THIS CORK BOBS!

I have something in common with shopping malls: I always would be honored to be the subject of Allen Bramhall's divagations. Which is to say, what a generous response Allen provides to moi BRICKHOUSE known as THE THORN ROSARY! Thank you, Sir...click on excerpt below for the whole thing -- it is educational. And, after all, it puts Moi in lovely light:

I mean, what is poetry and what is prose?

Some 11 years ago, I shook off my accrued sense of poetry. I studied under Robert Grenier who, despite his obvious preference towards a poetry that would be identified as LANGUAGE poetry (not that that lump sum term can really define any territory properly), was very supportive of the discovering writer. I performed a slow discovery, over years and years, of where my writing came from and burgeoned towards, until I finally realized that the sentence worked for me. That the metre of the sentence could preside over the words that I knew.

I began making poetry, then, in prose. It is poetry because it is not just guided by the mentor called Good English (or good whatever language, but English is what I use). I allow disjunction, and fragmentation, and linear discontinuity to make their reports. Poetry, I see, insists on timely subversions. I learned that from Emily Dickinson.

Eileen uses different insistencies to provoke the heart of language. Her sentences are largely straightforward in their report, yet she maintains a relentless twining. Themes are immediate and conjunctive. And adjunctive. That is how this book, that is sifted from other books, is a NEW book. The returns are instructive and spiral to new vantage.

Eileen’s subversions are headturning. The curious embrace of Ferdinand Marcos’ daughter, in the office of writing towards her late father, is a feat of telling surprise. Eileen is a cork bobbing in the meeting of streams.

So interesting to be a bobbing cork. After all, I can't swim -- which is as well a metaphoric encapsulation of Moi and Poetry...

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Elsewhere in the review, Allen observes: "The serial urge is an urge to complete, at least in some sense. Complete and yet to invite furtherance. I mean, when a series ends, invisible threads continue to stretch, the process does not stop. That is how I see poems in series."

There's a continued stretching of a theme I'm just starting to develop in a new poem included in the newly completed HEALTH & ILLNESS Anthology co-edited by Anny Ballardini and Obododimma Oha. Here are the other writers below and, speaking of educational, do check out the two editorial introductions by Anny and Obododimma:

· Editorial - Obododimma Oha - · Editorial - Anny Ballardini - · Michael Rothenberg · Dennis Barone · Daniel Zimmerman & Mom · Ned Condini · Elizabeth Smither · Douglas Clark · Jeff Harrison · John M. Bennett · Tony Trigilio · Peter Ganick · Charlotte Mandel · Ingrid Wendt · Sohrab Sepehri · Geoffrey Gatza · Wendy Carlisle · Peter Ciccariello · Jim Leftwich · Marilyn Hacker · Ric Carfagne · Jessica Fiorini · George Bowering · Márton Koppány · Silvia Levenson · Jameela ‘Nishat’ · Hoshang Merchant · Halvard Johnson · Meg Withers · Christina Pacosz · Ruth Fainlight · Jerry McGuire · Jerry McGuire - 2nd part · Evelyn Posamentier · Evelyn Posamentier 2nd Part · Wendy Vardaman · Malaika King Albrecht · Grzegorz Wróblewski · Rebecca Seiferle · Luc Fierens · Helen Ruggieri · Ed Baker · Daniel Godston · David Howard · Fan Ogilvie · Christopher Flynn · Nuri Gene Cos · Penelope Scambly Schott · Alan Sondheim Part 1 · Alan Sondheim Part 2 · Alan Sondheim Part 3 · Alan Sondheim Part 4 · Alan Sondheim Part 5 · Eileen Tabios · Barry Alpert · Jean Vengua and Michael A. Fink · Kathrine Durham Oldmixon · Sarah Rae · harry k stammer · Amy MacLennan · Margo Berdeshevsky · Obiwu · Marco Giovenale · Tom Savage · Richard Dillon · Drew Riley · Richard M. Berlin · Sola Olatunji · Musa Idris Okpanachi · Elizabeth Oakes · Marian Veverka · Judith E. Johnson · Penny Harter · Emma Bolden · Marjory Wentworth · Obododimma Oha

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Speaking of recontextualizations, Elaine Equi also sends out an announcement of a guest-edited Jacket issue, THE HOLIDAY ALBUM. My poem in it is of a thread I write about because I'm just so unsuccessful at it in real life: cooking. But, WOW!, what a company as well:

Elaine Equi, David Lehman, Wayne Koestenbaum, Rae Armantrout, Nick Piombino, Kim Lyons, David Shapiro, Tom Clark, Vincent Katz, Eileen Tabios, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Martine Bellen, Cathy McArthur, Jerome Sala, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Patricia Spears Jones, Chris Martin, Mark Lamoureux, Stacy Szymaszek, Erica Kaufman, Erica Kaufman, Fanny Howe, Joanna Fuhrman, Jerome Sala, Gregory Crosby, Connie Deanovich, Bruce Covey, Amy Gerstler, Joe Brainard, David Trinidad, David Shapiro, Ron Padgett, Ryan Stechler.

*****

Thank you Allen, Anny, Obododimma and Elaine for your continued receptivity to my poems. Smooches.