Topeka Trance-'Cryption Poetry Project #4

Topeka Trance-'Cryption Poetry Project #4
for Joe Harrington

Put your team's baseball cap on. Plan to write during the evening game, and to have it on the radio. Better a transistor, but even a phone with an app for listening will do. Begin deep breathing. If you find your mind wants to start the poem, write the envoi.

Several things will happen during this project: Your love for listening to baseball, your love for the language used for the game, your love for writing, all of the emotions you have about each combined in this moment of meditation.

Think of this as a meditation in the way you write poems. You will write slow while listening to the game. You will listen for those words that come in your mind. If you love writing fast, write fast only when you are following your own path away from what is said.

Begin writing as soon as you hear the sportscasters give whatever wording it is that signals that the game has started.

Keep in mind that sportscasters speak fast as you will stay meditative. Write the words that resonate with you as you hear them. However, be ready to continue with the other words that follow what you have written. Stay in that moment until you are "stuck". Go back to the game and continue.

Write until you are finished.

[

What is Trance-'Cryption? It is where transcription, trance poetics, and encryption meet.

[

The idea for this came from how many poets are baseball fans. Joe, Susan M. Schultz, and so on.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/244646

Ron Silliman? Anselm Berrigan and Bethlehem Shoals? Yes!

I wanted this project to reflect these poets' sentiments about baseball and poetry. Plus, I wanted to honor my friend.

I am fascinated with sports talk. Listening to a ball game is unique, in that almost all sportscasters sound the same, use the same rhetoric, and such. However, there is a lot said that goes outside of what happens in the game.

I also wanted a poet's aesthetic to come into play, that going into that poetic trance for writing should be the main goal--the thing privileged.

[

My poem coming soon.

Topeka Somatic-Trance Poetry Project #3

Topeka Somatic-Trance Poetry Project #3
for Melissa Studdard

Prepare for this project by reading through it until you are ready to move through it without worry of its "directions."

We have someone we care about--real or imagined, living or deceased--who is a heart-guide for us. Even if this person rarely spoke, or you never met her or him, or whatever reason or non-reason, this person is important. This project attempts to uncover and [re]cover your connection via a poem. This poem is also a gift for you and her or him.

This project relies on our abilities to find a center throughout whatever chaos, loss, the past, etc. Poetry brings our attention to the present moment, transcending time and space, so using the body while writing is important.

First, do simple breathing exercises. Rest with deep breath, and center your spine as perpendicularly with the earth as possible. Close your eyes if you need to.

Take out "scrap paper" to circle on. You might need ten sheets. Maybe fifteen. Write the name of your heart-guide at the top of each paper. Choose either way to circle, whatever way feels comfortable, beginning at the center and moving outward on the paper.

While doing this, close your eyes and think about the person, the essence of your center, the essence of your emotion. Do your best to continue with breathing, with spine-alignment, with circles.

Continue doing this exercise until you are ready with an image. This meaningful image will be the concentration of your poem.

Begin writing in the middle, circling outward in the same way you drew the circles. Your circles of meaning, memory, emotion will become words now. Stay with words for that image, using repetition, reflection, modes of looking to fill the page with words around (bad pun!) that image. Allow whatever other images that come in while on the page to connect with that image.

Do not worry about the placement of words. Stay in the trance of your movement.

When the page is full and you have another image, start with it on the next page. Start anew or continue--whichever you feel is "right." If nothing comes but you want to continue, try drawing circles again.

Send this poem to your heart-guide, physically, mentally, or by any other means.

You might have several heart-guides. Select another one tomorrow.

[

Note: I love Melissa's work for its mix of mystical imagery, as well as her heart-approach to the world. Here is an interview with her:

http://www.theenchantingverses.org/interviews.html

"Art is about discovery and sharing. Inside each of us, crashing against the shore of ego, are waves of truth trying to push their way onto land."

I wanted to take my reflections on her and her approach to poetry, as well as traditional approaches to meditation and the body-mind-heart, to create this project. I hope I accomplished this.

