NEVER MIND THE BEASTS

from transparent shadows at the rim of the virtual (manuscript in progress)

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:10:00 +0000

The Dutiful Son
special thanks Joel Oppenheimer

tweedle de dum dum
this is a sliding pond sonnet
I should be hung but instead I’m horny
and doing research on celery
if you were a plum tree
if you were a peach tree

(to be continued)

Whalen tribute page by Tom Raworth

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:27:00 +0000

Tom Raworth's Whalen page

windmill reading.MOV

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:14:00 +0000

reading at The Windmill. Brixton. London. 4th Feb 2012.

Fight Night

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:51:00 +0000

reading at this tonight in Brixton. Revised version of Vale Tudo poems . . .

if you are out and about in Brixton come check it out:

fight night in Brixton

More than TWO choices!!! Neither U.S. terrorism nor Islamic Terrorism

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:44:00 +0000

No War, No Economic Sanction, No Nukes, No Islamic Republic - NOT A WORD LESS!

The war propaganda of the West/Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is all over the map. People in the West rightly want to do something about it. In order to take the right position, a short analysis of the situation is necessary.

"At one pole, there stands the most enormous machinery of state terrorism and international intimidation and blackmail. This camp includes the American government and ruling elite, the only force, which has used nuclear bombs against people, reducing hundreds of thousands of innocent and unsuspecting people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into ashes within seconds. A state that slaughtered millions in Vietnam and razed and ruined their country for many years by chemical bombardments. It includes NATO and coalitions of Western governments who from Iraq to Yugoslavia, have destroyed people’s homes, schools and hospitals and have taken ransom the bread and medicine of millions of children. It includes the Israeli bourgeoisie and state. They occupy, seize, slaughter and deprive. They bomb and shell refugee camps and shoot scared ten-year-old children taking shelter in their fathers’ arms and at school gates. From Hiroshima and Vietnam to Grenada and Iraq, from the killing fields in Indonesia and Chile to the slaughterhouses of Palestine, the track record of this international pole of state terrorism and imperialist intimidation is obvious and irrefutable for all the world to see."(1)

At the opposing pole, there stands Islamic Republic of Iran, the strong head of Islamic terrorism and the reactionary and vile political Islam. This force that was once created and nurtured by the US and the West themselves during the Cold War as a means of organising indigenous reaction against the Left in Iran, have now become an active pole of international terrorism and one contender in the bourgeois power struggle in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic of Iran's resume includes a wide range of barbarity, from state and state sponsored killings in Iran to a war waged against the whole 80 million population of Iran for 33 years, from the creation of a miserable life through extreme poverty and exploitation to the gender-apartheid, child abuse, racism, and homophobia, ..., from the bloody suppression of political and intellectual opponents to imposing reactionary and anti-human Islamic laws on people, particularly women, from Islamic beheadings and mutilations, to daily executions and stoning.

These are the highlights in the track record of these reactionaries. The minimum framework for a civilized response to both forces of reaction is this: "No War, No Economic Sanction, No Nukes, No Islamic Republic - NOT A WORD LESS! ".

If you're against war you MUST spell out that you're against both sides of this conflict or else you fall on the lap of one or the other reactionary forces. Anti-imperialist folks (generally speaking) have proven that they side with Islamic reaction. Islamic Republic goal in this conflict is nothing but to establish its barbaric model in the region. That is, an ultimate suppression of millions upon millions of people (the 99%) for cheap labor via Islamic rules. However, since its model is not quite desired by other states in the region, the IRI seeks the military hegemony via atomic bomb. The US-led objective is to tame the IRI (the US has not a problem with the suppression of people), it seeks an acceptance of the US hegemony. This objective is disguised with the nuclear program of the IRI.

What exactly is there to take a side for?

A war between states is always against the benefits of the population of either side. So, we need to be against all involved parties. If you are a resident of US-led bloc,

* demand the immediate stop of Economic Sanctions,

* demand an end to the war propaganda,

* demand abolition of all forms of nuclear application (be it nukes or energy),

* be supportive of the anti-IRI movement in/outside Iran.

