Monday, September 16, 2013

VIVA LAMANTIA!

A highly anticipated event! That'd be the publication of THE COLLECTED POEMS OF PHILIP LAMANTIA, edited by Garrett Caples, Andrew Joron and Nancy Joyce Peters. Also a Foreword by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Bibliographical research by Steven Fama (the latter being the poet's ideal reader which any poet would be blessed to have!) And there's a celebration this Wednesday in San Francisco -- if you're in the area, I suggest you hightail it over to:





Click on image to enlarge.

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Wednesday, October 24, 2012

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PHILIP LAMANTIA!

Steven Fama offers his annual birthday gift to Philip -- and it is lovely, worthwhile reading!


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Saturday, October 23, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILIP!

There has got to be no better party planner than Steven Fama for Philip Lamantia's birthdays! Go HERE for this year's wondrous celebration! It's very interesting--about Philip’s first big-time appearance in print: the publication of “Five Poems” in the June, 1943 (Series III, No. 2) issue of View, edited by Charles Henri Ford and Parker Tyler and published between 1940 and 1947. Thanks Steven!

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Tuesday, June 08, 2010

AUTHOR AUTEUR: A PHOTO SHOOT

Moi digs her latest publisher: Shearsman Books for upcoming SILK EGG: Collected Novels (2011). Only a publisher with wit, style and grace would allow traditional author photos not to be so ... traditional! To wit, they needed an author photo and I proposed, and they accepted, a performance-based shot based on Moi as Thetis rising from the sea (uh, as flowed through into Galatea's fountain) whispering to Achilles as he plays draughts with Ajax:



Okay, love 'em both. I also ended up whispering later in Ajax's ears:



The fountain of course is based on the brilliant Exekias' amphora of Achilles and Ajax at Draughts, Black Figure Ware Amphora, Greek, 540 BCE:



So what was I whispering? Not actually game advice -- just that I'm in with two poems "The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon" and "Sacred Time" in OCHO 30 (love that segue, don't you?) published/edited by Didi Menendez. GO HERE for mine and stellar company provided by Bob Hicok, Nick Carbo, David Krump, Sam Rasnake, Favia Tamayo, Letitia Trent, Grace Cavalieri, Cheryl Townsend, Andrei Guruianu, Peggy Eldrige-Love and Christine Klocek-Lim!

What's also cool about this issue of OCHO 30 is the bio section where poets were asked to identify their favorite poet and why. My answer:
[My] favorite poet is Philip Lamantia whose faith and generosity [I] continuously strive to deserve.

I also like Letitia Trent's answer. Her favorite is Barbara Guest
"who knew that everything is strange if you look at it the right way."

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Saturday, October 24, 2009

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILIP LAMANTIA!

Steven Fama is one of the great gifts to poetry. Poets are lucky if he comes to read their poems. And for his birthday celebration for Philip Lamantia this year (birthday actually was yesterday), he offers something unique: a reading of poems written to, after and inspired by Philip Lamantia. Click on summary of poets below for the link:
Here follows what I’ll for shorthand call Lamantia poems by Robert Duncan (1956), Michael McClure (1961), Clark Coolidge (1963), Ransom Lomatewama (1987), Penelope Rosemont (1992), Garrett Caples (1999), Will Alexander (2000), Lisa Jarnot (2001), Donald Sidney-Fryer (2003), John Olson (2006), and Eileen Tabios (2009). The parenthetical dates are the years the poems were published, except in the case of Coolidge, where it reflects the date the poem was written.

Reading now the excerpts Steven chose from the poems I wrote for Philip, I am struck again by just how special Philip was/is -- the most utterly marvelous and divine poet I've ever met.

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Saturday, June 20, 2009

ARCHAEOLOGY POETICS

One of the pleasures of doing a book of "uncollected poems" is (re-)discovering many old poems, old friends, whose existence long slipped through the sieve that is my memory. Among my excavations are:

-- a trio of poems from a summer spent hangin' out with Philip Lamantia, the poem "Pygmalion's Embrace" which is the architectural plan for a physical poetic space I'm creating viz Napa Valley terrain, my first (and so far only) translation of a poem into my birth tongue Ilokano, ekphrastic "baby poems", the poem "Justice" through which I'd achieved a goal of garnering for the wine cellar a jeroboam of the Judds Hill Winery cabernet by winning its annual poetry contest, and the series "Girl Singing" which includes "The Secret Life of an Angel" that generated 151 multi-genre responses or translations from 47 poets worldwide to create the anthology 1000 Views of "Girl Singing" edited by John Bloomberg-Rissman and released by Leafe Press (U.K., forthcoming later this year).

