Blazevox 2K7 an Online Journal of Voice
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BlazeVOX 2k7 an online journal of voice Fall 2007 Table of Contents Kent Johnson ....................................................................................................................9 Aleah Sato .......................................................................................................................19 Alyson Greenfield............................................................................................................24 Clay Matthews.................................................................................................................27 David Mclean ..................................................................................................................31 eddie kilowatt..................................................................................................................36 Michael Ogletree.............................................................................................................42 ek rzepka .........................................................................................................................46 Forrest Roth.....................................................................................................................49 Cherian George Pulinthitta ..............................................................................................51 Hugh Fox.........................................................................................................................63 James Sanders ................................................................................................................69 Randall D. Brown .............................................................................................................75 rob mclennan ..................................................................................................................78 Michele F Sweeney .........................................................................................................83 Kate Schapira ..................................................................................................................84 Jason Visconti..................................................................................................................89 Jeanpaul Ferro ................................................................................................................94 Jeremy Hight...................................................................................................................99 Chuck Richardson ..........................................................................................................101 Ashok Niyogi .................................................................................................................134 andrew lundwall ............................................................................................................137 Tammy Ho Lai-ming ......................................................................................................139 Ray Succre .....................................................................................................................142 Jonathan Snider ............................................................................................................146 Jeffrey Gunderson .........................................................................................................148 Burt Kimmelman............................................................................................................162 James Davies.................................................................................................................165 Kristen Howe .................................................................................................................171 Michael Sikkema............................................................................................................172 Megan A. Volpert ..........................................................................................................181 Christina Woś Donnelly // BuffaloFOCUS ......................................................................189 BlazeVOX 2k7 an online journal of voice Fall 2007 note from the editor This is our first video introduction to an issue. So go to the webpage and take a look at the real thing or go to YouTube and check it out there along with all our other great video poems. But for the print issue here is a breakdown of the intro. Thanks for stopping by we have another great issue for you. More ebooks More print books YouTube video poetry readings of BlazeVOX [books] authors www.youtube.com/ggatza Podcasts are a hit! New BuffaloFOCUS featuring Christina Woś Donnelly. Geoffrey Gatza Editor & Publisher ------------------------------------- BlazeVOX [ books ] Publisher of weird little books -------------------------------------- [email protected] http://www.blazevox.org BlazeVOX 2k7 an online journal of voice Fall 2007 BlazeVOX 2k7 an online journal of voice Fall 2007 Kent Johnson Stinky Limes in the Poetry Blogosphere Lord Byron sparring at the Pugilists Club in London On the first day of August, 2007, Anno Domini, Kasey Silem Mohammad posted on his blog, Lime Tree, an entry that read, in full, "All Purpose Intellectual Tag: "I'm interested in..." He followed this by posting, on the same day, the following sentences (and fragment) generated by his tag: >" I'm interested in the (real) improv of fake mechanized procedures . As in a big cardboard refrigerator box painted to look like a computer, with someone inside feeding a handwritten scroll out through a slot." >"I'm interested in melancholy as a mode of negativity or refusal." I thought these tidbits a bit "disappointing," to be honest, but I understood--wrongly, in retrospect--that KSM was opening a thread for fun exchange, inviting others to post, in his comments boxes, examples of their own interests, in like anaphoric phrasing. Thus, in a small fit of poetic transport, one I haven't enjoyed since my time on the Poetics List, I mailed in, on that same day, a string of rapidly composed 88 sentences, all beginning with the tag KSM had proffered. I was, as is my wont, rather pleased with my effort, quite certain that some readers would find its affects (or is that "effects," reader, my handbook not handy?) genial and charming, maybe even funny enough to inspire a few to sally forth to some of the gently satirical formulations contained therein, with ripostes of like head-claused prosody. In any case, my serial tour de force seemed harmless enough, especially on a blog like Lime Tree, theoretical headquarters of the poetics of "Impropriety." I was enthused, even kind of excited. Well, the next day I checked in, fully expecting any number of praises for my brilliance and good humor, even maybe an invitation from KSM himself that I become a card- carrying member of the Flarf fraternity/sorority, something I have yearned for since he'd been interviewed by the BBC about the movement's sub rosa mysteries. Imagine my surprise and dismay to find, then, nothing but a handful of lividly outraged comments, including a long one by KSM himself, accusing me of hijacking his blog, of being a "parasite" and a "homeless wretch," who used his comment boxes "in unrelenting waves" for no other motive than to get out of the rain in a rainy city, or something to that somewhat mixed metaphorical effect. Not only that, though, for KSM went on to declare, in rhetoric redolent of some Weather Underground communiqué, my immediate, decisive excommunication from his comments boxes. And then, as if this weren't enough punishment upon a homeless person trying to curl his poor, lumpen body into a small, dry space, he proclaimed his intent to erase forever every single comment I had ever posted to Lime Tree! With a grace period of 24 hours! I was to copy everything I'd ever written, and at end of the generous allotment being granted to vacate my smelly belongings (not a second more), the Delete Bomb was to go boom. Well, I sat there for a few minutes, my eyes getting hot with hot tears, and I sent KSM a couple of desperate, honestly bemused emails, more or less asking if he could possibly be serious. (1) What, after all, had I really done or said that was so awful? He promptly posted these on his blog, with a comment (referring to me now, rather coolly, as "Mr. Johnson") that he most assuredly was serious. I sat there some more, smoked half a pack of American Spirit , maybe three quarters of a pack, and decided to go back and review in the archives all comment boxes at Lime Tree for the current year, beginning the first day of January, 2007, Anno Domini, to see if there might be something to "Mr. Mohammad's" claim that I had become an unrelenting, annoying parasite, sucking all the juice, as it were, from the limes upon his fair tree. Could it be that I'd been much more of an inappropriate pain in the ass than I recalled? Forsooth, what I found surprised even me. For I counted, with exception of my last four wunderkammern bricolages, a mere *25 comments* over the past seven full months, a good number of these grouped in a couple of quite interesting, collegial, and well- populated discussions relating to issues of "Poetic Competence" and the writings of the Stalinist/Maoist post-avant poster-boy-of-moment, Alan Badiou. In fact, I noticed that numerous poets, during this time, were even responding in some earnest to me , as if they felt (perhaps they were mistaken, but this seems hardly the point) that my contributions