Consider what the best poems do. Are they not ways of capturing transient transcendence? Here via another medium is a vivid display of this: Sunrise by William Michaelian. rho00369
Friday, August 14, 2009
capturing transient transcendence
Sunday, August 2, 2009
warnings
This poet is dead. So don't cross him. - Don't remember when the last time was I got a full night's rest. These days/ approximately every hour my sleep breaks because I have to go pee in the pot. - In spite of what I and my doctor are doing to prevent it, I have a feeling my bones are turning to dust. - This afternoon while sitting in a chair in the livingroom I told Janice's alien doll which I have standing in a nearby rocker: I think the end is near. I then noticed tears welling. - Am considering posting all my poems and related works at Sprintedon Migrasaurus one per post in this blog. I know many are of no value, but I care not. If 6 or less are worth saving, the effort I expended was worth it. - A flea bite from a flea I killed last night has suddenly spread and become worse. I put some triple antibiotic ointment on it. - And what about the swine flu expected to be in this country in October? - Should you be in need of some ways to ruin your life/ I have a few. rho00368
Saturday, August 1, 2009
What Coleridge Thought
(1971) is a precise and therefore complex book written by Owen Barfield. I have not read the entire book but the following from pages 127 and 128 are encapsulations that might entice you to learn more. [Note: Wikipedia says this Owen Barfield entry is in need of citations but don't let that stop you from reading it.] Reason Imagination Understanding ---------------- Understanding Fancy Sense Reason (as "the source and birthplace of ideas") Idea Law -------- Law Theory Sense rho00367
Friday, July 31, 2009
visit with dermatologist positive
My legs are improving. Dermatologist has reduced my need for four daily applications of Triamcinolone to two daily. For that I am thankful as the routine I must use is time-consuming and somewhat difficult. Will be on the antibiotic medicine for another week. Am to visit him again next Friday. rho00366
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
autobio notes
Yesterday I searched through my Seminary poems and determined every poem there was trash. Without a doubt I was grievously askew spiritually during my year-and-a-half at that Jesuit school. Conflicts in my soul I should have come to terms with while I was in high school intensified my misguided fervor and most of the poems I wrote were ruined by it, to say nothing of my technical inadequacies. - My local sister bought a pair of jeans shorts, and when I tried them on today I found I needed to roll them up some, but I also found I no longer needed to use the towel I was using over my legs so that my keyboard would be high enough for its right end to rest on the mouse pad on the stool to my right. Thus, I now have that towel on top of the towel I have been using on the table between where I sit and where my monitor is atop the desk. Surely my feet are now elevated high enough. I may not get to heaven but my feet will. rho00365
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Have been feeling oddly empty
recently. Am unable to determine why, but have some guesses; however, let's just say my psyche is in the horse latitudes and/or the horse latitudes are in it. Here is a little something I wrote two days ago: Others There are a million voices out there, and they all keep changing: clippity, clippity, chug, chug, bitter as butterflies. ---------------------------------------- Received another prize-winning book from the Academy of American Poets. Am reading it. That is, I was reading it. Perhaps I'm totally out-of-sync with the variant new ways of writing even though some of those ways I have used in my writing. In any case, next to nothing is exciting me, not even Fanny Howe or Franz Wright. There's an old song I one day tried to track down, something about "and the days go by" is in its chorus. Have it in my head it's a song by Devo; so am going to try a Devo songs search. Have grown tired of my minimal song lyrics, but an autobio project which is not yet ready to continue posting awaits/ and poems to be added to Scatterings which are in nearby folders. It's just hard these days. rho00364
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thinking Lizard revisited
As I remember it, I invented Thinking Lizard (the icon and the press) and the pen name of Alden St. Cloud in 1979. In 1980 I published in the cassette medium and registered with The Library of Congress 1976 (the 366 sonnets and 12 reflections version), Postures, and Fond du Lac; and in 1981, I believe, Rooted Sky. I no longer have saleable copies of these. In 1982 in Austin, Texas, I published as a paperback, First Pick, a selection which included some poems that were previously unpublished. I also registered it with The Library of Congress. I have a mockup of it, but I have dismantled this book. Soon thereafter I let Alden St. Cloud die. Thinking Lizard remains a viable press, but I would need to update its ISBN system. The point of this rehash is that I self-published books of my poems. Those events are precursors to what I have since done online, especially at Sprintedon Migrasaurus (thinkinglizard.b---), and to what I hope to do in the future: make all my books of poems available for free in PDF. As it is, I am not selling any of my poems. You are welcome to browse through, and if you encounter one you like, link to it or display it on your web site. Heck, you can even do that with one you think is horrid. rho00363
