VIDA feature on The Claudius App

A handful of friends asked me what was going on after I spoke up at Facebook against the vile editorial practices of the The Claudius App. So quickly did the editors, Jeff Nagy and Eric Linsker (who never issued an explanation, let alone an apology for their misogynist editorial) take down the offending content, that there was nothing to point those friends to. VIDA just posted a feature, with statements from Eileen Myles and Dorothea Lasky, and screen captures of the content in question: http://www.vidaweb.org/reports-from-the-field/

THEK

Here is a poem The Academy of American Poets ran today, written after Paul Thek. Happy May Day!

Fiona Templeton's MEDEAD

"I've been listening to Fiona Templeton and her collaborators read this choric poem/drama for over a decade. In it I hear all of contemporary English open to a force of collective enunciation (nation language, idiolect) against 'standard' English and the economic and gender-based violence it has facilitated from its inception into our present. Superseding all instrumental violence in this long poem/drama is a sustained attention to language not so much as nonsensical or semiotic as widening into larger ambivalences, potential, and subtle vocalizations (phonemics, neologism, homophony)--an anti-epic border song marking the shifting and thus precarious territorial claims of an Anglophone geopolitical unconscious."

Nick Sturm on "the critical performance of translation" in The Sonnets

http://isaidokwow.tumblr.com/post/83715594859/the-critical-performance-of-translation-in-the

Interview with Brazil, Frost, and Kennedy at BOMB

From October 2013 until February 2014 I conducted this interview with David Brazil, Jackqueline Frost, and Evan Kennedy for BOMB. There are so many highlights I don't really know where to begin excerpting. It is pretty much all excerptible, in fact. Too sublime to excerpt. I feel so honored to have been able to suss out  how their 2012 books came about in relation to Occupy Oakland, the East Bay poetry community, and their friendships with one another.

6 Morning Talks @ The Kitchen

Andy Fitch edited this great book of interviews, 60 Morning Talks, which I will be reading from with Shanna Compton, Dorothea Lasky, Tan Lin, Christopher Schmidt, and Jenny Zhang this Wednesday at The Kitchen.

The Sensation Feelings Journal

A poem that I wrote after Michael Clark's incredible dance film, Hail the New Puritan, is up at the inaugural issue of Connie Mae Oliver's web zine, The Sensation Feelings Journal, which includes work from CAConrad, Christina Drill, Sarah Feeley, Vanessa Jimenez Gabb, Gracie Leavitt, and others.

TO LOOK AT THE SEA IS TO BECOME WHAT ONE IS

Wednesday night at the Poetry Project myself and others will be celebrating the launch of the Etel Adnan Reader, which I edited with Brandon Shimoda for Nightboat Books. Please come hear folks read from the book and celebrate Etel's incredible life's work in words.

Left Melancholy in LIT 25

A big chunk of Left Melancholy appears in LIT 25, along with work by Jackqueline Frost, Harold Abramowitz, Franklin Bruno and other favorites. Thanks to Jeff T. Johnson, editor extraordinaire.

Maggy 5

I have some poems in Maggy 5. "Blood Mooon," for Etel Adnan. "Sublime Anger," after David Wojnarowicz. "Lit," for Marissa Perel. And "Impassed," for Beth Murray.

Thank you to Adam Fitzgerald!

Forthcoming 2014

UnAmerican Activities (reading)

Interview with Ben Kinmont in Whitney Biennial 2014 catalogue

I have a brief interview here with my friend Ben Kinmont, whose work is featured in this year's biennial.

New PDFs at ON: Buuck, Collis, Webb, Workman

ON Contemporary Practice is pleased to announce that we have added four new PDFs to our website:

 

David Buuck on cris cheek

Stephen Collis on "poetry in protest"

Jeanine Webb on "weak intimacy, celebrity, and Bay Area poetics"

Elisabeth Workman "towards a bardo poetics"

To contribute to ON’s PDF Archive Series please check-out our submission guidelines.

