Collaborative Poem

Inauguration Balls

The ball is flat

The ball is a mercedes on the autobon

The Ball is a waltz

The ball is round

The ball is green and icky

The ball is meticulous

The ball is a figment of my imagination

The ball is in my mouth

The ball is impossible

The ball is a dreadful, horrible sound that was peeled like an orange

The ball is a coffee table

The ball is merely a prelude to chainsaws and kittens\

The ball is a special desert

The ball is a Three’s Compay re-run

The ball is considering a career in fish husbandry

The ball is exhuasted

The ball just wants to find its way home

The ball is chocolate covered postal worker

The ball is purple and full of wonderment

The ball is about to explode everybody run

The ball is on us

The Ball is a purposeful tool for demonizing brown beans in captivity

The ball is a cornerless place

The ball is an ectoplastic force which climbed from the primordial ooze from which we all sprang

The ball is at home in the scrotum of Tom Brokaw

The ball is the result of unprotected sex between Mary Shelly and

Difficult Text Epidemic of 1912: Readings & Schedule

Hi All,
 
Hope you had a relaxing weekend.  Hope you also got a chance to exchange email information with your peer critique group.  I apologize for the delay in getting this week’s readings to you; the blog was down and is still messy (note: new mall stories are below and all will be put into one post soon, cleaned up, etc – had trouble with formatting into the entry below), and so I am emailing you shorter readings than usual, leaving Rosemarie Waldrop’s essay until next week.  Please visit the links below, print out what we will be covering (note: we’re reading only a portion of “Tender Buttons“) and bring them on Wednesday.
 
Also of note: between now and Thursday night, please email you peer critique group some of your work (if it is typed up and you are able to easily email said work).  That way we can hit the ground running on Saturday.
 
Finally of note: on Wednesday of week 5 (perhaps week 6), instead of class, I am proposing that we have a casual reading/get together at my house, same time as class, but off campus.  We can discuss this further this Wednesday, but traditionally my classes have one or two readings/get togethers, and mid-quarter during the winter seems like a good time to do it.  I’m right along the campus bus route, so it should be the same amount of trouble as meeting in a classroom. 
 
So, without further ado, here are the readings
 
Solidarity,
David
 
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15396/15396-h/15396-h.htm - Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons (read only section titled “Objects”)
 
 
————————————————————–
9.  Joe Ghilardi &

The monstrosity is the thing.

“you can always pay somebody to do that for you”

the young man went to get the thing for him.

 

they tunnel through the belly of the whale with the frenzied impunity of insects.

“you made it!”

things fall through a hole in his pack until he patches it.

 

this room is the cathedral.

“MARCO!”

glass and painted metal or chrome laughs.

 

a toddler whines “wait!” and runs to catch up with her father.

“she had a shocking experience”

assimilate something that comes out of all this fun.

 

the buzzing fluorescent cold a low roar then rising and falling.

“he cries”

for when he fell he got up again with only a mystery to show.

 

a child screams unintelligibly and scampers off.

“I feel like it’s eating me!”

he pretends to die and is buried with his face exposed.

 

when it stops hurting that is when the beast has swallowed.

“is there any fat in that?”

we were persuaded by the captain to set out in something called a calm.

 

not so cold anymore contacts dry like plastic cataracts I become a statue a photograph.

“he can go all over”

a carving on the bow of a ship.

 

I lose my soul in this madness this horror I have to leave now struggle to move away from the yawning black abyss of the maw, the convulsing warm pink throat of the beast, the strangulation of the darkness, the silence and certainty and painless dark at the center in the belly of the whale.

“weird”

the story about that other thing too.

 

move, damn it, move!

“uh, yeah, yes, um, yeah”

I never saw a man more frightened of something than the captain.

 

10.  Dian Leo &

The young man went to get the thing for him.  He was like this, I was like this, we were like.. I like fish things.  But I’m a potato.  We fished for potatoes, so that makes me a potanibal.  I’m going to get the other group.  No, you’re going to squish things.  That thing he went to get for him. 