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Metarealism Hyperrealism and Transcendence
On May 30, 2009, Seth Abramson, having read Mikhail Epstein on Russian Metarealism and Conceptualism, realized to his surprise and chagrin that he was an American Metarealist. On that same date J J Gallaher commented beneath Seth's post and made a post on his own blog wherein that for him Conceptualism would be more fun. He had been interested in Hyperrealism in painting. Epstein saw the two he wrote about as opposites with all others somewhere between them. In painting, metarealism involves depicting a mood while hyperrealism's goal is to equal the level of perfection reached by digital photography. If you allow a broad secular definition of transcendence, all artists ((musicians, painters, sculptors, architects, dancers, poets, and similar others) of whatever persuasion and in whatever medium)) strive for transcendence, a reaching beyond. Among the results of a Google metarealism search are: Wikipedia introduction - Tendreams introduction - a Google Books result - Abramson's post - Gallaher's post --- One result a Google hyperrealism search garners is: Wikipedia introduction rho00362
Monday, July 20, 2009
Body challenges have taken over
with some being temporary. Trying to keep my legs elevated is permanent and I have been innovating toward that end. Fortuitously, the furnishings I have for my computer equipment are nearly perfect aids: the 30-inches tall desk my monitor is now on, the 22-inches tall table partially under that desk on which are my modem and a towel folded so it is two inches high for the heels of my feet, the stool which is 23-inches tall and is being used for my mouse and the right end of my keyboard, the folding chair I am seated on with a cushion beneath my rear and a cushion behind my back, the glasses I wear which are set for viewing my monitor which I have for some years had three feet from where I type. My keyboard is on a towel I've folded which is over my upper legs. Am having to use a yard stick to turn my computer and monitor on. Will try to improve on this, but for now it will have to do. rho00361
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Why Am I Online
is a question I have asked and answered often. The Internet is my house of learning. That is my common response. And while I'll never even scratch the surface of what I would learn, no further response is needed. However, there are deeper reasons. I used to be out and about easily, but that ended in mid-January of 2003. It doesn't matter that by current standards I am still a young man. So I am a hermit, but not a true hermit. It isn't in me. Yet, even if I made no contacts with other humans, being online would suffice because I think it would be enough to alleviate my loneliness. An early post of what was my last AOL journal is a note about Frederick Seidel. Due to a recent comment by Michael Robbins beneath a Harriet post, I have been learning more about this American poet. If you do a Frederick Seidel 2009 search via Google and choose the Google books result, you can potentially read many of his poems. I read, among others, "The War of the Worlds" and found I liked it mainly because of his straight- on yet imaginative way of engaging a difficult topic. Three reviews worth reading are Sarah Crown's "Chronicle of excess", Adam Kirsch's "The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", and this one by Wyatt Mason in which he writes ". . .the cultural definition of what a poem is: a thing that wakes us, shakes us, moves us, and pays equal attention to the details of living and the art of poetry." Therefore, God willing, I intend to be an online human in spite of the varying technical challenges. rh00360
Thursday, July 9, 2009
It is my life
