THREE DECADES OF INNOVATIVE WRITING BY WOMEN
K»M
Edited by MARY MARGARET SLOAN
TALISMAN HOUSE, PUBLISHERS JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY CONTENTS
Introduction ... 3
Lorine Niedecker ... 10 Progression ... 10 "She had tumult of the brain" ... 16 "My coat threadbare" ... 16 Lady in the Leopard Coat ... 16 Fascist Festival ... 16
"To see the man who took care of our stock" ... 17 "Horse, hello" ... 17 Wartime ... 17 "What bird would light" ... 18 "In the great snowfall before the bomb" . . . 18 "What horror to awake at night" ... 19 "February almost March bites the cold" ... 20 "Who was Mary Shelley" ... 20 "In Leonardo's light" ... 21 "The wild and wavy event" ... 22 from Traces of Living Things ... 22 Darwin ... 24
Barbara Guest . . • 29 Heroic Stages . . . 29 Windy Afternoon ... 3c A Reason ... 31 Saving Tallow . . • V- Illyria ... 34 Nebraska ... 35 Passage ... 36
The Stragglers . . • 38 Prairie Houses . . • 39 from Seeking Air ... 40 from The Tiirler Losses ... 41 Twilight Polka Dots ... 42 Dora Maar ... 44 Words ... 47 Defensive Rapture ... 48 the moment / a noun ... 50
Kathleen Fraser ... 51 from Notes re: Echo ... 51 researches ... 56 from GIOTTO : ARENA ... 60 from WING ... 68
Bernadette Mayer ... 73 from Story ... 73 Earthworks ... 74 Poem ... 75 The End of Human Reign on Bashan Hill ... 76 from Midwinter Day ... 77 Watching the Complex Train-Track Changes ... 82 The False Finch's Wedding Gown ... 83 Sonnet For Fred Pohl ... 84 Brilliant Bravado October 20 Night ... 84
Rosmarie Waldrop ... 86 from When They Have Senses ... 86 {torn.Morning's Intelligence ... 88 from The Reproduction of Profiles ... 89 from Lawn ojExcluded Middle ... 92 from A Key Into the Language of America ... 96
Nicole Brossard ... 98 A High-Priced Rod ... 98 from Act of the Eye ... 100 Eleven Times ... 105 Screen Skin Utopia . . . 107 Anne Waldman ... 113 I Digress 113 from/OF/5 ... 117
Hannah Weiner ... 118 from Clairvoyant Journal . . . 118 from Little Books /Indians ... 119 from Spoke ... 122 from Weeks ... 124 from Silent teachers / Remembered Sequel . . . 126
Fanny Howe ... 131 Afterword ... 131 "I was blind until my eyes were opened" ... 132 "Huron red" . . . 137 "The dark line around the settlement" ... 133 "The baby / was made" . . . 134 "The brown recluse wears a violin design" . . . 137 "Sometimes the job gets you and sometimes" ... 137 "Tell me what is ordinary" ... 137 "A worm rides between walls" . . . 137 from The Lives of a Spirit . . . 138 In the Spirit There Are No Accidents . . . 139 Scattered Light . . . 140 Veteran . . . 142 Goodbye, Post Office Square ... 143 "She saw four ways" ... 143 "After all was arranged" . . . 144 "When she was alone in her cell" ... 145 from Saving History . . . 146 from O'clock ... 148
Lyn Hejinian ... 152 from Writing Is An Aid To Memory ... 152 from My Life. ... 153 from The Guard . . . 156 from Redo ... 159 from Oxota: A Short Russian Novel . . . 162 from The Cell ... 166 from The Book of 1000 Eyes . . . 169
Ann Lauterbach ... 172 Then Suddenly ... 172 Along the Way . . . 172 Still ... 173 Still Life with Apricots ... 174 The French Girl ... 175 Gesture and Flight . . . 177 For Example (6) Of the Fire ... 181