To order the first book in our Monograph Series, SUPPLE SCIENCE: a Robert Kocik Primer, click here. 

 

oncontemporarypractice@gmail.com
on-contemporarypractice.squarespace.com

 

Meta/discourse syllabus

Visual Poetics

Meta/discourse

Thom Donovan

wildhorsesoffire [at] gmail [dot] com

Course Description

In this class I would like to foreground poetic writing as a social phenomena, especially with regards to technological trends (from cinema to sampling techniques to social media) and with regards to questions of how art is conditioned by the event of community, friendship, and encounter. In the first weeks of the class we will take up a few theoretical and non-literary texts that will help us ground what I am calling “metadiscourse,” by which I mean any mode of communication (aesthetic or otherwise) concerned with examining its own reason for being. We will look at a series of poems from the 1930s until the present, which incorporate correspondence (epistolary) and other forms of direct communication with an addressee/interlocutor. We will also spend some time thinking about recent poetries that have laid bare their own discursive frameworks through the use of the space of the page, typography and other design elements, and through the provision of certain paratexts, by which I mean texts supplementary to the primary content of a particular work (bibliography, index, footnotes/endnotes, etc.). Whether it be rap, or Internet poetry, or poetry that draws upon social networks and community participation for its content, I am primarily interested in examining the ramifications of how writers make visible their apparatus, whether that be the page, screen, online platform, or physical (‘real life’) milieu. How does this ‘making visible’ produce authenticity—a feeling that something is being immediately communicated—through what would seem a paradoxical means: the artful display of a work’s technical mediation? To what extent is metadiscourse ethical inasmuch as it prioritizes forms of intimacy, friendship, and relationships that sustain and nourish community? Can we also consider a politics of metadiscourse, if only a micropolitics—a politics practiced on the scale of localized, particular relationships among individuals and groups?

Required Texts

The Yale Anthology of Rap (ed. Bradley and DuBois)

Etel Adnan’s Of Cities & Women (Letters to Fawwaz) 

Douglas Kearney’s The Black Automaton 

Matias Viegener’s 2500 Random Things About Me Too 

Dana Ward’s The Crisis of Infinite Worlds 

Stephanie Young’s Ursula or University 

Schedule

January 16^th    Introduction

--What is metadiscourse? Dziga Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera with Chris Marker’s The Last Bolshevik and Jean Rouch’s Chronicle of a Summer (excerpts)

Readings: M.M. Bakhtin’s “The Problems of Speech Genres” and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Quotation and Originality” (http://www.emersoncentral.com/quotations.htm)

Janaury 23rd   What is Metadiscourse? cont’d

Readings: Kristin Ross’s The Emergence of Social Space (excerpts) and Arthur Rimbaud poems (TBA)

January 30^th     Language and the Creation of Social Space (I)

Readings: Excerpts from Louis Zukosfky’s “A”, William Carlos Williams’ Paterson, and Charles Olson’s The Maximus Poems, Langston Hughson’s “Theme for English B,” and selections from Frank O’Hara’s work (TBA)

Recommended:

The Letters of Emily Dickinson (ed. Johnson)

Viktor Shklovsky’s Third Factory

Viktor Shklovsky’s Zoo, or Letters Not About Love

Jack Spicer's "After Lorca" from The Collected Books of Jack Spicer
Ted Berrigan’s Dear Sandy, Hello

Arakawa & Gins’ Making Dying Illegal

Bernadette Mayer’s The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters

Lyn Hejinian’s A Border Comedy

Charles Bernstein’s “Dear Mr. Fanelli” (from All the Whiskey in Heaven)

Eileen Myles’ “An American Poem” (from Not Me)

Dodie Bellamy’s The Letters of Mina Harker

Julia Bloch’s Letters to Kelly Clarkson

Dana Ward’s “Between Here & There” (from This Can’t Be Life)

