…but this is stupid on so many levels at once that I must harness my bad temper and say…

Nothing personal. Yes, in the faux-communal poet-blog field of discourse to which da-crouton.com, for better or worse, belongs, one must say such things.

Here is just a list of questions meant to highlight an initial set of operative assumptions worth, indeed, questioning–

* What means avantish?
* “Admit” is moralizing…
* “Craving” and “temperament” link the set of practices in question to the problem of desire, of which literary and “critical” theory provide an enormous discursive and conceptual backdrop, in no way hinted at here, much less is the plainly open question as to whether the temporal and temporary aspect of desire relate in some way. Of avant-garde poetries in English since the late 19th century, desire, disjunction, and temporality have been explicitly linked and deployed in various, often famous ways. It just feels dismissive not to, at the very least, acknowledge that precedence (though doing so would contradict the accusation that it was all just a passing fancy).
* What means the disjunctive?
* By pretending these questions are settled and that it remains only to evacuate the aggravating nostalgia of certain poets and critics, one does not clear space for new, more timely questions to be generated. Rather, the way is paved to reinvent the wheel.

My muxtape is a slit, with an identity crisis.

Sunday, May 18, at MYOPIC BOOKS

Bill Berkson & Philip Metres

Philip METRES is the author of To See the Earth (2008), Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (2007), Instants (chap, 2006), Primer for Non-Native Speakers (chap, 2004), Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein (2004), and A Kindred Orphanhood: Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky (2003). His poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best American Poetry and Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry. He teaches literature and creative writing at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. Were it not for Ellis Island, his last name would be Abourjaili. See http://www.philipmetres.com and http://behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com for more information.

Born in New York in 1939, Bill BERKSON is a poet, critic, teacher and sometime curator, who has been active in the art and literary worlds since his early twenties. Director of Letters and Science at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1993 to 1998, he taught art history, critical writing and poetry and directed the public lectures program there 1984-2007.

Berkson studied at Trinity School (1945-55), The Lawrenceville School, Brown University, Columbia, the New School and New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. During the 1960s he was an editorial associate at Art News, a regular contributor to Arts, guest editor at the Museum of Modern Art, an associate producer of a program on art for public television, and taught literature and writing workshops at the New School and Yale University. After moving to Northern California in 1970, he began editing and publishing a series of poetry books and magazines under the Big Sky imprint. He was awarded a creative writing fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1980 and has also received awards and fellowships from Yaddo, Artspace, the Poets Foundation, The Fund for Poetry, and Briarcombe Foundation. Before coming to the Art Institute, he taught regularly in the California Poets in the Schools program. In the mid-1980s he resumed writing art criticism on regular basis, contributing monthly reviews and articles to Artforum from 1985 to 1991; he became a corresponding editor for Art in America in 1988 and also writes frequently for such magazines as Aperture, Modern Painters, Art on Paper, and others.

He is the author of sixteen books and pamphlets of poetry—including, most recently, Gloria, a portfolio of poems with etchings by Alex Katz (Arion Press, 2005) and Our Friends Will Pass Among You Silently (The Owl Press, 2007). Berkson’s poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies. Other recent books are What’s Your Idea of a Good Time: Letters & Interviews 1977-1985 with Bernadette Mayer (Tuumba Press, 2006); BILL with drawings by Colter Jacobsen; and Ted Berrigan with George Schneeman. A collection of his criticism, The Sweet Singer of Modernism & Other Art Writings, appeared from Qua Books in 2004, and Sudden Address: Selected Lectures 1981-2006 from Cuneiform Press in 2007. Portrait and Dream: Selected Poems 1959-2007 will appear from Coffee House Press in Spring 2009.

MYOPIC POETRY SERIES–a weekly series of readings and occasional poets’ talks

Myopic Books in Chicago–Sundays at 7:00 / 1564 N. Milwaukee Avenue, 2nd Floor

http://www.myopicbookstore.com/mynews/

Jesse Seldess’ longstanding & leading journal of new writing, music, performance at long last has a web presence. All out of print issues are now available, there, as PDF files. Visit www.antennae-journal.com

For Immediate Release
May 1, 2008

Contact: Damien LaVera 202-863-8148

Dean: Arrests Show McCain Out of Touch With Americans With Disabilities

Washington, DC - This week, even as McCain was traveling the country outlining a flawed health care agenda that does little to increase access to quality, affordable health care for Americas working families, John McCain showed how out of touch he is with Americans with disabilities.? Instead of meeting with disability rights activists to explain why he refuses to co-sponsor the Community Choice Act of 2007, Senator McCain’s staff allowed more than 20 activists to be arrested in front of his Senate office. [Associated Press, 4/29/08]

Both Democratic presidential candidates are co-sponsors of the bill, which would allow countless Americans with disabilities the choice to live and work in their own homes and communities. In addition, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has met with community activists and repeatedly expressed his support for the bill. By contrast, McCain has refused to join the effort to end the persistent institutional bias in America’s health care system that forces too many people with disabilities into nursing homes and institutions. The bipartisan bill would amend the Social Security Act to allow people who are eligible for Medicaid coverage of nursing home costs to spend it instead on home-based or community care.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean issued the following statement:

