Photo of Jocelyn Saidenberg (left) by Kari Orvik; photo of Eric Sneathen (right) by Matt Sussman.
Note: Jocelyn Saidenberg’s most recent poetry collection Kith & Kin (The Elephants, 2018) tracks the author’s yearlong attempt to surface those deemphasized aspects of language and living. What has been paraphrased, forgotten, or disappeared from the everyday returns in Saidenberg’s poetry, which mixes together the little deaths of houseplants with a politics of refusal (however fleeting) and an enduring grief for a friend.
Note:On Friday, September 7, 2019, Afrizal Malna and I met at the Warunk Upnormal in the Cikini area of Jakarta, not far from Afrizal’s home at the time and even closer to Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts Center, a significant hub of creative activity in Jakarta where he’d spent much time over the years. Though we’d met for coffee and conversation a number of times in Cikini, this was the first time at Upnormal, and the first time our conversation was recorded.
Note:On Friday, September 7, 2019, Afrizal Malna and I met at the Warunk Upnormal in the Cikini area of Jakarta, not far from Afrizal’s home at the time and even closer to Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts Center, a significant hub of creative activity in Jakarta where he’d spent much time over the years. Though we’d met for coffee and conversation a number of times in Cikini, this was the first time at Upnormal, and the first time our conversation was recorded (and later transcribed and translated into English for the purposes of this feature).
Photo of Clare Harmon by Chloé Azzopardi. Photo of Rodrigo Toscano by Clare Welsh.
Note: I first met Rodrigo through a mutual friend at a gallery opening; I think I said something about being a classical musician, because, there, among the photographs, Rodrigo launched into a thick analysis of Frescobaldi and Couperin (the elder); I remember being completely shocked at the level of knowledge — something I hadn’t experienced since my days in graduate school. Maybe we talked about Ligeti’s Continuum (a favorite of mine), too.
Note: I first met Rodrigo through a mutual friend at a gallery opening; I think I said something about being a classical musician, because, there, among the photographs, Rodrigo launched into a thick analysis of Frescobaldi and Couperin (the elder); I remember being completely shocked at the level of knowledge — something I hadn’t experienced since my days in graduate school. Maybe we talked about Ligeti’s Continuum (a favorite of mine), too.
Photo of Tom Patterson taken by Jonathan Williams in 1980 at the Ocmulgee National Monument. Courtesy of Tom Patterson.
I initially reached out to Tom Patterson in June 2019 with a research inquiry related to poets practicing in the American South during the late 1970s and ’80s. Although he’s now known primarily as a writer on contemporary art and an independent curator, Tom has served in multiple roles with small poetry presses over the years, perhaps most notably as the executive director of the Jargon Society from 1984–87, where he led Jargon’s Southern Visionary Folk Art Preservation Project.
Note: I initially reached out to Tom Patterson in June 2019 with a research inquiry related to poets practicing in the American South during the late 1970s and ’80s. Although he’s now known primarily as a writer on contemporary art and an independent curator, Tom has served in multiple roles with small poetry presses over the years, perhaps most notably as the executive director of the Jargon Society from 1984–87, where he led Jargon’s Southern Visionary Folk Art Preservation Project.
The Kelly Writers House in 2007; photo by Bruce Anderson, via Wikimedia Commons.
Editorial note: The following is an edited transcript of a discussion about the pedagogical future of experimental poetics that took place at the Kelly Writers House on February 28, 2001. The discussion opened with an introduction by Al Filreis and an extended reading from poet Joan Retallack, which included her “Memnoir,” excerpts from Errata 5uite, and “Here’s Looking at You, Francis Bacon,” and Gertrude Stein’s “What Is This?”
Editorial note: The following is an edited transcript of a discussion about the pedagogical future of experimental poetics that took place at the Kelly Writers House on February 28, 2001.
