New: Out on Shelves Tears in The Fence 51

A new month begins in the morning! And here I am on what feels like a new computer--for I have installed a new hard drive, more memory, and a cleaned up (out) desktop. A few days cut off from the web, emails, and google have cleared my brain of cybercobwebs. Most of all, it gave me time to sift through the mail, the magazines, the fiction and critical books piling up on the stools by the couch and which are so exciting (Jacques Rancière's Le Spectateur Emancipé, Fred Vargas' (for fun) L'homme à l'envers, and The Exquisite by Laird Hunt) but also I have been able to enjoy the newest issues of Upstairs at Duroc and Tears in The Fence--both of which, I am proud to say, also include work by me.

The first publication in February in English appeared in Upstairs at Duroc, issue 11. Issue 11 is co-edited by Barbara Beck and Kate Robinson along with staff editors Suzanne Allen, Joy Becvarik, Frieda B.K., Mary Claire King, Rufo Quintavalle, Wendy Richardon, Beth Romano, Lindsay Turner, and Jonathan Wonham, and sports a lovely new layout by Gemma Rolfe. It includes my translations from the French of four of the dense, exciting prose poems from Jérôme Mauche's book Electuaire du Discount (éditions le bleu du ciel, Bordeaux, 2004, 173p, 20euros), the four are entitled Brachial, Digital, Jugular and Cricoid (in UAD, pp. 62-65).

I am thrilled to see some of these translations of Jérôme Mauche's demanding, intriguing work appearing for the first time in print. I cannot wait in fact to begin sending others out--especially after the fun experience of reading with Jérôme along with other contributors to the review last month at Berkeley Books of Paris bookstore (we're pictured above, left, outside the store together), 8 rue Casimir Delavigne, 75006 Paris, M° Odéon. (Note: check out this lovely little used bookshop if you are here in Paris--it is full of some gems, and such a pleasant, cozy spot to find an old copy of a newly treasurable book! With a fine poetry section as well as fiction, philo, old reviews, dictionaries, history, etc.) Upstairs is currently preparing issue 12. An old site to see past issues of UAD is up at http://www.wice-paris.org/courses/creative/upstairs-duroc.html and the newer, revised site is now up at: http://www.wice-paris.org/wice/free-events/upstairs-at-duroc.

(Note: Other photos from the UAD reading on this post were taken by Mary Ellen Gallagher: 1) Jérôme Mauche and I reading/puzzling over the pages together (mid-post); 2) Jérôme Mauche reading while Suzanna Sulic does some improv action-translations of his works and Barbara Beck looks on (below, at right); and the final pic below 3) is with co-reader Bonny Finberg in the center, myself at left, and fab friends and spectators Mike Dineen at back and poet Michelle Noteboom on the right).

The second publication I want to announce is a mixture of critical and personal prose as part of my series of poetics articles for Tears in The Fence, N° 51 (edited by David Caddy, 38 Hod View, Stourpaine, Blanford Forum, Dorset, DT11 8TN, England). Entitled Of Tradition & Experiment III : « Sound Forms in Time », a personal monologue about anthologizing poetic practices of writing lyrically. (PP 107- 113--note that the TOC mentions the article starting on p 109, but it in fact begins on 107). To order a copy, see info on http://blogs.myspace.com/tearsinthefence

This, the third article in a seires on traditions and experiements, is a reflection on my own relationship with poetic vocabularies, those used to speak of lyric, lyrical writing, and sound-meanings. As such, I include in the center of the text a variety of short critical reviews of some of the anthologies which attempt to bridge and create dialogue between lyric and "language" poetic practices, I list them here in case you are in search of a little reading!:

* Juliana Spahr and Claudia Rankine, ed.s, American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 2002, isbn 0-8195-6547-4

* Mary Margaret Sloan, ed., Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women, Talisman House Publishers, New Jersey, NY, 1998, isbn 1-883689-47-3

* Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell, ed.s, American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 2007, isbn: 978-0819567284

* Cole Swensen and David St. John, ed.s, American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry, W.W. Norton & Co, New York, NY, 2009, isbn 0-393-333-752

* Reginald Shepherd, ed., Lyric Postmodernisms: An Anthology of Contemporary Innovative Poetries, Counterpath Press, Denver, CO, 2009, isbn 978-1933996-06-6

* Pierre Joris and Jerome Rothenberg, eds., Poems for the Millennium : The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry. Volume I : From Fin-de-Siècle to Negritude, and Poems for the Millennium : The University of California Book of Modern and Postmodern Poetry. Volume II : From Postwar to Millenium, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1995 and 1998, isbn 0-520-07227-8 and 0-520-20864-1