[

My own writing: [coming soon]

Topeka Somatic-Attachment Poetry Project #2

Topeka Somatic-Attachment Poetry Project #2
for Amy King

This project takes a little planning before going through with it. Select a place from your past which no longer exists. It could be a favorite clothing store, comic book store (in my case), building-turned-parking lot, park-now-building, river-now-dried, prairie-now-mall, or such. You will need to take at least one physical item which reminds you of that place: a picture of that place now missing, a picture of yourself from that time, a comic book from the time (in my case), a sandwich, wear the clothes you purchased there, and so on. Also, you will need a book of poetry from one of your favorite poets. The one I borrowed from was Amy King's _I Want to Make You Safe_. I asked her permission before moving forward, as well as checked with her about my end result.

The project is part somatic, part immersion, part write-through.  Make sure you are hydrated, as a sense of loss might come over you in your excursion.

Go sit in that place for a while with your things, including pen and paper (the immersion part of the project). Sit embedded in that atmosphere, noting whatever is happening. Allow your thoughts to wander and close your eyes. Open your eyes if the mood strikes you, looking at your artifact of that time (the somatic part of the project). Think of what is missing, the emotions around the time--happy, sad, and mixed--while doing your best to stay in that moment.

Note: If something is too overwhelming, please know you can stop and take good care of yourself instead of writing now.

While you have these image-memories, set out to the poetry book you brought and look for the poem that resonates with where you are. Read that poem. Then begin writing.

As you write, if you search for a word, search the poem for a word to use, the one that resonates with what you want to write (the write-through part of the project). Continue writing in this manner, while your soma-memories are guiding the poem and words from the poem you found create bridges.

Afterwards, move slowly and take your time returning to the now, the present. Drink more water. Be good to your heart, as you have re-covered and recovered an important part of yourself in a new way.

[

I used Amy's title poem from her book for my project, and it turned out to be the longest poem from my writing. There was a lot to uncover, as I went to Campus Center at 17th and Washburn to write about Comics & Fantasys. I soon thought about Twisters (a calzone restaurant) and going to both places with Brian Nightingale when we were in middle school. He took his life in the fall after our high school graduation, so the happy memories mixed with survival and loss prompted this one.

Here is the beginning of the poem:

Do I thumb through the right avalanche

that brings me circa whatever,

or turn the handle mistakenly

because of the wine I drink

at Flying Monkey, because

across the street Brian continues

playing that pinball game

while I read comic books, waiting

for one of my mothers to come

to pick me up? How can I already

be chained to each stupid day

back then, pulling apart

my mind’s clothing? With thirst,

I need water to break my dehydration

of 1984, 1991, and 2004, at least

I think those years marked

by dandelions, my rolling

across the grass. I sit in corners

here, come find me

in a ball flipped by flippers.

Those dandelion seeds fall

out of my hands’ skin, scatter

as I shout to my boys

not to touch them. How can I hide

dung, bells ringing, mission

drums, crucifixions? Carrie asks

about a place outside of this

country. Even rabbits

can’t make it across this boundary

I wear in silence, shoulders

sloped, my coat’s armor

shields out wind, rain, beast,

you, and this includes

me. What is my coin

of the realm doing

down the well? An arm

from that white rabbit

reaching up to take my

numbered memories? Days

trees get knocked down

along with abandoned buildings

to make way for new apartments,

commas, ellipses, waiting

to see death? I get up, shake

off my face, bury

costumes, drink wine, stagger

past houses, scream my policecar

siren and climb

up its vibrations. How could I

imagine never seeing you all again,

ghosts? I die

again, a drunk mummy

staggering to search for a new

tucking behind night. Romans

did this, so why can’t the USA?

Topeka Somatic Poetry Project #1

Topeka Somatic Poetry Project #1
for CA Conrad (also born in Topeka)

Go to that place where you were miserable during some time in your life. I mean that physical place. Go there and wait. Allow the memories of that place to come back, who you were then, and allow those feelings to come back, the person you were to come back. Allow all of it to enter in. If you feel sick, or faint, or alienated, close your eyes and wait. Then open your eyes and look around. Look at the people who look alienated, depressed, sad, burdened. Allow your past to move you into a positive motion, into who you are now, someone changed, someone different, who would feel differently now because of your changed heart-mind. You do not want others to suffer like this. Call it Christ or Siddhartha, this kind of figure who wishes to take on the suffering of others because she or he can is the figure you are becoming in this moment. Take out your pen and write a poem for these others. After you are done, read this poem to someone who looks sad, depressed, and ready for someone to come read her or him a poem.

My Grunge of 1991

I really don't like how Grunge turned out. Maybe it is too grungy? There were sentences I put in about events that really don't work. I thought about omission, but that is not working either.

