Bewilderment Inc.

InDigest 12

2009-11-08T17:07:00.003-06:00

Brand new InDigest w/ new poems from yours truly: http://www.indigestmag.com/ .

Please enjoy.

Matt

H_NGM_N #9

2009-10-31T13:34:00.001-05:00

Friends,

See a link to the new issue of the fabulous online journal H_NGM_N, wherein I have some collaborative poems writ with Dobby Gibson.

Here's the official note from H_NGM_N's editor Nate Pritts:

Citizens of the world!

H_NGM_N #9 is locked & loaded & ready to be dropped from a low flying plane on some unsuspecting country whose regime is in need of being toppled.

& if that country is CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE you can start to see how my metaphor is apt:

http://www.h-ngm-n.com/cur_ent-i_sue

Please note that we are currently open to submissions until November 30th & be sure to check out the updated info on H_NGM_N Books:

http://www.h-ngm-n.com/h_ngm_n-books/

Matt

COLERIDGE ON SPINOZA, etc.

2009-10-19T18:51:00.003-05:00

"Each thing has a life of it's own, and we are all one life."

[By the by, I recommend highly Adam Sisman's The Friendship: Wordsworth & Coleridge for anyone interested in these two poets, the Lyrical Ballads, and the underpinnings of Romanticism in general.]

ALEXIS ORGERA'S ILLUMINATRIX REVIEWED BY MARK ROCKSWOLD ON THE TARPAULIN SKY BLOG

2009-10-10T09:08:00.001-05:00

Congrats Alexis!

Here's the link: http://tsky-reviews.blogspot.com/search/label/Mark%20Rockswold

THIS IS MY LAND ESCAPING

2009-10-03T10:49:00.002-05:00

1) Poems register a particular way of paying attention. They point to/remind us of a certain kind of aesthetic interest, a way of using and engaging with language (to make a kind of sense), which is both heightened and degraded from the ordinary.

2) Form is the evidence of the parameters used to shape a poem (whether they're explicit, implicit, or considered only after the fact).

3) The highlight of the moment is my broken foot. Seriously, my broken foot. Throbbing.

4) This morning Agnes said: "Water comes out of my face, it just happens."

5) Someone else said, maybe me I can't remember, though I did write it down: In art the opposite of meaningfulness is not meaninglessness, but indifference and pointlessness.

6) How to write a poem: What would happen if...?

7) In the Udine region of Italy this summer, I actually woke up to the sound of a rooster. Then church bells clanged in the distance. Recently, reading Ann Lauterbach's Or to Begin Again, I thought of that rooster. Italy. Uncomfortably hot sun on my face.

8) "The question is no longer about what the artist is saying--in fact there is no question any longer--but only a sense of the object as a site where one's awareness is centered."--Crispin Sartwell on the Wabi-Sabi in Wolfgang Laib's "Mountains" of pollen.

9) I would like to make poems which are crash sites and/or building sites where one's (my) consciousness/awareness is centered.

10) I would like to...

STILL LIFE WITH LANDSCAPE

2009-09-20T09:04:00.006-05:00

1) Trying to find a way to write poems that say a thing (or many things) clearly in the midst of their falling apart (or after which they fall apart)--with music both subtle and bombastic, tripped up and sicke [sic]--like an orchestra going over the side of a cliff into the sea, still playing. Like Rebecca Horn's exploding piano piece. Like Sonic Youth playing George Maciunas' Piano Piece #13 (Carpenter's Piece). Like a Greg Ginn guitar solo. To make/compose this sort of racket I've been writing ten or twenty or thirty-seven lines, etc., then continuing by breaking off bits of the initial stuff and weaving them together with new things as they come. The difficult part is in the idea of "saying a thing (or many things) clearly," (rather than merely demonstrating something) since what I want to say is never pre-determined. I never know what the poem says (or doesn't) until it says it, or says nothing. The method is exploratory, and allows me to peal off the layers of the initial stuff to see what (if anything) is there...

2) BLACK AND WHITE CAMOUFLAGE FLIGHT SUIT

3) The new Yo La Tengo, Popular Songs, has some epic barn burners on it, e.g. "The Fireside" and "The Glitter Is Gone"--these are by turns lovely and subtle, ecstatic and messy. Note: I first typed "bran burners," rather than "barn burners" above. Bran burning is another name for running. Is this an endorsement of both Yo La Tengo and Raisin Bran? Yes, it is. I even dig the former's cover of James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend"

4) And yet, I'm not interested these days in making poems which are only collages. I love collage, but I love lyric profusion/effusion and even narrative just as much. Of course, I have nothing to narrate, and what I do have to narrate I either don't recognize or can't manage. I love details that float. Events that talk like birds on a wire out to lunch in the Vast (or the Void--I musn't forget the void).

