I feel honored to be included among the many terrific poets in the new journal Fascicle edited by Tony Tost, Chris Vitiello and Ken Rumble, which features poems and prose by:
Peter O'Leary
Carla Harryman
Simon Pettet
K. Silem Mohammad
Meredith Quartermain
Marcus Slease
Clayton Eshleman
Noah Eli Gordon
Jerome Rothenberg
Mary Margaret Sloan
Linh Dinh
Eliot Weinberger
... and many more, as well as a section here on translation by the determinedly omnipresent Kent Johnson (engaging the work of earlier poets by literally re-writing them). Great job, overall. It's definitely somewhat in the territory of Jacket, and it also seems to be avoiding the "Borg phenonemon" by including some substantial articles and reviews particularly strong on Black Mountain and associated poetries. On other fronts, I'm skeptical as to what Flarf might have to do with Wittgenstein, but at least they're trying. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this new journal is a section devoted to local poetry scenes that includes commentary by Shin Yu Pai, Gina Myers, CA Conrad, and others. Take a look here.
Well, there are at least two things that connect Flarf to Wittgenstein. First, W. was interested in bringing words back from their metaphysical to their ordinary uses, which is an operation that Flarf, both in its trademark procedure (Google-sculpting) and aesthetic (chatroom, blog, etc.) openly pursues. Second, Wittgenstein believed that "what is hidden is of no interest to philosophy" and nothing is hidden in Flarf (for a time, the sources are as available to reader as they were to the poet). The philosopher (and, mutatis mutandis, the poet) works by the arrangement of "remarkable" surfaces.
Always just trying to help,
Yours,
T.
Posted by: Thomas Basbøll | September 02, 2005 at 07:51 PM