It will take a bit of play, a bit of refiguring, deciding how many sentences should be included.

Maybe the success of MSWo1984 is because I carefully selected, crafted, etc, each sentence?

I am going to return to 1991 later. I'm moving on to 2004.

New X-Men: Phoenix and death (again)
Cloud Atlas: Feminist dystopian novel

I went to the Indiana University Summer Writers Conference in 2004 and attended Li-Young Lee's workshop. He read at a restaurant there, accompanied by Jazz band, and I remember his poems "Seven Marys" and "Station" vividly. I was really blown away by them. I know several people do not prefer his work, but those two poems stand out!

April 1 — Foetry.com Web site is launched for the announced purpose of "Exposing fraudulent contests. Tracking the sycophants. Naming names." Members and visitors contribute information which links judges and prize winners in various poetry contests in attempts to document whether some contests have been rigged.

Carl Phillips The Rest of Love: I picked up a signed copy of this in Left Bank Books, St Louis

Tony Tost Invisible Bride: I was blown away by this, and that it could win the Walt Whitman

Deer Head Nation came out in 2003.

The Killers in the summer and fall.

Triple Goddess Symbolism

A friend posted on facebook:

"I'm going to be writing a paper on the triple goddess symbolism in Neil Gaiman's works, specifically the Maiden/Mother/Crone archetype in _Ocean at the End of the Lane_. Can any of you recommend a book to use as a reference source for info on the triple goddess and M/M/C symbolism? 
Preferably I'd like something less abstruse than Robert Graves and more complete than, say, "Encyclopedia of Symbolism"... but that's a wide margin. Suggestions?"

My two mothers + Carrie = triple goddess symbolism

I feel a new project coming on!

My Grunge of 1991 notes

Thinking over how I wanted to handle omissions, from the inside out or the outside in, I figured I would do both. The "middle" word becomes a working title. The outside words are selected. Then it is a moving from the words on the outside going in as the contemplative word.

Note to Self

A project I wanted to work on fell through the works of teaching two online comp courses this summer. Starting at 40 students, down to 37, I can't create the space for writing--or writing well.

I'm looking forward to the end, although I have read amazing essays!

Plus, I'm putting up the chain link fence. Maybe I can get breaks to write in?

Project around Hobbes

I look across the room to see a student writing a paper about Hobbes' Leviathan and I get interested. I look it up, thinking about my philosophy classes and personal research, and also think about Brandon Brown's approach of re-translating such works poetically.

I am thinking an omission-based work, similar to Travis Macdonald, might be fun to do.

Just some random thoughts.

Joy Harjo in Independence?! Indpendence, Kansas?!

Beloved literati,

 The Astra Arts Festival is proud to present the 2014 line-up of Literary talent which showcases the best of contemporary Midwest writing!

 The town of Independence, Kansas is hosting 32 authors representing many different genres―everything from memoir to science fiction, cowboy poetry to zombie literature, blistering short stories and breathtaking lyric poetry. There is something for everyone in this summer's offerings - and you're invited.

 The short sections below detail some of the themes we have going on, but your participation and attendance is by no means limited to each section.

 We hope you'll find something of interest and come and see us this July. It simply wouldn't be the same without you.

 Yours sincerely,

 Eloise Leeson,

ASTRA Arts Festival Literary Marketing Lead

 

To unsubscribe from this mailing list, please respond with 'unsubscribe' as your subject message.

 

 

SO WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT, THEN?

The Astra Arts Festival is proud to present the 2014 line-up of Literary talent which showcases the best of contemporary Midwest writing! Independence is hosting 32 authors representing many different genres—everything from memoir to science fiction, cowboy poetry to zombie literature, blistering short stories and breathtaking lyric poetry. There is something for everyone in this summer’s offerings, and you’re invited.

 

CALLING ALL YOUTHS!

Calling all budding authors and young lovers of the written word!

 Are you a young adult or teen who loves nothing more than escaping into a good book? Find yourself thinking up plotlines on the bus to school? Think math would be better if there was a swordfight or dragon involved? Then why not come by and check out our epic selection of events just for you at this year’s inaugural Astra Arts Festival.

 On offer, we have:

 ·A Teen Story Discussion with Patrick Ryan, editor of One Teen Story

·A YA poetry slam – complete with prizes!

