Augustine in Carthage

2009-10-31T06:14:00.000-07:00

"Need for a hooplah
to rev the lyric
kine. They moo so." - John Latta

New Column

2009-10-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

Dear All -

there's a new "In Extremis" column up at Maisonneuve.org (the link follows below). The article, titled "Things Done Changed," discusses how hip-hop and football mix in the Sunshine State!

Also, there's a review of Elizabeth Bachinsky up at Northern Poetry Review for those interested.

Lastly, just a note to let people know that I am now one of two associate editors over at Northern Poetry Review, which is of course very exciting and I look forward to working with Alex Boyd and Lori A. May.

I think that is it, for now.

A

Interviews, etc.

2009-09-29T20:48:00.000-07:00

There's a new interview I conducted with poet Moez Surani, up over at Openbooktoronto.com. I asked Surani some questions about his new, debut book of poetry, titled Reticent Bodies (Wolsak & Wynn). Also, for those interested, and in the greater Toronto area, Moez will be launching his book tomorrow night at Ben McNally Books. Please do check it out.

I've conducted a few interviews over the last few months, and am in the middle of a couple others; it's an interesting genre/event -- I don't think I entirely have a grasp of it yet, but I enjoy it. But what I try to do, ideally (whether I succeed or not I am not entirely sure and not really for me to determine), is generate questions and conversations that emerge, in equal parts, from my reading of the poems, specifically, and the answers the poets offer. (I move one question at a time, awaiting an answer before formulating a next question -- though I certainly have multiple potential areas of inquiry in mind, inevitably the interview can either steer away or move toward such areas. It all depends.)

In large part, my interview process is, I have to admit, a critical response to my dislike of the very popular and common "questionnaire" interview, with preset, non-variable questions, often having nothing to do with the poet/poems. Asking the same questions to the same poets produces remarkably similar interview-reading experiences (tropes of answers). The lack of actual engagement with individual poems, for example, produces a disposable experience -- and, also significant, the interviewee is more inclined to view the event not an interview at all but rather an opportunity for welcome advertisement (covert, of course, as poets like to elide the presence of such things). I'd much rather particular questions with particular answers. The interviewer should put as much effort into formulating a question as the interviewee does an answer; it's a conversation, after all. The set question format is a formulaic and lazy response to any reading.

Hopefully peeps find the Surani interview interesting. I also have an equally excellent interview I conducted with Zachariah Wells, about his new book -- interview should be up at Maisonneuve.org soon enough. (Speaking of Zach, there's a post here about the question of poem versus project, etc. I don't have anything to add to the discussion, which Zach provides all the links to, except that I don't write projects -- though the title "sequence" [I use that term lightly/mockingly] of my first book, "The Jill Kelly Poems," was meant to be a subtle parodic take on such things, e.g. "The Alice Poems," though nobody ever read 'em as such. Fair enough -- maybe the poems just didn't earn it.)

Pork

2009-09-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

If you'd like to get a copy of the first issue of Pork, featuring new work by Daniel f. Bradley, David Hadbawnik, Richard Owens, and Jason Camlot, just let me know by sending an email to porkpoems at gmail dot com -- include your mailing address.

A

2009-09-19T09:07:00.000-07:00

Shoot -- I forgot to link to this earlier, when it did come out. Here's my review of Clint Burnham's The Benjamin Sonnets. It was -- hands down -- my favorite poetry reading of the summer. Really fantastic. Kudos to BookThug for getting the book out there; and thanks to Stuart Ross and Denis De Klerck for publishing the review. Also, though I didn't mention it in the review, the cover for the book is fantastic (it's there to view via the link).

Stay tuned in the next couple weeks for a couple more interviews (Moez Surani, Zachariah Wells), a review of Elizabeth Bachinsky, and a couple other things in October -- a look at Kool Keith, Doom, and Su Ra's Afro-intergalactics for the next installment of "In Extremis".

Peace,

A

2009-08-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

A couple additions to the info below:

[1] an excellent interview I conducted with Zachariah Wells will be up at Maisonneuve online (www.maisonneuve.org) at the end of the month / start of Oct., as Wells's latest book (the subject of the interview) will be out at that point. Be sure to check it out.