These sure aren't poems that deserve to be ignored....and I'm happy to bring them to the forefront of attention, hopefully yours when FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA is released later this year.

Gads--I'm especially delighted to recover the poems writ for/with Philip. Dude was special -- one of these poems involves Philip's attempts to educate me about agriculture. The following is the bibliography for the poem entitled "Once, Philip Lamantia Said Within One Breath":
“The origins of agriculture—a biological perspective and a hew hypothesis” by Greg Wadley & Angus Martin (Australian Biologist 6:96 – 105, June 1993), with specific references to:

Brantl, V., Teschemacher, H., Henschen, A. & Lottspeich, F., 1979, Novel opioid peptides derived from casein (beta-casomorphins), Hoppe-Seyler’s Zeitschrift fur Physiologische Chemie 360: 1211-6

Cohen, M.N., 1977, Population pressure and the origins of agriculture: an archaeological example from the coast of Peru, in Reed, C.A., ed., The origins of agriculture, Mouton, The Hauge.

Dawkins, R., 1989, Darwinism and human purpose, in Durant, J.R., ed., Human origins, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Lee, R.B. & DeVore, I., 1968, Problems in the study of hunters and gatherers, in Lee, R.B. & DeVore, I., eds, Man the hunter, Aldine, Chicago.

Zioudrou, C., Streaty, R. & Klee, W., 1979, Opioid peptides derived from food proteins: the exorphins Journal of Biological Chemistry 254: 244S9.

So I hope that makes some of youse curious about moi forthcoming Footnotes to Algebra (BlazeVOX Books, 2009).

Thank you for reading. I am glad you are reading here...

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Sunday, May 31, 2009

"SWEETLY, YOU RECOMMENDED EGGPLANT"

I'm honored that the new issue of Blue Fifth Review, which focuses on collaborations, includes two poems -- the first was written in 2001 shortly after dinner with Philip Lamantia...such a younger self then!

The second poem (which appears in moi latest) still amuses Moi -- that last stanza shows that it wasn't just this season's "American Idol" that generated some horrific song-writing...

Thanks to Sam Rasnake, hard-working poet-editor!

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Thursday, October 23, 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHILIP LAMANTIA!

To celebrate, do check out Steven Fama on Philip--full of many wonderful recollections.

A favorite recollection, as Steven puts it:
Philip could talk about history, poetry, biography, the news of the day, the news of (for example) the Thirteenth Century (the greatest, he said), medicine, religion, movies, food, wine, science, music, psychology, the theoric, ornithic, and hermetic, plus just about anything else. Sometimes, most all of this would be touched on in a single universe-expanding conversation that would verge on the monologic. Philip would talk in great detail, tangent off this way or that, then spiral or rocket off into now for something completely different and suddenly it was 3:00 in the morning.

Yah. I still remember with glee how I once found moiself deep in conversation about agricultural matters with Philip. Wheat, it was...

My one regret with Philip. He had wanted to introduce me to BART, even fork over the dollar bill (he laughed) to do so (I'd met Philip shortly after moving from New York to the Bay Area). We never had a chance to do that....but we did share many other things...e.g. Portuguese wine and olives...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PHILIP!

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Friday, October 26, 2007

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.

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

(PURR-FECT) PITCH FOR WILL ALEXANDER

After ultimate tests & burnings
the spore of space
runic
anti-empirical
of diurnal fatigue

its remains
fleeting
marked by a geometric hydrogen
--from "A Cursory Note on Pre-Existence" by Will Alexander

There were so many touches of the marvelous in last night's reading at City Lights to commemorate what would have been Philip Lamantia's 80th birthday. But, for now, I want to focus on how the event opened with a BIG BANG! To wit:

Will Alexander couldn't make it from Los Angeles due to his battle with cancer (more below), but what Peter of City Lights did was call him on his cellphone. Then Peter placed the cellphone over the microphone and we were all able to to hear him read. It was really moving -- he wanted to ensure his health didn't prevent him from being part of this event and it didn't!