·A ‘Lit Crawl’ – stagger through the streets of Independence, and get tipsy on type! Led by Sue Landwehr and Lori Martin 

·A Zombie Lit Panel, hosted by Bennett Sims,

·A Discussion of Horror Fiction led by a gentleman who is a writer, cartoonist, musician, occasional filmmaker, and self-confessed pop culture junkie - the multi-talented Mike Hall!

The Astra Arts Festival is from July 3rd – July 13th in Independence, KS. Check the website for tickets, directions, details, and a full schedule of events.

 

A WEEKEND OF WORDS

Are you searching for something slightly off the beaten path this 4th July weekend? What about exploring your local area and enjoying some fantastic literary events in the town of Independence, KS? Our inaugural Astra Arts festival has a selection of events occurring on Saturday and Sunday the 5th/6th and the 12th/13th of July.

You are warmly invited to any (or all!) of the following:

 ·Self-Published Authors’ Panel Discussion (10 am Saturday, 5th)

·Self-Published Authors’ Book Sale (5pm Sunday, 6th)

·Reading by the author who wrote the critically acclaimed book ‘Children of Men’ -  Mary Doria Russell (5pm Saturday, 12th)

·Reading, Stephen Meats (2pm Saturday, 12th)

·Reading, Kathy DeGrave (3pm Saturday, 12th)

·Writing Contest winners, Booth Hotel (8pm Sunday 13th)

·ASTRAglow reception, Booth Hotel (9pm Sunday 13th)

And if you find you have a little time between these wonderful happenings, make sure you check out the following ongoing artistic events:

·Downtown Mural, David Lowenstein/Rachel Unruh, community project

·Penn & Laurel Invitational Art Exhibit, Jay Nelson, Curator, Independence

·Public Library, VerdigrisValley Art Exhibit, Independence Historical Museum, open entry

·Graffiti artist GEAR will be conducting a Graffiti Wall Mural & Painting Demonstration, at the Public Library

You can also peruse the many independently owned shops and coffee houses we have right here in town – and make sure you get yourself a real, old-fashioned Cherry Phosphate from our very own soda fountain. The Astra Arts Festival is from July 3rd – July 13th in Independence, KS. Check the website for tickets, directions, details, and a full schedule of events.

 

FOR THE HISTORICALLY INTERESTED

Pulitzer nominees, past and present poet laureates and everyone in between will be leading multiple events during this Astra Arts festival that focus on local and national history. As well as dropping past the readings from celebrated authors, why not try your hand at a Memoir Writing Workshop? We also have Masterclasses that promise to be a real treat. Why not make an afternoon of it with the following?

 ·Memoir Writing Workshop, Lori Martin (2pm Thursday 10th)

·Reading, Caryn Mirriam Goldberg (3pm Thursday 10th)

·Reading, Wyatt Townley (4pm Thursday 10th)

Of course, there’s plenty more on offer. The Astra Arts Festival is from July 3rd – July 13th in Independence, KS. Check the website for tickets, directions, details, and a full schedule of events.

 

POETRY: READING, WRITING, LISTENING.

Calling all poets and lovers of word-craft—these readings and workshops are designed specifically for you:

 ·A Haiku and Photography Installation

·Young Adult Poetry Slam with Patrick Ryan, editor of One Teen Story (prizes for winners)

·The Literature Crawl, featuring regional authors and the historic downtown of beautiful Independence, Kansas

·A Poetry Reading by Dr. Jim Hoy, Cowboy Poet of the Plains

·Poetry Workshop with Chris Anderson of Pittsburg State University

·Readings by Laura Lee Washburn, Stephen Meats, Kathy DeGrave, and others

·Former Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam Goldberg and Current Kansas Poet Laureate Wyatt Townley reading from their collections in the historic Alf Landon House

·An evening with Joy Harjo, winner of the William Carlos Williams Award, Native Writers Circle of The Americas Lifetime Achievement Award, and the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award.

 

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO WRITE, WE SALUTE YOU.