[2] Next April, in Denver, at the AWP, I'll be chairing and participating in a panel titled "The Dramatic Monologue in Contemporary Canadian Poetry" -- other participants include David McGimpsey, David O'Meara, Carolyn Smart, and Jeanette Lynes. Should be fun.

I'm sick these days; trying to finish up a couple last things before school begins Monday. Trying to get healthy before next Friday, when I travel to Portland for a wedding.

Peace,

A

2009-08-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

Off the presses (hot!): Population Me: Essays on David McGimpsey -- edited by Alessandro Porco (i.e. yours truly) will be published in the Spring of 2010 by Palimpsest Press. The book includes an introduction, nine essays, plus a lengthy interview with McGimpsey, conducted by Jason Camlot and myself. Get your popcorn read, and please tell anyone and everyone. More info to follow.

There's a cool interview I conducted with Chris Hutchinson here:
http://www.openbooktoronto.com/news/shivering_romantic_interview_with_chris_hutchinson

His new book is titled Other People's Lives and it is excellent. Stay tuned as there will be an interview I conducted with Moez Surani forthcoming at OpenBookToronto.com as well. Surani has a book forthcoming, titled Reticent Bodies. An excellent debut collection.

There's also some reviews forthcoming: a review-essay on Clint Burnham's The Benjamin Sonnets (my favourite book this past summer, published by Book Thug) is forthcoming from The Mansfield Revue; a short review of Stephen Cain's Wordwards (No. Press) and Montreality (BookThug) forthcoming from Matrix; a review-essay on Elizabeth Bachinsky's God of Missed Connections (Nightwood) and the Curio re-issue; and short reviews of Joan Crate's SubUrban Legends and Ela Przybylo's Threats of Intimacy; and a short review of Dalton Higgins's Hip-Hop World in a forthcoming Quill and Quire. That was my summer work, along with finishing a dissertation chapter. That's it reviewing wise for a while (though a couple of things will pop up here and there throughout the school year, which begins in two weeks -- yikes).

Peace,

A

In Extremis et al

2009-07-22T05:50:00.000-07:00

A new "In Extremis" column is now up! Tell your friends. You can find it here. Enjoy.

Some excellent stuff here by Daniel f. Bradley. Just scroll down.

An amazingly fucked up story here about Erin Andrews. She's an excellent side-line reporter -- and she is always so warm and kind when talking to kids at the Spelling Bee. I feel sorry for her.

Partisanship without Party -- make sure to read his Delaware Memoranda.

"Nobody reads poetry. One jumps into the ape-house, pounds a pneumatic rhythm out, scoots up the nearby “tree.” C’est comme ça, la poésie—bête et soupçonneuse. Insert symbol. Sense of hitting a wall: accrue’d antagonism with oneself resulting in both “obstinacy of aesthetic comportment” (Adorno) and plunging abject-status. I drool in a corner. I scratch my privates publicly. Loss of criteria and fear of the open door. Lessening of social commitment, ha ha ha, ha. Books? I put books against my face to block out the sun. Ah, ah, aberrancy, it disfigures the rollicking tongue." John Latta's Isola di Rifiuti, where it's at.

David O'Meara's Noble Gas, Penny Black

2009-06-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

There's a review of David O'Meara's Noble Gas, Penny Black available up at the revamped (and lookin' snazzy) Canadian Notes & Queries website. The review is also in the forthcoming print edition.

Latta / Cain / Holmes

2009-06-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

It's especially nice to see Jacket Magazine (issue 37) include a nice selection of stuff from American poet John Latta's blog, which includes regular postings from his poem-in-progress A Year as well as reading notes. If pressed, I'd name Latta's poetry my favorite thing going on in American poetry -- I've said it before, I'll say it again, Latta's The Everyday (of which A Year is, somewhat, an extension) is amazingly ear-opening. (Next favorite is Jennifer L. Knox, who is my new hero). Hopefully later this summer and early fall I can get to talking about Latta’s earlier books, putting his work in context. His lexical and rhythmic nerve is, at times, totally fucking hallucinatory!