5) Need new shirts...

6) STILL LIFE WITH LANDSCAPE IN EARLY MIDDLE AGE

7) Students' art reviews...

NOTES FOR TAKING

2009-09-04T10:29:00.004-05:00

1) The difficulty is not in arranging or dis-arranging language--its assembly or disassembly. Nor is it in the seriousness, playfulness, strangeness with which it's employed/deployed. The difficulty is in doing any, or all, of these things in such a way that you actually feel something as a result. And even more difficult than that is getting a reader to feel something...

2) In poetry, building a structure (with the toy blocks of language) isn't enough. The structure has to have a light on, and there has to be somebody home.

3) "There's a girl who lives on Heaven Hill..."

4) The crux of the matter is the body in the box.

CURRENT(S) AND BLAH AND NEW CENTO BINGO CENTOS

2009-08-20T14:24:00.004-05:00

Reading:

1) Or to Begin Again--Ann Lauterbach

2) Last Evenings on Earth and The Romantic Dogs--Roberto Bolano

3) Big Bell #3

4) Easy Eden--Micah Ballard & Patrick James Dunagan

5) Splendid Darke--Ken Henson

6) The Drought--Dana Ward

Listening:

1) Leaves in the Gutter E.P.--Superchunk

2) History Of--Zero Boys

3) Farm--Dinosaur Jr.

4) I'm a Flower Too--The Sonic Dolls

5) Fate to Fatal E.P.--The Breeders

II.

Really hard time writing anything here of late. Working on so many projects that when I could be blogging I'm too burnt to think about it. Classes start at the Art Academy next week. I'm ready and excited for the new year, but need to tweak a bit more the syllabi... Writing lots of poems--possibly terrible (hopefully not). Work is work, I won't complain. If I owe you an email, I'm sorry. The weird aftershocks of the summer's punk rock tour won't seem to go away, i.e. the damn thing really did a number on my health... Welcome to my 40s.

III.

Poet Kiki Petrosino played Cento Bingo with one of the classes she was teaching this summer, and you can read some of the results over at the Cento Bingo blog.

SORRY I'VE BEEN SO ABSENT

2009-08-04T07:00:00.002-05:00

I've been on tour with Squirtgun in Europe the past few weeks. Now I'm sick.

Fortunately there's this new H_NGM_N (yeah, I know, I'm late to the party) to keep us all company. Looks like a great issue. Thanks N8.

THORNS OF LIFE!

2009-07-06T06:58:00.001-05:00

http://www.myspace.com/thethornsoflife

SQUIRTGUN RETURNS!

2009-06-23T11:39:00.003-05:00

My punk band Squirtgun will be doing a few shows here in the US this week before heading to Europe for a couple of weeks worth of shows in July. See the very short list of our US dates. I hope some of you will try and make it out:

1.

6/24/2009 8:00 PM at Reggie’s
2109 South State Street, Chicago, Illinois 60616
Cost: 15.00

with Teen Idols, the Leftovers, and the Green Room Rockers. Advance tickets available at Ticketweb: http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=1752304.

2.

6/25/2009 8:00 PM at The Muse
323 Columbia Street, Lafayette, Indiana 47901
Cost: $10 advance, $12 day-of-show.

4 band blow-out with Squirtgun, Teen Idols, the Leftovers, and the Green Room Rockers. Advance tickets: http://www.urgoing.to/SquirtgunTeenIdols

3.

6/27/2009 8:00 PM at Sonar
Baltimore, Maryland

Insubordination Festival
Purchase tickets: http://www.interpunk.com/insubfest09.cfm?&

THE ETERNAL (Bonus Track Version)

2009-06-08T18:12:00.003-05:00

New Sonic Youth tomorrow...can't wait. The guys I roll paint with are in for it.

Currently reading Michael Burkard's Envelope of Night: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1966-1990. Really enjoying all the donkeys and fire. I would, of course. Also, the whisper and volume, same time.

