Thursday, August 27, 2009

Charles Bernstein on "disjuncture"

From My Way: Speeches and Poems:

(I like the idea of semi-autonomy as opposed to disjuncture. The paragraphs can't really stand alone. They're dependent on what comes before and after. But, still, they have some qualities of autonomy or completeness. A bit like you and me after all.) ...

Of course, I'm not scanning a single discrete object or scene. But the idea of torquing or twisting or permuting or turning or curving of angles or points of view gives you some idea of the prose prosody I'm proposing.
Now a turn or curve--that's not disjuncture. The elements are related. It's not collage.--You're driving down the street and you take a right turn. You feel the turning, the contingency of the connection as you switch directions. Or you could drive into a traffic circle and come back to where you were. You're going down the road and hit a traffic circle and loop back around to the road you were just on, except, looking at it from the other direction, it doesn't seem the same, as if it ever could. I retrace my steps to where I started, and then I realize that the essay must over.
So that's different from the rupture of radical or extrinsic parataxis, which provides a different kind of modulation, contour, and discontinuity. The relation between paragraphs is more about continuity than discontinuity but it allows a shift in its path while still continuing on, still relating to what happened before.

Friday, August 14, 2009

naïve poetry statement of the day:

Joseph Duemer said:
Scientists have little trouble determining what is and what is not science. Is poetic discourse fundamentally different?

My respective responses to those sentences are "wat?" and "yes".

Thursday, August 13, 2009

To the last 6 people who found my blog from Google searches:

just trying to be helpful:

porno hgei:
Did you perhaps mean "porno hygiene"? Here is a video of pornstar Belladonna talking about that.

slow rap to listen to at work: Hmm, not really my thing for the most part. I'd recommend Lil Wayne right away. A little more old school, I'd recommend De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, and older Kilo. The Blue Scholars can be pretty chill if you like "alternative" hip-hop. If you're looking for more recent stuff, I guess Twista, T.I., T-Pain might be people you want to check out (Akon and Chris Brown too, but they're not strictly rappers).

blogspot communist poem: I suppose that yes, this might be how Glen Beck would describe my blog. Here is a list (by a local Ypsilanti politician) of things that are communist. I think it's a poem. I like that my blog is the number 1 hit for the search term "communist things".

do i have to learn latin to be a writer: God no, I'm so sorry anyone told you that.

ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd xxxexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx: Hard to say what you might be looking for. For some reason, the number one search term that brings people to my blog is a long unbroken string of dddddd's. I mean, I did that poem where I "walked" home using the WASD directional keys, but for some reason no hits for long unbroken stings of W's or A's, and only a couple for sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Weird.

take the mustache back from hipsters:
Dude, no. This is not going to work. I suppose you could try to get frat boys to grow mustaches, but really, your attempt to make the mustache into a "sincere" style will only make it more ripe for hipster parody later. Just relax and kick back with whatever facial hair makes you happy. Or you could do what I did when I had a mustache: Go through fire academy just to get away with the non-hipster stache. I mean, you think I did that shit to get a job? In Michigan? I'd have to be a complete moron to think that were even possible.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

3:57 PM me: chiang
3:58 PM nevermind
Theresa: oh okay. i'll put it out of my head.

18 minutes
4:16 PM Theresa: this has probably been done before, but I'm writing poems made of youtube comments
if anything, its a real blast to retype these al out
me: that's called flarf
Theresa: oh righto
4:17 PM me: no
whatever
Theresa: do they do that all the damn time?
me: not really
Theresa: oh good
I mean, I don't mind flarfing
I think its awesome
me: don't worry
Theresa: just I dont wanna be all like oh look at me, I'm doing something over and over again
me: are you mixxing them, or just taking some lines heres and there
4:18 PM Theresa: EAch videos comment thread is a poem
me: ah,
tha's more conceptual poetry
4:19 PM Theresa: where are you drawing the line?
me: why do i have to?
Theresa: just for my own knowledge
you don't need to, I was just curious
me: but ok, i'll try
Theresa: i wasn't saying it bitchy like, I was saying it curious like
me: the emphasis is on you as a reader
4:20 PM so conceptual
you're not changing it in any way, just appropriating
Theresa: ah ok, and flarf is more like a remix?
me: i like your style of casual conceptual poetry
yeah
it's collage, but not even necessarily
4:21 PM sometimes it's "composed"
there aren't really necessarily any standards
but it's certainly a new creation
Theresa: sure. you'd hope movments like this aren't created by hard and fast rules
me: right
4:22 PM Theresa: but what I'm trying to do through this is to displace text from its original location in order to get the reader to read it differently then they normally would, so by your definition, i'd say deffo conceptual
me: but even my rashboy poem is too close to the sources to be flarf in my opinion
yeah
fosho
4:24 PM Theresa: I think I want to do a whole series of just youtube comments from videos of people popping zits
this one is the best
4:25 PM me: nice\
4:26 PM Theresa: K i posted it, if you wanna check it out
I'll probably do more later
4:30 PM I'm never eating union rings again
these are great

