Mappemunde

Pattern Variants at AC Institute: Nine Poets and OuLiPo and You

Directed by Buzz Evers

In collaboration with:

Marcella Durand, Paolo Javier, Joanna Fuhrman, Vincent Katz, Anselm Berrigan, Tim Trace Peterson, Adeena Karasick, Jena Osman, Lee Ann Brown

and

Daniel Levin Becker/Writer
Roman Muradov/Illustrator
Max Giteck Duykers/Composer

May 3-May 26, 2012

Writing Installation:
May 24, 10am-1pm
May 25, 6pm-9pm
May 26, 10am-1pm

All exhibitions are free and open to the public.

Contact: info@artcurrents.org

Pattern Variants explores the confluences found within the arts and sciences by harnessing the fundamental principles within poetic form: music, mathematics, and the creative processes of discovery and innovation. Developed as a demonstration project addressing the operating principles of creative exchange surrounding its parent project, Verse in the Circle of Fifths, Pattern Variants offers a menu of collaborative ventures across the visual, performing, and language arts while centered on an in-situ writing experiment grounded in the traditions of linked verse and the constraint driven propensities of the OuLiPo group of poets and writers.

This writing process itself serves as protagonist with the poets converging in strategic word play immersed in the poetics of imaging, game theory and linked verse. Executed over three days (May 24-26), in three hour sessions, the writing exercise brings together nine landmarks chosen by our nine poets, including Harryette Mullen's Muse & Drudge; The Puppet; The Chrysler Building; The Book of Formation; The Hays Code; Moveable Type; New French Feminism; "Sayings Of the High One" from The Poetic Edda; & Breton's 'L'amour fou'.

Charted over nine rotations and composed under the influence of Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millennium: Lightness, Quickness, Exactitude, Visibility, Multiplicity, and Consistency, coupled with our two additional memos, Symmetry and Obscurity, Pattern Variants sets in motion an experiment in creative writing with the liberating uses of form as the catalyst for enabling creative discourse. The writing installation also features our sound design in identifying particular patterns found within the writing schematic added with an undercurrent of percussive vowels in building resonance. The exhibition also features another collaboration involving a series of 3x3 combinative flash fiction grids illustrating our eight memos.

Buzz Evers is an interdisciplinary artist, independent curator, arts administrator, director, and producer. He attended Pitzer College receiving a degree in organizational studies and gravitated toward the arts based on his interest in collaboration and the creative process. His diverse list of experiences include works in the visual, performing, and language arts.

__________________________________________________________

AC Institute

547 W. 27th St. #610 and the AC (Exit Project Space)

New York, NY 10001
Gallery Hours: Tues-Sat: 1-6pm, Thurs: 1-8pm
www.artcurrents.org / info@artcurrents.org

TC Tolbert edits Trans Genre feature in the new issue of Trickhouse

 

I am pleased to have some recent work appearing in TC Tolbert's "trans genre" feature, titled Contanimation, in the new issue of Trickhouse magazine. Appearing along with my vispo piece is work by Samuel Ace, Tre Natro, J/J Hastain, D'lo, Our Lady J, and Nathalie Stephens (Nathanael).

William Bronk in New York: A 2-Day Conference in April at Columbia and NYU

 

"William Bronk in New York"
A Conference on the Life and Work of William Bronk

and

Celebration of the Publication of
Bursts of Light: The Collected Later Poems of William Bronk

Sponsored by

Columbia University, New York University, and Talisman House, Publishers

Friday, April 13, 2012 at New York University
(The Great Room, 1st Floor, 19 University Place
View Map: http://www.mapquest.com/#e6fd6b4dd4e2ad3994773686)

Saturday, April 14, 2012 at Columbia University
(501 Schermerhorn Hall
View Map: http://www.columbia.edu/about_columbia/map/schermerhorn.html)

Free Admission and Open to the Public

*  *  *

Schedule

Friday, April 13th, NYU (The Great Room, 1st Floor, 19 University Place)