If, as Erasmus said, ‘the desire to write grows with writing’, then we highly recommend the following events to kick-start or rekindle your love affair with putting pen to paper:

Why not spend some time with Pittsburgh University educator Kathy DeGrave? One student has described her as having ‘monumental skills with stimulating student creativity in writing fiction. Always take a class from her every chance you get…She makes you want to learn’. Excited yet? Get your tickets online now. (2pm, Tuesday 8th)

If you’d rather a later start, you could come on by to what promises to be an amazing Masterclass with Arna Hemenway, author of Elegy on Kinderklavier, the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship for Fiction Writing and the John C. Schupes Fellowship for Fiction Writing and Assistant Professor of English in Creative Writing at Baylor University. With a resumé like that, how could you afford to miss this? (4pm, Tuesday 8th)

The Astra Arts Festival is from July 3rd – July 13th in Independence, KS. Check the website for tickets, directions, details, and a full schedule of events.

  

STRANGER THAN FICTION? LISTEN UP!

As we have such a wide-ranging series of readings, we recommend that those who love to listen head on over to the Astra Arts Festival website for all the details. From Hemenway to Harjo and Martin to Meats, make sure you note down your favorite events and get your tickets fast! Places are limited and operate on a first-come, first-serve basis.

 

Headlining Authors

Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a member of the Mvskoke Nation. Her seven books of poetry, which includes such well-known titles as How We Became Human- New and Selected Poems, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and She Had Some Horses have garnered many
awards. These include the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas; and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. For A Girl Becoming, a young adult/coming of age book, was released in 2009 and is Harjo’s most recent publication.

“...With a double shot of heart, beauty, freedom, peace and grace that blends traditional Native rhythms and singing with jazz, rock, blues and hip-hop, Harjo is right at the top of the best contemporary American poetry and music artists.”
—Thomas Rain Crow, The Bloomsbury Review

Ms. Harjo will perform a reading of her works at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 9 at the Inge Theatre on the campus of Independence Community College.

Alan Heathcock

Alan Heathcock writes about small towns and their secrets in Volt. Heathcock has an understanding and love of rural areas. His book has received great notice and acknowledgement.

Alan Heathcock’s VOLT was a “Best Book” selection in numerous newspapers and magazines, including GQ, Publishers Weekly, Salon, the Chicago Tribune, and Cleveland Plain Dealer, was named as a New York Times “Editors’ Choice,” selected as a Barnes & Noble “Best Book of the Month,” as well as a finalist for the Barnes & Noble “Discover Prize.”

Heathcock has won a Whiting Award, the GLCA New Writers Award, a National Magazine Award, has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Lannan Foundation, and the Idaho Commission on the Arts. A native of Chicago, he lives and works in Boise, Idaho.

During the Astra Arts Festival, Mr. Heathcock will perform a reading of one of his short stories at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 10 at the Independence Community College Black Box Theatre.

  

Mary Doria Russell

Mary Doria Russell has been called one of the most versatile writers in American literature and one of our greatest contemporary storytellers. She has a huge following in the science fiction world for her award winning books The Sparrow and Children of God.

Russell’s first novel, The Sparrow (1996), was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by Entertainment Weekly and won the Arthur C. Clarke Prize, the British Science Fiction Award for best novel in 1998. The sequel, Children of God (1998), won the Friends of the Library USA Reader’s Choice Award, and was nominated for the Hugo Award, Best Novel in 1999.

Her first historical fiction, A Thread of Grace (2005), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, was described by a reviewer in the San Francisco Chronicle to be “As sad as the history that engendered it, and hauntingly beautiful.” Russell’s fourth novel, Dreamers of the Day (2008), was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her most recent fiction, Doc (2011), examines the Old West of Doc Holliday and Dodge City; it was named a Great Lakes Great Book, and a Notable Book by the Kansas State Library.

Mary Doria Russell lives in Cleveland with her husband and is working on her next novel, Epitaph, the story of the 1881 gunfight in Tombstone, Arizona, and its aftermath.

Ms. Russell will perform a reading at 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 12, at the Presbyterian Church.

From Andrew Zawacki, in response

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/culture/how-to-shop-in-a-bookstore?src=soc_fcbks

Buy your books at Avid Bookshop in Athens or Seattle's Open Books A Poem Emporium. Ditto Flying Object in Hadley, MA, Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, City Lights Bookstore in San Fran. In Marfa, the Marfa Book Company, in Austin, Malvern Books. New York: St. Mark's Bookshop, et al. In Denver Tattered Cover Book Store and Counterpath, and up the road in Boulder, cf. Innisfree Poetry Bookstore & Cafe. Milwaukee has Woodland Pattern, Buffalo Talking Leaves—with Type Books... just over the border in Toronto. Dixieward: Square Books in Oxford, Miss., Hub City Bookshop in Spartanburg, SC. DC, think Bridge Street Books, and The Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago. Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, NJ, the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Cambridgeside. These spaces are owned and operated by actual people, who care deeply about writing; some of them are writers themselves. They invite writers to read and readers to listen. They carry poetry, and not just the stuff already in plain view. They ship anywhere. They take classroom book orders, and they'll send a single title. Please add to this list.