I'm writing tons and working tons--teaching drawing and (as I said above) rolling paint. Good thing I have a Master's degree. Otherwise, I probably couldn't have gotten this job. What are you doing? I'd love to know. That is, if you even exist at all. You do exist, don't you?

NORTHSIDE TAVERN TONIGHT!

2009-05-31T15:32:00.001-05:00

Ice cream truck going by in my life.

Tonight I will play you some songs.

SIDEBROW AND THEN SUM

2009-05-11T12:32:00.010-05:00

1) My city poem "Minerva System" went up at Sidebrow today. Please check it out here.

2) Clearly, your glass dogs...

3) "The arsonist and barista are trading explanations of steam"--Abraham Smith

4) New Sonic Youth song "Sacred Trickster"--reminds me of Goo, which makes for rockin' new listening.

5) I'll be reading this Saturday May 16th at 7PM in Kalamazoo, Michigan for the Poets in Print Series with the marvelous Gina Myers (who I can't wait to hear read) and Roy Seeger (who I haven't met, but am looking forward to meeting). The reading will take place in Suite 103A of the Park Trades Center at 326 W. Kalamzoo Ave. in downtown Kalamazoo Doors open at 6:30 reading at 7. I hope if you're in the area you can make it...

6) especially if your name is Juan Sweeney!

7) Argument. Electric grid. Plug in and proceed through each statement's truth value. I can't get away from logic--as much as might like to--and nobody gets away from language. Thus, nobody gets away from anguish. From reindeer. It's a stretch. Really. Nobody gets a Way. The question is always what to do with one's hands.

8) I struck out so many times playing baseball as a kid, but somehow always in the last game of the season I connected--ground rule double and an RBI. It was as if freed from ever having to swing a bat again, finally I was able to hit and not cry. That was one time, and another I homered. It felt good to hammer with the sun looking on. A boy swings a bat and hits a ball. Now drunk on a rock in grave outer space, I marvel at connections of any kind at all. The question is always what to do. Or argue. Or to feel something vaulted. The wind up, then the pitch black. Parents on the bleechers and all the kids screaming.

9) POEM

Today very birdsong,

sun out, no damage--

"I'm getting sleepy daddy"

Reading Philip Whalen

Dissolve me in water but let the man
speak: "I keep trying to live
as if this world were heaven."

10) is nothing.

RECORDED/RECORDINGS

2009-04-23T18:34:00.001-05:00

My band Travel's album RECORDED/RECORDINGS w/ liner notes by Dean Young and Laurie Capps is now on iTunes. Please check it out!

TONIGHT TONIGHT!

2009-04-14T06:36:00.002-05:00

If you're in Cincinnati tonight, please check this out. It's really not to be missed.

The Moor Poetry Series presents a reading by:

Joshua Beckman
& Adam Clay

Tuesday April 14th

6:30 PM

Reed Gallery (5th Floor, DAAP Building, University of Cincinnati)

Please contact 253.3503 or evancommander@mac.com for more information.

*****

Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. His books include Your Time Has Come, two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer, & Take It. He lives in Seattle and New York.

Joshua Beckman’s page at Poets.org: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/381

Joshua Beckman reading “The Karate Chop of Love”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R70778g8DY

Adam Clay is the author of The Wash. His second book, A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions. He co-edits Typo Magazine and lives in Michigan.

Adam Clay’s website: http://www.adamclay.org/

Adam Clay reading “Goodbye to All That, the Birds Included”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WucBOIIZ5WQ

BACK TO BASICS

2009-03-24T08:38:00.004-05:00

"The world is wicked by definition; my job is to stay aware of it."--Philip Whalen

Someone else invented us.

www.thehoverproject.com

from ALL THE HOURS WE'RE AWAKE

How long how long.
Rolling through the jungle motions.
Roaring through the necks of cars.
If parakeet.
If syllabic.
If bite mark carries you lovely ecstatic.
Terrific terror coffee sack.
Pathogen pernicious in the tide water stomp.
Thousands of clownfish,
one single Volkswagen. People,
you’re bleeding; programming, then camera.
This way then igloo.
Smacking, then backhand.
Silly the interpreter.
Ill-weeping inter-pixie-stick
Sunshine, shoeblack, gluestick the mammal.

Pressed up against the Dwarf Cassowary,

the Blue-Eared Pheasant rushes into the future...