William Bronk Correspondences                                                                   10:00
Robert Murphy, “The William Bronk – Robert Murphy Correspondence”
Mark Katzman, “Desire and Denial: The William Bronk – Mark Katzman Correspondence”
Paul Pines, “My Brother in Elysium”

William Bronk and Reader Reception                                                           1:00
Daniel Wolff, “Why Nobody Reads William Bronk”
Stephan Delbos, “Cusp Poet: A Case for William Bronk”
Burt Kimmelman, “The Problem of Pleasure in Reading William Bronk”

William Bronk and Religion                                                                          3:00
David Clippinger, “Bill the Taoist”
Daniel Leary, “The Mystery of Faith in Two Poems by William Bronk”
Ed Foster, “William Bronk and the Reformed Church”

“William Bronk’s Walk by the Canal"                                                          5:00
(a talk by Daniel Leary about his photographs of William Bronk)

Plenary Address                                                                                             6:00
by Henry Weinfield, “[Title TBA]”

Saturday, April 14th, Columbia University (501 Schermerhorn Hall)

William Bronk’s Rhetorical Forms and Figures                                           11:00
Jane Augustine, “The Image in Bronk, Early and Late"
Elisabeth Joyce, “‘another house’: William Bronk’s Contained Spaces”
Joseph Donahue, “The Ones We Meet Asleep: William Bronk and the Limits of Dreaming”
Jonathan Curley, “"Gnostics and Nots: William Bronk's Poetic Questionings”

William Bronk and Nineteenth- Century Writers                                         2:00
Norman Finkelstein, “Bronk, Melville, and the Mild Day”
Carole Stone, “Gender Issues in Emily Dickinson and William Bronk”
Tim Peterson, “The Presumptuous We: Figures of Address in Bronk and Thoreau”

William Bronk and World                                                                             3:45
Sherry Kearns, “The Arts and William Bronk: Response and the Artist”
Eric Hoffman, “‘The Real World’: William Bronk as Nature Poet”
Deborah Diemont, “A Visit to the Ruins: William Bronk, Pablo Neruda, and Octavio Paz”

William Bronk and Reality/Unreality                                                                       5:30
W. Scott Howard, “Apophatic Haecceity: William Bronk and the Analytic Lyric”
James Marian Bober, “The Late Agnostic: God, Sleep and Dreams in the Poetry of William Bronk”
Gerald Schwartz, “From ‘The Sunbeam on the Balcony’ to ‘The Ignorant Lust for Knowledge’: Bronk, Proust, Desire, Beauty and the Reality Veiled”

"String Quartet for Ballet Inspired by Poems by William Bronk"               7:00
(original music by Jonathan Newell, interspersed by recordings of William Bronk reading)
The Silhouette String Quartet, Conducted by Jonathan Newell
Ariana Rosen (violin)
Kate Mollica (violin)
Hannah Hens-Piazza (viola)
Lauren Riley-Rigby (cello)

Readings of William Bronk’s Poetry                                                            8:00
(Closing Ceremony)
Readers (in alphabetical order):
Jane Augustine, Charles Bernstein, Martin Bober, David Clippinger, Jonathan Curley, Stephan Delbos, Deborah Diemont, Joseph Donahue, Norman Finkelstein, Ed Foster, Lyman Gilmore, Michael Heller, Sara Henning, Eric Hoffman, Alan Holder, W. Scott Howard, Susan  Howe, Courtney Hughes, Elisabeth Joyce, Sherry Kearns, Andrew Klobucar, Burt Kimmelman, Basil King, Martha King, Daniel Leary, Ruth Lepson, Robert Murphy, Murat Nemet-Nejat, Peter Nicholls, Geoffrey O'Brien, Michael Perkins, Tim Peterson, Simon Pettet, Paul Pines, Gerald Schwartz, Leonard Schwartz, George Spencer, Carole Stone, James Tolan, Henry Weinfield, Mark Weiss, Daniel Wolff.

 

Reforesting: An Homage to Gil Ott (& release party for Ott collected works, vol 1)

Eli Goldblatt writes:

Join us in February for Reforesting: An Homage to Gil Ott at the Painted Bride Art Center, opening February 3rd.