and I can live it destructively and I can live it constructively and anywhere inbetween, and I have. For a long time my opinion of myself has been: I am not right. As much as I do not want to--though sometimes (as the evidence shows) it seems I must want to, I too consistently have made poor choices. Had I had the vision, I would have lived both as I chose and as I did not choose. Have been a Brian and an anti-Brian. Examples: 1. As a writer I would have been both reclusive and highly visible. 2. As a purchaser of stocks, I would have traded aggressively and invested judiciously in growth stocks. 3. As a general consumer I would have allowed myself some excesses but would have found a residence I intended to remain in. 4. As a mind/body being I would not have favored my mind over my body. There's a current body story I am tempted to share but a voice within says: Don't. Share it with your doctors. As some of you know, my life here in Missouri is one of greater isolation than it was in Florida. This is not to say I can't make it less so, but I am more limited. Other blogger's write about books and journals they are purchasing or have received and about what they're reading out of their extensive libraries. I have a library, but little in it is contemporary, and presently my days are heavy with other concerns. Actually, I maybe shouldn't have a blog. Does it seem I'm confused? I am. However, it isn't just isolation, it's my lack of pertinent knowledge. It's my inability to keep up. So much of my time is spent visiting blogs and making my often difficult-to- compose comments. Besides, that I do not have a defined agenda to push as do certain bloggers in that I do not belong to a coterie and am not bound to a specific style makes me less interesting on the face of it. --- Am at the second chapter on Imagination and Fancy in Owen Barfield's What Coleridge Thought, and at the end of the first chapter Barfield presented the passage in which Coleridge defined the Primary and Secondary Imaginations. Barfield had stated Coleridge was at odds with most thinkers--oriented as they were toward scientific rationality--of his time. Thus, as I suspected, Coleridge assigned the Primary Imagination to the ". . . infinite I Am." This puts me in line with Coleridge. --- Events of late have been signalling to me I am in my last days. Yet there's no way of knowing. I could concentrate my weakened energies. Fanny Howe and Franz Wright? St. John of the Cross? The Age of Pisces is in its last days. Even so, it may be more than 300 years before the Age of Aquarius fully takes over, which some say St. Germain will rule. Others are expecting a new reign of Jesus and 1000 years of peace. Barring more miracles, I'm expecting to be dead. The Dow had a lackluster day. Read that President Obama said the government won't get into healthcare insuring unless Congress can figure out how to pay for it. GM is getting a second chance. They ought to help revitalize the railroads. For me tomorrow means another trip to my GP's office. Just remember: a good poem is one you like, even if you don't know why. rh00359
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Acacia
is an ingredient in the Unna's Boot product I purchased yesterday at a medical supply business within walking distance of where I live should I ever be determined enough to walk there. According to the massive entry at Wikipedia there are 1300 Acacia species. bl00358
Thursday, July 2, 2009
2000-03-17
was the date I became an AOL member. Today, after spending days clearing out and moving and/or deleting what was being held at my Thinking lizard email location at AOL, I deleted t l. Later I submitted a completed formal electronic AOL membership cancellation. bl00357
Monday, June 22, 2009
from Romanticism to Materialism
is not an idea I would have thought of, but is one I think is worth pondering. When I encountered it, I immediately thought of William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Carlos Williams with their: "The world is too much with us"; "Things are in the saddle"; "No ideas but in things." Could most poets alive during the rise of Industrialism be considered Materialists in spite of whatever intellectual and/or spiritual values they held? In spite of their poetic and/or aesthetic positions? A step back to take in how thoroughly things--especially those "practical" things which by our ingenuities we humans have made and continue to make--have captivated us/ definitely promotes this idea. See William Wordsworth Ralph Waldo Emerson William Carlos Williams but also see Samuel Taylor Coleridge and then go to this Joshua Corey post: 6/18 It is his idea, and it seems to have arisen out of his thoughts about Ammons, whose works he has been reading; and out of his concurrent thoughts about Ashbery. This post is heavy with conclusions I, for one, had never entertained. However, if his general thesis is accepted, most schools of poets since the Romantics could easily be Materialists. bl00356
Sunday, June 21, 2009
This Summer Solstice Father's Day
is a day of new beginnings for me. In the physical progenitorial sense, I am not a father, and it is doubtful I ever will be or even want to be. What then? Sometimes how one sees one's spirit becomes reflected in one's body. Even though I have been forgiven, I had let my outer body gather the dust and dirt of years. Today, partly as the result of my new GP's insistence, I began the move toward the proper care of that organ. Am also in the process of making more changes toward the betterment of my inner body since she gave me permission to do that which I thought I ought not do. Are you enjoying my post-avant indirectness? If you are not, you need to get with it as I can't promise anything. It's all in the flow, and I cannot know how that flow will go. Yes, I do already feel better but the road ahead is long and treacherous. Those of you who are fathers, I hope this day has been, and continues to be, kind to you. - Ditched at last my old home page and made Google my home page. Google is a spider you know, and we authors are arcane delicacies. - Have upped my water intake, mostly by diluting my nutrition drinks more. - J J Gallaher posted a rant against accessible poetry which is drawing rebuttals from recent commentors at Poetry Foundation's Harriet--am really not certain, it may be from only one commentor at PFH. If it isn't difficult it is isn't art, JJ contendeth. Bet you can't find where I hid the egg. bl00355
