Commentaries - February 2014

Thomas McEvilley: Arimaspia launch and McEvilley tribute

Wednesday, March 5, 2014 8:00 pm,
The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
131 E. 10th Street, New York, NY 

Celebrating the life and work of  Thomas McEvilley (1939-2013) and the publication of his new books The Arimaspia: Songs for the Rainy Season, from McPherson & Co,,  and Seventeen Ancient Poems: Translations from Greek and Latin.

My introducton to the book is here.  

The tribute will feature Carolee Schneemann, Holland Cotter, Pat Steir, Les Levine, William Anastasi, Susan Bee, George Quasha, Richard Fletcher, Bruce McPherson, Stacy Szymaszek, Dove Bradshaw , Ann McCoy, David Shapiro, Joyce Burstein, Charles Bernstein (emcee), & special video tribute by Marina Abramovic .

Entry 7

Poetics Diplomacy II

Beachfront apartment, Tel Aviv, 1997. Photo: author

Writing on the debate over Israel/Palestine and BDS, while reflecting on the poetics conference I attended at Tel Aviv University in 1997, I am aware of the limits of discussion in public and academic spheres. The boycott itself has occasioned acts of recrimination, but at the same time there is a lack of more general discussion lest prior, fixed commitments be unveiled.

Joglars and Symbolic Capital

Joglars 1 (1964Joglars #1 appeared in Spring 1964, and its lineup of eleven contributors closely followed the tendencies that the Coolidge-Palmer correspondence was already indicating: a strong showing from the Black Mountain group (Fielding Dawson, Joel Oppenheimer, John Wieners, Jonathan Williams), two Bay area poets (Gary Snyder and Michael McClure), and the Objectivists Zukofsky and Niedecker.

Joglars and Coolidge's Poetics: From sound to sense

Joglars 1 (1964)As the Coolidge-Palmer correspondence housed at SUNY-Buffalo indicates, one challenge faced by the young editors of Joglars was coming up with a name for their publication. In the letter to Palmer dated November 26, 1963, Coolidge writes: “NAME for the 'creature' still hangs me -- maybe (a la tzara) open dictionary, aleatory style?

Joglars and post-New American Poetry

Joglars 1 & 2 (1964)Scholars frequently cite the importance of the little magazines for literary production but, with some noteworthy exceptions--Steve Evans, Alan Golding, Daniel Kane, Libbie Rifkin, Linda Russo, Susan Vanderborg--rarely spend time much considering them in-depth. The correspondence between Clark Coolidge and Michael Palmer, who co-edited Joglars (1964-1966), offers a unique glimpse into the activity of two young poet-publishers sizing up the literary field as they find it. Their letters (housed at the SUNY-Buffalo Poetry Collection) are filled with discussions of whom to solicit work from as well as favorable reactions to the magazine from poets and artists spanning several generations and affiliations.