from jeff tweedy's "the black hours"

your mind's a machine
that's deadly and dull
it's never been still
and its will has never been free
it's almost dawn
and it's snowing again

I have never seen so much night

The Republic of Poetry

For me, the essence of writing poetry is an act of retaining time; poetry is a form for preserving time. Therefore poetry is memory. Every time we read poetry we can decipher and revive the passage of time at that particular moment. We can live through it again. When I left China, I was old enough to take the best of China with me ­ the words, the language, the imagination and the remembrance of the past. Everything I miss has been stored in my memory. So I don't think I have lost China. I keep it all intact in my memory.

(via poetry hut blog)

how odd... and interesting... Spiritual neurology

In the first of what he hopes will be a series of experiments, Dr Beauregard and his doctoral student Vincent Paquette are recording electrical activity in the brains of seven Carmelite nuns through electrodes attached to their scalps. Their aim is to identify the brain processes underlying the Unio Mystica-the Christian notion of mystical union with God. The nuns (the researchers hope to recruit 15 in all) will also have their brains scanned using positron-emission tomography and functional magnetic-resonance imaging, the most powerful brain-imaging tools available.

(via eeksy-peeksy)

have been enjoying john latta's Hotel Point for some time... full of thinking and stuff... of course... but fresh language too... like waking up

think about this... Stamen Pistol... why some poems... mine too... feel like unfinished lists even when they've got verbs in them somewhere...why so suspicious of pronouns articles ordinary breath and such... still... fun to tumble with the dictionary

in a great dickinson dash... Loren has read all of Miss Emily... in a fairly compact span of time... i love her stuff... but such a marathon read would make me dangerous enough... to be handled with a chain...

read this Biography of Franz Kafka... at the world's greatest modern lit site...

Despite the fact that he performed well, he believed himself to be the dumbest student in the class, and was in constant fear of having his stupidity unmasked. He imagined that every examination would result in a tremendous failure; but in spite of this pessimism (or maybe because of it), he always passed, and sometimes even excelled.

i ask the apes why Beloved ends as it does... with this coda you could call a prose poem... rather than with the last interaction between sethe and paul d. ... silent space... then a few of the usual suspects pick it up... comes to me through this discussion that morrison is reasserting the broader scope... reminding us that this particular story is not just about these specific characters... (and ooo wasn't it creepy and ooo wasn't it gross) but about a community... a haunted community... one that wants or needs to or just does forget... so the book has been wondering about the intricacies of "rememory"... which is what haunting means if it means anything

The Great Library of Amazonia

I've worked out every small detail in this plan I've made, this thing that cannot fail.

read this... "rhode island notebook, 3.7.03-3.16.03

story of a literary squabble... gardner versus barth... Baltimore City Paper: War of Words (March 3 - March 9, 2004)

Barth introduces Gardner and gives him the floor. Gardner starts off with his usual spiel. He explains to Barth's class why, in his opinion, modern American literature has lost its way. Art, he claims, is about values--a process of 'moral affirmation.' The major writers of the '70s have lost touch with the sense of mission that propelled Melville, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Faulkner.

service station. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

service station

NOUN:1. A retail establishment at which motor vehicles are refueled, serviced, and sometimes repaired. Also called filling station, gas station. 2. A business or branch of a business where services, especially repairs, can be obtained

just arrived...
the last avant-garde - d. lehman
digressions on some poems by frank o'hara - j. lesueur

NYRB Classics: The Stuffed Owl

'It isn't what the poet says that counts,' Williams wrote in 1944, 'but what he makes.'

(found via laurable's great archives)

Stephen King's acceptance speech at The National Book Foundation

There are some people who have spoken out passionately about giving me this medal. There are some people who think it's an extraordinarily bad idea. There have been some people who have spoken out who think it's an extraordinarily good idea. You know who you are and where you stand and most of you who are here tonight are on my side. I'm glad for that. But I want to say it doesn't matter in a sense which side you were on. The people who speak out, speak out because they are passionate about the book, about the word, about the page and, in that sense, we're all brothers and sisters.

extracurriculars for next year... wonder if this school could use something like a poetry club... bunch of kids who want to write it... read it... perform it... argue about it... probably couldn't/shouldn't call it "the poetry club"... what a turnoff... cuz poetry's for losers... as everybody knows... might have a bigger draw with a gsa... but... we're a catholic school... and all that implies... i guess...

This Day in History... matt neuman's a smartass..

big congrats to erin over at Lose the Buddha...

Last month, I was offered my very first book deal.... What's this book going to be about, you ask? Well, not surprisingly, it's about weight loss. But the book, tentatively titled "Diaries of the Mad Diet Bloggers: Tales From The Frontline," goes deeper than just losing weight. It deals with the issues that come with losing weight or being overweight -- clothes, sex, past and present body image and more. I wanted to do a book that stopped trying to tell women and men how to lose weight, but simply commiserated about the process.

smoke signals... cool... and a touch more transcendent than mr. berardinelli grants...

John Wayne's teeth... John Wayne's teeth...
Are they plastic? Are they steel?

what was i doing just then at fyp with those skinny pieces... full of nothing... they seemed sound-driven... i had these phonemes stuck in my head... like water in the ear canal... stand up... jump around... shake it out...

so this is my book of scraps... how you like my scraps, mr. bones?

talking funny everywhere... never was much of a funny talker... but bobby is pleased by my laugh...

cherry orchard scenes were not half bad... we'll use tomorrow for some "fine tuning"... which consists of me saying "don't jump up there"... "don't wander"... "slow down"... "speak every syllable distinctly"... heady stuff like that

tuesday after school in computer lab 505... yearbook is happening... and i am here happening with it... more or less... some writing problems... and now a string of machines have just crashed... seems related to PageMaker... ouch... and i'm extraneous in any emergency...

dr. mardy grothe of chiasmus.com will be interviewed on npr's talk of the nation (91.5 here around chicago) this thursday 2:40 central... i'll probably miss it since it's right in the middle of my last period... but... who knows...

ah... heavy good rain... buckets and buckets

actually... that last should read "snow dirt"... since the actual snow is mostly gone... just these sad little black and grey piles here and there... thunder more... rain rain rain... come on

thunder just now... the first thunder of whatmightbecalled spring... and that theatrical light we get just before a good rain... come on... wash all this dirty snow away

schedule e today... curiculum planning meetings... stage three... assessment strategies... i am groaning now...

worldlit folks are practicing their Cherry Orchard scenes... set to be performed tomorrow...

in today's post...
book: Wendell Berry's A Continuous Harmony
movie: Smoke Signals

pretty quiet in ape-land when i posed today's question about Beloved... was i that obtuse... had they done the reading? pretty quiet...