"What have you done to my voice heavy with birds as evening falls/The voice that once hurt like bleeding?/Give me the infinite like a flower for my hands"--Vicente Huidobro

DOBBY GIBSON & MATT HART: WEST COASTING

2009-03-04T05:52:00.003-06:00

Starting this Friday 3/6, I'll be doing some readings up and down the West Coast with the amazing Dobby Gibson, whose new book Skirmish is just out on Graywolf. The list of dates, times and venues is below. I hope if you're on the West Coast you'll try and make it out to one or more of these events.

Also, if there's anyone out there, who'd be willing to do a last minute living room reading somewhere between Seattle and Portland--maybe Olympia?--on Saturday 3/7, we'd be grateful and very happy to show up.

Matt

*****

Seattle, WA

March 6, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Open Books

Portland, OR
March 8, 2009, 4 p.m.
Powell's Books, Hawthorne Location (w/ Portland's own Van Wheeler)

Sacramento, CA
March 9, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Sacramento Poetry Center

Santa Cruz, CA
March 10, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Santa Cruz Reading Series
Bookshop Santa Cruz

San Francisco, CA
March 11, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Books and Bookshelves

(w/ San Francisco's Russell Dillon)

Berkeley, CA
March 12, 2009, 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Flash Reading Series
Moe's Books

San Francisco, CA
March 13, 2009
DETAILS TBD

CURRENTS AND Travel's RECORDED/RECORDINGS

2009-02-24T06:16:00.003-06:00

Reading:

Take It -- Joshua Beckman

Sunny Wednesday -- Noelle Kocot

My Language Did This to Me -- Jack Spicer

Sidebrow #1

Saltgrass #3

Skirmish -- Dobby Gibson

Listening:

Vicious Circle -- Zero Boyz

PENN SOUND

AudioLetter -- Russell Dillon

And speaking of listening, Travel's final CD, Recording/Recordings--a selected retrospective of our last (and final) 10 years with liner notes by Dean Young and Laurie Capps--is now available for purchase here (scroll down to the Travel discs and click on "Recorded/Recordings"). If you're a long time listener, you'll want this to complete your collection. If you've never heard Travel, this is the place to start, as it contains (what we think are) the best tracks from all of our other releases.

AWP

2009-02-16T14:29:00.002-06:00

Back from AWP and nearly destroyed. Thanks to everyone who stopped by the Forklift, Ohio; Agriculture Reader, Lumberyard, Big Bell table. We had a blast.

Sorry for all the times I put my foot in my mouth. I think the damage is permanent.

THE NIGHTEST NIGHT is TONIGHT!!!! and CORSO: THE LAST BEAT is TOMORROW!!!

2009-02-05T08:54:00.005-06:00

Hi everybody,

THE NIGHTEST NIGHT, a poetry reading celebrating the poetics and poetry of Gregory Corso will take place TONIGHT, 2/5, at 7PM in the University of Cincinnati's DAAP Reed Gallery.

Readers will include: Jane Carver, Evan Commander, Peter Davis, Scott Dennis, Lesley Jenike, Catherine Wagner and myself.

In conjunction with the reading, we're publishing (and giving away FREE to the first 40 attendees) a limited edition chapbook, featuring work by tonight's readers (and others) that shares some affinity with Corso's work.

Also, please note that the final I GAVE AWAT THE SKY event, the advanced director's screening of the feature-length documentary, Corso--The Last Beat will take place tomorrow, 2/6, in the University of Cincinnati's DAAP Rm 4400 at 5:30PM. Seating is limited, so get there early. A closing reception for the festival will follow the screening in the DAAP Reed Gallery.

Hope to see you there,

Matt

GREGORY CORSO: I GAVE AWAY THE SKY FESTIVAL UPDATE

2009-01-29T11:53:00.007-06:00

Hi everybody,

Sorry to have to do this, but tonight's I GAVE AWAY THE SKY Reading to celebrate the poetics and poetry of Gregory Corso is cancelled due to the weather and road conditions. However, we are re-scheduling the reading for next Thurs. 2/5 @7PM in the University of Cincinnati's Reed Gallery. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, and we hope to see you out at the reading next week.

Also, please don't forget about the other I GAVE AWAY THE SKY events:

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 7 p.m., Memorial Hall - Muse Sick
$5 Door/ Cash Bar/ Doors at 6PM
Advanced seats can be reserved at Shake It Records and Coffee Emporium
An evening of music with jazz legend David Amram and Jane Carver. This performance of Jane Carver's new arrangement of David Amram's score for Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie's film "Pull My Daisy," will feature a live performance by jazz legend David Amram, as well as musicians from the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music.

