Commentaries - May 2014

In audio practice V

At the New Coast

Liaizon Wakest, Mike Basinski, DAT recorder, New Coast festival, Buffalo 1993
Liaizon Wakest at New Coast Festival, SUNY-Buffalo, 1993; Mike Basinski and DAT recorder at right. Photo by Chris Funkhouser

Charles Bernstein and I met for the first time as I was considering leaving Santa Cruz to pursue a Ph.D. at SUNY-Albany. He mentioned he was helping to organize a major conference of young writers at SUNY-Buffalo the following year; this festival was among the factors enticing me into academia. More than twenty years have passed since the Poetics program at Buffalo sponsored the New Coast festival, and my recordings of the readings have recently been posted on PennSound (video footage is, thanks to Peter Gizzi and Kristin Prevallet, forthcoming).

I can still recall how build-up to the festival was exciting—partially because some of it transpired in newly-arrived online discussion boards, like the Poetics listserv (the 1993 archive of which is now unavailable). I was particularly interested because organizers Juliana Spahr and Gizzi, who I did not know, were assembling a group of writers I was largely unfamiliar with (I had read or heard only five of the thirty-nine invitees, listed in the announcement at the link above, beforehand).

Geomantic riposte: 'Combustion'

Originally from Western Canada, Lorri Neilsen Glenn now lives in Halifax and spends her summers in Saskatchewan. She served as Poet Laureate for Halifax from 2005-2009 and she has producing award-winning scholarship and creative nonfiction. Her popular workshops on memoir and life writing have been held across Canada, particularly Atlantic Canada, as well as in Ireland, Greece, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand. Her critically acclaimed forays into poetic memoir form include the poignant Threading Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry, which explores Neilsen Glenn's awareness of poetry as a model of secular compunction that serves as a form of prayer.

Pulling punches

Ferris wheel outside Taj Mahal casino
Big Wheel, Atlantic City

Susan Sarandon playing the role of trainee croupier, Sally, is confronted by her back story when her estranged husband lands like a bad penny. He's not sorry for anything he’s done, but why mess around with her kid sister? Sally would tell Dave to take a hike 'cos she doesn’t need his shit, but her pregnant sister begs: please…please! Dave was bad news but when she’s given her heart don’t go breaking it, asshole!

From 'An Artist's Life as Told by Eleanora Antinova to Eleanor Antin'

[A BRIEF NOTE FOR THE FOLLOWING.  I spent many years working in a variety of media performance, photography, writing,  film, video, installation, drawing) inventing what i called my alternate selves.  My most complex self was Eleanora Antinova, the black ballerina of Diaghilev's Ballet-Russe. I am now working on her memoir “An Artist's Life as told by Eleanora Antinova to Eleanor Antin”. The following section is from that work in progress. (E.A.)]

 

Motion of Light: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany's Performative Poetics: Videos

April 11, 2014

photo ©2014 Charles Bernstein

Honoring Chip's contribution to Temple-Penn Poetics. 

Organized by Tracie Morris & Charles Bernstein
full video of events can be viewed in three segments:


Part 1:
intro, Fred Barney Taylor (before/after showing of his film The Polymath), talks by Kenneth James, Terry Rowden, & Ira Livingston