Karen Weiser's Dear Pierre
Esther Lee’s The Blank Missives (http://www.bornmagazine.org/projects/blank_missives/)

Joseph Mosconi’s Tender Comrade

February 6^th    Composition Through Epistolary (I)

Readings: Susan Howe’s “Eikon Basilike: a Bibliography of the King’s Book” with Rachel Tzivia Back’s Led by Language (excerpt)

February 13^th  “Small trespas to misprison”: Mis/quotation and Meta/discourse

Readings: Tyrone Williams’ “I am not proud to be black”

February 20^th  Citationality and Social Space

Readings: The Yale Anthology of Rap and Rap Genius (http://rapgenius.com).

Recommended:

Tricia Rose’s Black Noise

Jospeh G. Schloss’ Making Beats: The Art of Sample-Based Hip-Hop

Adam Krims’ Rap Music and the Poetics of Identity

Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop Won’t Stop (http://cantstopwontstop.com)

Josh Kun’s Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America

February 27^th  Rap as Metadiscourse

Readings: Douglas Kearney’s The Black Automaton and Dan Thomas-Glass’ The Great American Beat Jack

Recommended:

T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland”

John Taggart’s Loop

Tan Lin’s “Disco as Operating System” (http://www.aphasic-letters.com/heath/Lin-Tan_Disco-as-Operating-System_Criticism_2008.pdf)

Rodrigo Toscano’s “Transitions of Capitalist Hyperspace (shake your booty) [part 5 of 5]” (http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/toscano/Toscano_CPPR_Part_5.pdf)

Latasha N. Nevada Diggs’ TwERK

Judith Goldman’s l.b.; or, catenaries

Kevin Young's To Repel Ghosts: the Remix
Dana Ward’s “Poppy” (http://theclaudiusapp.com/5-ward.html)

Paolo Javier’s 60 lv bo(e)mbs

March 6^th        SPRING BREAK

March 13^th      DJ Poetics

(visit from Jamie Kelly)

Readings: Etel Adnan’s Of Cities & Women (Letters to Fawwaz)

Recommended:

Etel Adnan’s To Look At The Sea Is To Become What One Is: an Etel Adnan Reader

Ammiel Alcalay’s After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture

Jalal Toufic’s Vampires (2^nd ed.)

March 20^th      Composition Through Epistolary (II)

Readings: Jack Frost’s The Antidote, “Poetry During OWS” feature at Rethinking Marxism (http://www.wildhorsesoffire.org/files/poetry-during-ows.pdf), and other Occupy materials TBA

March 27^th      Language and the Creation of Social Space (II)

(visit from David Buuck)

Readings: Dana Ward’s The Crisis of Infinite Worlds

Recommended:

Jack Spicer’s The Collected Books of Jack Spicer

Frank O’Hara’s “Having a Coke With You”

Bruce Boone’s Century of Clouds

Robert Gluck’s Elements

Eileen Myles’ The Importance of Being Iceland

Tyrone Williams’ Pink Tie

Fred Moten’s B Jenkins

CA Conrad’s A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon

Julian T. Brolaski’s Gowanus Atropolis

Brandon Brown’s The Poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus

David Wolach’s Hospitalogy

April 3^rd          Poetics of Friendship

Readings: Excerpts from Bruno Latour’s Reassembling the Social (http://dss-edit.com/plu/Latour_Reassembling.pdf)

April 10^th        Network Poetics (I)

Readings: Tan Lin’s HEATH (http://aphasic-letters.com/heath/)

Recommended:

Marjorie Perloff’s Unoriginal Genius: Poetry By Other Means in the New Century

Tan Lin’s Tumblr site (http://tanlin.tumblr.com)

Craig Dworkin’s No Medium

Brian Reed’s Nobody’s Business: Twenty-First Century Avant-Garde Poetics

Christopher Alexander’s Panda and interview with Kristen Gallagher (https://jacket2.org/commentary/how-it-works-i-technical-supports)