7 minutes
4:38 PM Theresa: yeah union rings was my fav
4:39 PM me: pretty awesome

15 minutes
4:54 PM Theresa: what are shoooe doing?
4:56 PM me: i was thinking of writing more about dumb arguments about flarf then i realized that i hate myself
Theresa: oh god
4:57 PM sounds like a nice afternoon
I tihnk your flarfuments are exciting
4:58 PM me: i'm glad you think so
really
4:59 PM i had a weird exchange with someone yesterday.
it's mostly short
5:00 PM Theresa: can I go pee first, and then read it?
me: you don't even have to read it

26 minutes
5:26 PM Theresa: read it
5:27 PM it seems liek in comment threads you always end up being the apologetic one
maybe just to avoid being a dbag like everyone else. though this guy didn't seem liek an ass.
me: yeah, i was there more cause it was someone else's blog who i didn't know,
no, not an ass at all
5:28 PM but i's kinda rolling my eyes as i apologized
Theresa: oh you should have done the "rolling my eyes" sign
it's like ooOOoo
me: cause i'd said what i meant 3 times and i don't know if it went over his head or what
5:29 PM to say something isn't "significant in an innovative sense" is an entirely modernist thing to say
5:30 PM Theresa: yeah and I feel like it makes sense what he's saying
me: which is fine, but he then claimed not to be assessing flarf in terms of modernist values
Theresa: that flarf isn't innovative, and that's okay, because we don't need innovation
oh okay
I see
5:31 PM me: it's not even that we don't "need" innovation (in my view), it's that innovation is a veil, it's a conceit
Theresa: though does that rtrrffrfffffffffffgggggggggggfffffreally nulliy his point?
5:32 PM sorry trying to get my f key back in
5:34 PM ugh so frustrating
me: i don't mean to nulliy his point, but it seems weird to use modernist terms to judge flarfs "significance"
5:35 PM Theresa: i got avocado on it so I pulled it out to wipe it off and now I can't get it back in
however, I can still push the f key
me: weird
yeah
Theresa: fff
me: fff
Theresa: i think it's just that I don't know what I'm doing
oh dammit. now I think it's broken
5:36 PM me: jfrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrf
I just took off my f key and put it back on
no problem
Theresa: rddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
5:37 PM that was me trying to get it back in
me: just press it down, what's the dillio
Theresa: cthere's these little white brackets
me: yeah
put key in place press down
Theresa: and they won't really hook on ina sensical way
5:38 PM I mean I see how they're supposed to go, but they aren't doing it
me: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
5:41 PM gchat keeps saying your typing, but you're really just failing to put your key back into your keyboard, "theresa has entered text"
Theresa: dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddvggdddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddvrggggggggggggggggggdgvccfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffrrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
thats what I've been saying
me: yeah, that's what i thought
Theresa: ffffffffffffffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffffffffit should
5:42 PM it should say "Theresa is failing to put her in f key in correctly"
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffnow it's hal in
crrrccc
me: i'm sure google is watching now and will make the proper adjustmenst in the future
o god goo
Theresa: oh good
me: d
Theresa: I almost put it back in upside down
5:43 PM me: ha ha
5:44 PM Theresa: vddrdddddddddddddddrit's really gross the things taht are inside keyboards
urghr
me: yup
5:45 PM are you cleaning your keyboard now?
5:46 PM Theresa: vrtdrdgddggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggi'm sort od bvlowing on it as I go
"od" isbecasue I can't push the "gh" key right now
"gh" is a subsitute
"d" is also subsituting
5:47 PM me: hopefully bvlowing is what you meant though, cause it works better
i am saying it right now over and over
bvlowing
bvlowing
bvlowing
donw
done
5:48 PM Theresa: ddddddddddddddd
I'm so fucking frustrated right now
pushing on the little f nipple
me: thatsucks
5:49 PM i thought it was in, but looking back you said now it's hal in, which probs meant half
i mean, it should just snap in
by pressing it
down
5:50 PM Theresa: gvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvrffgrrrcccfdgffffffffffffffgrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffdfffffffffffffffrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
not snapping
like I have the hooky end in
me: rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
5:51 PM just took mine out again and put it back
just follow those letters and it should work for you
your problem is you keep going gvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvrffgrrrcccfdgffffffffffffffgrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffdfffffffffffffffrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
which is wrong
5:52 PM Theresa: hm good point
so focus ont he r
rrrfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffg
ian's here I'm goinna to let him look at
me: he'll fix it immedieatly cause he's a genius
a computer hardware wizard