 

11. Emily Gustason &

When these men played they always took care of their hearts.
    You’re making up excuses he says. You’re making up excuses I say. You’re.
    Here or. He says or didn’t say.
    You’re making up excuses. I saw them sitting on the counter, so I wrapped them in aluminum foil and put them in the fridge, on the bottom shelf, next to the soup I made over the weekend.
    Sometimes I wonder who’s going to fix you. Who is going to fix You? It seems we have a lot of problems.
    You sit down and say “I’ll make it easy for you to see me.” You put skin around your heart and tie your shoelaces. You tap your fingers together. You hold your phone in your right hand. You check the time.
     It’s easy enough, seeing you, but this isn’t seeing you.
    You sit forward and uncross your legs. You hunch your back. You check the time.
    You check the time. I check the time. 
12.  Matthew Neil &

I AM BOYCOTTING THE PHONE. I AM BOYCOTTING THE PHONE. I AM NOT GOING TO ANSWER THE PHONE TODAY. NO PHONE TODAY WOOOOT!!!! Neil wrote on a small notepad. He laughed and underlined the last sentence. Today’s all about you, baby. Setting the notepad down, he rose from the kitchen table. Neil opened the cupboard above the sink which contained all his snacks. He had ordered a bag of tortilla chips and a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew from an online grocer. FedEx Priority Overnight. Neil turned back to the notepad and began to etch in the lines of the cabinet, creating a crude still-life observation of its contents.

 

 

13. Forrest Escobedo &

 

 

(constricted, rubber plates and plastic wood)

 

she tries to navigate a socially inclined world;

 

is that… six dollars? not enough thanks for taking you to the Mcd–

 

he wanted to sleep with me, and i didn’t mean like–

 

(guys in jerseys, man in hat talks to little girl in pink and they)

 

she tries to nagivate in such a socially inclined world but;

 

i was hiding behind that door and he just comes up and i could just tell

 

she tries to “navigate” in such a “socially” inclined “world” but it just seems like, really…

 

sliced smoked salmon roll onto that bagel with the intensity of a cigarette burn because the ashes just hit the spot

 

My mom and, you know, the busstop? just meet me–

 

(walking by, man laughs loudly before apologizing)

 

she tries to n-n-n-navigate in such a socially inclined world.

 

 

14. Wendy McCutchen & 
-Fear of Numbers-
Once we had this gelato in Bolder Colorado
and it was pretty good,
It came between the times you choose,
beneath an overwhelm of soiled florescence
a breeding ground for rabies, scabies and babies

It was good because I’m controlling my body
and all the bridesmaids were variables of pink

How can I need numbers?
“You get a little bit on your spoon
and blow on it”

You breathe successful correlation
way    way    down the hall

“Where are you,” inflected upward continuance
“I’m scared.”
After a click-click, and a men’s-robe swish
You stick it to her
“You could be my green caboose dinnerware,
And if you’re confused
You might not like them…”
You’ll get her eventually.

 
 
 
 

 

For Weds: Theatre of Cruelty, Poetic Invervention, and the Politics of the Written

Hi All,

Wednesday I’ll be lecturing on Artaud, so do re-read (or read) the Artaud Preface to Theater and Its Double.  If you get the chance, read some of Theater and Its Double, excerpted in the google books link below that.  After the lecture we’ll look at King’s Letter.  There are no further readings for Wednesday.

As you can see, right below this post is the repository for your mall-Mayer stories, and, as I said, up till Saturday I will post your pieces as they come to me via email. 

Finally, a reminder that on Saturday we will begin to form steady-state groups, i.e., small groups that will last the quarter and be your trusted peer critique groups.  So, do, as usual, bring your own work (portfolio) on Saturday.  We’ll begin the process of looking at individual projects.

Solidarity,

David

Story about a Mall, by 29(x) Authors & Bernadette Mayer

 

1.  Chris Delamater &

 

Eating-in-Full-View tells us that this is nothing, if not a socialist mall.

They are raffling off presidential t-shirts and selling hats with eyes for holes.

From Eating-in-Full-View, “if my nuts were that big, I’d be a good dancer.”

The president responds, “we just want to squish things.”

The president squishes things and sells t-shirts.

Eating-in-Full-View refuses to dance.

 

2. David Michael Wolach &

 