Because the sound of his reading was affected by the technological travel, I was glad I that I'd prepared to open my reading with one of Alexander's poems, "Inside the Ghost Volcano." I had thought it'd be boorish if I didn't do that, since I was reading de facto as his replacement for the event. Now, the thing with reading another poet's work is then you can really tell about pitch, because rhythm can be subjective and part of the challenge is being able to write poems that transcend the author's voice-specificities (which is to say, to paraphrase sculptor Carl Andre, One can write poetry not to determine what the poet wants to say but what words want to say). Well, Will Alexander has purrrr-fect pitch. It took me years to really appreciate Alexander's work as much as I do today -- and I do recommend you check him out, too!

Meanwhile, please note this message from Steve Dickison:

FROM STEVE DICKISON
As you may have heard, poet Will Alexander is quite ill with cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. He's spent his life largely off the poetry grid, taking on odd jobs, and has no financial support or, needless to say, health insurance.

The San Francisco organization Poets in Need is coordinating efforts to raise money for him. You can make a (tax-deductible) contribution to them, earmarked for Will, and send it to:

Poets in Need
PO Box 5411
Berkeley CA 94705

For those around New York, there will be a benefit reading for Will at the Bowery Poetry Club, Thursday November 1, 6-8 pm (readers to be announced).

Many thanks---

[Please feel free to forward this letter on...]

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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

ANTHROPOLOGY POETICS

I'll be excavating Atlantis and Philip Lamantia tonight viz:

CITY LIGHTS POETRY READING:
Garrett Caples, Andrew Joron, and Eileen Tabios
Tuesday, October 23, 2007, 7 pm
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus Avenue at Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133

Poets will read from their works on the occasion of what would have been Philip Lamantia's 80th birthday.

READER BIOS:
Oakland poet Garrett Caples is the author of four books including The Garrett Caples Reader (Angle Press/Black Square Editions, 1999) and Complications (Meritage Press). Of his work, the poet Jeff Clark said: “Caples is a polymath. He is, in no particular order, an essayist; with his partner Anna Naruta he’s the maker of films, documentaries, music videos; he's a connoisseur of hip-hop; he's a love poet, photographer, and collage-maker. His erotica has been anthologized. He's been and likely will remain, as long as he’s here—or there—a student of radical Oakland politics and culture.”  He’s the editor of the forthcoming volume in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series, Tau by Philip Lamantia & Journey to the End by John Hoffman. He also writes on hip hop for the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Andrew Joron was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1955 and grew up in Stuttgart, Germany; Lowell, Massachusetts; and Missoula, Montana. He attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in history and philosophy of science. After a decade and a half spent writing science-fiction poetry, culminating in his volume Science Fiction (Pantagraph Press, 1992), he turned to a more philosophical mode of speculative lyric. This work has been collected in The Removes (Hard Press, 1999) and in Fathom (Black Square, 2003). A book of selected prose, The Cry at Zero, has just been published by Counterpath.  He is also the translator, from the German, of the Marxist-Utopian philosopher Ernst Bloch’s Literary Essays (Stanford University Press, 1998), and the surrealist Richard Anders’s aphorisms and prose poems. Andrew lives in Berkeley, where he works as a freelance bibliographer and indexer. A new book of poems, The Sound Mirror, is forthcoming from Flood Editions.

Eileen R. Tabios recently released her 14th print poetry collection, The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes (Marsh Hawk Press, New York, 2007).  Poet Laureate for Dutch Henry Winery in Napa Valley where she is arduously and long-sufferingly researching the poetry of wine, she has crafted a poetic body of work that is unique for melding ekphrasis with transcolonialism. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Tagalog, Japanese, Portuguese, Paintings, Video, Drawings, Visual Poetry, Mixed Media Collages, Kali Martial Arts, Modern Dance and Sculpture.  She edits GALATEA RESURRECTS: A POETRY ENGAGEMENT. She also spent her first summer in San Francisco, after moving from New York City eight years ago, discussing agriculture and other matters with Philip Lamantia.