Friday, Feb. 6, 5:30 p.m., DAAP 4400 - Corso - The Last Beat
An advanced director's screening of the feature-length documentary directed by Gustave Reininger, narrated by two-time Academy Award-nominated actor and novelist Ethan Hawke and featuring Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and poet, performer and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith, as well as Corso himself. A reception will follow the film.

For more information please contact: Evan Commander: evancommander@mac.com / 513-307-5055 or visit www.igaveawaythesky.com

For more information about David Amram visit: www.davidamram.com.
For more information about Corso: The Last Beat visit: www.corsothefilm.com

Thanks for all your support,

Matt Hart and Evan Commander,
I Gave Away the Sky Co-Curators

I GAVE AWAY THE SKY

2009-01-16T15:28:00.003-06:00

Hey, this post is to let you all know about a Gregory Corso festival that I'm co-curating here in Cincinnati with Evan Commander and Gustave Reininger. Here's a link to the article about it in this week's City Beat: http://www.citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-16965-marching-to-a-different-beat.html

The festival is being held in conjunction with the University of Cincinnati where Evan is director/curator of the DAAP Art Galleries. The list of events will include an art exhibition, a reading, a concert, and an advanced screening of a film about the life and legacy of Gregory Corso. To kick things off, I'll be giving a lecture on Corso's final unpublished manuscript The Golden Dot on Thurs. Jan. 22nd at 6PM in the University of Cincinnati's Reed Gallery, which is located in the DAAP building. See the full list of events, including dates, times and locations below. I hope if you're in the area you'll consider showing up for some or all of these events.

For info about any of the listed events contact: Evan Commander: evancommander@mac.com / 513-556-3210

*****

I Gave Away the Sky: A Festival Celebrating the Life and Legacy of poet Gregory Corso

Tuesday, Jan. 20, Reed Gallery, UC - The Stars In The Sky Are Still Boss
A visual art exhibition exploring the spirit and aesthetic of Gregory Corso. Invited artists include Antonio Adams, Rebecca Cummins, Jacob Dyrenforth, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Goldstein, Chris Johanson, Kim Krause, Tony Luensman, Ryan McGinley, Raymond Pettibon, Bern Porter, and Michael Stillion. Also features the drawings, paintings, and original manuscripts of Corso. Exhibition continues through Friday, Feb. 6.

Thursday, Jan. 22, 6 p.m., Reed Gallery, UC - "Notes After Blacking Out: A Lecture on Gregory Corso and The Golden Dot"
A lecture and discussion by Matt Hart, poet, editor and assistant professor of academic studies at the Art Academy of Cincinnati

Thursday, Jan. 29, 6 p.m., Reed Gallery, UC - A Moor Poetry Reading honoring the poetics and poesy of Gregory Corso
Featured readers include Adam Clay, Evan Commander, Scott Dennis, Matt Hart, Lesley Jenike, Cathy Wagner and Tyrone Williams.

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 7 p.m., Memorial Hall - Muse Sick
An evening of music with Jane Carver and David Amram. This performance of Jane Carver's new arrangement of David Amram's score for Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie's film "Pull My Daisy," will feature jazz legend David Amram himself, as well as musicians from the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music.

Friday, Feb. 6, 5:30 p.m., DAAP 4400 - Corso - The Last Beat
Director's advanced screening of the feature-length documentary directed by Gustuve Reininger, narrated by two- time Academy Award-nominated actor and novelist Ethan Hawke and featuring Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and poet, performer and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith, as well as Corso himself. A reception follows the film.

The Golden Dot

2009-01-09T15:45:00.003-06:00

"Poetry is more than portraiting the poet; though there be no one like you or me in life, each of us select and unique like a fingerprint, are nonetheless a common lot. Language binds us; emotions emit from likewise two stimuli. Nobody's too far apart--" --Gregory Corso from An Accidental Autobiography, ed. by Bill Morgan

JUST IN TIME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

2008-12-22T22:07:00.003-06:00

Hey, it's a new live Squirtgun record, Broadcast 02.09.08, featuring 19 tracks recorded live on a freezing cold night in Lafayette, IN last Winter, including 1 brand new tune and a cover of Common Rider's "The Classics of Love".

M