(Every link here is the same link and takes you to Jack, even that for the image above of that same poem.)

Today, it is Christmas, even at 2:00 am, which is when I'm starting this. mIEKAL aND is awake in his bed in the middle of Wisconsin thinking of the coincidence of his own birthday with Christmas, with the Mass for Christ's birth. And Jack Kimball is off in nondistant Massachusetts putting together words that are wry, arch, and wary all at once. Little children are dreaming, and some of those dreams are nightmares.

What is, I am asked—sometimes with an intensity verging on malice, sometimes with contorted confusion, sometimes out of an innocent curiosity and desire to know—is the boundary between a poem and everything else? I am asked this question because a poem to me can be words arranged in lines on a page, words spoken into air, words scrawled on a page or moving on a screen, shapes resembling letters but never taking the full form of text, songs without the courtesy of words, or grunts and groans and
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It all started when I fell up the stairs.

It is so more likely for someone to fall down the stairs that I always have to emphasize the word "up" when I tell this story.

I am now weeks into a project to pack up 2000 of my wordbooks (dictionaries, antidictionaries, thesauri, grammars, usage guides, and even monographs on all aspects of language).

After weeks of working at it, weeks of searching the house for dictionaries and other books of language hiding in nooks, weeks of putting them into boxes, I  have not prepared exactly 15 boxes of an estimated 80 or so for donation to the University at Albany.
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I took notes for this, so I have to get it right.

At best, I am Frank O'Hara. Can I be Frank? At worst, I am Frank O'Hara. I came up with the title for this constellation of words while foldering poetry pamphlets and magazines and arranging them in boxes in alphabetical order. I have filled three boxes so far. I will fill at least one other, and maybe more. Estimating is the art of being wrong but vaguely sure of it. We depend on what we don't quite know.
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Future Appearances in Space
Future Appearances in Space
This is a list of where I expect to be on the road in the future. If anyone knows of anything of possible interest to me happening in these places at these times, drop me a line, though I can’t be sure I’ll have the time for anything.

  • 3-5 October 2011: Buffalo, New York
  • 6-8 October 2011: Cheyenne, Wyoming
  • 19-22 October 2011: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

    • Upcoming Readings and Performances
    Upcoming Readings and Performances
    1 October 2011
    The Grey Borders Reading Series
    Niagara Artists Centre
    354 St. Paul Street
    St Catharine's, Ontario
    Geof Huth, NF Huth, and Angela Szczepaniak
    8:00 pm


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    A kaleidoscopic review of visual poetry and related forms of art over the centuries, joined with the recollections of one contemporary visual poet. Topics of interest include visual prose, comics art, illustrated books, minimalist poetry, and visually-enhanced textual poetry.
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    visual poetry: poetry for the eye’s mind
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