6 minutes
5:59 PM me: hows it looking
6:01 PM Theresa: rr vDD D GgDFDDDDRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGDFFDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRVVVVVD3FFDMDDDDDMDDDDggggggggggdDDD
me: no no no
that's wrong
6:02 PM it's rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
though capslock was a good idea

15 minutes
6:18 PM Theresa: fffffffffffffffffffffffffrfcrrcffffffffffffffffdfdffFFFFDGddddGGgggeseeggVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGCCgxdDDesssssDXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSddeddgsgGGGGGGGGGGQBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABDBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBEDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDBBHDDDDDDDDDDDHBH 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 dd dvctdddddddddddddddddddddddrrvttttttttrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrvvdgkklkpo9ooooo0oo9z.ddddddvvvvvvvvvvv.vvvvrvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvdvvrrfffffffffffffffffffffdffr
me: ending on r doesn't look good

28 minutes
6:47 PM me: aight
i'm out


These messages were sent while you were offline.

7:35 PM Theresa: gfff rcgcgldddgdxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxsxsxssccxcxcxccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccdgcgdx,gxxmxzzzzzzzzscCZKKqa,,g,1dkkddddkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkggcccccccccevdugGddddddddddddddddddddddddddddGHgggggggggggggggggggggggggdddddddddddddddddidddddddddddCDCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCXXXERGDXGGD ffgDgDDDDDDDDDRDRbdDdDDGDg9ggggggggggggggggggggdGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGX CFggdcrrcgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggnjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjgnggggggggggggggggggggggggggdBdrbbhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhdCCRRCggggggggggggggggvvvvvvgvgdfddddddddddddddddddXDCdggfddx,ggd,d,DDDDDDDD,G,,,,,,nkgnknnknndcraccccccccccccddcddcgdd,
he eventually fixed it
so in honor of it being functional
fuck you you fucking fuck

Sunday, August 9, 2009

disjunction clarification

I didn't mean to suggest, as it may have seemed in my last post, that I think that there weren't important changes taking place in modernist poetry.

I just think with all this talk of whether disjunction is dead or alive or whatever, it's important to note that what's different in modernism is not the presence of disjunction, but the conscious portrayal of disjunction.

Friday, August 7, 2009

some thoughts on disjunction

Kenny Goldsmith, Anne Boyer, and Nada Gordon are talking about "disjunction".


--when I write blogs or "prose", it is when I am collaging material together the most. I write sentences and ideas as they occur to me. I stop one thought in the middle to go start another one, then stop writing that one to go finish the initial one. Then I sort of copy and paste these random thoughts together. None of my blogs show you sentences as I originally conceived of them. And this is "normal". Most people write like this (at least to some extent).

--The experience of reading my poetry, on the other hand, is so disjunct precisely because they tend to be linear representations of my writing process.

--There can ever be any poem so disjointed that it doesn't become a pattern when it is read a second time.

--I think "disjuntion" is too unspecific, especially when applied to Modernism as we often want to do. It is wrong, I think, to say that what is unique about, say, the Waste Land is that it draws upon multiple "disjunct" sources and collages them together.