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Monday, October 15, 2007

CITY LIGHTS WITH ANDREW AND GARRETT

I have the honor of being Will Alexander's replacement in an upcoming Poetry Reading at City Lights. This will be a unique poetry event as, while we'll be reading from our works, the reading will bear the flavor of Philip Lamantia's 80th birthday. So there'll also be a presentation of Philip's "sound poems" as read by Garrett. And I'll read for the first time some memoir-poems from my first summer in the Bay Area, right after moving here from New York City, which I had spent hangin' out with Philip --

Okay: here are deets:

CITY LIGHTS POETRY READING:
Garrett Caples, Andrew Joron, and Eileen Tabios
Tuesday, October 23, 2007, 7 pm
City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco

The reading, held on what would have been Philip Lamantia's 80th birthday, also will include a presentation of Garrett Caples reading Philip Lamantia's sound poems.

READER BIOS:
Oakland poet Garrett Caples is the author of four books including The Garrett Caples Reader (Angle Press/Black Square Editions, 1999) and Complications (Meritage Press). Of his work, the poet Jeff Clark said: “Caples is a polymath. He is, in no particular order, an essayist; with his partner Anna Naruta he’s the maker of films, documentaries, music videos; he's a connoisseur of hip-hop; he's a love poet, photographer, and collage-maker. His erotica has been anthologized. He's been and likely will remain, as long as he’s here—or there—a student of radical Oakland politics and culture.”  He’s the editor of the forthcoming volume in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series, Tau by Philip Lamantia & Journey to the End by John Hoffman. He also writes on hip hop for the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Andrew Joron was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1955 and grew up in Stuttgart, Germany; Lowell, Massachusetts; and Missoula, Montana. He attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in history and philosophy of science. After a decade and a half spent writing science-fiction poetry, culminating in his volume Science Fiction (Pantagraph Press, 1992), he turned to a more philosophical mode of speculative lyric. This work has been collected in The Removes (Hard Press, 1999) and in Fathom (Black Square, 2003). A book of selected prose, The Cry at Zero, has just been published by Counterpath.  He is also the translator, from the German, of the Marxist-Utopian philosopher Ernst Bloch’s Literary Essays (Stanford University Press, 1998), and the surrealist Richard Anders’s aphorisms and prose poems. Andrew lives in Berkeley, where he works as a freelance bibliographer and indexer. A new book of poems, The Sound Mirror, is forthcoming from Flood Editions.

Eileen R. Tabios recently released her 14th print poetry collection, The Light Sang As It Left Your Eyes (Marsh Hawk Press, New York, 2007). Recipient of the Philippines' National Book Award for Poetry, she has crafted a poetic body of work that is unique for melding ekphrasis with transcolonialism. She is the Poet Laureate for Dutch Henry Winery in St. Helena, CA where she is arduously and long-sufferingly researching the poetry of wine. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Italian, Tagalog, Japanese, Portuguese, Paintings, Video, Drawings, Visual Poetry, Mixed Media Collages, Kali Martial Arts, Modern Dance and Sculpture.  She recently finished her first novel, CHATELAINE (grin).

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

GARRETT CAPLES COMES HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

by deep reader Richard Lopez. Dude obviously has good taste, and I second his recommendation you get COMPLICATED, too! Available at SPD...

...or you can check out Garrett when he -- along with Andrew Joron and Will Alexander -- will do a reading at City Lights at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 23, 2007...to celebrate the birthday of dear Philip Lamantia! Yadda!

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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

COMPLICATIONS AND TAU!!!!!

It's definitely worth nota bene-ing that I -- rather, Meritage Press -- just signed up Garrett Caples for a new poetry release this Fall entitled, COMPLICATIONS. That'd be Garrett's second poetry book since his celebrated celebration The Garrett Caples Reader.

Garrett, of course, is no stranger to Meritage Press as we'd released his swiftly-out-of-print-but-what-do-you-expect-for-a-limited-edition-from-someone-in-demand er, um.

COMPLICATIONS will be designed by the raved-for-poetry-book-designer-of-the-now Jeff Clark. Oh, and that Jeff be a purty good poet, too. Sip. Tonight, the 2005 Mollydooker shiraz...

Puts glass down.
But THERE'S MORE!

Garrett is currently editing an unpublished volume of Philip Lamantia's poetry, to be titled TAU! It'll be published by City Lights, and include the poems of John Hoffman, whose poems Philip read at the infamous Six Gallery reading. TAU is due out in Spring 2008.  Now, THAT is ... Fantabulous News!

And she raises the goblet back up to toast ... the memory of Portuguese wine and olives with Philip...

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