New Project around Attachment Poetics

I am starting my new project with something Asmund told Raedan on Father's Day yesterday: "I want to be in your sleeping zone."

This statement is profound to me, as it echoes what attachment parenting is about. Even on the more general level--I want to be in your zone--it is like a koan to me.

My Grunge of 1991 compilation is finished

Now onto the printing for revisions!

Update

I am now at needing 100 personal sentences to finish loading the sentences in.

It looks like I will tackle two different personal things per poem, which might be an interesting way to approach the omissions?

In other words, two emotional reflections as one--entering the poem with that in mind-heart.

[

I am at 32 more sentence needed. I hope to finish tomorrow.

Re-evaluation on My Grunge

Really, the YouTube videos are a little tedious. I found great things that were said, but I am moving on to something easier--texts I can use with little effort.

I know have 580 sentences, which means that between my personal sentences and news texts, I need 460 sentences.

As I need groups of twenty, I will go with:

400 news texts
60 personal sentences

In other words, each personal sentence will make a corresponding "poem" for a total of 52 poems in the collection.

I have 1045 news entries from this website:
http://www.historyorb.com/events/date/1991

Ironically, this number is very close to my 1040 sentences needed. However, that poem would be a very different poem. Maybe another project for another time?

For now, I need to figure out an easy way of placing three news articles into one sentence, chronologically.

Could I finish the preliminary today?

I need forty personal sentences.

[

Solution: Concatenation

Big word for a big problem with an easy solution

=A1&" "&A2&" "&A3

This will combine the three pieces of text into one. Then a copy and paste will use the text--not the formula!

Pretty awesome!

But how about getting the next group? And the next?

Using a separate spreadsheet:

Copy = signs down (not in picture below--realized at the end)
Copy A's down
Fill / Series / Step value of 3
Copy downward: &" "&
so forth

Then a copy-and-paste-as-unformatted-text into a word document.

The issue becomes with the inserted tabs. Simply do a replace with, coping the space and placing it into the replace field, while adding nothing to the with field.

Then copy and paste back into the excel file with the sentences.

HA!

=A1&" "&A2&" "&A3

=A4&" "&A5&" "&A6

=A7&" "&A8&" "&A9

=A10&" "&A11&" "&A12

=A13&" "&A14&" "&A15

=A16&" "&A17&" "&A18

=A19&" "&A20&" "&A21

=A22&" "&A23&" "&A24

=A25&" "&A26&" "&A27

=A28&" "&A29&" "&A30

=A31&" "&A32&" "&A33

=A34&" "&A35&" "&A36

=A37&" "&A38&" "&A39

=A40&" "&A41&" "&A42

=A43&" "&A44&" "&A45

=A46&" "&A47&" "&A48

=A49&" "&A50&" "&A51

=A52&" "&A53&" "&A54

=A55&" "&A56&" "&A57

=A58&" "&A59&" "&A60

=A61&" "&A62&" "&A63

Update on My Grunge of 1991

Update: My Grunge of 1991. I still need:

240 sentences of YouTube-generated personal work
320 sentences of other personal or yet-to-be-found work

Something to Google

"the metaphor of weaving suggests"    "literary tradition with its"

Attachment Poetics: Another Element Coming

Chris Martin's
32 poems
1-78 pages

Mary Austin Speaker's
42 poems
3-87 pages

Dana Ward's
12 poems
1-145 pages

[

Chris and Mary have related pages, while Dana's prose makes a larger number.
With number of poems, Dana + Chris roughly equals Mary's number.

Going with Dana's strictly poetic pieces:
My Diamond pages 7-15
9 pages
The Crisis of Infinite Worlds 32-38
7 pages
Like the Tiniest New York City of Itself 39-45
7 pages = 23

Things the Baby Likes: How could I not adopt this as a form?!

E pages 89-108
19 pages = 42 running

But I love the poetic prose!