This is a culmination of years of collaboration with Julia Blumenreich in homage to our friend, the poet Gil Ott, who died in 2004.

You’ll find it surprising, delightful & in all ways a rich experience. We’ll have a book release party for the first volume of Gil’s collected work—A Defined Anarchy: vol 1, Poetry and Fiction (edited by Tim Trace Peterson & Gregory Laynor, published by Chax Press)--on Sunday, February 26 at the Bride.

More information about the event here.

My Top 11 Books of 2011 for Third Factory's Attention Span

I am pleased to participate in Steve Evans' wonderful Attention Span project once again this year. Read my list for 2011 here.

I'm Reading at Queens Library on Nov 3 with R. Zamora Linmark

Filip and EOAGH in the New York Observer

Just a quick note that Filip Marinovich's prescient EOAGH chapbook Wolfman Librarian and the Trembling Pair of Actor Hands is featured in the article "Occupy Wall Street and the Poetry of Now-Time" in the New York Observer.

Wow, we're in Original Plumbing

Original Plumbing Magazine just published an article on the trans/genderqueer anthology (forthcoming from EOAGH Books) that TC Tolbert and I are co-editing.

Read the article here.

Hooray!

Book Party for The Feeling is Actual, by Paolo Javier

Join me tonight at the book party for Queens Poet Laureate and dear friend Paolo Javer's new book, The Feeling is Actual.

I also kinda designed the book so there's that.

The Feeling Is Actual Book Party*
Saturday, October 8
630 pm
F R E E
Bliss on Bliss Art Projects
41-49 45th st, ground floor, 
Sunnyside, Queens
7 train to 46th st
Doorbell on black gate off the NE corner of 43rd Ave.


* BBAP is an intimate space with limited seating. RSVP a.s.a.p. to queenspoetlaureate@gmail.com to secure your spot!

New EOAGH Issue, New Website, New Everything

 
The new issue of EOAGH is going online now. In keeping with the nature of the "social web," this will be a rolling launch. You can see our progress now at:

http://eoagh.com

and check back for new updates--it will be moving and changing fast!

Another easy way to keep track of us is via our Twitter site, to which all new uploads will be posted as they happen.

Look forward to some contributing editors and other new surprises coming up soon!

Open Call: Anthology of Trans & Genderqueer Poetry

OPEN CALL FOR AN ANTHOLOGY OF TRANS & GENDERQUEER POETRY

Dear Author,

We want your words.

What is the project: We are creating an anthology. An anthology of the best poems out there by trans and genderqueer writers and we would love to include your work in the book. Our assumption is that the writing of trans and genderqueer folks has something more than coincidence in common with the experimental, the radical, and the innovative in poetry and poetics (as we idiosyncratically define these categories), and with your help we’d like to manifest that something (or somethings) in a genderqueer multipoetics, a critical mass of trans fabulousness.

This anthology is edited by TC Tolbert and Tim Peterson (Trace)—both trans-identified poets. It will be published by EOAGH Books in early 2012, and you can bet it will be widely distributed!

Deadline for Submissions: Nov 30, 2011
What to Submit: 7-10 pages of poetry, and a prose “poetics” statement (see below)
Where to Submit: email us at transanthology@gmail.com

More information at the book website (including more details about what will be in the book, who we are, and how the process is going to work!)

 

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Douglas Rothschild preformance at Zinc

 

Here's a video of Douglas doing his thing at Zinc on 7/23/11. Those are the voices of Adeena Karasick, Nada Gordon, and possibly also Kristin Prevallet in the background.

I made this video thinking I could rotate it later, but alas Android doesn't seem to have editing capability, unlike iphone and imovie. Oh well.

Intro for Joe Ross (Zinc Bar 7/23/11)

Joe Ross is the author of twelve books of poetry, most recently, Wordlick, Green Integer Press (2011) and Strata, Dusie Press (2008). He has also published Fractured // Connections . . . , bilingual Italian/English, La Camera Verde Press and EQUATIONS = equals, Green Integer Press, 2004. He presently resides in Paris.

