Divers: Recent acquisitions

May 3rd, 2012 § 1 comment § permalink

First of all, this lovely and astonishing chapbook by Marni Ludwig, picked by Susan Howe for the 2011 Poetry Society of America chapbook fellowship:

Marni Ludwig: Little Box of Cotton & Lightning (2012)

 One of the best things about being in an MFA program is that you get to know actual poets who are actually amazing who actually go on to publish things in beautiful ways. I was in workshop with Marni last year and completely in awe of her. You can read the title poem at Jerry Magazine and purchase a copy of the chapbook here.

Also look out for her first book, Pinwheel, picked by Jean Valentine for the 2012 New Issues Poetry Prize.

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Other poetry I picked up in April:

H.D.: Helen in Egypt (1961/1974)

This is the 1974 New Directions edition of Helen in Egypt, which was first publised by Grove Press in 1962. I am in the midst of reading it and it is spectacular. It begins: » Read the rest of this entry «

Spring’s Asymptote: new issue + call for submissions

April 22nd, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

For those of you who don’t get our lovely email announcing the latest issue, here is the announcement again: Asymptote has a new issue that you can READNOWNOWNOW here. So please do!

Asymptote April 2012 is illustrated by the wonderful Hugo Muecke!

As poetry editor — please note that I have always wanted to begin a sentence like this — I’m excited to be curating, in addition to the regular translated poetry section in every issue, two special poetry features for our July and October issues, the guidelines for which are as follows:

For the first special feature in our July 2012 issue, we invite submissions of translated Romanian poetry (up to 10 pages). Deadline: 1 Jun 2012

For the first special feature in our October 2012 issue, we invite submissions of original English-language poetry that explore the foreignness of a word or phrase, or even a larger body of language. What, in fact, does foreignness mean? Is it Freud’s notion of the uncanny? Is it silence in the midst of cacophony? The cacophony in silence? How is foreignness felt in the body when one travels to a new place? We are interested in work that thinks, rethinks and unthinks along these lines (up to 10 pages). Deadline: 1 Sep 2012

If you are a Romanian poet/translator (July issue) or a poet working in English (October issue), I’d love to hear from you (submission guidelines here).

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I should’ve said this a long time ago on Blotting paper: I’m always so excited with our work at Asymptote. Sure, more people know about us than did a year ago; but it still astonishes me the amount and kind of work we manage to collect every three months. Yes, three. We put out four issues every year filled with the best translated literature we can find, the best art, the best critical thinking about the work of translation.

Here’s a shoutout to the poets and poetry-translators featured in our most recent Spring issue: » Read the rest of this entry «

Divers: Saison

April 1st, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

PAUL SCHMIDT ON A WORD RIMBAUD USED OFTEN: SEASON — SAISON

All periods of time have ends to them, and these fatal endings we anticipate. A period of time–a day, an hour, a year–and this will end, we say; all this will end, the season will turn, and all will be over. We look in vain for some eternal moment, for happiness, felicity, that state of bliss that will go on for ever and ever. Is not happiness defined only when no term to its extent is imagined? So Rimbaud thought, it seems to me. His seasons are those stretches of time that open unawares and close painfully in our lives. That summer, those two years in the city, this love affair, that month in the country–these are the true, the organic epochs of our lives; the dates that mark their endings are our true anniversaries. Are not these the seasons Rimbaud wrote of: the implacable turning of season, and the denial of happiness implicit in their movement?

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Aptly, spring has begun. The sun is hurting. And I have just turned in my thesis.

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LIST ONE: BOOKS PURCHASED IN MARCH

First set: Works by Beverly Dahlen, my latest, and certainly an, enduring obsession

» Read the rest of this entry «

Divers: The humiliation of love

March 11th, 2012 § 4 comments § permalink

RELIGION. I have taken to reading the Bible again, and by that I mean Pessoa‘s The Book of Disquiet. It is a monumental work and, in Richard Zenith‘s curation, rather a mammoth one too. So I read it on and off, though I ideally I tell myself I should read a passage every day as one does, if devout, a Bible. But maybe I am more devout in spirit than in practice, and therefore a true Catholic towards this book.