Alice Notley ... 187 Dear Dark Continent . . . 187 This Crazy Wickedness, Little Nests of Light ... 188 Getting It Right ... 189 When I Was Alive ... 191 The Goddess Who Created This Passing World ... 191 Poem . . . 192 A True Account of Talking to Judy Holiday . . . 193 from Waltzing Matilda ... 195 In Ancient December ... 197 from Congratulating Wedge ... 199 "grace him my heart there grown pale" . . . 200 Poem . . . 200 Sea Flu . . . 201 Me . . . 201 from White Phosphorus . . . 2O2_ from Beginning With A Stain . . . 203 from De'samere . . . 204 An Impeccable Sexism I Mean an Elegant Idea Haunts the Stars . . . 205 Maureen Owen . . . 209 "I climb into bed and roll towards the window" . . . 209 "There was no helping Mr. Ramsey on the journey he was going" . . . 210 Postscript to the rest of my life 211 "from Amelia Earheart . . . 212 GRACE NOTE STUDY . . . 217 Susan-o's SOng . . . 218 tall white & densely fluid ... 219 "I guess I would go now into the polished study" . . . 219 Something just out of reach . . . 220
Beverly Dahlen . . . 222 from A Reading i-y . . . 222
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge . . . 230 Pack Rat Sieve 1 . . . 230 Empathy . . . 233 Size . . . 237
Abigail Child . . . 240 Demultiplying . . . 240 Meld . . . 244
Rae Armantrout . . . 246 Grace . . . 246 Dusk . . . 247 Single Most . . . 247 Admission . . . 249 Home Federal . . . 250 Mechanism ... 251 The Book ... 251 Attention ... 252 Covers ... 253 The Daffodils ... 255 A Pulse . . . 256 Kinds . . . 257 The Plot ... 258
Kathy Acker . . . 260 from Don Quixote . . . 260
Susan Howe . . . 266 from Secret History of the Dividing Line . . . 266" from Pythagorean Silence . . . 268 from The Liberties: WHITE FOOLSCAP Book of Cordelia ... 272 "Scattering As Behavior Toward Risk" . . . 282
Johanna Drucker ... 288 from The Word Made Flesh ... 288
Lynne Dreyer ... 293 from The White Museum . . . 293
Leslie Scalapino ... 300 from that they were at the beach— aeolotropic series . . . 300 from Floating Series / Third Part . . . 303 from Delay Series . . . 305 Fin De Siecle, 20th / A Play . . . 309 from Appendix / The Sky of Text ... 313 from New Time ... 317
Laura Moriarty ... 319 Winds of Mars ... 319 Translation . . . 320 .^ Translations ... 321 from The Modern Tower: Florence . . . 322 Laura de Sade . . . 324 In Your Robe ... 325 Feast of the Annunciation . . . 325 Caprice . . . 326 That Explode Together . . . 327 What is Said . . . 327 "What is claimed" ... 328 The Paradise of Dainty Devices . . . 328 The Large Glass . . . 329
Rachel Blau DuPlessis ... 332 Selvedge . . . 332 from Writing . . . 333 "O" from Draft X: Letters ... 335 Draft 5: Gap . . . 336
Patricia Dienstfrey ... 342 from The Woman Without Experiences . . . 342
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha ... 348 from Dictee . . . 348
Tina Darragh ... 364 from Scale Sliding . . . 364 "... a perfect one of THOSE ... " / name weigh day . . . 370 from sputter plot . . . 372
Carla Harryman ... 376 from Vice . . . 376 Toy Boats ... 383 from Memory Play . . . 386 Portraits . . . 390
Marjorie Welish ... 393 Among Them All . . . 393 An Emptiness Distributed . . . 393 The Seasons Change ... 394 5. Carpet Within The Figure . . . 397 Wild Sleeve >. . 399 Moses und Aron . . . 400 Krater, I ... 402 Krater, II ... 403 Guitars and Tigers . . . 403
Joan Retallack ... 405 Zoosemiotics: a phrase book . . . 405 Truth And Other Enigmas . . . 406 from Errata 5uite . . . 407 from AFTERRIMAGES ... 409 The Woman In The Chinese Room: A Prospective ... 412
Fiona Templeton ... 416 from YOU -The City ... 416
Cole Swensen . . . 424 from Park . . . 424 , from Numen . . . 426 Bestiary . . . 428
Eileen Myles . . .431 "Romantic Pain" ... 431 Light Warrior . . . 436 Trial Balloon ... 438 Kid's Show: 1991 . . . 439
Erin Moure . . . 440 from The Curious . . . 440 Search Procedures, or Lake This . . . 443