“At a time when John McCain is on the campaign trail talking about health care choices, he refuses to explain why he opposes a bill that would let Americans with disabilities choose how and where to live, work and receive care. I am proud to lead a Party that supports the fundamental right of every single American to make his or her own choices about where to live and work. Apparently John McCain and his staff would rather let activists get arrested outside his office than explain his position on this critical issue. John McCain is either profoundly out of touch with the needs and challenges confronting Americans with disabilities or just doesn’t care. Either way, he’s the wrong choice for Americas future.”

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Paid for and authorized by the Democratic National Committee, www.democrats.org

LINKS HALL PRESENTS

Returning from One Place to Another: A Poet’s Theater Showcase
Curated by John Beer, Links Hall Artistic Associate

May 2-25, 2008

The works featured in Returning from One Place to Another come out of a tradition which seeks to use theatrical space as a medium for poetic composition. While this description fits some major figures of the theatrical avant-garde, such as Antonin Artaud or Richard Foreman, the artists that are central to this work view the theater as an extension of their writing practice. Drawing inspiration from the operas of Gertrude Stein or the plays of Frank O’Hara, each program consists of a set of works for performance that retain a focus on language and structure while potentially abandoning traditional elements of narrative or staging. In each program, a visiting artist is working with local collaborators for the first time to create a novel theatrical evening.

It’s only recently that the idea of a Poet’s Theater could be anything but redundant. What, after all, were Sophocles, Shakespeare, or Moliere up to? The last two hundred years saw a divorce between primarily realistic modes of theater and a lyric poetry rooted in subjective experience. The work presented here seeks a reconciliation that creates new possibilities for both poetry and performance. – John Beer, Curator

ABOUT THE CURATOR
John Beer’s poems and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals, including Barrow Street, the Canary, Chicago Review, the Chicago Tribune, Crowd, the Hat, Milk, MiPoesias, the Review of Contemporary Fiction, and Verse. He has written about theater for the Brooklyn Rail, Newcity, Time Out Chicago, and the Village Voice. He is a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy and social thought at the University of Chicago.

***
Poet’s Theater Panel Discussion

Saturday, May 3, 2-3:30pm
at Experimental Station, 6100 S. Blackstone

Free

This panel will provide context for and insight into the work of the artists performing throughout the Poet’s Theater festival. Panelists will examine such questions as: What is Poet’s Theater, and is it its own genre, a hybrid genre, or a way of resisting genres? How have poetry and performance influenced one another over the past century? How does the idea of Poet’s Theater relate to larger questions about the avant-garde? What is the future for Poet’s Theater? The panel will include poets, performers, and critics: Jenny Magnus of Curious Theatre Branch, Matthew Goulish of Goat Island Performance Group, Rodrigo Toscano, and Jennifer Scappettone. www.experimentalstation.org

PROGRAM ONE

Friday & Saturday, May 2 & 3, 8pm

Sunday, May 4, 7pm

$12 ($10 students)

Rodrigo Toscano

Collapsible Poetics Theater

Reminiscent of Commedia Dell’Arte in its traveling, portable, rapid-set up qualities, this performance assembles itself within a given 72 hour period of each performance. Working with resident poets, experienced actors, non-actors, the persistent question asked by the performers is, Can the poem be tested any further?

Rodrigo Toscano is a Brooklyn-based author and the Artistic Coordinator for the Collapsible Poetics Theater. His experimental poetics plays, body movement poems, and polyvocalic pieces have been performed nationally.

Collaborators: Joshua Corey is the author of two full-length books of poetry and has published two chapbooks. He is an assistant professor of English at Lake Forest College and lives in Evanston, IL. Chicago-based Melissa Severin’s poems have appeared in MoonLit, 42Opus, and The Cultural Society. Brute Fact, her first chapbook, is available from dancing girl press. Fred Sasaki works on the magazines Poetry, Stop Smiling, and ACM. He is the founder of The Printers’ Ball in Chicago, and publishes fiction, radio plays, and other writing.

PROGRAM TWO

Friday & Saturday, May 9 & 10, 8pm

Sunday, May 11, 7pm

$12 ($10 students)

Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes Göransson

The Widow Party

The Widow Party is collaboratively written and performed melodrama, Wild West show, political thriller, pageant, and farce. With song, dance, projections, sound effects, and mimicry of preposterous acts, visions and revisions of characters, media, genres and events will change, interrupt, and harmonize with each other.

