I lied

I in fact did not make it to the Aggression conference as the call of life-maintenance called, beckoned and harangued this weekend. Miss Boldt needs a job. So, instead, I recommend you check out these fellow blogs for reports on the conference.

Ms. Laura Moriarty's fine Atonalist Notes
Conference Blog
Mr Andrew Kenower's audio archive A Voice Box

Sorry I missed it, looks to have been quite the event. I'll see you all around PoetryLand soon.

AGGRESSION: A Conference On Contemporary Poetics and Political Antagonism

Eh hem! I interupt my trickling transmissions about the PRESS: Conference to announce that I'm back in the Bay Area and there's another incredible looking conference this weekend.

It is AGGRESSION: A Conference On Contemporary Poetics and Political Antagonism an SPT (Small Press Traffic)event organized by Chris Chen, Cynthia Sailers and Stephanie Young.

I will do my darndest to hit the highlights and report back eventually. More still forthcoming on PRESS as well. Don't worry, my head won't 'splode. Not if I can help it.

Good to be back in the Yeah! Area as Miss Alli Warren calls it.

Press: More photos

Here's Hui Hu again, looking a more loved by the camera this time. In this picture he's about to go to the panel "Mind Parasites"

...that featured

black lights, Fun Foam (tm), caution tape, psychadelic cinema images, and the idea that language exists as a parasite and that we are its hosts. Evergreen can be a wild, wild place.

Press + Press + Press = Success (heh heh) again

Here are a pair of genii, Holly Melgard and Todd Harris. Genii are rarely seen in pairs and even more rarely smiling, so this really is an excellent specimen here. Holly will soon be a PhD student in the Poetics program at Buffalo. This photo was taken on Saturday. On Sunday Holly performed a new piece written for 8 metronomes and a Theramin. Insane! So few can pull off a multi-media reading as intricate as this one and Holly did. I was reminded of Hannah Weiner's performance work with The International Code of Signals. Really, she's one to watch folks. Holly edited Evergreen's literary journal, Slightly West, for two years I believe and bears the honor of being the first to publish many fine young poets. I am a HUGE fan.

During this staged lay-in on the sunny grass we decided that: a) inactivism is the new activism b) binaries are the new multiplicity

Press + Press + Press = Success (heh heh)

Please excuse the cheap rhyme, but believe me when I tell you that Press: A Cross-Cultural Literary Conference was an incredible success. As far as first ever Olympia Poetics Conferences and first ever Lindsey conferences go, I can't imagine a better outcome. It's hard to know where to start so let's start with pictures and work from there shall we? True to form, my digital camera crapped out at several points and besides that I felt shy at several other points so please know that the photos here do not represent the full spectrum of that which caught my eye during the conference. For one, the pictures are heavier on male-poet than I would've liked, partly because us ladies were so well represented at this conference. Note: if anyone has photos from the conference and no ridiculous blog of their own to post them on, please send them my way and I would be happy to host them and give you all the due credit.

So, on with it:
David Michael Wolach greets us on Day 1, Reading 1 of the conference. Mr. Wolach, a surprising and talented poet and professor at Evergreen, bears much of the responsibility and credit for organizing the conference. It was a sincere pleasure meeting this fellow.
Here's Steven Hendricks reading on Friday. This guy, lemme tell ya. This guy. Steven is also a professor at Evergreen and author of the fantastic novel Finn which is a wonder of book arts and meta-style-fiction. He once told me, when I was about 17 and a student in his Writing 101 class at an Olympia Community College whilst I was in high school, that I would be "cursed by my potential." I've been trying to reconcile that statement ever since.

Next, you will not see a photo of Zhang Er reading or Kaia Sand reading Susan Schultz' translations because I was feeling too shy. The camera is old and makes a heck of a grinding noise when you turn it on. I'll just say that the reading was worth a thousand pictures and I got to hear it and you didn't.

Next, you will also not see a photo of Laura Elrick reading on Friday night. Same as above, you missed out. She's a rock star.

