Jacket 23 - Mark Wallace: Writer and Self in the Work of Nick Piombino

Of all the poets associated with language writing, Nick Piombino focuses most directly on the problem of the individual, both as writer and as source of experience. While the theoretical focus of most language writers can be said to be socialist and materialist, Piombino's use of psychoanalytic theory and his experience as a practicing psychoanalyst marks him as different in focus while at the same time his work is closely related to language writing.

The New York Times > 'Dylan's Visions of Sin': It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Reading):

''Dylan's Visions of Sin'' -- a volume perhaps ipso facto to be regarded as either the most intimidating rock-critical treatise ever published, or the silliest, or both.

time tales

is a collection of found photographs. found at fleamarkets, thriftshops, some are scooped up from streets and alleyways, fallen from an overstuffed bag or torn pocket. others turn up in a cabinet's hidden compartment, found while wandering the rooms of an abandoned house. now the photos exist by themselves, lost in time. time tales does not want to reveal their mysteries. time tales asks to be the new home for lost photos, a resting place, for the nameless and the lost.

Wendell Berry interview: Sojourners Magazine

I don't think that being the strongest country in the world can necessarily make us the most secure country. And the fact remains that we're destroying our country ourselves.

It's easy to get the idea that we're stationing troops all over the world to protect our right to destroy our own country. I think that if you were seriously interested in security, you would make the country secure in its regions. You'd make it possible for the people to eat with far less public transportation. To do that you'd have to think in a different way. And we've got to face the likelihood that the people in charge are simply not capable of thinking that way. They've never thought in that way. Their doctrine is maximum force relentlessly applied. That's the doctrine of war. But it's also the doctrine of industrial agriculture. It's the way the industrial system works.

and a bit later..

If you're a writer and you are at all inclined to speak as a Christian in some way, you realize very quickly that the conventional language is pretty much useless. It takes a long time to get past that, or it has taken me a long time. People in conventional Christianity have spoken lightly and sometimes frivolously of God for a long time. It's a word that needs to be used sparingly, in my opinion.

Any religion has to have a practice. When you let it go so far from practice that it just becomes a matter of talk something bad happens. If you don't have an economic practice, you don't have a practice. Christians conventionally think they've done enough when they've gone to the store and shopped. But that isn't an economic life. It isn't an economic practice. If you take seriously those passages in the scripture that say that we live by God's spirit and his breath, that we live, move, and have our being in God, the implications for the present economy are just devastating. Those passages call for an entirely generous and careful economic life.

The New York Times: on Ricks on Dylan (via poetry hut blog)

The book pays no attention at all to Mr. Dylan's life - no mention here of his famous shift from acoustic to electric guitar, of his conversions from Judaism to Christianity and back again, or of his recent appearance in a Victoria's Secret commercial - and is more interested in the form of the songs than their content.

Ray Charles, American Legend, Dies at 73... really sad news... thanks, ray

Toni Morrison: Song of Solomon

...Caren Bassett Dybek, a high school teacher in Michigan, submitted a poem titled 'The Summer Day' by Mary Oliver.

Dybek said the poem, which asks 'Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?', helps remind her that 'teaching invites me into the presence of the precious and wild.'

from time to time it's good to drink too much coffee and listen to gun club's fire of love... but one should not try to make pomes under those influences

here's rain so there's no walk this morning... we'd melt.. but the plants i put in yesterday seem happy enough... was hoping to do more today but... it can wait. i guess.

chinese folk rock

Poetry Resources: Reading and Study

review of a new book on Pavement

Malkmus was the spokesperson for Slacker Nation, obliquely referencing their love of snarky irony and fears of adult responsibility. His lyrics, fractured and disjointed, reflected his iconoclastic method of songwriting, in which narrative was nowhere to be found, replaced by a grab-bag of clever one-liners and puns. Lazy critics lumped Pavement in with other 'slacker' bands like Superchunk and Swell Maps, but Malkmus owed more to the love of language for its own sake found in contemporary poets like John Ashbery.

ah... this blug made it onto fait accompli's recent crush list... grazie... check out some of the spots nick has found

dom and i cut out early from the current carmelite shindig... our regional meeting... it was fine and always good to reconnect with old friends but i was antsy and ill-at-ease over a stupid dream about the cat... do you believe this?... the cat's culinary issues... digestion issues... a dream...

upon return i find her just as happy and healthy as ever in a long time... because i'd left her a bowl of dry food... not a smudge of that old nasty canned stuff anywhere... we'll renew that battle in the morning...

but the a/c is out and the house is all mugged up an stinky... well i'll just open some windows... i will

in the car this morning i heard a radio add for Wendy's Hamburgers that parodied the opening of Ginsberg's Howl... wondering about their target... who'd get it? who'd care? what's the intersection of Ginsberg readers and Wendy's patrons?

my old pal sean keefe... off in australia... sends a plea for east timor... talks about the australian province's involvement there...

The Carmelites are located in two parts of the country - Dili, which is the capital, and a parish in a remote area called Zumalai. The distance between Dili and Zumalai is about 100 miles, but takes more than 6 hours by four wheel driven vehicles due to the conditions of the roads between the two.

Education is an important link to a better future in East Timor. A usual classroom in a rural area, where a school can be found, usually is made up of 40 to 50 students. Most of the schools do not have enough books, pens, or paper. Computers are not useful because there is no electricity. A student is lucky to get a ninth grade education. The only way for a student to get any type of higher education is to go to Dili and board there while he or she attends school. Very few families can afford for their children to get an education. Therefore, the country's future is doomed to be ruled by an elitist few while the majority of the population is locked into a future of poverty.

The New York Times > Magazine > Encounter: Proceed With Caution (free registation may be required)

Unlike Bill McKibben or Wendell Berry, two authors Joy admires who have written with passion about how technology threatens to devalue our day-to-day lives, Joy has made a point of not pursuing the moral, religious or political dimensions of his argument. ''I'm focused on truly catastrophic danger, where we must act,'' he wrote to me in a late-night e-mail message.

new journal up... to begin june... finally.... mostly pictures from yesterday