Joyelle McSweeney and Johannes Göransson are the co-founders and co-editors of Action Books and Action, Yes, a press and web-quarterly for international writing and hybrid forms. They are both published authors. Actionbooks.org, actionyes.org

Collaborators: Patrick Durgin teaches literature and writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the editor of two collections by the performance and proto-language poet Hannah Weiner. Jennifer Karmin co-curates the Red Rover Series and is a founder of the public art group Anti Gravity Surprise. She is a 2009 Links Hall Artistic Associate. www.antigravitysurprise.org Jacob S. Knabb is Fiction and Managing Editor for Another Chicago Magazine. He teaches at University of Illinois at Chicago, performs radio plays, and writes fiction. Other Collaborators: Lisa Janssen and James Shea. hambonesheartache.blogspot.com

PROGRAM THREE

Friday & Saturday, May 16 & 17, 8pm

Sunday, May 18, 7pm

$12 ($10 students)

Fiona Templeton

Louis Zukofsky’s Rudens and Fiona Templeton’s Bluebeard (excerpt)
Templeton directs two plays: Rudens is a very seldom performed work, based on The Rope by the Roman comic playwright T. Maccius Plautus. It combines a number of strategies of textual conversion, and is translated to English phonetically by using the sound of the original language.

Bluebeard is about two people imagining how each other think, what each other fears or desires, and what each fears or desires of the other. It is a ventriloquial work, in which the onstage action or even speaker may belie the subject of the speech.

Collaborators: Joel Craig lives in Chicago, working as an art director and deejay. His poems have appeared in several publications, and he is co-founder and curator for The Danny’s Reading Series. Laura Goldstein is a writer and multi-media and sound artist who currently teaches at Loyola University and performs and collaborates in Chicago. Her work is widely published and her chapbook is due out this spring. Pam Osbey is the author of ten poetry books. She is an educator in the Chicago Public School System, and works with several literary organizations, including the Poetry Center of Chicago and the Chicago Humanities Festival.

PROGRAM FOUR

Friday & Saturday, May 23 & 24, 8pm

Sunday, May 25, 7pm

$12 ($10 students)

Carla Harryman
Five New Works

Carla Harryman is known for her genre-disrupting prose, poetry, and performance works. Recent performance works have emphasized polyvocal text, bilingualism, choral speaking voices, and music improvisation. This program infuses improvisational electronic sound, choral and sound-based performance writing, and Poet’s Theater in five new works: Sue, Adorno’s Noise, and Mirror Play by Carla Harryman, Bad History by Barrett Watten, and I/Mouth by Ron Allen.

In the 1980s, Carla Harryman co-founded the San Francisco Bay Area Poet’s Theater, which presented performances of experimental plays by poets. The author of thirteen books, she serves as full-time faculty in the Department of English at Wayne State University. www.performingobjects.com

Harryman explores the nature of imagination…and toys with perceptions of reality amidst a set of art objects navigated by skillful performers who become art in themselves. – San Francisco Gate

Collaborators: Jennifer Scappettone is the author of two chapbooks and a collection of poetry. Her writing appears in a range of journals and anthologies. She teaches at the University of Chicago. David Trinidad is a published author and editor who teaches at Columbia College Chicago, prior to which he taught at The New School. He has also taught at Rutgers, Princeton, and Antioch Universities. Other Collaborators: John Beer, Elana Elyce, Judith Goldman, Katie MacGowan. Art/Set Design: Julia Klein

Program for May 23 & 25:

Bad History by Barrett Watten

Try! Try! by Frank O’Hara

Mirror Play by Carla Harryman

Program for May 24:

Sue by Carla Harryman

Requiem by Kathy Acker

Bérubé’s assessment of the presidential candidates’ positions on disability issues is useful, though perhaps also poignant–posted just before the Pennsylvania primary, it begins with the conviction that “our long national nightmare” is almost over.

See: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/04/22/disability_and_democracy/

Identity has to do with Personal History, a series of interpretations of facts and mental reactions to those facts that give rise to refrains (in the Deleuzian sense). These have the aim of marking out a territory in time, an ambit of non-volatility. Memory builds edifices of “I am thus-and-so and not some other way” and trades a series of reactive constructions for Personality. Really it’s a question of schemes that keep the mind from falling into anxiety over the randomness of the cosmos: everything fluctuates, but you need to pretend that it doesn’t. It has to do with the most radical of all fears, the fear of not being “something.”

But the mind knows that it’s a question of a game, a construction, that in reality Personality and Identity (we confuse the two so often that they have almost become synonyms) are mechanisms of constraint, that there’s nothing originary in those concepts. Metamorphoses, shamanic animal transformations, the taste for masks, even at base the erotic drive–becoming another–are strategies performed to commemorate the artificiality of the social mask. The person who plays with identity is prepared to an extent to exchange the territory of existential security, the certainties of one’s own personal Story (I am thus-and-so), for an opening toward the potential, toward the unexpected. In this way metamorphosis (self-conscious beings changing), whether exorcised or practiced, is unstoppable.

–Wu Ming, interview in Chicago Review 52:2/3/4, translated by Robert P. Baird

These remarks are attributed to WM5–Wu Ming (Chinese for “No Name”) is a collective.

…a new journal deserves to become your new pay pal.