Ah ha, and here, would will not see Jules Boykoff reading on Friday night. Hilarity ensued and the socially aware kind too which impresses me to no end. I especially appreciated his use of language from the media's coverage of the Seattle WTO protests. Hats off to you Jules!
Here,
is the charming Tung Hui Hu, a San Francisco poet who I swear I'd seen around the bay area before this conference. You may not recognize him in this picture as his face has been smeared beyond all recognition. Hui Hu and I later enjoyed a panel entitled, "Mind Parasites" that I'll have more to say about later. Excellent reading by Hui Hu.
Here's Tom Orange who suffers from the same schmear problem as Hui Hu and Steven. Mr. Orange also performed with Rodrigo Toscano's Collapsible Poetics Theater on Saturday night, hilariously and exuberantly. I'm a fan.
Here's Mr. Wolach again, this time presenting his multi-media piece. I love this. If you can't read it, he's listed various forms of poetry for sale.

Okay, so that's Round 1 of photos and commentary and it only covers Day 1. So, chew on that and I'll get some more ready for you.

Press: Day 1 Reading

Press: A Cross Cultural Literary Conference kicked off with an excellent reading last night at The Evergreen State College featuring:

Laura Elrick
Zhang Er
Steven Hendricks
David Michael Wolach
Tung-Hui Hu
Tom Orange
Jules Boykoff

Besides being a total blast from the somewhat recent past for me and somewhat overwhelming in that regard, it was also one of the most engaging readings I've attended in recent memory.
Favorite lines of the night:

"a viagra niagra" - Laura Elrick
"fish soup dissolves the imagination"- Zhang Er
"impressed with his own Catholic posture despite his dormant Judaism"
"friendly fire will love you forever/friendly fire always and forever"-David Michael Wolach
"do squirrels ever say fuckit?"
"global village idiots"
"the revolution will not be re-formatted in the Chicago Manual of Style"- Jules Boykoff

Beyond singular lines, it was an exciting evening full of energy and a sense of play. I'm a fan.

Tonight:

Rodrigo Toscano's Collapsible Poetics Theater
Kaia Sand
Roger Farr
Kristin Prevallet
Leonard Schwartz
Mark Wallace

I have to go run off to a panel now but you'll be hearing from me soon! Pictures coming soon as well!

Press: A Cross Cultural Literary Conference

http://www.evergreen.edu/writingcenter/press/
Hello all. After some much needed recuperating due to a slight hazing by The Universe by way of my roadrip, I'm ready to report back to SPD blog duty. If you're interested to know just what flavor of hazing aka fun and adventure I had you can go to this blog where I will be posting photos and a full report soon.

In the meantime, Poetryland calls and right now it's saying, see what happens when you neglect me? See? I think The Universe and Poetryland are in cahoots. But uh...really, this weekend (My alma mater The Evergreen State College is hosting Press: A Cross Cultural Literary Conference featuring readings, panels and performances. For a full list of events and readers check out their fine, fine website. I will be reporting from the conference via this blog and this time I'll have a digital camera. Huzzah! Stay tuned for that.

Also, heads up for self-promotional plug #2: I will read on Sunday and hopefully throw a rippin' workshop with my friend and colleague Holly Melgard, more on that coming soon as well.

All very exciting.

Roadtrip/Publication

Whew. Rough roadtrip. Back in Olympia from Utah sans car. More soon. In the meantime check it out, The Press Gang posted one of my poems on their blog.

West Coast represent!

Here I am back on the West Coast at its little known poetry hub, Olympia, Washington. Birthplace of such poets as Sam Lohman, Michael Nicoloff and Lindsey Boldt. Home to poets Leonard Schwartz, Jean Lohman and prose stylists-poets David Wolach and Steven Hendricks. Pretty good for a scruffy little burgh, I'd say.

You fly-over states are probably wondering why I flew over. The simple answer is that I don't know anyone in the Midwest outside of Illinois and as a result would have no couches to snuggle up to. I'm not made of money folks. I would however, like to spend more time in the Midwest. I hear there's a pretty good little poetry scene going in Minneapolis.