Cory Arcangel’s “A couple of thousand short films about Glenn Gould” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89ZueN7Szy0) and website (http://www.coryarcangel.com)

Danny Snelson’s Heath, prelude to tracing the actor as network (http://aphasic-letters.com/heath/)

Rhizome (https://www.google.com/#q=rhizome.org)

Gauss PDF (http://www.gauss-pdf.com)

Dexter Sinister’s Dot Dot Dot and Bulletins of the Serving Library (http://www.dextersinister.org)

April 17^th        Network Poetics (II)

Readings: Stephanie Young’s Ursula or University

Recommended:

Samuel R. Delaney’s Times Square Red, Times Square Blue

Suzanne Lacy’s Leaving Art

Tom Finkelperl’s What We Made: Conversations on Art and Social Cooperation

Juliana Spahr’s The Transformation

Life as Form (ed. Nato Thompson)

Renee Gladman’s Newcomer Can’t Swim

A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Writers of the Bay Area (ed. Rosenthal)

Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics (ed. Peterson and Tolbert)

Thom Donovan’s The Hole

April 24^th        Writing as Community Practice

Readings: Matias Viegener’s 2500 Random Things About Me Too

Recommended:

Andy Warhol’s A: a Novel

Ray Johnson’s Correspondence School

Hannah Weiner’s Clairvoyant Journals (in draft form: http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/m504/index.html)

Ed Friedman’s Telephone Book

Kevin Killian’s Amazon reviews

Chris Kraus’ I Love Dick

Tan Lin’s Insomnia and the Aunt

Rob Fitterman Now We Are Friends (http://truckbooks.org/pdfs/Fitterman_NWAF.pdf)

Flarf Collective (http://jacketmagazine.com/30/fl-intro.html)

Anselm Berrigan's & Jonathan Allen's Loading
Kristen Gallagher's We Are Here (http://truckbooks.org/pdfs/Gallagher_WAH.pdf)
Anne Boyer’s “The Day Steve Jobs Died”

Sue Landers’ What I Was Tweeting While You Were on Facebook

Joseph Bradshaw’s “Of Being Numerous” and “The New York School” (http://electiveaffinitiesusa.blogspot.com/2013/02/joseph-bradshaw.html)

Jackqueline Frost’s The Soft Appeal

Kate Durbin's "Tumblr is the only place I don't pretend I'm okay" (http://vimeo.com/36453047)
Trisha Low’s The Compleat Purge

Sophia Le Fraga’s I DON'T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE INTERNET and I RL, YOU RL

May 1^st           Poetry after Social Media

            (Final work due)

Woolsey Heights reading at A Voice Box

Here is a reading I gave this past spring at Woolsey Heights in Berkeley, recorded and mixed by Andrew Kenower and posted to his website, A Voice Box.

Sorry not to write you back sooner...

Sorry not to write you back sooner

I have been a bit spaced-out

I saw a picture of you and Marianne on FB recently—

You look great together!

Ugh, not looking forward to breaking this news to a triple Scorpio

At the castle now it is weird to have time to do anything I want

Sort of freaks me out, though I guess I should enjoy it

How is everyone? Are we still feeling this?

Just wanted to make sure I didn't lose track of you

I have been in Europe and not in New York

Lovely picture of the girls

Let's take a walk when I get back... long overdue! 

Glad you are finding a little time to relax with Mel,

And hopefully some poetry

This looks great!

I can't believe my time is already up at the castle

I think this will definitely up the ante...

I hope the holidays have been grand in Greece!

Things were pretty quiet here.

A bunch of us cooked followed by karaoke.

I can't remember the last time I karaoked.

We will Skype

Just in case you were wondering what you missed while you were

Away from the castle... 

