"there are no words that adequately describe anything; they signify the already multiple layered stains of history's concrete (cement)/stone {steel}...who said we need to be recognized or seen for what we are? we already know we are held in a position at the end of a barrel, knife, the courts, and/or state sponsored violence...what I am talking about is the flux of absence, not having the words and using the absence to speak of speaking without a language..." (kari edwards, iduna)
El mundo ya no es digno de la palabra Nos la ahogaron adentro Como te (asfixiaron), Como te desgarraron a ti los pulmones Y el dolor no se me aparta sólo queda un mundo Por el silencio de los justos Sólo por tu silencio y por mi silencio, Juanelo.
El mundo ya no es digno de la palabra, es mi último poema, no puedo escribir más poesía...la poesía ya no existe en mi.
I've wrote about this already a few years ago but can't help myself. It's such fun. Nick Montfort decided to write by constraint, limiting himself to the use of the top row of his keyboard: q w e r t y u i o p, and no other letters. He wrote a poem and called it "Top Row Retort." It was published in 2000 in Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics.
- - - -
Top Row Retort
I tore out type ere I wrote, to type up top: upper typewriter row, pert repertoire.
Reporter, I quote to you: To write, pop type out. Retire typewriter row two. Your tri-row?
Rip it out, too. Tour your top row territory. Queer tip, you retort? I worry your poor typewriter?
To torque it out -- typewriter terror? You require row two, your tri-row prop?
You pout, try to quip. (Poor etiquette.) You titter. (Poorer propriety.) You utter uppity output?
Quiet, you! Quit it! You purport to write. I tire to peer to your rot, your petty writ,
to eye your wire report. You write pyrite, terrier to torpor. I pity you, preppie yuppie.
I tutor you, tyro, to uproot your trite tree, put type to pyre. Rupture type. Write to write.
I erupt. I riot. I prototype pure power to write. I, upper typewriter requiter.
I outwit you, too. To perpetuity, I write poetry. You, to put it true, putter out rote poop.
Your Frankenstein What is the word from Deberoux Babtiste the Funambule I Desnuelu (who's he?) to choke you Duhamel and you De brouille Graciously Deberaux Take me by the throat Decraux Barrault Deberaux Delicate French logic Black daisy chain of nuns Nous sommes tous assasins Keith's jumping old man in the waves methadrine morning dance of delicacy "I want you to pick me up when I fall down"
That's part of a poem by Elise Cowan. Cowen, though dead more than a quarter century, is in many ways more present than many of the other so-called "Beat women." She is alive in the pages of Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters and in the memories of many of Beat survivors whom she deeply impressd with her generous friendship. Janine Pommy Vega, with whom Elise lived for a time, says, "I still think about her every day. She was the smartest person I knew." More...
Not a luxury
Desaparecidos in Oaxaca, in Cuernavaca, and beyond
"there are no words that adequately describe anything; they signify the already multiple layered stains of history's concrete (cement)/stone {steel}...who said we need to be recognized or seen for what we are? we already know we are held in a position at the end of a barrel, knife, the courts, and/or state sponsored violence...what I am talking about is the flux of absence, not having the words and using the absence to speak of speaking without a language..." (kari edwards, iduna)
El mundo ya no es digno de la palabra
Nos la ahogaron adentro
Como te (asfixiaron),
Como te
desgarraron a ti los pulmones
Y el dolor no se me aparta
sólo queda un mundo
Por el silencio de los justos
Sólo por tu silencio y por mi silencio, Juanelo.
El mundo ya no es digno de la palabra, es mi último poema, no puedo escribir más poesía...la poesía ya no existe en mi.
Recreational linguistics
I've wrote about this already a few years ago but can't help myself. It's such fun. Nick Montfort decided to write by constraint, limiting himself to the use of the top row of his keyboard: q w e r t y u i o p, and no other letters. He wrote a poem and called it "Top Row Retort." It was published in 2000 in Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics.
- - - -
Top Row Retort
I tore out type ere I wrote, to type up top:
upper typewriter row, pert repertoire.
Reporter, I quote to you: To write, pop type out.
Retire typewriter row two. Your tri-row?
Rip it out, too. Tour your top row territory.
Queer tip, you retort? I worry your poor typewriter?
To torque it out -- typewriter terror?
You require row two, your tri-row prop?
You pout, try to quip. (Poor etiquette.) You titter.
(Poorer propriety.) You utter uppity output?
Quiet, you! Quit it! You purport to write.
I tire to peer to your rot, your petty writ,
to eye your wire report. You write pyrite,
terrier to torpor. I pity you, preppie yuppie.
I tutor you, tyro, to uproot your trite tree,
put type to pyre. Rupture type. Write to write.
I erupt. I riot. I prototype pure power
to write. I, upper typewriter requiter.
I outwit you, too. To perpetuity, I write poetry.
You, to put it true, putter out rote poop.
Black daisy chain of nuns
That's part of a poem by Elise Cowan. Cowen, though dead more than a quarter century, is in many ways more present than many of the other so-called "Beat women." She is alive in the pages of Joyce Johnson's Minor Characters and in the memories of many of Beat survivors whom she deeply impressd with her generous friendship. Janine Pommy Vega, with whom Elise lived for a time, says, "I still think about her every day. She was the smartest person I knew." More...
Lawrence Schwartzwald photos Poets House April 16, 2011
Grand Piano reading
Star Black photos at Poets House April 16, 2011
Grand Piano reading