There is no room for pacifism, ie abstract "peace". What peace is there to start with? Is the current situation a "peace" that we need to defend? If so, why did such a propaganda of war start in the first place? How exactly can demanding "peace" benefit anyone including the stoppage of a potential war? Did the demand of "peace" stop the US-led war against Iraq in 2003? I believe that we need to take an ACTIVE stand rather than the pacifist "peace" position. If we mean business we need to puruse our anit-war/anti-sanction cause to the point of threatening the overthrow of both Western and the Islamic Republic of Iran governments altogether.

That's why the people in Iran seek to overthrow the IRI, which would:

* Cut the war that IRI have waged against them for 33 years

* An end to the unbearable suffer resulted from the economic sanctions

* An end to the threat of a war with the West/Israel

* An end to the Nukes threat.

The war propaganda, what’s the use after all?

The mere stand off between the West/Israel and Iran is beneficial for both sides of the conflict. Holding the issue of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in Qom, Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, Bushehr and possibly Yazd “on table”, as a possible move by Israel, and yelling it outloud everyday allows the IRI regime to use it as an excuse for harsh handling of its opposition. Both Israel and the IRI are depended of having an external enemy in order to keep the “War alert” button on to continue with their oppressions. Without the mentality of being threatened by foreign hostility they have to face a great deal of vital opposition!

Also, note that after a set of recommendations by the IMF in 2010, the Islamic regime of Tehran cut the subsidies on basic needs (food, gas, and similar) and made the capitalist system wide open for free, savage market economy. The IRI implemented all IMF's recommendations; the IRI was praised by the IMF as the first country in the world that coulds successfully implement all the recommendations (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2011/wp11167.pdf).

This set of recommendations was enforced on the working class of Iran by means of killings and imprisonment of workers, intellectuals and political opponents. In order to understand the reasons behind the war propaganda, see the above report. In fact, the chances of a war with Iran is very slim, if at all. The real war on working class, however, has already started by the Islamic Republic via implementation of the IMF policies.

Abbas Goya

February 2, 2012

===============================

(1) Mansoor Hekmat, the World After September 11

Grzegorz Wroblewski paintings!!!

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:09:00 +0000

A STUDY OF A HORSE FOR DOCTOR MARABOUT:

http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2012/01/grzegorz-wroblewski.html

check it out!!!

from Spanish Fork Manuscript (2012, 2009)

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:33:00 +0000

Vale Tudo
(special thanks Sommer Browning and Blaise Cendrars)

never believe the concierge
we only shelled out a buck
we were watching the Lidell-Babalu fight
we want you to feel at home
I am Alanis Morissette reading her diary
I am above the land of a thousand lakes
I am the inevitable
we make love
we watch more Vale Tudo
I pity you
come lean upon my breast
syphilis is roaming the streets
the world is stretched & folds out & squeezes shut
I spent my childhood in the Brazilian circus
a reed in the wind and I its flower
of the famous Gracie family
I met my waterloo at the hands
of a diminutive Japanese wrestler
like a last shoveling of desire
the sky is rent like a ripped tent
this is the new telecatch
tangling llamas on the tresses of the sun
a good poem must stand
and this one’s called The Train Falls Upon Its Wheels Sideways
and this one’s called In A Basin Filled with Chinese Goldfish
and this one’s called Several Injections of Doctor Yersin’s serum
some of you will never go to Spanish Fork
some of you will
we’ll make love again after the third fight
it is best to watch uninteresting fights while eating
she saw it first and sees it again
this is how it would go
someone is wrong
light travels slow
slide open your food slot to talk and listen
sweet my plea cluck cluck my hinny
honey my bunny she sleeps
FOR SHE IS MY LOVE
ALL OTHER WOMEN
BUT FIRE OF FLESH
DECKED OUT IN GOLD

tube readings for week of 29th Jan

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:33:00 +0000

books checked out from the British Poetry Library for the week:

1) Prose of the Trans-siberian by Blaise Cendrars (trans by Tony Baker)
2) Just Space by Joanne Kyger
3) Kodak by Blaise Cendrars (trans by Ron Padgett)

also re-reading for third time:

3:15 by Bernadette Mayer, Jen Hoffer, Danika Dinsmore, Lee Anne Brown

(amazing book!!!)

essays on the poetry of Araki Yasusada

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:45:00 +0000

read the preface here:

new shearsman book on the poetry of Araki Yasusada

A little background here:

http://jacketmagazine.com/09/yellowbody.html

IN SEARCH OF THE AUTHENTIC OTHER: THE POETRY OF ARAKI YASUSADA by MARJORIE PERLOFF

Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada was one hell of a book. A must for the collection.