Could Dana's poetic prose represent moods? Movement?
Could each page of his poetry represent a correlation to a poem by Chris and by Mary?

[

Also, reading within my three boys, Willow comes back to me. That absence, stronger than our first attempt which only lasted the tap of coming, Willow was here, then gone.

For titles: Things our boys have said. How many times has Asmund said he is afraid of ghosts?

It is sending shivers to me, that I will need to revisit that year. I tried to write then.

I am going through now. The next project. Will my write-through become omission-based, too?

Attachment parenting as our Willow made a disappearing act.

[

I like this idea for the project: To enter the prose as spaces to enter my poems with. I can recall events, etc. get the tone of his work along with mine. Maybe quote his, instead of appropriation?

Align what the boys have said? Or do the chronological order?

Will I need an Excel file for that?

I am looking at 42 poems for the collection. Long poems, for sure.

Try to aim for two pages per poem.

I'm not sure what this will look like, if I will develop more than one collection, as in different parts. Maybe three collections? If that is the case, then each collection will have twelve long poems.

1) Asmund and Wystan: coming to fatherhood, my father, struggles, moving to home births (circa 2008-10), sum of two mothers poems around the two boys
2) Willow: joy, then loss and coping, 2011
3) Raedan: returned joy, always with absent places, speaking to Willow, 2012-now

Tarot Project

Carol Ann Brown is heading a Lawrence Metaphysical Fair in July, and it fascinates me!

http://thebodytherapeutics.com/index.html

"Body Therapeutics is a unique studio specializing in the treatment of physical ailments, removal of emotional blockages and trauma, cellular memory release, DNA adjustments, body balancing, channeling, intuitive readings, as well as pastoral counseling, and officiating at weddings."

Reading this, I see my poetry in attempting to do the same. Let me try something:

My poetry is "unique . . . in the treatment of physical ailments, removal of emotional blockages and trauma,
cellular memory release, DNA adjustments, body balancing, channeling, intuitive readings, as well as pastoral counseling."

Okay, a little carried away, but why not challenge myself in these post-Beat ways?

I bought a used Tarot book at Dusty Bookshelf, and kick myself for losing it.

This project uses old Tarot guides for creating new metaphors.

Also, Trance Poetics, via Kristin Prevallet.

Add immersion writing.

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http://tarotpoetry.wordpress.com/



Other news:

Poor Claudia is releasing local poet/curator Jamalieh Haley's first chapbook, Strange Tarot this July!

 

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Garden Terrace Room, 10pm - 2am
FREE!
As part of Northern Spark, Rain Taxi and the Walker Art Center offer night visitors a unique poetry "reading." A small tribe of our most prescient writers will lay out cards containing themes, images, and questions (instead of the traditional Tarot), then will write—on the spot—a poem for you based on the results. You’ll emerge from this reverie with a personalized poetry fortune to take with you on the rest of your Northern Spark journey and beyond. We predict we'll see you there!

Flarf Assignment

Write a poem with the search term: "I cant fined"

My Grunge of 1991 Part IV

I might need to rely on my other sentences to create my personal sentences.

Call it lack of memory. Or that things happened that were hazy, repetitive. I mean, how many unique McDonald's memories do I really have?

My Grunge of 1991 Part III

It looks like I might switch to an omission style for My Grunge, then a write-through for the 2004 project.

The omission represents my lack of clarity, my brain's position, with gaps, space.

The write-through represents my new clarity, putting things together, starting in a new life as a phoenix.

Attachment Poetics

I am tentatively calling my project around my boys Attachment Poetics, the need for poets to have other poets to develop emotionally. It is based on my attachment parenting.

Three books for three boys.

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In other news, I am halfway done with My Grunge of 1991. I still need:

40 sentences of poetry
100 sentences of feminist theory
240 sentences of YouTube-generated personal work
260 sentences of other personal work

I have them stored in an Excel file, with numbering to keep track and for easy sorts.