Pessoa: So why do I keep writing?

Pessoa: Because I still haven’t learned to practise completely the renunciation that I preach.

(A Factless Autobiography 231)

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DIVERS. For three years I have written monthly posts about the books and movies I read and watched in that time. I’ve become more and more lax about the writing of these, being both late and unhelpfully brief about them. The point was to force myself to think carefully about what gives me pleasure and what doesn’t. Laziness is bad for thinking.

Now that I’ve become less invested in writing a blog that is read and more interested in having a place that keeps track of my interests and complaints and confusion, I’ve decided to switch to this format for my blog writing: a (hopefully) fortnightly gathering of my thoughts and readings. This first divers post of 2012 will have to summarise two months instead of just two weeks, so bear with me.

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Street art in Prague: Kafka's Metamorphosis (via Flavorwire)

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MUSIC. I don’t ‘follow’ music. » Read the rest of this entry «

December 2011: movies

March 3rd, 2012 § 3 comments § permalink

Lots of movies, not all of them bad.

Robert Altman: 3 Women (1977, USA)

An utterly strange movie, as I’m sure the still above suggests. I love Altman’s work, but I’m not sure about this one. The first half is excellent: Pinky (Sissy Spacek) is a young girl, seemingly from nowhere, who moves to California and starts to work at a spa for the elderly. She’s awkward and childish and starts looking to older, wiser Millie (Shelley Duvall) for her social education. Eventually she moves in with Millie, but it quickly becomes apparent that for all her talk, no one really likes or even notices Millie. There’s something . . . ill about these two women. After an accident, things get worse as their identities begin to blur. The third woman is Willie, the wife of the Millie’s landlord. She’s pregnant and paints these amazing, weird images (see still).

The bit about identities blurring sounds a lot like Bergman’s Persona, which was, I think, an inspiration for Altman. I really like Altman’s version, especially the first half, and also where the film lands as its final point. Between the middle and the end, there’s something that needs resolution. I think it might be that the film falls into fantasy more so than psychosis, and that troubles me. Still, this is very worth watching, just for Sissy and Shelley. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore in Hollywood.

Wes Anderson: Rushmore (1998, USA)

Ugh.

Brian de Palma: Blow Out (1981, USA)

John motherfucking Travolta at his best. » Read the rest of this entry «

December 2011: books

February 18th, 2012 § 0 comments § permalink

*sigh*

Fiction

  • Samuel Beckett: Molloy (1951, tr. from the French by Patrick Bowles in collaboration with the author)

Poetry

  • Arun Kolatkar: Jejuri (1976)
  • Carl Phillips: From the Devotions (1998)
  • Rosmarie Waldrop: The Reproduction of Profiles (1987)

All of these are highly recommended . . . although — fighting words — I did wonder if Jejuri was quite as good as I remember it to be.

Rosmarie Waldrop is my new goddess. I can’t wait to read her translations of Edmond Jabès.

» Read the rest of this entry «

The Opening of the Mouth

February 5th, 2012 § 5 comments § permalink

Beverly Dahlen

 

The dead are our children and we must coax them to eat.
Ah   Ah   Ah   Ah   pointing to the mouth, touching
the food: the bull’s leg, the heart.

The dead are our gods. We must pry open their mouths.
They cannot live without our sustenace.
We bring hammers and chisels.
We crack their throats.
Our words fly open above our heads:
stone clouds of owls, lines of water
rippling, geese.

The gods are our children.   Eat.
Eat the heart, the leg, the thigh,
all the parts.   Take into the darkness of your mouth
this eye.   It will be enough light.
It will light you
forever.

 

from The Egyptian Poems (1983)

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I’ve recently discovered Beverly Dahlen (b. 1934) thanks to a wonderful friend of mine who asked me to look her up for him. » Read the rest of this entry «

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