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Kyphotic Hermit pause
which may become permanent. 32 posts are at Kyphotic Hermit. Here is a link list: - 1. Y 2. sort of an intro 3. doing time at iowa 4. Julia Vinograd 5. aesthetic openness 6. poem reading 7. Mr. Reginald Shepherd 8. somewhat likeable but inconsequential 9. my routine for visiting blogs 10. poets are conduits 11. sullen grey 12. i cannot be consoled 13. sometimes i think 14. disheveled life 15. in remembrance 16. theme variation 17. i cant stand being human 18. K. Silem Mohammad on Flarf 19. James Wright, James Wright, Robert Bly 20. Denise Low's Blog 21. their conversation continues 22. twenty influences on my writing 23. toward morning while 24. cover scans plus five poems 25. post-industrial world and poetry 26. John Latta post for today 27. Stephen Burt Elliptical 28. regarding Burt's New Thing 29. coteries, categories, individuals 30. ragged publication list 31. Eliot, O'Hara, Radiohead connection 32. Brands by Dave Oliphant bl00354
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Reading book by Owen Barfield 2
See bl00343 May 22, 2009. From chapter VIII The Making of Meaning (II) p. 138 [6] When we start explaining the language of famous scientists as examples of 'poetic diction', it may well seem that the ordinary meaning of that literary phrase has been inflated beyond the bounds of reason. Never- theless such an extension was necessary, in order to make clear its real nature. Nor has it been waste of time, if it has convinced a single person who needed convincing, how essentially parochial is the fashionable distinction between Poetry and Science as modes of experience. . . . the rational principle must be strongly developed in the great poet. - p. 139 [6] If the poetic is unduly ascendant, behold the mystic or the madman, unable to grasp the reality of percepts at all--being still resting, as it were, in the bosom of gods or demons--not yet man, man in the fullness of his stature, at all. But if the passive, logistic, prosaic principle predominates, then the man becomes--what? the collector, the man who cannot grasp the reality of anything but percepts. And here at last a real distinction between poet and scientist, or rather between poetaster and pedant, does arise. - pp. 140-141 [7] Provided, then, that we do not look too far back into the past (i.e. beyond the point at which the 'given' meaning of a word first began to yield place to the 'created' meaning) language does indeed appear historically as an endless process of metaphor transforming itself into meaning. Seeking for material in which to incarnate its last inspiration, imagination seizes on a suitable word or phrase, uses it as a metaphor, and so creates a meaning. The progress is from Meaning, through inspiration to imagination, and from imagination, through metaphor, to meaning; inspiration grasping the hitherto unapprehended, and imagination relating it to the already known. bl00353
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Topical
Over at Money Rho are financial links. Two of the moment are J. H. Kunstler's post too stupid to survive in which he provides information about the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), an organization I had not heard of but plan to become familiar with. www.cnu.org - The other is Karl Denninger's post for today. Also, this evening President Obama is expected to announce the granting of some benefits to same-sex partners who are federally employed. bl00352
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
mostly silly stuff
Get off computer stool. Go directly to toilet. Do not take a side trip. Do not save/ joke for today. - Gorgeous George fell in a gorge, and now the gorge is gorgeous, George. - As I told a security guard one night in Gainesville: I used to be a slut for the FBI. - Brina had a little goat. She used to grab it by the throat. But when the goat grew big and strong, Brina left the goat alone. Then one day the old goat died. Poor Brina, she was mystified. - So I've been having trouble getting to the hidden places on my blogs, and trouble connecting to AOL, and trouble getting comments to show on other blogs; et, et, et, et. Well--not that I hadn't seen this before-- come to find out from Google: Your browser has cookies disabled. This time it hit me, and so I minimized out and went to my browser's advanced settings and removed the check mark from the request to clear temporary files each time my browser is not being used. It hadn't occurred to me until today that clearing the temporary files also meant cookies would be cleared. bl00351