Here is his blog: http://isola-di-rifiuti.blogspot.com/

*

Stephen Cain is this month's feature at ditch, which makes me happy. Check out the poems here. Stephen is one of my favourite poets and an extremely generous poet (came out to support me at the launch of Augustine in Carthage). I like "Sportstalk" in particular.

*

from Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes

"But love is an emotional thing, and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which I place above all things." Yvor Winters in the role of Sherlock Holmes? I jest, tongue-in-primitivismanddecadence. Though for all his dismissal of love in The Sign of Four (love comes up because Watson falls in love with his future wife, Miss Morstan), he still eagles after his platonic ("she is always the woman") non-chemical tonic, Irene Adler (see below), a compliment to his "balanced mind".

"She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men." (Since finding out Irene Adler is to be played by Rachel McAdams, I can not get either she or she, original and original, out of my cobble-stoned mind; she keeps strolling by, saying "good-evening" a la "A Scandal in Bohemia").

On the everyday and individual style: "... it is difficult for a man to have any object in daily use without leaving the impress of his individuality upon it in such a way that a trained observer might read it."

On habitus: "... while the individual man is an insoluble pussle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty... Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant." (175)

Sol, Buzzeo, et al...

2009-06-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Canadian Poetry readers/editors - I have a brief review (right at 500 words) of Adam Sol's *Jeremiah, Ohio* that I originally wrote for a Canadian literary magazine; but, unfortunately, that magazine could not accept it because the Editor didn't know that his Reviews Editor had already written a review of it (mine got the boot). Meaning, I have a review of the book for whoever might like it, free of charge. Thought I'd put the offer out there before just posting it to my blog (the other magazines I generally write for have already published reviews of Sol's book, so I'm left in this predicament...). It's short and sweet and to the point; if you'd like it, just get in contact wit' me.

I spent some of the very early morning enjoying the first half or so of Melissa Buzzeo's latest book, Face, published by BookThug. Sentences of (near) incantatory lyricism. Quite taken with it and taken aback by it all. I'm looking forward to what's left. Also, Elizabeth Bachinsky's Curio re-release, of which I'll have more to say later in a review I'm writing for Northern Poetry review. I must say, I'm also really looking forward to Clint Burnham's The Benjamin Sonnets, which is coming out anyday now I guess. Kudos to BookThug for the cool stuff...

Summer reading (as a reprieve from dissertation writing) is Sherlock Holmes, Complete, Vol. 1 and 2. I just read *A Study in Scarlet*, which I enjoyed thoroughly. The narrative point-of-view is interesting, beginning with Watson's diary (the first section concludes with the capture of the murderer), then shifting to third-person omniscient (back story about Mormons, the evils of Bringham Young), then back to Watson. It's a little awkward. Interesting tidbits, though, emerge about Holmes's interest in what he dubs "practical knowledge" and "analytics."

New "In Extremis" Column

2009-06-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Dear readers,

after long delay and with a newly revamped -- and pretty damn snazzy lookin' (I must say) -- Maisonneuve website, my latest "In Extremis" column is now up and available for your reading pleasure. Check it out over here... tell your friends, spread the word, etc.

*

Also, I'm not much of a William Logan fan, but this is a fascinating statement (on the subject of the recently published Thom Gunn Selected): "Selected Poems reveals how long Gunn labored to overcome the limitations of his virtues." I love Gunn but no need to buy the selected, at least for me -- I have most of his collections as individual volumes as well as the big Collected Poems from a few years back. A big influence on me...

*

Onto another William -- William Bronk, American poet I've just now (very late) come to read. I've been reading his epigrammatic poems from the mid-70s. Here's an example:

THE FALSE PREMISE

I can't have a life with you; shit no.
You can't either. We can't have a life.
The point is there isn't a life to have
but we think so. We base ourselves on that.

Also half-way through a thorough interview with Bronk conducted by Robert Bertholf. It's always thrilling to come into contact with a poet -- unknown to me -- and feel enlivened by their writing...

