Dirt f. Hole
Nico Vassilakis, [461/507] (2005)
The latest issue of the xerozine fhole contains, as usual, a wide range of work, including plenty of visual poetry. The cover image—something like a numeric visual poem by Nico Vassilakis—starts things off right. Strips of paper, each covered with numerals, swirl before our eyes, but the movement is faster at the outer edge (which is merely a blur, a smudge, of grey). The center of the image is still, and we can easily read “461/507.”
A few pages into the magazine, we are faced with two stunning visual poems by Reed Altemus from his “homage to bob cobbing series.” In each deep blacks flutter delicately through a fuzzy grey to white. Altemus has a great knack for capturing the xerographic poetry of Bob Cobbing while still remaining fully his own artist. These pieces are perfect for fhole, which allows us to see these pieces in their natural state: with a sheen coming off the black expanses of toner.
Judith Copithorne, "Lost/Lust time" (2005)
Another interesting vispoem is Judith Copithorne’s “Lost/Lust time,” which overlays outlined characters atop one another to produce a confused set of symbols. If we read through the letters to each layer we can make out a little story about awakening in the morning after a night of sex. Ending in “ache.”
For a copy of fhole # 6, drop a line to editor Daniel f. Bradley (who doesn’t even drop his name into his own magazine) at 8 Park Road, # 3302, Toronto, ON M4W 3S5 Canada, who asks you to include “3 bucks (canadian is useful as that is where i live) for postage.” And check out his weblog.
Another quite simple xerographic journal with a one-word title—though this magazine is saddle- instead of side-stapled—is prPrimeau’s Dirt. I received issue # 2 today, and it’s chockfull of “minimalist poetry and poetics.” Of particular note, are a couple of quiet and modestly colored visual poems by J. Michael Mollohan. Page 21 includes a couple of the visual pwoermds of Andrew Topel, which I featured at this blog a few months ago. (Coincidentally, the pwoermd “journihilism” appears in both Dirt # 2 and Haiku Canada Newsletter, vol XVIII, no 3—both of which I received today.) Plenty of other visual poets appear in these pages: K.S. Ernst (in a fairly rare appearance of the work of this master), the omnipresent Nico Vassilakis, David-Baptiste Chirot, and Irving Weiss (who, once again, surprises me with his imaginativeness).
My favorite part of this issue, however, is a short but revealing interview with endwar, the minimalist/conceptual/concrete poet of Athens, Ohio. Without ever having met him, I’ve known endwar for over a decade, but I learned quite a bit about his art, his publishing empire (IZEN), and the person he is. This interview makes the issue worth its cost: “Subscription to Dirt is free of charge, though (small) donations are readily accepted to help cover postage & printing costs.”
Actually, be sure to acquire copies of both these publications. If you do, you can relive the 1980s, the heyday of zines. You can believe you are in your twenties again.
Apparently, I’m a titan of industry: dbqp. I can assure you that my company profile is not worth $29.95 US.
ecr. l’inf.
11 comments:
why would anyone want to relive the 80s? surely there must be other reasons to read these things. I'd rather relive tomorrow.
~mIEKAL
Not for the content, mIEKAL, but for the general style, for the feel of a thing in your hands. A near-replication of the past is never the past anyway. And the future is always never-present, anyway.
Geof
Dear Geof
I am not used to sending comments and I have already lost one long one to you so this will be very short and perhaps if it works i will soon have the time to write more to you.
So all i want to say for the moment is thank you for being interested in my work but that title you gave my work is not correct. The piece you saw in fhole had no title. For now I would just like to ask you to remove the title as it doesn't apply to the piece.
As I say if I can learn how to send this to you I will write more to you next time.
Thank you
Cheers, Judith
Judith,
I know it doesn't have a title, but the world is for naming, so I tend to give things titles for my purposes. Sorry if that bothers you, but your point of view is recorded here for everyone to see.
Strangely, my pieces always have titles, but editors don't always see clear to use them, so I often have the opposite problem, coming from the other direction!
But I grant you that you didn't title it--just, as I should add, Nico didn't title his poem. So I've put the title within brackets, which clarifies that the source of the title isn't you. Keep in mind, that it is standard practice to use the first line of an untitled poem as its title.