A rebellious quotidian anything goes my ass.  Careful consideration here.  Never lift pen from paper.  Never, as in until you do, think: a tale, a tall or short one, blanched, chewed hacked, lots of fall the reinvention of fall might be a character, might not depends on the eye, the time, the place, what you ate for breakfast if you did.  Never listen to poets… never explain your work.  Never might be a character or a plot or a plotline or a plot against.  Fluidity of, see “never.”  As in “never again”?  As in: “should have zipped it when I had the chance”?  Should I write this one or that one.  Careful consideration in the now lost present.  Jill went up the hill there was some water there and shit, and that’s I why said to Leonard now, what, a year ago: “you wrote a poem? you got another corpse on your hands as soon as those clams are gone.”  Word-garnish.  In a word what’s it got to do with you?  I’m pointing and you have to guess where.  Story says: thank god for “stars.”  Without them we wouldn’t have metaphors, let alone friends.  Enemy combatant would have gone, right, here.  This is why you edit your, um, like, tale.  Could have ripped it with household utensils.  Because of thanks we can imagine new things.  Billy Maze here to tell you about some new old product for ripping.  A story about a man with a beard created in god’s image, which is to say, by god, for god, is god, the between things between your late night shows.  You can take the edge there where the neckline meets the bristle and start carving wood.  Eventually you’d have the likeness of some animal and craftsmanship would die under the weight of a fucked up etymology.  And so I fell in love with her on pg. 7.  Alerted to ACHING ARMS.  A story about genetic dystrophic  hyperspasticity.  Take that, name caller.  Much talk about opens and closeds.  It’ll wane as Adorno says, because Adorno said, “Today’s artists would rather do away with unity altogether, producing open, unfinished works, or so they think. The problem is that in planning openness they necessarily impart another kind of unity unbeknown to themselves.”  A character in a story called histrionics.  Boo.  Say the armchair laborers.  When they say free write my question is from where?  Location, location, location they could have said in the middle-to-late beginning of aforementioned plot.  To kill: here’s an overused verb in this context, ex context, ex-as-prefix for a pluralism isn’t urgent Barrett Watten wrote urgently and underlined while internalizing self-perceived pay per view smack down stapled in a way we now call DIY but they call “quaint” below 42nd Street, you know where the plane went swimming a couple days ago.  Now another prefab eulogy.  As in: “now” redundant in the face of all that harmless verb assault.  Looking for a new thing is a kind of hunting and aren’t we over that?  Sounds tall-grass Republican to me.  So I fell down in there and she lifted me up once again, said, take stock of the soup you just made.  Doesn’t smell delicious, smells like Baudelaire.  How many stories, ten, eleven, apartment sized and over hydrated just lately.  Her slips just fall away like dates, blind ones and all this talk about writing sentences with at least one “x.”  Obsession with the one organ that makes sense.  Make sense so far? Explore possibilities of lists, puzzles, riddles, dictionaries, almanacs for language use.    She writes.  A guy walks up to me, says: “take one tablet by mouth twice a day.”  No swallow.  No digest.  Imagines a dog tugging rope with the one hand he’s got.  Stories don’t always end well.  And the idea you have to interrogate simple direction detached from mothership is risky business I think the FDA would approve you suggesting re this.  Don’t you think there’s a political dimension?  What, like length?  Like a hole opens in the sky and suddenly there’s politics heckling you with a big foam finger?  Ignorance is bliss is a theme inverted by most readers of [insert your story].  Experiment with theft & plagiarism in any form that occurs to you.  Unless there’s nothing to own.  What if there’s nothing to own?  What then?  The klepto is lost, reduced to orange upholstered pouf chairs.  This is not doing nothing but losing using refusing and pleasing and betraying and caressing nouns.  This is doing nothing but losing using refusing and pleasing and betraying and caressing a noun. 

 

3. Andrea Paulik &

 

Mirror, wood or lucite frame.  It could be any, I suppose.  I just need to choose a material.  There are 24 ways to say the color, so that leaves me with some flexibility.  My client thinks the snow is funny – to each their own.  In my opinion it’s just good for a lamp, adjustable metal base.  If you need me, though, I’ll make it easy for you to see me.  I know it’s hard sometimes.  My name?  Whatever it was they called a hat long ago – people’s hats – I never did see what kind of hat hers was.

 

 

 4. Dave Walkord &

The day was dreary and the herd was small

How long do you have to wait before your mom calls?

Spinich and peperoncini and jalapanos, that’s all

You guys have all the phones. Pretty soon it will be all touch screen. I’ll have to bring my mom. I’ll have to upgrade. that’s pretty cool!

Anything with rechargeable bateries is a good thing

Thats a girl, look this way and don’t get dizzy!

The mall rats run through the coridoors and passage ways, content with just a small amount of food.

  

 

 

 

 

 5. Neil Twilla &

 

44 SPSCC/Courthouse. “Fuck you Malakai, are you making fun of me?” He drags a foot ala Joseph Merrick style over the curb loping toward the bench where she was seated.” Why do you keep calling my moms house?” He stops motionless in mock ponderance then suddenly leaps toward her, all boy, all furious. Swiftly up and over his shoulder she is slung and into the mall delivered. Her objections feigned. Unnoticed I scribble.

48 Evergreen. “Clutch purses don’t fit handguns easily,” said the raccoon eyed Goth chick as she searched her purse for something. The girls around her forced their obligatory laughter at her wise crack, she was out on a limb and not really one of their kind.

