SOUND POETICS

One of many reasons I adored this week's reading at City Lights was the focus on sound poetry (matter of fact, can I say that I experienced there my first experience as a "rock star poet" when I went up to the podium for my part of the reading to the calls of "Sound Poem! Sound Poem!" from peeps who'd heard or heard about my "Fado for my Father" reading at Berkeley Museum of Arts).

And a very exciting development is the forthcoming volume TAU by Philip Lamantia that Garrett Caples is editing and which will be released next year by City Lights Books. This apparently will include a previously unpublished sheaf of sound poems found among Philip's voluminous papers. Ach: that Philip -- so pure!

Significantly, the manuscript comes with a poetics intro of sorts wherein Philip described his approach to sound poems....which is significant partly because, as Garrett aptly noted, Philip's process statement reveal him ever to be interested in experimentation (without the baggage associated with that word, please) and debunks the oft-made erroneous observation about his poems as primarily *spontaneous combustions* (phrase within asterisks mine, as I paraphrase or misparaphrase Garrett's point from his introduction of his reading).

Anyway, it's just as well I didn't have a chance to explicate how Philip explicated to me his observation of society's turn from hunting to gathering as not making sense from purely the Alan Greenspan perspective. That'd be too content-ridden....Wink.

Sip. Oh don't mind Moi: I am just relishing this lovely lovely 1993 Ravenswood Wood Road zinfandel from beauteous Russian River Valley. Just Bliss.

Also bliss was having to see and fondle the issue of VIEW (courtesy of -- and thank you -- Steve F.) that published Philip when he was 15 years old. Amazing, really. At 15, Philip Lamantia was writing fully-formed poems. Gads I miss him.