Geof
Hi Geof
I wasn't very clear in my last comment I am afraid. Now that it's been a few more hours since I saw the title I'd like to clarify.
The vispoem started out with the words "lost time" and then the word "lost" got somewhat obscured so that "lust" became an alternate reading as did the fact of the word "lost" becoming somewhat lost so I left it although I didn't realize how obscured the "o" had become.
Since my comment has been posted that does make the situation clearer and this will have explained a good bit more I hope.
I would still rather that there were no title or perhaps you could insert the word "lost" so that the piece becomes "Lost/Lust Time". But however it goes I appreciate your interest and I can see that the piece is now part of a collaboration which makes it all the more interesting if the process is understood.
Again, thanks for posting my piece. I enjoy your blog and I am happy to be be included in your enterprise.
Judith
Hi Geof
Thanks for publishing my second comment. I imagine that you must go to a great deal of effort to keep your blog running and to publish and comment on people's work. To my mind this kind of communiction is important.
Judith
Hi Geof
Just one last short note. This has made me look at the letters and words more closely and I noticed that we were talking about the interesting fact that if you take the top off of O you get U and then lost becomes lust.
Dear Geof
I am sorry to be filling up your comments section but I don't know how else to get in touch with you.
Daniel can put you in touch with me if you wish to communicate using some other means.
I really appreciate how well you have diplayed my vispoem and how well your blog is set up.
I should let you know that the original title of this poem, which I removed at the suggestion of the publisher (which suggestion I had solicited) was "In Honor of Libido Sciendi" which, I believe, means lust of the mind, desire for knowledge or curiosity and this points out that there are many kinds of lust. To me the expression libido sciendi with it's beautiful sounds points out a deep desire to somehow court inspiration.
I'd like to suggest the feeling of the transitoriness of life and the fact of both the deep loss and real gain which is imbedded both the experience of sexual lust and that of the search for inspiration was at the heart of both the story you told about my piece and my intention in making the piece. It's just that the outward components are somewhat different. It is unfortunate if we have to take separate views regarding the outer clothings of a in many ways similar experience.
A couple of things happened yesterday which somewhat changed my view of things regarding this title we are discussing. They probably make more sense if you remember that I am unfamiliar with blogs.
The first thing I realized was that the comments on your blog are only present if one clicks on the comment button otherwise the viewer is unaware of the comments and that there is a confusion regarding the title.
The second thing is that when I then clicked on the "next blog" button at the top right of your site there came up a pornographic blog. I realized that was a result of some form of chance but it disturbed me and pointed out the wilderness that the internet can reflect.
At age 65 I am not about to sneer at sexual drives which supply much energy and color in our lives but I have also have had enough experiences to know that boundaries are important.
I am not a prude and wrote a bit about sexuality in the '60's which may in part have lead to my being raped. I will not go into the many events we keep hearing about or the experiences many people have had which point out the necessity for some people, at any rate, to create boundaries for themselves.
I am in no way suggesting general rules only trying to give you some idea of my own particular point of view.
There is an enormous amount of confusion surrounding sexual lust in our society. It is a confusion that I do not want to propagate however inadvertently.
So, although I admire your visual poetry and your blog I now have to ask you to again consider whether you can, in light of these comments, bring your self either to add the word "Lost/" to the front of the title you gave the poem or else to remove the title altogether.
If you cannot do that I would appreciate it if you would remove the poem and title from your blog as soon as possible.
I hope that in future we will have a chance to have communications of a less complicated nature and I wish you the best in your work and your life.
Sincerely
Judith Copithorne
Geof
I also wanted to say that I thought it was a lovely paragraph that you wrote about the poem even if it wasn't what I had intended to put in the poem. It will be a shame I think if we can't come to some kind a agreement on the situation and thus be able to keep the poetic paragraph!
Judith
Judith,
First, here's how to reach me. On any blog page, go to the upper right hand corner, and click on "View my complete profile." That takes you to a page that includes a link to my email.
Sorry for not making the change earlier, but I thought your previous comments meant there was no need to do it anymore.
The change has been made. But I now provide the title in quotation marks only, since this is now your chosen title (at least for this venue).
I think this does it.
Geof
Thanks Geof!
Judith
Post a Comment