Column105 — May/June 2011
Internet Samplings, Part Two
Small Press Review,
Volume 43, Numbers 5/6, May/June 2011
Serif of Nottingblog
Blogger: Gary Barwin
http://serifofnottingham.blogspot.com
National Poetry Month
Web-Master: Amanda Earl
http://nationalpoetrymonth.ca
http://www.angelhousepress.com
textimagepoem
Blogger: Jim Leftwich
http://jimleftwichtextimagepoem.blogspot.com
Nonlinear Poetry/Machine Language
Blogger: Jukka-Pekka Kervinen
http://nonlinearpoetry.blogspot.com
http://nlpoetry.livejournal.com
http://jukkapekkakervinen.blogspot.com
I’m not sure, but my impression is that the micro-press has been almost entirely replaced by a huge number of blogs and websites, some of them (like mine) with audiences of no more than ten or twenty. The “micro-net?” In any event, like the micro-press before it, the micro-net is where 96% of the most innovative poetry is being displayed and discussed. Don’t expect to read about them in print anywhere but here.
One that specializes in minimalist infra-verbal poetry that is also often visual is Gary Barwin’s Serif of Nottingblog. Its chief virtue, for me, is its infraverbal poetry, for instance, a poem one of the three stanzas of which is “w(and/or)d.” Another pwoermd (or one-word poem in Geof Huth’s lexicon, and–for a long time now–mine, as well (and Barwin’s) that is part of a series is almost “huh?” but its u has been replaced by an upside-down h, which–in the particular font used–looks exactly like a u except for its downward stem–to wonderfully capture the essense of “huh?” Then there are “ywhy, ewher, wh^t, wh en,” and “who” spelled with an upside-down m in place of its w. I fear it takes a special kind of mind to appreciate these, to feel the “who-ness” of the “who” viscerally, which is a primary function of poetry, for instance, rather than read it without possessing it in any way.
Barwin does much else at his blog (practically daily!), often combining photogaphs and pwoermds or ordinary words. He reviews a range of material, too, including at least once a political speech.
Needless to say, I had to discuss something here with a poem of mine in it. The one-artwork-a-day gallery for National Poetry Month that Amanda Earl of Angel House Press, supervised is it. My “Cursive Mathemaku No. 1″ is 10 April’s selection. As I recall, I made it in about an hour–after working for days on another making similar use of cursive words for important display in Modern Haiku, that doesn’t seem anywhere near as good as this one.
The other artists with work in this gallery, in order of appearance, skipping me, are: Eric Zboya, Camille Martin, Gil McElroy, Marton Koppany, Matthew Stolte, Reed Altemus, Satu Kaikkonen, mEIKAL aND, andrew topel, Bob Grumman, Helen Hajnoczky, Joel Lipman,Aileen Beno, Vern Frazer, Bill DiMichele, Chad Lietz, Anatol, Christine McNair, Gary Barwin, Pearl Pirie, John M. Bennett, Marcus McCann,,Geof Huth, John C. Goodman,,derek beaulieu, Megan Zucher, Sheila E. Murphy, Lily Robert-Foley, kevin mcpherson eckhoff and Michele Provost. A lot of first-rate stuff here, although as often as not, not visual poetry (which I continue claiming ought to have words at its center).
Angel House Press, which is responsible for the gallery, includes a store for chapbook sales, but also an essay series, and has an annual online pdf magazine at www.experiment-o.com.
John Crouse and Jim Leftwich have countless short poems called “Acts” at Leftwich’s blog, extimagepoem. Here’s a randomly-chosen sample:
ACT SIX THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED EIGHTY FOUR
rodent sermon softball: “remember began named”
solemn havoc software: “turn heart immense”
sudden amphibian judgment: “patiently with ten”
sailboat overcoat salamander: “with another then”
occasions missionary mittens: “order every at”
incinerator indent hatching: “broken golden handed”
babies essence esophagus: “knew idea three”
essays ketchup alligator: “pioneered many purpose”
hallelujah almanac windmill: “mind february sessions”
winces audiences wigwams: “all thinking inches”
wreck willow puffin: “speed tone playing”
pulley pulpit pumpernickel: “into suffering mind.”
A dada word-collage. I have to admit that I don’t know what to make of it. That some kind of church service may be going on I infer from “sermon” in line one and “pulpit” in the last line, and “missionary” and “hallelujah” later on–which makes “ten” possibly refer to the Ten Commandments? While we remember Genesis, the “began named?” A fun playground of verbal music and sharp images to associate off of. More I can’t say.
Leftwich also has a number of non-representational photographs that I assume have been computer-manipulated at the site. I find most of them visually arresting, even appealing, but can’t figure out why Poems 2011 is the general title he’s given them.
A gorgeous tropical-seeming work of abstract-expressionism by Peter Ganick & Jukka-Pekka Kervinen is on the home page of Kervinen’s nonlinearpoetry blog. Above it we are told he’s moved the blog to nlpoetry.livejournal; some quite beautiful (2008) abstract-expressionist textual designs by Kervinen are there, but at the top of the page we’re told he’s moved his blog again, this time to jukkapekkakervinen. There we find more textual designs and texts like the following:
*g$JTs
fbKbOgr+
HZ6bW2C&DAO
L
Ad”k&
)r=C
P@
0+
9DX7
Qq
&hATVEiPX”
Now, it happens that I did a brief question and answer with Kervinen at otherstreamunlimited.com about works like this. Me: “I feel slow, but is what you do, Jukka, is write a program that generates a text, which becomes your artwork? If that’s the case, mustn’t the program build the final text from something else–a preliminary text or at least collection of symbols or something?
Taxonomically, it seems to me (so far) that your poems of this kind are found texts that your programs take you to, but I think of such texts as being like texts resulting from, say, textual matter gathered from a book or other source by means of some formula . . . But you say you don’t have a preliminary text, which is where I’m confused.”
Jukka: “Yes, that’s what I do, all the time, write programs which generate texts (as well images, music, videos etc). For these texts, no, there are no preliminary texts, dictionaries or collection of symbols. Just numbers, the program generates numbers according the rules I’ve made, the numbers are converted to characters (ASCII, or equivalent, there are many different character set in old 8-bit computers I use). There are many types of programs I write for generating texts, some of them use dictionaries and/or other sources, however my “goal” has always been standalone abstract, cybernetic machines, which generate everything, without any sources, just the machine (and, unfortunately–me, choosing (what to keep in) the (resulting) texts, although I’ve developed various means to eliminate my intuitive selection process as well). Hope I’m not confusing more :)”
I think I understand him.