The, Er, New Thing?

2009-06-01T07:34:00.000-07:00

John Latta's posted an excellent response / rebuttal to Stephen Burt's "The New Thing." (Scroll down to May 27th's entry). The Burt original is here.

Third Factory

2009-05-21T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hey-0,

I am thrilled to post that over at Third Factory, John Latta has included a lovely little note on Augustine in Carthage, and Other Poems as part of his "best of" list, describing my work as a mix of Lewis Carroll, Earl of Rochester, and James Joyce. Very flattering! (It's especially flattering coming from Latta; his The Everyday is brilliant! You can find excerpts of it, as well as his A Year, on his blog). (Third Factory is a site which includes an annual look back by critics and poets, who name their favourite reads of the past year or so.)

Latta is very kind to include my collection. From what I gather, Latta -- a Michigan-based poet -- first read my poems in a 2007 issue of Richard Owens's excellent journal Damn the Caesars (and Richard's gonna be a daddy soon: yay!). He liked my playfulness, even going so far as to say my use of rhyme was "hallucinatory and right." Funnily enough, Latta also thought "Alessandro Porco" was a pseudonym for excellent American poet Ben Friedlander. I got in touch and assured him I was real -- though nothing wrong with being thought of alongside Friedlander, as far as I'm concerned.

BTW, in Latta's comments on that Damn the Caesars issue, he quotes my sonnet "Matter." I didn't include that in my book, though now I can't remember why.

Also, I like this response to the CBC's Top Ten List over at the Vehicule blog -- seems about right. (To be honest, with the exception of David McGimpsey, I couldn't give a shit about the other poets Carey mentions. Well, that's no true: McGimpsey and Babstock).

Canada's Best

2009-05-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

Hey-o,

so there's this article up at CBC.ca, penned by Barbara Carey. All I have to say is:

I'm extremely happy to see David McGimpsey on this list; for those who don't know, I am in the process of editing an anthology of essays on McGimpsey's work -- likely to be out in 2010 sometime.* The quality of essays is amazing. And Dave's being on such a list is well-deserved.

*Note: why Carey positions laughter and profundity as antithetical, I'm not quite sure. (For a review of Sitcom, see here).

Congrats Dave!

Jennifer Batten

2009-05-08T06:40:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful evening last night, at Buffalo's Broadway Joe's (voted by Stuff Magazine as one of America's 20 best dive bars): I saw guitar virtuoso Jennifer Batten perform a one-woman show, accompanied by a short-film project she's produced (each track she performed had its own special short feature). Of course, the highlight of the evening was her performance of "Flight of the Bumblebee." (The video begin at about the 40 second mark).

National Post

2009-05-01T07:33:00.001-07:00

Writer Pasha Malla was recently asked to participate in the National Post's National Poetry Month Q&A (they've been asking a poet to answer a set of questions everyday, and the answers have been published in "The Afterword"). Pasha's approach to the questions was cool: he asked poets he knows -- and poets not included in the Post's project otherwise -- to provide answers. My question and answer follow below; check out the whole thing here.

Novels are always being adapted into movies. What are some poems that deserve the Hollywood treatment?

"Two poems come to mind: Chaucer’s "The House of Fame" and Ed Dorn’s Gunslinger. Chaucer’s early dream poem involves an intergalactic flight (assisted by a eagle) into the unknown and it includes totally trippy imagery, like “Y saugh him carien a wynd-melle / Under a walsh-note shale” (that’s “I saw him carrying a windmill / under a walnut shell”). I think Alex Proyas (Dark City) should direct it. Dorn’s Gunslinger would be a really great Western— among other things, the book-length poem includes a perpetually stoned talking horse who, fittingly, has an affinity for spouting Heidegger (you’d have to be high to have an affinity for Heidegger!). There’s also lots of comic book-influenced stuff in Gunslinger, and that’s right up Hollywood’s alley these days. Oh, and did I mention that the whole thing is centered around a search for Howard Hughes? Tarantino’s my pick to direct."