Buying this book of essays soon!!!

article about Grzegorz Wroblewski in Jacket 2

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:09:00 +0000

one of my fav poets and good friend. Check it out . . .

the world according to Grzegorz Wroblewski

christmas day 2011

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:41:00 +0000

Spicy frozen pizza for Christmas dinner. A 4AM taxi pickup to Heathrow on Boxing Day. London-Paris-Salt Lake City. Drinking Melissa Tea. It was my favourite tea when I lived in Poland. I have finished The Fertility Show (formally Nerve Movie). Sent it off to a publisher or two. Will have to wait a few months.

The Fertility Show takes it cue from Phillip Whalen's idea of a nerve movie and Bernadette Mayer (esp Midwinters Day). Written during my daily 3 hour commute on the London underground. It is a poetics of everything. Inside and outside. Biographical, narrative, expansive poetics, compact lyrics, NY School send offs, homophonic translations of Polish and German from overheard conversations on the Piccadilly Line etc. etc.

A poetics that attempts to narrow the gap between art and life. I don't see any other point.

Another Godzenie (with many many more strategies, modes, attempts to reconcile). A practice in mindfulness.

The poems are written on the tube in London but "take place" in Poland, Turkey, London, Milton Keynes, Las Vegas, North Carolina, Bellingham/Seattle.

A continuous nerve movie.

The other manuscript Smashing Time is also finished.

Now I will continue part two of a manuscript I started last time I was in America. It is called Spanish Fork.

My poetics is a travel poetics. But not in any narrow sense of the genre of travel writing. Orally based But not bardic.

It lives much more off the page than on (methinks). The rhythm of everyday speech is very central.

hm . . . . and the slippery mind . . . quicksilver . . .

I dabbled heavily in flarf in 2004. I dabbled heavily in conceptual poetics as well. Surrealism and political poetry were the entry points into writing poetry.

Now it is many many things. But mindfulness is especially central. And an expansive (rather than constricted) sense of the self and the world.

from Smashing Time

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:25:00 +0000

free download or purchase a print copy at:http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/299099

New "Kent Johnson" book (BlazeVOX Press)

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:41:00 +0000

doggerel for the masses by Kent Johnson

These various pieces, initially published in journals by Craig Dworkin under the name of “Kent Johnson” (with exception of the tour de force Afterword, presented here for the first time), follow from his call, in the Introductory essay to Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (Northwestern UP, 2010)

immigrating back to where you come from . . .

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:38:00 +0000

Cold toes and cold hands in Wood Green. Trying to save on heating.

Smashing Time is done and needs to find a home. I am 60 pages into Nerve Movie (poems written during my commute on the underground from Wood Green to Hammersmith then Hammersmith to Richmond).

When I first came to London in 2008 I had high expectations. Expectations of home. Expectations of coming back to the world of poetry. It was tough year. I had to adjust my expectations. I had lived too long in North America to expect to find a sense of home. Something about coming back to where you come from and finding it is not the same place at all. My mind creating narratives and images of Northern Ireland and the U.K. Childhood. No matter if we stay in the same place all our lives we still travel. Childhood.

On my second return to my country of origin (in December 2010) I had less expectations. I wanted to re-connect with the poetry world. I wanted to do readings. I wanted to settle down and get more comfortable and re-start my library. I missed having a library in my world travels. I missed having a sense of place. At the end of six years of world traveling and living very feebly at times out of one suitcase, I wanted to just allow myself to feel some of the comforts of a more settled life.

So here I am. One year into my second go at London. I lived in London when I was seven or so. First in a homeless hostel. Later in Elephant and Castle. This was the 80's. It wasn't a good time to have a Northern Irish accent.

