John Bloomberg-Rissman: tattoo with quote from Walter Benjamin
IN THE HOUSE OF THE HANGMAN 1107
Trying to relieve the feeling of dead meat in the breast with a swim in the sea, see lots of movie type cartoon Disney Saga, work all the time, do some work to, read about body fluids, writing letters back and forth with proposals on jobs and ideas, type no answer. How do you do? Freak accident is the thing maybe? Give me a penny for your lungs man. Imagine being someone’s butler. Hey. This is Buffy and Leila, Divine and PJ in the back without them knowing about it or agree with, icons should not have to bother. This is going to go so fucking good. Otherwise, we can hold the car. Are you with me? We can hold the car to the north and playing Sheeba, Go betweens and Meat loaf on the askassa stereo. No one can reach us, we ba: generally no. No can dou. No Sir, we can accommodate. That’s a negative sir, we have escaped. We’ve set to work removing the veil of anxious subjectivity and clotted multi-syllables from their writing, to go for a walk and to take nothing (no phone, no iPod, no iPad, nothing) except for a pad and pen. When they saw an image that they would otherwise take a picture of, they were to stop, sit down, and write the image as they saw it. No commentary.
Art work: Yuree Kensaku: "The Killer from Electricity Authority" (detail), 2009, Singapore Art Museum, Singapore. Photo John Tranter. Other photos of Singapore at night by the well-known 'unknown photographer'. «Blade Runner» photos courtesy of «Blade Runner».
Just back from the Singapore Writers Festival 2012. A busy week, with multicultural literary insights interspersed with varied culinary delights. Singapore is the acme and ne plus ultra of shopping and cooking, as the closing debate of the Festival agreed, and Orchard Road at night, the premium shopping area, outdoes the scene in «Blade Runner» where the Harrison Ford character eats at a roadside stall, surrounded by milling throngs and lit by the glare of dozens of huge video advertisements.
(l to r): Tobias Amslinger, Norbert Lange, Charles Bernstein, Dennis Büscher-Ulbrich, Mathias Traxler in Berlin
In the next couple of years, Christian Lux will be publishing a German translation of my selected poems, All the Whiskey in Heaven. Norbert Lange and company have been working on the translation with marvelous ingenuity and astonishing dedication. Norbert, Christian and I first met in January whne I did a reading at Lyrik Kabinett. We next read together last month at the Berlin Literary Festival ("Reveal Codes") and then at Lettrétage.
[NOTE. The following was originally published in TheExquisiteCorpse in 1993 & again in ThusSpakeTheCorpse (An ExquisiteCorpse Reader, 1988-1999). Brought into the present context its central argument – as presented here – has much to say about the nature of language & identity beyond more orthodox ideas of nativism & foreignness. The emphasis on American & Jewish writings rhymes as well with matters of concern to the present editor & touched on from different perspectives in previous postings on PoemsandPoetics. It is also an acknowledgement of the role played by major figures in our recent poetry & literature who have come into English writing as a second or even a third language, but in the extract cited here goes well beyond that. A complete version of Nemet-Nejat’s once controversial essay can be found elsewhere on the web. (J.R.)]
I speak no language like a native. Though I have lived in the States since 1959, my accent still sounds foreign. I was born in Turkey, but I am not Turkish. I am Jewish. In the fifties most Jews in Turkey were Sephardim and spoke Ladino Spanish.
John Bloomberg-Rissman: Two poems from 'In the House of the Hangman'
IN THE HOUSE OF THE HANGMAN 1107
Trying to relieve the feeling of dead meat in the breast with a swim in the sea, see lots of movie type cartoon Disney Saga, work all the time, do some work to, read about body fluids, writing letters back and forth with proposals on jobs and ideas, type no answer. How do you do? Freak accident is the thing maybe? Give me a penny for your lungs man. Imagine being someone’s butler. Hey. This is Buffy and Leila, Divine and PJ in the back without them knowing about it or agree with, icons should not have to bother. This is going to go so fucking good. Otherwise, we can hold the car. Are you with me? We can hold the car to the north and playing Sheeba, Go betweens and Meat loaf on the askassa stereo. No one can reach us, we ba: generally no. No can dou. No Sir, we can accommodate. That’s a negative sir, we have escaped. We’ve set to work removing the veil of anxious subjectivity and clotted multi-syllables from their writing, to go for a walk and to take nothing (no phone, no iPod, no iPad, nothing) except for a pad and pen. When they saw an image that they would otherwise take a picture of, they were to stop, sit down, and write the image as they saw it. No commentary.
Singapore Writers Festival 2012
Literature on the Equator
Just back from the Singapore Writers Festival 2012. A busy week, with multicultural literary insights interspersed with varied culinary delights. Singapore is the acme and ne plus ultra of shopping and cooking, as the closing debate of the Festival agreed, and Orchard Road at night, the premium shopping area, outdoes the scene in «Blade Runner» where the Harrison Ford character eats at a roadside stall, surrounded by milling throngs and lit by the glare of dozens of huge video advertisements.
Munich and Berlin bilingual readings, 2012: video and audio
at Lyrik Kabinett Jan. 25 & Lettretage Sept. 11
In the next couple of years, Christian Lux will be publishing a German translation of my selected poems, All the Whiskey in Heaven. Norbert Lange and company have been working on the translation with marvelous ingenuity and astonishing dedication. Norbert, Christian and I first met in January whne I did a reading at Lyrik Kabinett. We next read together last month at the Berlin Literary Festival ("Reveal Codes") and then at Lettrétage.
Ray DiPalma, 1974
Ray DiPalma in the Peacock Room of the Freer Gallery, Washington DC, in 1974. Photograph by Elizabeth DiPalma.
Murat Nemet-Nejat: From 'Questions of Accent' ('What Is Then Accented Writing?')
[NOTE. The following was originally published in The Exquisite Corpse in 1993 & again in Thus Spake The Corpse (An Exquisite Corpse Reader, 1988-1999). Brought into the present context its central argument – as presented here – has much to say about the nature of language & identity beyond more orthodox ideas of nativism & foreignness. The emphasis on American & Jewish writings rhymes as well with matters of concern to the present editor & touched on from different perspectives in previous postings on Poems and Poetics. It is also an acknowledgement of the role played by major figures in our recent poetry & literature who have come into English writing as a second or even a third language, but in the extract cited here goes well beyond that. A complete version of Nemet-Nejat’s once controversial essay can be found elsewhere on the web. (J.R.)]
I speak no language like a native. Though I have lived in the States since 1959, my accent still sounds foreign. I was born in Turkey, but I am not Turkish. I am Jewish. In the fifties most Jews in Turkey were Sephardim and spoke Ladino Spanish.