Monday, June 15, 2009
recent things done
Beginning early last Wednesday and ending several minutes before noon on Sunday, a long-avoided necessary internal project was essentially completed. The upshot of that, however, remains an unknown. That it's done is joy enough. - Just completed a secondary project which had been ongoing for some time but which was halted while the more substantial project held me. - It is now 3:33 PM and I have a knotty post pertaining to haiku you might enjoy: it is Bill Knott's looking for the no-center - Still having connection problems with AOL but I think they may have begun the day I dowloaded and installed IE8. Definitely, IE8 is more security-oriented than IE7. If Google Chrome has a recovery feature, I may well try using it. I did open a Google Mail account, but I prefer AOL's email services/ even though I won't be using them as extensively as I had been. - Wish I could say I am done re-imagining past events in my life, especially those wherein I made disastrous choices, but--. bl00350
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
autobio stuff
Have begun a piece entitled "A Life Litany" that already has an ending but that might become rather long. It has four-line stanzas with the fourth line/ the same three words. In a way it's a test of how much a reader can take. - Placed a comment beneath post kh00031. Everyone who reads this should go there and read that. - Am having problems in my recent posts section. So either I will delete it altogether or change it to a list. - My sister took me out today to pick up a book, Owen Barfield's What Coleridge Thought, at the library we frequent; then to return an improperly packaged item to a specific Wal-Mart, where we also bought a few things; and then to a specific QT for gas; and then back to here, where my sister put together one of the things we bought. - With a spattering of lightning and thunder, threatening weather passed through here earlier this evening, but it didn't deliver. bl00349
Sunday, June 7, 2009
just considering
No doubt the Bald Eagle is a beautiful national symbol but while the Industrial Age passes/ I think we should temporarily let the Crow be our national bird. - I have been posting my quirky song lyrics at a rapid pace as of late. They come as and when they come. I have no overriding plan. If you want to snatch one or more, go ahead. Feel free to mess with any of them in your own space. - Visited Adam Fieled's Stoning the Devil yesterday. Left a comment. May link to that post of his at my K H today. - If William Michaelian and Joseph Hutchison wish to continue their recent crow project, my encumbrance need not be part of it. I will do whatever I do/ as an aside to what they do. That is why I didn't post "Rhetorical" in a comment on William's blog. I was merely riffing. - My body is in hesitation mode again, but I've been and will be eating 4 ounces of probiotic yogurt every day. Am also trying to get myself to get out and walk for at least ten minutes daily, and I am making other changes. - Although I first came online in April of 2000, I am not of the Net Generation as Don Tapscott puts it, and so I lack the confidence and skills NGers have. I learn what I need to, id est, when I am ready to learn what I need to or am forced to. - I live moment to moment, my ongoing as an ashable human primarily dependent on the will of God. I am not out to prove myself better than or even = to any other human. bl00348
Friday, June 5, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Edge sends THIRD CULTURE emails
to me. Today's features a streaming video talk: "The Impending Demise of the University" by Don Tapscott. You can access it at this URL: www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge288.html bl00346
Saturday, May 30, 2009
My personal library
has--according to a casual count I made this morning-- 350 books, not including copies of books I have written but including literary journals. One of those books is Reader-Response Criticism from Formalism to Post-Structuralism edited by Jane P. Thompkins -- Copyright © 1980 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. On page V the following:
click on image to enlarge bl00345
Monday, May 25, 2009
yesterday today notes
Yesterday: Spent most of my online time changing things in AOL Mail and in my blogs. - Took a short parking lot walk. Today: In the early morning of this Memorial Day the green-tinted (beneath its heavy translucent covering just under the roof of the apartment building north of this one at its southeast corner where still growing Sturdy Bush is) light/ went dark. - My ever-changing body in its weaknesses/ forces ne to be ever innovative regarding it. - My subconscious continues its war against my conscious, but I can't let one dominate/ for I need the strengths native to each. - Having problems in my blog spaces I never had before, especially with the one migrated from AOL. The only recent major thing I did was open a Gmail account. Seems my best move might be to record and/or PDF my books. bl00344