This time I have found some good friends. I have found what I love about writing and poetry. Call it a world view. An epistemology? Kenneth Koch, Philip Whalen, Bernadette Mayer, Tim Atkins, Lisa Jarnot, Jeff Hilson, Cathy Wagner, Peter Jaeger, Steven Fowler (especially Minimum Security Prison Dentistry and his Maintenant Series of collaborations and readings of U.K. and European poets).

These are a few of the writers and artists that matter most in terms of living my life. Their work is intimately connected to how I experience life.

And writing through what I love. I have seen this especially in the work of Tim Atkins. And getting out of the way. I have seen this in the various exciting conceptual work of Peter Jaeger. And being child-like in terms of curiosity. Letting everything come in. Including the risk of humour. I have seen this in the work of Jeff Hilson and Tim Atkins. Plus the punk poetics of Cathy Wagner. And the life writing life of Bernadette Mayer. And letting in the multiplicity of voices in the work of Hannah Weiner. And the nerve movies (quicksilver moments of being) of Philip Whalen.

I am having mint tea. It is time to grade final exams. London is not really a home. Perhaps it never will be.

But then again my mindfulness practice has benefited a lot since I have been here for the last year. And I have grown much more comfortable with the North American part of my cultural background. I have learned to create my own America through exile. I thought myself an exile from Northern Ireland when I lived in America. Now I realise my choices are much wider. Much more varied.

I am from the Milky Way.

Good friendship are vital. Writing is vital. Books are vital. Love is vital. Mindfulness and compassion are vital.

And so it goes . . . .

Friend Karol's new blog . . . from northern Poland . . near Elblag . .

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:54:00 +0000

check it out:

Karol Piotr Ostrowski

what is poetry and what is it good for??

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 20:39:00 +0000

Every entry on this blog starts with a hyperlink called text. It is the default setting.

Pinkunoizu 'Time Is Like A Melody'

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:55:00 +0000

copenhagen prog rock

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:54:00 +0000

diggin this prog rock band from copenhagen:

pinkuonoizu

poems from smashing time in issue 2 of La Granada

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:05:00 +0000

some of my poems from manuscript Smashing Time in new issue of the Norwegian magazine La Granada

conceptual slab for Poetry Foundation Chicago

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:28:00 +0000

The poetry foundation . . . KEEP OUT . . . pic by Tom Raworth . . .

interesting walls

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 21:22:00 +0000

Dodie Bellamy has a lithograph on the wall called
"Death of the Poet" by Fran Herndon.

she says:

"It is from the series she did for Jack Spicer's Homage to Creeley."

And:

"It's been at the foot of the bed for years and I've spent so many hours vacantly staring at it, it's entered my blood."

Grzegorz Wroblewski's paintings are entering my blood.

It matters to have work that matters to stare at, on the wall.

I also have Tim Atkins on the wall. And Jeff Hilson+Tim Atkins collaboration. And a hand drawn cartoon from a friend named joe.

I want more on the wall. I haven't had my own wall for over seven years with all the world travels.

And now, here I am. In North London. In a flat. With walls of books as well. No where near the amount I had when I lived in North Carolina.

check out Dodie 's blog

Makes me wanna check out her Cunt Ups and Barf Manifesto. Fantastic titles.

hm . . .

Marcus Slease covers Bernadette Mayer

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:38:00 +0000

covers project . . . Bernadette Mayer's Maple Syrup sonnet . . . north London . .. near Horse Hospital . .

Minimum Security Prison Poetry - SJ Fowler

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:26:00 +0000

Steven Fowler reading the other night for his book release of Minimum Security Prison Dentisry at the Horse Hospital in North London. Great evening. Many fine readings !!!

Minimum Security Prison Poetry - Jeff Hilson

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:26:00 +0000

Jeff Hilson reading the other night for Steven Fowler's book release of Minimum Security Prison Dentisry at the Horse Hospital in North London. Great evening. Many fine readings !!!

Minimum Security Prison Poetry - Tim Atkins

noreply@blogger.com (postpran) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:25:00 +0000

Tim Atkins reading the other night for Steven Fowler's book release of Minimum Security Prison Dentisry at the Horse Hospital in North London. Great evening. Many fine readings !!!