Hey Southern U.S., you're next so don't feel left out. I don't know how you feel about poetry but uh, we can work something out.

Stay tuned for a full analysis of the state of poetics in the U.S., East Coast vs. West Coast Poetry Wars and how to fund your small press on trips to Atlantic City alone (I recommend the roulette. Red, baby red! Poetry needs a new pair o' shoes!.

Patton and Bernstein at Bowery

Last night Charles Bernstein and Julie Patton read at the Bowery Poetry Club as part of Leonard Schwartz’s Evergreen College reading series. I waltzed, or rather hobbled in late as usual and so only caught the second half of Julie Patton’s reading. She sat perched on the edge of the stage, microphone in hand crooning her poems to the audience in a quiet sing-song. She later described this reading style as having derived from cat-talk, the here-kitty-kitty-kitty-meow-kitty-kitty speak that cat lovers use to beckon their loved-ones. She mentioned also that her “Blue” had been written based on transcribed, sometimes strictly from conversations between she, her mother and Harryette Mullen.

Charles Bernstein adopted a mix of the professorial and the bar patron air for his reading, choosing to sit at one of the bars round tables and cozying up to the microphone, with a grey goose martini straight up. At Leonard’s request, he read Louis Zukofsky’s “A Foin Lass Bodders” translated from the Cavalcante poem “Donna Mi Prega” (I believe), which he read in a thick Brooklyn, Yiddish accent or in “Jew Face” as he called it. As of right now there are no recordings of Zukofsky reading his work available to the public but Bernstein informed us that he and Paul Zukofsky are currently working to make several recordings available on PennSound and that they should be up in the next couple of months. Such good news! I never realized what a ham Bernstein could be, seriously, give the guy a microphone and…he has a good time. I enjoyed hearing his poems “Thank you for saying Thank you” and “The Girly Man” read aloud as the injection of his animation and sarcastic tone added to the overall effect.

An engaging discussion followed the readings but I won’t try to recreate it here. I believe the reading will appear on PennSound pretty soon as part of the Segue Reading Series.

An excellent evening of Poetry all around and an excellent way to bring my visit to New York’s poetryland to a close. Thank you to all for that.

Nickelodeon Camera R.I.P?

About those pictures I promised you...well...they didn't turn out too well. I won't go into details but here's an example of the havoc and desolation that is my camera:
These were taken during the Barbara Guest Tribute reading at St. Mark's

If you would please, use your imagination, you'll see Charles Bernstein on the right and shoot, Susan Bee?

Wow, I'm going to say...Africa Wayne and Richard Tuttle.


If you squint your eyes, cross them slightly and turn your head a quarter turn North you should be able to make out Marjorie Welish here on the left and Anne Lauterbach on the right.

Uhhhgh. In those gaping black spaces, imagine if you would the photos you would like to see, the ones that shyness probably did not permit me to take or may not have happened in the first place ie: Bernstein and I mugging for the camera, he making the devil horns and I making the hang-loose sign; Marjorie Welish holding down the Brie with one finger so that I could slice off a piece (that really did happen); a crowd of handsome, young, literary types; a staring contest between Rena Rosenwasser and Erica Kaufman; John Ashbery making a toast to Barbara Guest with a champagne flute of bubbly water. You know, fill in the blanks.

Semiotext(e)

I went to The Brooklyn Rail on Monday to help with production which in my case meant proofreading and ended up staying for a delicious dinner of thai food, wine, chain smoking and a rousing conversation with the Rail-ites and their editor Phong Bui. Sylvere Lotringer, philosopher and editor of Semiotext(e) came by and joined us for dinner or rather his visit was the impetus for the dinner. What was said, I'm having some trouble recalling now...yes, the illusion of choice in America and the creation of identity based on consumer choices ie: condiments at Subway and shoot if I can't remember anything else. Well, the whole thing rang of serendipity and synchronicity. Sharp young-folks sparring with established smarty-pantses all sitting around a big wooden table, digging into take-out, very picturesque. I laughed to myself on several occasions.