Archive for the ‘John M. Bennett’ Category
Entry 763 — More on “Vege Moco”
Friday, June 8th, 2012
John let me know that the title of the work of his I featured yesterday, “veg moco,” means “vegsnot.” “Moco” being something like Mucus? In any event, it reminded me of something about John’s poetry that I am very well aware of but almost always forget when in my Deft Critic Mode: his sense of humor–and inclination to be “anti-poetic” when “poetic” is thought of as sunny days, sunsets, and flowers in bloom. I think the critic in me is so wedded to the rather extreme lyrical poet I tend to be that I find my kind of poetry in any poem by another that I like. But I also have trouble as a critic in working out a rationale for the effectiveness of his work in spite of his what he does seemingly to sabotage it! Here’s my rough, hot off the griddle, attempt to come to terms with this: his humor, and dada rejection of pretentiously high, “beautful” art–two different aspects, I believe, though often fusing–are just extra flavors in an art struggling through, or out of, the kind of pre-human zone (a source-wound?) I believe most of Bennett’s works begin in. Ink/muck bleeding toward some uncertain goal, constantly running into rocks or ideas that scrape colors or squelched symbols or hostile/genial jokes or even possible understandings off them, but celebrating, finally, the quest to get somewhere by any means.
Do I know what I’m talking about? You got me.
Personal news: I recently bought some more books at my local library’s used bookstore. One was Anthony Adverse, for the heck of it becauwse I’d heard of it for many years, and it was only a dollar. On the back were blurbs not about the novel but about reading, by famous writers. One was By Edward Gibbon: “The use of reading is to aid us in thinking.” I immediately thought, “The use of thinking is to aid us in reading.” It then occurred to me that, when reading an aphorism, I almost always at once want to contradict it. Are others like that? You can’t step in the same river more than once; every river you step into is the same one.
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Entry 762 — “Vege Moco”
Thursday, June 7th, 2012
I’m sneaking through my vow of a daily blog entry by copying in a new work by John M. Bennett that happened into my Inbox a little while ago–as many works by Dr. Bennett do. This is just another work of his–I like it quite a bit, but no more than I like probably 463 others of his every year, when I have time to give them a proper look/read. Many are like this one: pen&ink, with cut-outs from newspapers and magazines; usually fragments of words. Callugriphy inimitably Bennettical. The origin of almost all he does seems at the bottom of his reptilian brain, or lower, but ascending, struggling to express Final Thoughts. I’ve more than once called him the Jackson Pollock of American Poetry, but–alas–with no Peggy Guggenheim, and only me as a Clement Greenberg.
This is life–seaweed, maybe. I perceive a distribution of seeds going on. It’s definitely loco. For the second day in a row my inability to read Spanish limits me. But I suspect the Spanish texts are no closer to normal meaningfulness than “Vege Moco” is. But this incompolete meaninfulness (conventional meaningfulness) feels serene to me–quietly, biologically transcending attempts of languages to grasp parts of it. On a pleasant summer day, I’m sure. Something that finds a mood in you you didn’t know you had. And is different from the mood it finds in just about anybody else.
Note: Bennett’s art is so much his life, from the minorest to the majorest parts of it, that few units of it aren’t significantly enhanced by their context–each is almost a frame from an incredibly long-running movie, so contains much of the preceding frame and the one to come–is itself and what it was and will be.
I seem to have written a blurb. Just trying again to pin the sucker down, folks. Someday I will!!!
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Entry 633 — Kinds of Poetry, Again
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
At Spidertangle there’s been a discussion of how visual poetry sells. Poorly, needless to say. Along the way, John M. Bennett said, “Yes, the discussions about vispo can sometimes be interesting – a game, as you say – – – tho i think what they tend to miss is that the poetry we’re trying to create is much more than simply visuality. for me at least, the poem i try to make functions visually, sonorously, textually, conceptually, formally, metaphysically, metaphorically, ambiguously, performatively, etc etc etc and all equally importantly and at the same time. so from that perspective a discussion about vispo or soundpo or whatever misses most of the picture. or, it’s a game, something sui generis, of interest as a kind of thinking in its own category.”
I added: “Further thoughts: that there are two kinds of poetry: people poetry and a different kind I haven’t thought of a good name for. A people poem either states an opinion about human life which those who like the poem like it because they agree with the opinion; or it expresses a human feeling that those who like it empathize with. The other kind may also express an opinion and/or feeling (actually, it can’t avoid doing this to some degree), but has what I think of as larger interests of the kind John listed. The most important of these for me are aesthetic—what the elements of a given poem are doing rather than what they are saying. I think there is only a very small audience for such poetry, similar to the audience for avant garde music or mathematics.”
Entry 597 — Chumpy Leg
Sunday, December 18th, 2011
John M. Bennett has another major collection of poetry out. This one is called The Gnat’s Window. 78 poems. Bilingual. Closely inter-associating sequence. Amazing. I told John I’d try to do a critique of it, and I still hope to once my year-end chaos of chores is behind me, but–gah–John is one of the few poets I feel may be beyond my abilities as a critic, and he’s at his best–and therefore beyondest–in this book. Part of one of the poems, which Diane Keys has found a way to, uh, fatten, in all the best senses, with color, a piece of cloth and some cursive annotations–and the circling of “crumpy leg, is below. It’s from the back cover of John’s book.
Diary Entry
Saturday, 17 December 2011, Noon. Wow, since getting back at eleven from tennis and a McDonald’s snack, I’ve already gotten the day’s blog entry posted, which was easy because it was already done, and made a finished copy of the new version of “Mathemaku for Scott Helmes” at Paint Shop. It’s not the official copy: it’s too small, and the official version will include the original cut-out fragments of magazine ads. There will also be the A&H framed version which will be in between the one I just made and the official version in size.
8 P.M. Since noon I haven’t done much. I printed out two copies of “Mathemaku for Scott Helmes” and scribbled annotations explaining the terms I will put on one that will be on display atthe exhibition. Otherwise, I continued reading started yesterday of the magazines and books I will be reviewing for Small Press Review.
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