Friday, May 22, 2009
Reading book by Owen Barfield
Poetic Diction: A Study in Meaning Since I haven't gotten very far into it, I can't say much yet; but I know it is a book I like. The copy I have is of the second edition -- Copyright © 1964 by the McGraw-Hill Book Company. I have it on loan through a local library. The first sentence of the "Preface to the Second Edition" reveals this book's basis: The Preface to the first edition described briefly how this book grew out of two empirical obser- vations, first, that poetry reacts on the meanings of the words it employs, and, secondly, that there appear to be two sorts of poetry. On page 34 is a longer passage I would like to shorten but deem it best not to. Apart from pleasurable entertainment (which must never be forgotten), there are two important functions which poetry is there to perform. One of them is the one I have stressed throughout this book, namely the making of meaning, which gives life to language and makes true knowledge possible. And this it does inasmuch as it is the vehicle of imagination. The other, lying much nearer the surface of life, is to mirror, not necessarily by approving, the characteristic response of the age in which it is written. Now it may happen, and it has been happening increasingly since the eighteenth century, that these two functions conflict. They may even be diametrically opposed to one another. For there may be an age of which the characteristic response is to deny the validity of imagination. And if that happens, a true and sensitive poet will find himself in a dilemma. Obviously, many changes have occurred since Barfield wrote his book, and while I have an idea of where he would stand, I am going to defer that until I have read his entire book. bl00343
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Today at wood s lot
What is on this page is all worth lingering over, but what most interested me is the article by Laura Miller about New Zealander Brian Boyd and evocriticism. Today at wood s lot bl00342
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
all strung out
Mares eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid 'll eat ivy too, wouldn't you? - In the April 27, 2009 issue of Time/ one of the results of a survey of 1000 people taken by a group of reporters who fanned out across America was: 14% said this nation is heading into a long slow decline. - According to one research, men who drink 5 glasses of water daily-- an amount that would make me feel like an innertube-- lower their risk of having a heart attack by 54%. - Beware of sodium benzoate, which is found in certain margarines and other foods, because mixing it with vitamin C is bad for one's health. Search it out. - There is something in peanut butter-- I forget what it is-- that is highly carcinogenic. I continue to eat peanut butter nonetheless. bl00341
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Somehow I feel
everything I've wanted to say I've already said. It's just a matter of finding where all of it is. I could, of course, be wrong about that, even infinitely wrong. In any case, there's enough work to be done with just that I know the whereabouts of to keep me busy for months if the circumstances of my ongoing remain favorable. One project I have in mind is an annotated PDF version of 1976 Today. 366 sonnets would be in it and each would have its own page. Do need to finish posting the Brian's Brain journal, but that rest is offline and unready. --- My computer was at a tech shop for over a week. Got it back Friday afternoon. Spent the time here reading, writing, and going through boxes of materials I hadn't gotten to yet. We took my old computer system and my printer I had stopped using to a recycling place. bl00340
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Rodrigo Toscano
is new to me, and I likely would not be bothering with this post if I hadn't noticed ". . . Toscano is major. . . ." in a comment by Kent Johnson. I have been doing some searches, and found that he has an epc.buffalo.edu page. Early this afternoon I finished reading the Jacket 28 interview of him by Leonard Schwartz. Because of the keenness of the questions, the appropriateness of the responses-- which include parts of poems by Toscano, and the sonic and intellectual flair of his poem-making, this interview is the best entry for anyone who is not familiar with this NYC-based arbiter and author. Here is a direct link to the interview. On his epc page are numerous links. And here is a link to a post by Mark Scroggins. Do not know if this is a general consensus, but Toscano is a post-Langpo author according to at least one person. From what I have read so far the performance quality in his poems is enticing. Dialogue is a core device for him, and since I have used dialogue in several works, it is easy for me to relate to and enjoy that aspect of his writing. bl00339
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