Btw, I cannot wait for Inglorious Bastards!!!

What's happenin'...

2009-04-14T06:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I managed to get out to see Jody Hill's latest film Observe and Report, starring Seth Rogan and (personal fav.) Anna Farris. I thought it was total brilliance, from start to finish, steadily moving into creepier and creepier territory as the film progresses.

Last week (Monday, in particular) was also the rewarding pay-off to three months of research in the Special Collection Poetry Library at SUNY-Buffalo. As part of a lecture series here at the University, called Small Press in the Archive, I gave a 45-minute talk on Queen Street Quarterly. The title of my talk was "Fashionable District: Queen Street Quarterly and the Production of Canadian Poetry, 1997-2005" -- the event was very-well attended and sparked some interesting discussion afterwards. Heavily bibliographic and materialist at certain points, though complimented by close reading (especially of paratextual elements, such as editorial notes, reviews, interviews, etc., which framed the magazine), the overall thrust of my talk was to interrogate or think through the magazine's notion of "openmindedness" (i.e. publishing all types), inclusivity, and the resultant epiphenomenon: aesthetic gentrification. It's all said with more lucidity in the actual talk. I like the QSQ, so it was fun to think about it's value and function within Canadian poetry.

Thankfully, the term is nearing its close. No more teaching preparation -- teaching the Poetry survey class has been exhausting, from week to week. Finally, I've started at least roughly writing some of the second dissertation chapter, which is moving along extremely s l o w l y.

Cecil Taylor's in town in a week or so... hopefully I can still grab a ticket.

Peace,

A

A little context goes a long way

2009-04-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

Over at Sina Queryas's blog, there's an excellent interview with Adam Sol, author of the excellent Jeremiah, Ohio.

Unfortunately, I pop up near the end, where Ms. Queryas refers to the recent AWP Panel on Canadian poetry, which included the following panelists: myself, Sol, Queryas, Chris Hutchinson, and Carolyn Smart. Queryas notes, without any sort of context, that during the Q&A, I stated that "There's no such thing as Canadian poetry."

Let me provide a little context.

First, what brought about the discussion of the "Canadian"-ness of the poetry, or lack thereof, was a question/observation forwarded by someone in the audience. Basically, he suggested -- rather astutely, I thought -- that he would never have known that the four readers were Canadian poets without the panel title "Canadian Poetry." And he wondered what made Canadian poetry Canadian, if anything at all, say, beyond a passport.

So, after a couple of panelists spoke, I did indeed, in response to the audience question/observation, say "There's no such thing as Canadian poetry," and what Queryas so clearly leaves out from that discussion is what followed that statement. I immediately followed up "There's no such thing as Canadian poetry," with this: "but there certainly is an industry, of publishers, educators, institutions, magazines, etc., that likes to produce something called "Canadian poetry," which has symbolic value for many people and which many people are invested in and staking claims on."

My point here being: my position was a little more complicated than she makes it out to be on her blog.

At the same time, Queryas response to me needs to be noted, too: she responded by saying, "Well, of course, I think there's a Canadian poetry, I edited an anthology of it" (emphasis mine)-- the second half of her statement made my point for me.

Also, the following definition was offered: Canadian poetry is a "way of seeing." Whatever that means. I've mentioned that definition to poet friends since -- elderstatesmen, if you will -- one suggested, mockingly, that maybe the "way of seeing" has to do with Aurora Borealis and another suggested maybe it has something to do with the reflection that comes off of all our maple syrup.

In any event, I just wanted to clarify exactly what I said: I'm more than willing to defend a position I made a point of taking; I have no interest in defending -- or having attached to me -- a position that I did not really take. Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant; but it should be, at least, represented accurately.

Thank you, have a nice day.

Alessandro Porco

JC's The Debaucher

2009-04-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

Hey-0,

I have a short review of Jason Camlot's fan-fuckin'-tastic The Debaucher up at the Mansfield Press's new "revue" venture, which looks like a cool little place for some poetry chat.

I'm looking forward to participating in the future. Thanks to Stuart Ross and Denis De Klerck for inviting me.

