10.31.2006

Can't shake this cold. Hacking and wheezing. Sneezing.

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Hot tub is a most welcome thing.

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Garden plans 2007 include blueberries, ETA 2010. We have pine needles.

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Clark's is ever close. Listen to the earful? That's four poems-worth.

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Seen the Borat-Conan O'Brien interview on YouTube? Conan doesn't know what to say. It is very sexytime.

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Local reading series last night featured 10 straight poems on arranged marriages. The first five were interesting. They were all by the same poet.

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Haven't written a lick for a week.

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This Larry Fagin poem from Brain Damage

Ida Lupino

You look brighter through
the lampshade on my head.

There's a card trick
a cocktail and charades

it's true, Blue Monday
has made monkey man forget.

Pea-green as can be
are you, musically speaking

and walking up & down
on the offbeat in the lobby

a small drunk in brown
toots a blue goodnight:

beige drapes & blinds drawn tight.

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Many and/&'s. Everything included belongs.

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Ida Lupino is bangs if you've seen her.

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When I can't write, I blog.

10.27.2006

at long last

I've been very ill for the last couple of days and am just now collecting my head.

What a previous week. Joe and Andrew arrived in the dead of night a couple of Mondays ago. Wow, that long. They pulled into the driveway twice and departed. Andrew who knows this place was perplexed by the archery target, "When did you take up archery?" I got a bang out of that. We sipped beers. I did my usual what I have to do, then had a couple of days off leading up to the reading. Joe was under the weather, but still his charming self. Aaron Tieger picked up
Chris Rizzo in Albany on Friday then continued on to the Wendell confluence. I met Michael Carr at the Amherst bus station. We all convened at the new domicile and an evening of poetry, wine, cider, etc. ensued.

Chris Rizzo read from a current manuscript. Chris' work evolves so quickly that to say he is an intersection between new and newer is almost to imply a stasis that is never present in his work. Chris is kinetic. There is a distrust and an impulse towards prolifity. With Chris' it is just a product of a restless, focused mind. His current work seems to be obsessed (meant in best way, as obsession equals attention/effort) with meaning what he says and saying what he means. & as always with his ear meticulously atuned. He must have perfect pitch.

Aaron read some of his recent work, post Anxiety Chant. Aaron's interest in British poet Ric Caddel often comes to mind. It isn't because his work is derivative, decidely it is quite the opposite, but rather because it is so singular, so unique. The comparison follows in that Caddel was going to be a musicologist, not a poet, until he hooked into the Brit Po world. That's a quick gloss. Aaron seems of like mind, he is a musician, but language is his instrument, like Caddel. It is measured pitch and cadence. Masterful ti----ming. With his work nuance is generosity. Ronald Johnson said that if you read, books will find you. I think it is fortunate that Aaron has found Caddel as a means to refine and expand his ear even further. That is not to say, again, that Aaron is post-Caddel but rather that he has found a company or an antecedent for his work that has allowed him to continue to magnify his work.

Michael read next. Michael's work always reminds me of the possibility of approaching a poem as a material object. An object that can be constructed. I'm often informed by the idea that a poem has to be a religious experience, that it has to come from the martians. Michael's work convinces me that the divine is possible through construction, that a direct message can be found in/from the materials you work from/in. His recent work expresses his fascination with cinema, a fascination that he uses to stylistic effect. When I say stylistic effect I'm not implying a superficial or surface quality, but rather a mood or mode that is expressed with such effect that the rest of the poem, the materials in the poem, have an even greater verve. I look forward to reading a larger collection of this work.

Joe read from Areas of Fog. I've had the good fortune of being allowed into the lab. I've seen Areas develop from (relative) start to finish. It is an extraordinary manuscript. There is a greater elasticity to these poems. One reader has suggested that Joe's poems are so tight that they might eventually end up giving him a hernia. I've written a longer piece on Joe's work that I will eventually make public, so I'll refrain from too much repetition here, but his eye and ear continue to be preoccupied with the intersection of the natural and built world. Kerouac said of Robert Frank, that his photographs suck a sad poem right out of America, or something to that extent. Joe's poems do the very same. Not a sentimental sadness in the strictest sense, but on a much greater scale. The sadness if not just personal loss, but cultural, even epic. It punches you in the gut. These are delicate poems that could cut diamond.

I read a chunk of Sun Seen From Afar.

OK, more soon.

10.26.2006

Silliman

Ron on Property Line.

10.25.2006

Listen Up

An Earful! Clark Coolidge reads from Counting On Planet Zero.

10.20.2006

Be Here

Oct. 22nd 6 PM
@ the Plough & Stars
Cambridge, MA
Jess Mynes & Joseph Massey
Kaboom!

10.13.2006

Anchorite Press' folded vellum broadside of Joseph Massey's "Fickle Hill" is stunning. & futhermore Catherine Meng's 15 Poems In Sets of 5 is wonderful, sensual. I'll have more to say on that.

YouTube - Evolution of Dance

YouTube - Evolution of Dance

10.12.2006

predictions

In case your wondering, this was my call before the playoffs, again I'm late in posting this:
Tigers in 5. Mets in 6. I'll be sure to post before the World Series is under way.

Realizing that I distrust my ability to articulate myself on this blog. Paralytic self consciousness coupled with a distrust of personality. Blogging remains foreign to me.

Read this.

10.07.2006

Yanks down to their last two outs!

Crushed grapes last night under full moon. Full moon? Harvest moon. First frost. Brian broke out his lighting kit. Surreal lit gasps of breath. At one point I thought I was working with Max von Sydow in The Exorcist. We crushed 20 lugs of petite syrah grapes. Each lug is 36 lbs. Over half a ton of grapes. Inspired by this years success.

Buck O'Neil RIP. If you've seen any of Ken Burns' Baseball, Buck is a refreshing antidote to all the blah-blah's from the pontificating know (nothing at) alls that Burns seems fond of. Check out what he says about Ty Cobb in this interview.

Joe Massey reads tomorrow from his Property Line. If you don't have a copy yet you've been under a rock for how long? You really shouldn't nap on this, it'll disappear sooner than you think.

Final 8-3, goodbye Yanks, hello Tigers! Tigers-A's. Go Tigers. Tigers-Mets.

Current artist obsessions, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Tuttle.

Acclimating to this space. I'm such a creature of habit, trying to forge these routines.

Writing in Al Swearengen next presidential election. I just want the president to be articulate this time around. I realize Al's seen his day.

New England fall! You lump-in-the-throat beautiful.

"It would feel so good to see you cry."

I have too many records. Anyone interested in records?

Chris Rizzo sent me a complete set of Wch Way. Yeah!

"If I seem a little strange well that's because I am."

"Can I see your driver's license?"
"Can I shoot your gun?"

10.05.2006

Go Tigers!

If they don't beat the Yankees, forget it. The A's and the Twins always roll over for the Yankees.

A's-Tigers. Cardinals-Mets. Those were my calls before the series started in case you are wondering. Gave up on the Twins when Liriano went down.

The Mets can beat any of the National League teams even with a depleted pitching staff. They have a decent bullpen, think of the Angels run in the playoffs a few years back.

10.03.2006

If you've emailed me in the last three days, I haven't received your email. Our server is gobbling up any outside emails. If you haven't heard from me in the last three days, it is because my emails aren't going out. Pain in the ass, no? You can try me here: jmynesATgmail.com. If you'd like to forward any emails you've recently sent to that address, I'll respond from there. Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience. If you haven't emailed me in the last three days, take me off your pay-no-mind list and send me a note.