This is a terrific collection about one of my favorite contemporary British poets. Useful both for detailed studies of O'Sullivan's poetry and poetics and as an opening into U.K. innovative poetry and the expanded field of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E. Overall, one of the most illuminating recent compendiums on contemporary poetics.
Maggie O'Sullivan and I will be reading together at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's, New York, on Weds.. Oct. 5.
David and I met for lunch in SoH0, near Ellie's gallery. Much of our conversation focussed on David's essay collection; there were enough works for two books, so which to leave out? David was never much interested in talking about collecting his essays; his focus was always on what he doing now, what he was doing next. That's partly why it took him so long to gather together the pieces in that book. But I was persistent and brought up the essay collection just about every time we met. After a while, we walked outside and wound our way, slowly, toward Houston, talking all the while. I asked David about his sky-writing poems.
Matvei Yankelevitch asked me to join Lev Rubinstein in a memorial tribute to Dmitri Prigov at the Bowery Poetry Club. Rubinstein's is a poetry of changing parts that ensnares the evanescent uncanniness of the everyday (in ways that bring to mind the seriality of both Reznikoff and Grenier). By means of rhythmically foregrounding a central device — the basic unit of the work is the index card — Rubinstein continuously re-makes actual for us a flickering now time that is both intimate and strange.
Erica and Marty had collaborated once before, at Harvard. Now they brought the show to New York, to Cue Art Foundation in Chelsea. This was their last piece of the set.
