dbqp: visualizing poetics: February 2010

Not Sleeping, but Dreaming

I am repeating myself. Posting a similar query here and there to see what people have to say. Because it might be in John Berryman's Dream Songs (variously packaged) where I first found poetry. I lived a life dedicated to words long before I knew of Berryman, and I was already a poet when I found him. Yet the Dream Songs were a living poetry to me. Berryman hadn't been long dead when I found these poems, which were vulgar and urbane, witty and turgid, vernacular and formal, and filled with extravagances of the language like I hadn't seen before. And not really since.

And he had an ear.

Feb

s n o w s

The fear of anchovies has brought doom to civilizations. You could look it up. I explained this to a waitress once, but she seemed skeptical. If we had been someplace else, she may have been sceptical.

Words seem, to us, inviolate, though we might mean inviolable. Yet they are violable. Words are a kind of clay filled with grit. We can mold them into anything but we cannot make with them anything we imagine.

When you sleep, the snow will bury you, so never sleep.

Feb

The Size of CAMBRIDGE M'ASS

Geof Huth with Robert Grenier's CAMBRIDGE M'ASS (25 February 2010)

(Click on the photo to enlarge it, and you can almost read the poems)

(photo by NF Huth)

At lunch today with colleagues, I spoke about Robert Grenier. I didn't mention his name, because his name wasn't important and they wouldn't care. It was the concept of Robert Grenier's work (there really doesn't have to be a poet) that interested me, that required my giving evidence of his existence.

Feb

Thingking

A bit of word dust by Billy Bob Beamer

Billy Bob Beamer might be the soundtrack to my thinking, might be the thought I haven't yet have. After all, there is the rhythm of his name. (Say it in your head. Say it on your tongue.

Or Billy Bob Beamer might be the visualization of my thinking. After all, he makes drawings out of words or the shapes of words.

Feb

The First Evening: Audio from the Marginal Arts Festival

Music and Performance from the Marginal Arts Festival, Roanoke, Virginia, Evening, 13 February 2010

The sounds of the Marginal Arts Festival continued into the evening of Saturday, February 13th. We were entertained with a presentation, with a Fluxus event, with sound poetry, and with music at the edge of performance and something entirely else.

Feb

VISPO at Eyedrum

Geof Huth, "PG"

Open Call for Visual Poetry: accepting art experiments in the space between viewing and reading.

VISPO at Eyedrum is a Visual Poetry show to be held at Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery on May 1st - May 15th 2010.

The mission of the show is to examine the boundaries of the creative and communicative process by seeking work that combines the literary and visual arts.

All forms(concrete poetry/asemic writing) approaches to Visual Poetry will be considered.

Feb

The First Day: Audio from the Marginal Arts Festival

Oud Player, Community High School, Roanoke, Virginia (13 Feb 2010)

Nancy's and my first day at the Marginal Arts Festival was a surprise. The man who was set to play music with Billy Bob Beamer, who was himself playing his tiny pocket trumpet, never showed, so I ended up playing the drums and singing with Bill.

Feb

Karaoke + Poetry = Whatever Daniel Nester Says It Does

Nancy and I headed to the College of St Rose mid-afternoon yesterday, 20 February 2010, to enjoy the book fair and readings that formed the backbone of Capital Lit, an event organized by Daniel Nester. The auditorium at St. Joseph Hall was filled with people picking up books and magazines generally for $2 or $4, and by the time we left we'd accumulated about 35 pounds of books for a very small amount of money.

Feb

Something about Karaoke and Poetry. I Can't Remember the Last Part

Tomorrow, February 20th, I’ll be giving a short reading and a karaoke performance—I have seen karaoke once, so I feel prepared—at Valentine’s in Albany, New York. This Karaoke + Poetry = Fun event is just one event in a daylong extravaganza put together by Daniel Nester and going under the title Capital Lit.

Feb

The Cost of a Visual Poem in Roanoke

Barbara Norman Lashley, "Magic in Marrakesh"

On the fourteenth of this month, while we were staying in Roanoke for the Marginal Arts Festival, Nancy and I walked back to the dormitories at night with Andrew Topel. The walk allowed us a chance to talk to Andrew, since the busyness of the festival didn't always allow for enough opportunity for conversation. On this night, I suggested we take a slightly different path through Roanoke's downtown. I thought the usual path had become a bit boring.

dbqp: visualizing poetics

visual poetry, the textual imagination, and personal experience