And be sure to pick up Jason's book, if you haven't already! It's really great.

Peace,

A

Swinburne's The Young Girl of Aberystwyth

2009-03-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

Here's a limerick commonly attributed to the masterful Swinburne; it's one of my favorites:

"There was a young girl of Aberystwyth
Who took grain to the mill to get grist with.
The miller's son, Jack,
Laid her flat on her back,
And united the organs they pissed with."

This limerick -- and 1699 others -- is printed in G. Legman's The Limerick, which is one of my favorite books of all time (my reading copy is just full of pages falling out, as a result of my continual flipping through it on an almost daily basis). As stated on the cover: "This is the largest collection of limericks ever published, erotic or otherwise. Of the 1700 printed here, none are otherwise."

In his wonderful introduction, Legman notes that Scottish novelist Norman Douglas is the "only person ever to have had the courage to sign a wholly bawdy limerick collection [1928's Some Limericks] with his real name." Well, I guess you can add me and my Augustine in Carthage to that select list... (I'm still seriously considering reading them at the Harborfront Under 35 Reading.)

2009-03-16T18:15:00.001-07:00

Nice little post here by DTC's Richard Owens, on the subject of Ed Dorn and Amiri Baraka. I'm guilty (to some degree) of what Owens via Baraka talks about --focusing on Dorn's Gunslinger, exclusively. Though in large part its cuz I love Gunslinger so much; it's one of my fav. (top 5) books of 20th century poetry, probably.

2009-03-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

I don't understand how either of these -- here and here -- little blog posts at Harriet are even remotely interesting.* Donald Wesling and Reuven Tsur and a whole bunch of others have said this (often years ago) and said far far more and with greater lucidity and insight. Also, rhyme is not this ahistorical device: its relational values and functions are always shifting, depending on particular historical contexts.

And don't tell me they are just little blog notes, and I am wrong to expect more rigor. Fuck that -- it's the Poetry Foundation, an institution, and I want rigor. Sorry, though they probably mean well, it irks me.

* As anyone who's read my poetry knows, I often use rhyme in a multitude of ways, and sound is always on my mind. So this is not me bitchin about something I do not use or understand.

Malla / Harbourfront

2009-03-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a very nice note -- on Paul Vermeersch's blog -- on the subject of Pasha Malla's first collection of poems, All Our Grandfathers are Ghosts. Vermeersch writes that Malla's book "is delightful, one of the funniest books I've read in a years. I would recommend it to anyone [. . .]".

I agree -- of course, I'm hardly unbiased. I worked with Pasha as editor for the book. It's the first time I've ever done so (i.e. worked as an editor), and I can honestly say it was a totally rewarding experience. And I think Pasha's book is fantastic!

*

Also, Wed. March 25, I'll be taking part in a reading at the Harbourfront Centre. Here's a link to all the information (including who else will be reading). I'm especially looking forward to hearing my friend Angela Szczepaniak, whose book Unisex Love Poems (DCBooks) is a wonderful adventure in alphabetix.

This reading is kind of like an American Idol event -- "the winner takes it all," to quote ABBA, i.e. the winner gets a slot at the next International Festival of Authors.

Each poet gets 5 minutes. That's just enough time for me to introduce my limericks (how they came about via a competitive correspondence with a rather famous canadian poet to remain unnamed) and read the best of them. That should win over the judges -- the limericks always go over well (i.e. not at all). Harbourfront, here I come!

*

I just saw the award-winning Italian film Gomorrah last night (it won something or other last year at Cannes). I thought it was great, and was scratching my head as to how it was left out of the foreign film category at the Oscars. It focuses on the Naples crime scene, and has a nice thematic motif related to waste management. It has some affinity with City of God, only without the ridiculous hyper-stylistic set pieces for the director to show off (unnecessarily) his skillz.

Hooked

2009-03-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

An interview with poet Carolyn Smart, here at Open Book Toronto. It's about her new book, Hooked (Brick, 2009).

Enjoy! (And thanks to Carolyn for participating, of course.)