In Wordlick, Joe Ross masterfully synthesizes a personal jargon of jury-rigged compound words, inventing a corresponding syntax as he goes along, locating us alternately above, below, within, and around his energized linguistic constructions. We can feel the excitement of invention and the pleasure of sonic juxtaposition as the consistently grotesque and dense texture he creates channels any number of voices: Jackson Mac Low? Susan Howe? Bill Luoma? Yoda? But no, these poems sound different than all of those people, and they are more than just parataxis for sure: most notably, there’s an odd kind of pathos here, as if these garbled musings, hovering somewhere between past participle and present occurrence at the moment of writing, were a shorthand for jotting more extensive thoughts about critique, culture, and desire. I love what I’m finding in this new work by Ross, and I’m pleased and honored to welcome him to the Zinc Bar reading series today.

(an afterthought: Joe told me he writes the Wordlick poems very quickly, in the intervals when his son is asleep...so in terms of writing process they are like stolen moments of time, a fact that seems significant here)

Intro for Geoffrey Olsen (Zinc Bar 6/3/11)

(photo by Lawrence Schwartzwald)

Geoffrey Olsen lives in Brooklyn, New York and works at the Cooper Union in Manhattan. He is the author of the chapbook End Notebook (petrichord press, 2008). His chapbook, Not of Distends * Address Panicked, is out from Minutes Books (http://notofdistends.blogspot.com/)

I greet Geoffrey Olsen at the beginning of a great career, having longing which for yet foregrounds some starter where. Geoff in his multiple manifestations thus far is clearly onto something, and we are here today pleased to celebrate the publication of his second chapbook, Not of Distends * Address Panicked, published by Minutes Books. Being a friend of Geoff’s and having learned a great deal through fascinating conversations with him over the years, I understand his writing as influenced by the innovations of Language poetry along the axis where it intersects with the body and with what we would traditionally refer to as experience, the relationship between thought and phenomena. Geoff’s poetry hovers with regard to the philosophical problem of skepticism, arguing neither that words are merely textual objects nor that words merely refer to external things, but taking on a more nuanced and complex position by means of which we experience the pleasures of organic embodiment on a macro and micro scale. Geoff’s language is cell division and multiplication at the intimate level just as much as we can feel the presence in it of breathing, jotting, glancing, presence, and song. Geoff’s writing “wrecks the mind” as Scalapino says of Philip Whalen’s poetry, by using a virtuoso toolbox of effects, by arriving at ostranenie through the detour of parataxis (Gesundheit!). The way Geoff tweaks parts of speech so that they deliberately disrupt or fail to fulfill the syntactical contract we expect creates ardent moments, sincerity effects. The music carries force and momentum despite, or perhaps even because, it is so grammatically garbled, clipped, deranged, and interrupted. As in the work of Coolidge, one figure who comes to mind as I read this new chapbook of Geoff’s, the moments when grammar turns aside from its ordinary syntactical functions are not noise; rather, they are one level of music in play, another of which is the system of internal rhymes that weaves throughout this text. As writing my rubbed writes my eye rhyme, my A game. As in Emerson the writer is a transparent eyeball, but having to work through language as material, finds that eyeball continually situated somewhere and thus implicated, embodied in this instance for example like that of a sheep or hunted animal. The gaze in Geoff’s work is not liberated so much as laden with pathos, stunned. If two familiar definitions of distends here are “to enlarge or stretch out from internal pressure” or “to become expanded,” the writer is not so much extending self into landscape or into memory out of imperialistic self-importance, as he is narrating the experience of being impinged upon, of being radically sensitive to stimuli. All this is a way of saying that, of course, he does Leslie Scalapino proud, and in this text we can hear new music which we need to heed carefully, which demands our best attention. Please welcome Geoffrey Olsen to Zinc Bar.