I mean, this is the foundation of language, the metaphor. Take two dissimilar things and compare them for the purpose of creating more meanings.

--I seriously doubt that an given Shakespeare play draws from less disjunct sources than T.S. Eliot.

--As I'm writing this, The Waste Land seems much more like an early expression of globalization than an early expression of "disjunction".

--Modernism was not, then, the era of "disjunction". Rather, modernism expanded the repertoire of junctions that language/art/poetry is "allowed" to make.

and "changed" might actually be a better word to use than "expanded".


--What bothers me on some level about the words "junction" and "disjunction" being used to describe poetry/language/etc. is that it implies that there is some "true" or "real" fabric that is being cut up and spliced together in various ways.

It gives this idea that a collage is somewhat less of a "real thing" than the things it splices together.

As if language were "whole" before modernism.

--In my reading, what the modern/post-modern poetries do is not make language disjunct, but embrace language as disjunct.

In this sense, I don't read Kenny Goldsmith saying "disjunction is dead" as meaning that the disjunct experience of language is dead. Rather what is "dead" is the need to constantly portray language as disjunct.

--Language, whether it is in "normative syntax" or "disjunct syntax" is entirely fabricated.

--Disjunction seems to have more to do with the experience of a thing rather than with the thing's making.

________
_____

Modernism/postmodernism failed, on some level, to reveal language as constant disjunction.

This is seen at some level in the poetry of the American Hybrid, whose editors set up this dichotomy between pure "sense" (inhabited by the "SOQ" and "traditional" poetries) and pure "nonsense" (inhabited by "experimentalists" and langpo). By identifying a "hybrid", what really happens is that a conservative view of language/poetry tradition as a stable structure is reestablished.

And by creating such forcefully disjunct reading experiences, modernism/postmodernism actually (albeit unwittingly) enforced the idea that everything before was "whole" and "coherent".

That's not intended to be a "calling out" of modernism/postmodernism. I tend to love what I just called "forcefully disjunct reading experiences". It's just that I reject the characterization of disjunction as having been new or unique to the modern period.

anyway...

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

memorabilia

mmmmmmmmmmm
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
mmmmmmmmmmm

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
mmmmmmmmmmm

re-fusing notions that refuse is not entertaining

from Adam Fieled's Blog responding to Nada Gordon about Flarf's "value":

"I refuse to entertain the notion that good art does not need to be memorable. Period."

__________
_______

some problems:

"I" refuse to entertain the notion that good art does not need to be memorable. Period.
I "refuse" to entertain the notion that good art does not need to be memorable. Period.

I refuse to "entertain" the notion that good art does not need to be memorable. Period.

I refuse to entertain "the notion" that good art does not need to be memorable. Period.

I refuse to entertain the notion that "good art" does not need to be memorable. Period.

I refuse to entertain the notion that good art does not "need" to be memorable. Period.

I refuse to entertain the notion that good art does not need to be "memorable." Period.

I refuse to entertain the notion that good art does not need to be memorable. "Period."
I refuse to entertain the notion that good art does not need to be memorable. "Period".
I refuse to entertain the notion that good art does not need to be memorable"." Period"."

. Period.

that's PERIOD SPACE "Period" PERIOD


I refuse to entertain the notion that I do not, at any given moment, entertain a notion that I had previously refused to entertain.
I refuse to entertain the notion that I can remember what notions I was supposed to be refusing and why it was that I was supposed to be refusing them.

I refuse the notion of "memorable", but will gladly "entertain" it (no period

. . .

Is this is a proposition that there is a direct correlation between "memorable" and "good". Can we use google trends to figure out what art is the best?

Is there no great art that is not remembered?

If there is great art that has been lost, perhaps there is not a necessary correlation between how "remembered" a work is and how "memorable" it is?

Does a poem that is "memorable" upon one reading necessarily have more value as "good art" than a poem that needs to be read twice?

How is "memorability" not completely reliant on a given power system's promotion?

How can how "memorable" something is tell us anything more than the biases of whatever individual or group that "remembers"?

. . .

I fuse to "entertain" the notion that "good art does not need to be memorable": Period.

and because it just won't stick:

I re-fuse to "entertain" the notion that "good art does not need to be memorable": Periods...