. Seems energetic and intelligent–and a nice guy. He’s hoping to sound out some publishers soon about doing something with my book. Fingers crossed but I’m afraid I don’t expect much. Which isn’t a vote of non-confidence in Whitt but in the world.
Entry 411 — An April Gallery
Tuesday, March 29th, 2011
It’s time, I guess, to let everyone know that during April you can view one work daily here from each of the following poets on the days indicated:
1. Eric Zboya
2. Camille Martin
3. Gil McElroy
4. Marton Koppany
5. Matthew Stolte
6. Reed Altemus
7. Satu Kaikkonen
8. mEIKAL aND
9. andrew topel
10. Bob Grumman
11. Helen Hajnoczky
12. Joel Lipman
13. Aileen Beno
14. Vern Frazer
15. Bill DiMichele
16. Chad Lietz
17. Anatol
18. Christine McNair
19. Gary Barwin
20. Pearl Pirie
21. John M. Bennett
22. Marcus McCann
23. Geof Huth
24. John C. Goodman
25. derek beaulieu
26. Megan Zucher
27. Sheila E. Murphy
28. Lily Robert-Foley
29. kevin mcpherson eckhoff
30. Michele Provost.
Yeah, I think the whole idea of National Poetry Month is stupid. The problem, though, is that opportunities to get one’s work in front of others are rare and (too) many of them are connected to National Poetry Month. For instance, the above, and a chance I had locally for an exhibition of my visual poems at a local community college that apparently hasn’t come off, but would only have been possible during National Poetry Month.
Entry 405 — Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Thursday, March 17th, 2011
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Because I’m one-quarter Irish (due in part to the O’Meara family of County Cork), one of whom came here to fight in the Civil War.
I’m not really back. I just thought of a summa of my thinking about art and science that I thought I should make public in case I drop dead before my vacation from my blog is over.
A verosopher’s duty is to attain as good a systematic understanding of existence as he can, and then express it as clearly as he can, which is by far the harder job. An artist’s duty is to attain as good a systematic understanding of existence as he can, and then express it as unclearly as he can so long as he is just clear enough for his most serious engagents to connect to.
I’m not saying anything I haven’t been saying for fifty years, just saying it better, maybe.
Oh, I have an announcement, too: Jake Berry has been kind enough to use six of my poems to inaugarate the Otherstream Unlimited Blog here. They’ve all been here before, except the last. I happen to consider them all major, even the one at the top, which I rate that high because of its cheerful accessibility. Really, in some ways it’s as good as anything I’ve done.
Okay, only the pair just below the top one are major. (I really can’t understand how I was able to make such terrific poems. They sum up just about everything I’ve managed to master of infraverbal, visual and mathematical poetry over the years.) The others are pretty damned good, though.
Entry 404 — On Holiday
Saturday, March 12th, 2011
Maybe it’s only been a few days but I feel like I’ve had to strain to get something into this damned blog every day for weeks. However long it’s been, it’s been more than long enough to convince me I need some offtime from the blog. From life, really. Hmmm, can’t quite literally do that, but I may just take some kind of three- or four-day trip somewhere. Too bad the comic strip museum that was somewhere not far from me closed. That would give me a worthwhile place to go to. Can’t think of any other Florida draw other than Marvin and Ruth’s Miami Archive of visual and concrete poetry, which I haven’t been to since its change-of-address. I could probably find a few other things of interest to visit if I went to it. Meanwhile, though, there’s the visit to Jacksonville in a couple of weeks.
More when my holiday is over, which should be in a week or so.
Entry 362A — An Attempt at a Blog Census
Saturday, January 29th, 2011
I’ve long been curious how many people make a point of visiting my blog now and then. My guess is ten or twelve. I believe I have a counter somewhere but it only counts hits, so is pretty meaningless. I mean, I may have a whole hundred hits by now, but ninety of them may be one-time hits. Or two-time hits, which is no better. Anyway, my idea here is to have a Page called “Poeticks.com Blog Count” with a counter in it.
My hope is that I can get each of you reading this who comes here now and then to visit it just once to record your presence (anonymously).
Thanks, Bob
Entry 349A — An Announcement
Sunday, January 16th, 2011
Go here to see the latest issue of Bill DiMichele’s Tip of the Knife. It has a lot of excellent artwork by Crag Hill, Bill himself, Karl Kempton, Dale Jensen, Peter Ciccariello, Luc Fierens, Christine Tarantino, Iker Spozio, Gary Barwin, and ME–and a prose poem by Harry Polkinhorn as well as interesting essays by Karl, Crag and Dale. I have a mini-essay that was supposed to be fifty words or less but turned out to be 56 words, I don’t know how–except that I no longer seem able to balance my checking account, so probably just miscounted. My poems are a set of four in homage to E. E. Cummings, one for each of the seasons. They are visiomathecryptographic poems! Yow!
Entry 347 — A Statement of Principles
Friday, January 14th, 2011
I’m a bit fed up with being accused so often of self-aggrandizement as a specialist in poetics by those against my ideas. Hence, this statement of principles:
My aims as a specialist in poetics are:
1. to give all significant objects of study in the field effective names. If such a name already exists for a given object, fine. If not, I’ll make one up. By “effective name,” I mean one that is as non-judgmental as possible, one that suggests what it means as directly as possible, and one that is as short as possible and reasonably easy to pronounce. Doing all of that is extremely difficult.
2. to give each significant object of study in the field a clear, objective definition that, as much as possible, differentiates it from all like objects, keeping in mind that it will be impossible to do this perfectly because of the borblur problem. Most of the time these definitions will be those of others, but if I find all previous definitions I’ve encountered to be flawed, or find an object undefined, I will make up my own definition–and put it up for critique, always.
3. to place all the significant objects of study in the field into a rationally, objectively designed taxonomy that, as much as possible, shows how those objects interrelate.
4. to build as good a poetics as I can based on the definitions and the taxonomy that result–because poetics is knowledge of poetry, poetry is something of value, and knowledge about something of value is itself valuable.
5. to provide a poetics of value to the world, whether it considers it of value or not, although I would prefer it did. Yes, I would like recognition, but that is extremely secondary to me. It would be almost irrelevant to me if not for the difficulty of getting material support for one’s activities without it.
I am not out to force my ideas on others, just to make them aware of them so their feedback will help me improve the ones needing improvement, and circulate the ones not needing improvement to the good of the field.
Entry 327 — Runaway Spoon Press Publication
Monday, December 27th, 2010
Just can’t get anything done. Today’s excuse was three hours spent on errands, the chief one at Office Depot spending two hours (and almost a hundred dollars) to run off copies of the pages of this year’s only Runaway Spoon Press title, my own 20-page A Preliminary Taxonomy of Poetry. It’s not very good but better than anything else in the field by far. (Is there anything else in the field?) $10 a copy, but free to anyone asking for it who sends me his name and address.
Now, as a special bonus, another of my immortal sayings: A verosopher whom no academic familiar with his work considers a crank is almost certainly a mediocrity. Absolutely nothing new in my point of view there.