Diane Ward . . . 450 Allies . . . 450 The Habit of Energy ... 451 Corroboree . . . 451 Penny For Your Life . . . 452 from Concept Lyrics: Passion . . . 453 Human Ceiling . . . 454 Jean Day ... 458 Ground . . . 458 from The I and the You . . . 460 Resident ... 461 A Curious Tropism . . . 462 The Buster Keaton Analogy . . . 463 "Doubts form a system" . . . 463
Karen Mac Cormack ... 465 "loco citato" . . . 465 Current Venus . . . 467 Darker Than Sleep . . . 468 Reverse Legal . . . 469
Gail Scott ... 471 (I was a Poet before I was You) . . . 471
Harryette Mullen . . . 477 from Trimmings . . . 477 from S*PeRM**K*T ... 478 from Muse & Drudge . . . 479
Erica Hunt ... 485 City . . . ,485 after Baudelaire's "The Muse for Hire" ... 488 First Words . . . 489
Julie Patton ... 492 from Teething on Type: 2 . . . 492
Norma Cole ... 498 "Imaginations law hits frames" ... 498 "Say nothing or say this" . . . 498 Cardinal . . . 499 from Destitution . . . 500 from Mars . . . 501 Memory Shack: Allegory Twelve . . . 503 from Rosetta . . . 504 The Marble Sea . . . 505 We Address ... 506 MforMOIRA ... 507 from Catasers for Jess . . . 508
Mary Margaret Sloan ... 509 from Abeyance Series . . . 509 from Infiltration . . . 510 from On Method ... 511
Dodie Bellamy ... 515 from The Letters of Mina Harker . . . 515
Jessica Grim ... 521 I've Had Just One Reason, All My Life, To Live . . . 521 It / Ohio . . . 523 Bucolia Wax ... 525
Camille Roy ... 528 from Bye-Bye Brunhilde ... 528
Susan Gevirtz ... 534 Waterless Road ... 534 from Anaxsa Fragment ... 537 from Prosthesis . . . 539
Myung Mi Kim ... 543 from The Bounty . . . 543 --^ Lisa Robertson ... 548 Eclogue Three: Liberty . . . 548 Eclogue Five: Phantasie . . . 549 Melanie Neilson ... 552 Affecting Respiration . . . 552 Disfigured Text #1 (Hindsight is 20-20) ... 553 Disfigured Text #4 ... 554 Seated Woman by seated woman . . . 554 Album ... 555 Blue of the Sky Black to the Eye . . . 557
POETICS AND EXPOSITION
Marjorie Welish ... 561 On Barbara Guest ... 561
Alice Notley . . . ^66 But He Says I Misunderstood . . . 566 Homer's Art . . . 567 from Close to me & Closer ... (The Language ofHeaven) ... 568
Susan Howe ... 570 from My Emily Dickinson ... 570
Rachel Blau DuPlessis ... 580 Otherhow ... 580
Norma Cole ... 593 The Subject Is It: Translating Danielle CoUobert's It Then . . . 593
Ann Lauterbach . . . 600 Pragmatic Examples: the Nonce . . . 600
Bernadette Mayer . . . 603 from Midwinter Day . . . 603
Maureen Owen . . . 606 from Zombie Notes . . . 606 Rosmarie Waldrop . . . 609 Thinking of Follows . . . 609
Lyn Hejinian ... 618 The Rejection Of Closure ... 618
Cole Swensen ... 630 Against the Limits of Language: The Geometries of Anne-Marie Albiach and Susan Howe . . . 630
Kathleen Fraser ... 642 Translating the Unspeakable: Visual Poetics, as Projected through Olson's "Field" into Current Female Writing Practice . . . 642
Susan Gevirtz ... 655 Errant Alphabet: Notes Towards the Screen ... 655
Leslie Scalapino . . . 660 Note on My Writing, 1985 . . . 660
Beverly Dahlen . . . 663 In Re "Person" . . . 663
Dodie Bellamy . . . 666 Delinquent . . . 666
Rae Armantrout ... 647 Irony and Postmodern Poetry . . . 647
Erica Hunt . . . 680 Notes for an Oppositional Poetics.. . . 680
Carla Harryman ... 688 Wild Mothers ... 688
Fanny Howe . . .-695 The Pinocchian Ideal. . . 695 Tina Darragh . . . 696 s the any ME finel mes: A reflection on Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" . . . 696 The Best of Intentions . . . 702 Error Message . . . 703
Laura Moriarty ... 705 Notes on symmetry as a procedure . . . 705
Joan Retallack . . . 708 SECNAHC GNIKAT : TAKING CHANCES ... 708
Contributors Notes ... 725
Index . . .731