Intro for Samuel Ace (Zinc Bar, 6/3/11)

(photo by T Peterson)

Samuel Ace has published widely in periodicals and journals, including Ploughshares, Eoagh, Nimrod, The Prose Poem, an International Journal, and the Kenyon Review. He is the author of two collections of poetry: Normal Sex (Firebrand Books) and Home in three days. Don't wash. (Hard Press). He is a two-time finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in Poetry, a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts grant, winner of the Astraea Lesbian Writer's Fund Prize in Poetry, The Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction and the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in poetry. He currently lives in Tucson, AZ and Truth or Consequences, NM.

I think Samuel Ace is one of the most original, smart, and vital queer poets writing today. I’ve known Sam and have been reading his work for over 10 years now—I remember his readings of “how to be a boy in domremy” and video performances of “home in three days, don’t wash” from that time in Tucson vividly--but in recent years I’ve been honored to get to know him better and to call him a close and rare friend. Thinking about Sam’s work over time, there has been an ongoing interest in leaps between perceptions, and the relationship between these leaps and the act of listing. We might place such activities under a heading like “non-sequitor,” but Sam’s writing isn’t nearly so predictable. We might mention his fascination with the way “schizophrenic” language connects different insights together through seemingly nonsensical parallelism or skewed juxtaposition, and how this makes a kind of sense to the sympathetic listener, but that doesn’t entirely explain what’s so exciting about his work either. We might observe his attempts to articulate in language queer, liminal, confounding, sometimes even portentious bodily experiences for which we don’t have an easy linguistic shorthand. Yet it seems to me that the way Sam’s work evades such quick summations is central to the kind of radical work it does. And in Stealth, his collaboration with Maureen Seaton just published by Chax Press, all of these issues get multiplied into the interstitial space between two people, two voices sometimes trading off, sometimes running parallel, sometimes splicing together different realities as a kind of playful gesture. Under (and between) these playful exchanges, we can hear a range of emotions at work which inform Stealth’s complex and sometimes confounding Rube Goldberg economy of vessels and tropes: sadness, bemusement, anger, exasperation, yearning, ambivalence, and love. Please welcome Samuel Ace to the Zinc Bar Reading series.

Intro for Timothy Liu (Zinc Bar 6/3/11)

(photo by Lawrence Schwartzwald)

Timothy Liu (Liu Ti Mo) was born in 1965 in San Jose, California. He is the author of eight books of poems, including Of Thee I Sing (2004), a Publishers Weekly 2004 Book-of-the-Year, and Vox Angelica (1992), awarded the Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award. Translated into ten languages, Liu's poems have appeared in such places as Best American Poetry, Bomb, Grand Street, Kenyon Review, The Nation, New American Writing, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, The Pushcart Prize, Virginia Quarterly Review and The Yale Review. His journals and papers are archived in the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library. Liu is a Professor of English at William Paterson University and a member of the Core Faculty at Bennington College's Writing Seminars; he lives in Manhattan.

I find myself momentarily humbled at the task of introducing a writer of Timothy Liu’s stature, with little new to add to what has already been said about this major poet’s work. We all know he is someone who has consistently been one of the most moving, innovative, graceful, and sexy users of language in our field. We know that he has had a central role in our historical understanding of queer writing as the editor of the anthology Word of Mouth. We encounter him this evening writing across and between genres, as the author of a new novel which includes poetry and prose, and which builds on his earlier work in surprising ways. One of the exciting things I see happening as Liu makes this foray into fiction is that it allows him a kind of electric, ambiguous relationship between confession and trope. Though he has always been a memorable love poet, the experience of writing fiction finds him meditating more intensively on how literal events become symbolic and vice versa when it comes to sex, and on the way sexual language has meta-resonances for literal and metaphorical registers simultaneously. In his most riveting moments here, Liu’s prose suggests an ambiguous relationship between one’s own identity and the identity of another, with the available language we have for sex acts (and by implication the sex organs or bodily organs that carry them out) providing the common site at which this confusion occurs, and at which we meet as listeners. Liu reminds us that we carry baggage in our memories and our bodies and these accrue a vocabulary of metaphors over time, that these resonances and overtones are precisely the alchemical elements from which desire is forged, whatever our object choice or whatever our genitalia. I’m pleased and honored to welcome Timothy Liu to the Zinc Bar reading series.