This is the order:
A Sentence text
B Description
C ID#
D Set # (sets are of twenty sentences within an ID#, with 52 sets)
E Sentence # (1 through 1040)
F Poem # (this will go from 1 through 52 in repetition, to sort into poems)
G Sequential order # (within the ID# to keep track of the sequential order)
H Sentence # of sentence within poem, paired with F

ID#s are:
1 Movie titles
2 Star Trek TNG episode titles
3 Song titles
4 Bush quotes
5 Finney quotes
6 Dana Gioia quotes
7 X-Men #1 and X-Factor #1, a sentence per page
8 Personal sentences
9 Poetry
10 Feminist theory
11 YouTube sentences revamp on 6/11/2014, will be news items from internet sources

I came up with the number 20 by adding 1+9+9+1, for 1991
There are 52 weeks in the year

My Grunge Update II

I finished translating the best lines from Gov Joan Finney's State of the State Address. She was a Moderate, for sure. Republican in spending, Liberal at heart. She wanted to give more to those in poverty: A Christian value?

Here are highlights:

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Kansas Legislature, and people of Kansas, it is with much pleasure and with a great sense of responsibility that I appear before this legislature and the people of Kansas to present my first legislative and budget message as Governor.

Every Governor assumes office under unique circumstances in times that claim their own character, challenges, and opportunities.

Today, we worry as a nation about conflict in the Middle East and the safety of our troops deployed there.

We worry and with cause about the economic recession, the growing numbers of homeless, the pervasive use of drugs, the quality of our environment, the national debt, and countless other concerns that affect the welfare of our people.

In Kansas, our State’s economy has struggled for much of the past decade and now appears to be likely following the national economy into recession.

We have serious financial problems in state government.

The 1990s, in short, are bringing their own brand of difficulty, but we have seen tough times before.

We have answered adversity with a unity of purpose and resolve that transcended our difference.

We have always emerged from tough times a stronger people.

We will do so again.

The message I deliver to you today is not mine alone.

It is a message first delivered last November by the people of Kansas.

The people of this state want meaningful property tax relief and a more equitable tax structure.

They want an end to unchecked growth in government and taxes.

They want their government to be open and their public servants to be responsible.

I am committed to achieving these goals while meeting the basic human needs of all the people of this state.

This is the people’s agenda.

It is my agenda.

I remain committed to the pursuit of tax reform that will provide relief and redress to the property taxpayer.

I remain firm in my belief that property tax relief should be achieved by closing tax loopholes, not by increasing tax rates.

I am prepared to take bold steps to achieve these goals.

I propose to continue the ambitious highway development program we embarked upon last year, and I propose to restore and continue the basic service programs of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services to meet the fundamental needs of our people.

I urge you, the Legislature, to place these objectives at the top of your calendar and that together we produce results.

I will work with you.

I will be flexible in advising the best possible package to achieve the results I want, but the Kansas people have made it clear: They want action and they want it this year.

If there is to be a tenor, a tone, a trademark of the Finney Administration, it will be found in a return to the fundamental notion that in America, government is of the people, by the people, and for the people.

I reaffirm my commitment to this ideal by asking for your immediate consideration and approval of three Constitutional Amendments pertaining to public initiative and referendum.

As I have assumed responsibilities as Governor and constructed my first budget, I confirmed that the financial condition of Kansas State Government is not good.

In Kansas, our economy has struggled for much of the past decade, and now appears likely to follow the national economy into recession.

Currently, the State is on a course of deficit spending.

We can no longer turn to balances to cover excess spending.

The time has arrived when we must rethink, reexamine, and reorder our priorities and our concepts of what government should do and what government should be.

It is against these realities that I have prepared both a current resources budget to comply with the law and an additional budget that enables me to pursue the priorities and commitments I have made to the people of this state.

State government must recognize and value the dedication and skill in which its many of thousands of employees conduct the state’s business.

The package restores equity and fairness to our tax system.

They are now simply loopholes that must be closed in the best interest of good government and fair and equitable taxation.

As the people of Kansas know, it is not enough for the State to provide the money for property tax relief.

I encourage all Kansans to be vigilant and to keep close watch on the taxing and spending decisions of local governments.

They will have to use imagination and efficiency as alternatives to spending more money.

We have a job to do and limited resources with which to do it.

We will do what the times and the conditions require.

Despite our many problems, we must reserve our conscience and compassion with those who struggle with individual hardship.

Certain basic human needs of Kansans must be met.

I assure you, I have no interest in retreating from the values that make up a caring, enlightened society.

We will continue to invest in the welfare of our children, in the care of our sick and our elderly, in the reinforcement of family, and in the development of skills that lead to individual self-reliance.

Perhaps our best response to complex challenges in to remaining competitive in an increasingly sophisticated world is a well-educated citizenry.