I was using the site in English and also using Google

Maps with the address you gave

Me, so I really don't know what

I could have been doing wrong

It is a missed opportunity for sure

Send word from the motherland when you can...

I hope you guys won't hate me

I have been completely out-to-lunch

Holed up in the castle. Take a bus? A cab?

I'm looking forward to seeing you

And to having a little adventure...

Late to rise this dreariest of mornings...

Great moves on the dance floor last night!

I would happily attempt to produce my famous chowder

If everyone contributes a bottle of wine and a dessert

Fruit and a flight of cheeses for hors d'oeuvres

And maybe a single malt for aperitif

I will bring the hip-hop mix...

However quahogs may be difficult to come by 

Sorry for being 'complicated'!

Just wanted to check in about plans to visit

I'm sorry for my ambivalence; I bend too easily sometimes

I thought I would wake up and regret what I wrote

In fact, I woke up feeling less angry

But still a little angry at what he wrote

Today's a day I have been putting off for awhile

Wishing it was colder and snowier here

Not the weather I was expecting

Really could use an ocean right now

A forest just isn’t the same

Last night I wrote a poem about seeing The Hunger Games

In German… how that felt.

I just took a big fat shit

I hope this is OK

Typical manager...

Sometimes I feel that if I never hear another word

In German it will be too soon

I tend to agree with you

That we shouldn't let these works go so easily

I want to respect her input.

I am going to follow your lead,

which is basically what I just did in an email

I am a little frustrated that we cannot talk

At this point all I can do is point to the fact

That I feel totally in the dark

All I can do not to lose my temper 

I'm sorry, my brain is warped

I am, in a word, cranky

Will write you a real letter soon

Just had to withdraw from all communication

You will have to tell me about it in person

Regardless, the book will be grand!

Is there something I missed? In understanding,

Got momentarily swallowed up by the castle!

I think this would be a better way to proceed

Everything is very murky right now 

Maybe subtlizing 

I feel really out of the loop

It is totally abstract to me

I just tried calling but your mailbox is full 

I'm very sorry I couldn't visit

A missed opportunity!

I would like to donate

I am in the castle, yes!

Listening to Chopin's Nocturnes and drinking coffee

While I try to write this poem

Which I don't like writing

I started sharing some of these on Facebook

Working through the complicated feelings

I'm attaching that, in case you are interested

I wrote it in like two hours

I also really love the forest

Where I have been jogging

God, every track is so good!

Thinking of you guys from afar

Gosh, I hope it is not too soon to send you this

Since you expressed a curiosity in how I might start

I feel compelled to share

I hope I have not wrongfully depicted you!

I have some notes for how it might continue and expand

I'm home for the evening and will have Skype

Quasi-slavery and male pregnancy—perfect combo!

I had forgotten that he connects us

Very rare in my current life

I can't believe that much time has passed

I also would love to read more

If there is any you'd be willing to to share

The reading you gave at the Poetry Project was extraordinarily moving! 

I have a lot to say,

But am holding my tongue

That a place be reserved for them

As a kind of placeholder

If only their names suspended over a blank page

Here is the initial letter

Hope all is going well with life

I'm quite happy to not be working

I wanted to run an idea past you

Which I hope you will feel

Especially around ideas of "friendship" and "community,"

To play with the idea of how the book emerges

What I would like to do is invite nearly everyone

I've always wanted to collaborate on something

I miss our conversation!

Never mind that last email

Uploading to Facebook

It was super depressing the last time I popped in there

Very few books on the shelf

I actually don't know a word of German

(imagine a lot of pointing and apologizing)

Good to talk about vintage clothing, I Love Dick, teaching, and other

Subjects tonight... I hope you are surviving the endless party!

I let a few things go to waste

I also really would prefer apples, pears, grapes, and bananas

I hope I am not being too picky!

If there is any way to also get something leafy, like some spinach or lettuce, I would really 

Appreciate that

I hope I am not making too many demands on you!

Thank you for your many efforts.