RT6 Shelton. “Every place has a style,” he said to his young friends. I didn’t look up from my notebook. “The biggest thing we got is Burger King, we got 650 people, one stop light and 4 churches. 3 of those broke.” Surprised to have actually hit on a profound thought he continued, “our religion is even broke.” Silence. What orbited in the consciousness of his Hollister girls?

47 Capitol Medical Center. 13 finger babies with no eye lashes. Cigarettes and cell phones. “I ended up leaving a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.” Short pause. “No, I have to annunciate every word,” she gasped,” my parents drive me frick’n crazy!”  Another longer pause then in a defiant huff she pontificates, “I’ll smoke if I damn well please it’s not their baby.”

6. Alice Sellers-Subocz &

 

Look.  Our religion is broken.  He arrives and wants to sleep with them.  No, let him play.  Alright, we’re going to put your shirt on.  Sorry, he has no idea what he’s doing.  Here there’s nothing to shock you: 13-fingered babies with no eyelashes.  Frogs, flowers in the shapes of globes, a kangaroo.  The formation of these things.  And none of that other stuff.  Every little place has its own style.  I ended up leaving a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.  They played with it when they assembled.  He might have a surprise for you.  The others would miss it.  You can leave him in August.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 7.  Kate Robinson

everything falls into increasing personal debt because they can.

 

huh.

 

for the entire two hours vibrating in a chair, but no one sat down.

 

authorized personality only knowing experiential synchronicity and communism. socialist malls. the atmosphere is maybe a mirror. everyone’s moving their legs and stuff together.

 

mom, can i put my shirt on? you can’t. i don’t want to work like that picture. i think it’s this way.

 

football definitely tastes like beef and it feels so good. oh wow.

 

the bear mill, where we grind bears.

 

he said i want you to go to hell, i said compared to other people? you went like this. is this gonna fix you? this.

 

anybody else?

 

i just need to choose a material. if you need me i’ll make myself easy to see. i couldn’t tell what kind of hat hers was.

 

anybody else?

 

and i never saw a man more frightened. that’s the water that makes your mouth water

 

beautiful.

 

anyone else?

 

a piece of language that came out of us while in playful interaction with the world. make something of it.

8. Saren Richardson

Our biggest problem is that we have to chase after them.
The trick is to know: you’ll get her eventually.
Then you do and she’s just there-
wanting you to be honest
but honesty’s a devil with a big fat knife and trust is shredded lettuce.
So I tell her that I’m all alone
and I’m controlling my body.
my crooked crotch.  my blunderbuss.
Then one day she is making tacos with shredded lettuce.
I tell her: “You little bitch, that smells so good.”
…her face is a scrunched up paper bag…she just smelled something foul
and it was you. I mean me.
So much for honesty.
You see those mannequins?  I’ve got one at home 
in the hall closet with all my vacuum attachments.
Of all the air-breathing ones, none is more adaptive than this one.
The mouth moves in and out.
You are free to choose your level of contentment.
After awhile,
the struggle stops.

 

Russell S. &
Stuck Up Sale: Pizza with Handles
Green caboose,
Gelato when the sun goes down
    Who Hah! All right! I’m gonna get this started…
You wanna hear something old or something new? 
        How old?
Hate, Weight, 1960s!   Is it good?  Is it hot?  Too hot?? Do you want a pickle?
I need to sit down for a sec-okay?
     Ella no está allí caundo mís papas…
—She can do a lot more worthwhile things than you—seriously Carl-Blow on it,
Get a little on your spoon and blow on it.
     I like to see how you eat your soup.
            Close me out, okay?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Readings for Week 2: Critique as Performance & Performing Fracture

 Hi All,

Here are the short few readings due for this Wednesday.  Though I am pushing lecture back to half of Saturday and the following Weds, always good to get this work under your belts earlier rather than later. 

Note on the mall: please stake out your spot at 6pm-730, record where you are, and collect language.  Please bring that language collection and description of place to class on Saturday.  If I finish up early, I may meet you there at the mall fyi.

Solidarity,

David

Antonin Artaud – Preface to Theater and its Doublehttp://artsci.wustl.edu/~marton/Artaud.html

Bernadette Mayer – STORY: http://english.utah.edu/eclipse/projects/STORY/html/

MLK – “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

Coltrane – Alabama: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j_TDoOPnIA

LINK O THE WEEK: http://www.deadskinpress.com/works/aiimt.html

Optional Further Reading for Those Interested:

L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, ISSUE 1 (1978) Bruce Andrews & Charles Bernstein ed.:

http://english.utah.edu/eclipse/projects/LANGUAGEn1/

Theater and Its Double, exceprts: http://books.google.com/books?id=bmf8CMzu3kIC&dq=%22Artaud%22+and+%22Theater+and+its+Double%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result

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