Indeterminacy

The last few weeks I’ve been going to see some Clas­si­cal on Sun­day morn­ings. Sort of. The group who puts it on, Sun­day Chat­ter, fea­tures a poet, and at the start of the month, my boy J.W. Basillo fea­tured. And wouldn’t you know it: they’re doing a Steve Reich cel­e­bra­tion. I love Steve Reich; I’ve been jam­ming to “Proverb” and “Piano Phase” for years. “Marimba Phase” live was sick. So what an awe­some sur­prise last Sun­day to see a hand­ful of John Cage pieces in the mix. If you know any­thing about Cage, it’s prob­a­bly that he’s the lov­able ass­hole who gave us 4’33″. If you’re not famil­iar, the piece was first per­formed like this: pianist…

Developments

In which my design/​writing port­fo­lio goes live, my strange fea­ture in Man­ches­ter leaves me burned out on poetry, my research has gone off the rails – and two very sig­nif­i­cant forces are poised to haul it back on track.

To Answer an Old Question

In 12^th grade, my girl­friend asked every­one why we sing along to our favorite songs. It’s taken me about ten years to come up with a respectable answer. Given that this com­ing week­end hosts, coin­ci­den­tally, my 10-​​year high school reunion, I fig­ure now’s a fit­ting time. Erin Feeney, if you’re out there, this one’s for you.

Thank you, Denver

I’m not a per­former. I enjoy the spot­light as any self-​​respecting Leo, but I think of myself as a poet, try­ing to do my poems the best ser­vice I can. So it’s a funny thing, real­iz­ing I miss performing.

Thanks for a great feature last night!

Thanks to who­ev­er­all came out last night. It was one of the best fea­tures I’ve done in years, and thanks in no small part to old friends. Some there in per­son, some in spirit. Also, con­grats to Ajari on pulling off an almost impos­si­ble syn­ergy of per­for­ma­tive arts. Faith reconfirmed.

I'm Featuring Tuesday

I’m help­ing to kick off a new Burque read­ing on Tues­day night, with Ben Bor­mann and another cat. 7:00 at The Danc­ing Cup, on the NW cor­ner of Cen­tral & Quincy. I might try a mix of Fresh­wa­ter and Well­wa­ter poems, or I might stick to one or the other. Help me say goodbye!

Dredge Poetics (Full Text)

Well, it’s been deliv­ered. The mighty Bren­dan Con­stan­tine also deliv­ered a deli­cious lit­tle lec­ture, and it was an honor to open this new com­mu­nity series with him. Here’s the full text. If you like or if you don’t, please say so!

Dredge Poetics

Local leg­end Lisa Gill asked me to open a new poet­ics series with a 30 minute co-​​lecture on poet­ics with Bren­dan Con­stan­tine! Oh man, oh man, oh man. I’ll be draw­ing from a bunch of ideas from here over the last 2 – 4 years, and may post the whole thing (with post ref­er­ences) when it’s done.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

Toward the end of Pat’s book, Wee­t­a­moo has some hard con­cerns about writ­ing, itself. Young Meta­com has learned to write the fig­ure A. He pro­nounces it for her, and explains the white men’s util­ity in writ­ing  –  and the Indian need, there­fore, to be con­ver­sant in it. I had to stop read­ing a while after I saw her response: …What if, when­ever we wanted a story, we could just reach out and read it from a paper, instead of wait­ing for the right time and place and the right sto­ry­teller to tell it to us? As it is with us now, when we learn a story, we must hear it again and and again, and repeat it to…

Next Levels of Dramatic Irony

Your expe­ri­ence as a stan­dard reader: Toward the end of Pat’s ren­di­tion of Weetamoo’s diary, the sachem-​​​​to-​​​​be is finally called for her adult­hood rite. The year is 1654. She’s been antic­i­pat­ing it most of the book; she’ll spend sev­eral days and nights in a sweat­lodge, tend­ing a fire and wait­ing for con­tact from the non­ma­te­r­ial world. In her two visions, a deer she’d uncer­e­mo­ni­ously killed leads her through the win­ter night to an impor­tant fish­ing area to the Pocas­set, down­stream from a water­fall. The sec­ond night, the deer leads her to an impor­tant fish­ing area, down­stream from a water­fall, where she encoun­ters older ver­sions of her­self with Meta­com, her sis­ter, and child. Meta­com is paint­ing blood­root on their…