Commentaries - September 2015

Jerome Rothenberg readings & launches: 'Barbaric Vast & Wild,' and more (a final listing)

In line with publication of Barbaric Vast & Wild: An Assemblage of Outside & Subterranean Poetry from Origins to Present (Poems for the Millennium, volume 5), co-edited with John Bloomberg-Rissman, I’ll be engaged this autumn in the following launches & readings, along with several other talks & solo  or group performances:

 

Introductory

Toward an Aotearoa poetic?

Ngā mōteatea Māori

                                        Kowhaiwhai

 A few years ago I wrote a piece entitled Toward an Aotearoa Poetic: a few suggestions about constructing a specifically Aotearoa poetic as opposed to the — then extant — mono-cultural, monolingual, monocentric monotonous model of what poetry is and means to many Kiwis.

Down the track of time somewhat and now living right back bang in the centre of this skinny country, my essential points still remain valid, given that my many generalizations in that piece remain exactly that: the piece requires modification and further reflection. It was never meant to be an ‘academic’ item either.

Sonic poetry from Andrew Whiteman

Andrew Whiteman (guitarist, composer, frontperson for Apostle of Hustle, etc.) is an enthusiastic promoter of the experimental poetry tradition, especially in Canada. He has collaborated with Ariel Engle in the board AroarA, which released the EP "In the Pines" based on the poetry of Alice Notley. He has just made available "Sonic Poetry - Investigative Poetry" as a YouTube video.