During the nineties I did a little photocopy-and-staple "art-lit" 'zine called "Meat Epoch." I published poetry and essays and artwork and visual poetry and I wrote reviews of other 'zines and of journals and of chaps and Meat Epoch sort of became my access into the then still somewhat subterranean world of 'zines and the mirco-press. It is my pleasure to present here at the e·ratio blog-auxiliary an ongoing series of some choice pieces from Meat Epoch. No doubt there is much here you will recognize. —Should you wish to research the whole micro-press and small 'zine phenomenon you cannot do better than to begin at Luigi-Bob Drake's smashing periodical TapRoot Reviews, and you might also check out Factsheet 5. One thing that cannot be emphasized enough is that the works under review here are HIGHLY COLLECTABLE.


Review of the journal River City from Meat Epoch #22, 1997.

River City
V. 17, #1; Winter ’97, Edited by Paul Naylor, Dept. of English, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152.
2/yr; 145pp; flat-spined; $7/copy, $12/sub.

RC is a quality academic journal with a focus on “contemporary culture.” Each issue features a special topic, here being “Engendering Culture.” One can “engender” culture in two ways; one being so as to produce it, to bring it about, and the other being so as to denote sexual difference. In English we denote sexual difference (or gender, we en-gender) generally by noun or name (Victor, Victoria) and pronoun (he, she) reference; and then in our culture at large as a matter of custom, or expectation, as in how we dress and act and present ourselves, and as in how we seem to inherit our roles and capacities in society. (Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice. Boys are made of snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails. That sort of thing. It’s everywhere. And it’s virtually inescapable.) However, both language, and culture at large, are open to creative transformation. Since the 1970’s—but certainly going back to important figures in modern literature and in philosophy, and in social movements—our culture has undergone some affirmative, if at times tentative, transformations. In fiction, poetry, art and essay, and in an interview with the philosopher Moira Gatens, this special topic is explored to engaging and compelling effect.

But is the idea of “engendering culture” all that new, and if so in what sense, what makes it “us”? An authoritative introduction, surprisingly missing, would have given us perspective, an overview, and special purpose and preparation. Generally speaking, can one not find instances in, say, Michelangelo’s David, or in Caravaggio, perhaps at least for his rejection of idealization? Lesley Dill’s images (her art in photograph by David Horan) from her exhibition A Mouthful of Words, seem to stress at once a de- and a re-mythologizing (a re-grammatology?) of sexual difference; what’s new is that here gender succumbs to manipulation, a manipulation by metaphor, resulting sometimes in a third sex. In one image the gender is effaced, so that this otherwise male body resembles the female body in a preceding image; the pubic regions of the two images are almost identical. I think this effacement is similar, if you will, to had Michelangelo placed a fig leaf on his David. Had he, it would not have been out of obedience to the Church, but out of humility; the fig leaf is thus a metaphorical device. But what if the fig leaf stood for a question mark? The “gender” of these images, and of the David, would be in endless deference. In the interview with Moira Gatens, the philosopher speaks about feminism and feminists and the formulation of gender in the academy and in philosophical discourse. Reference is made to the rationalist philosopher Baruch Spinoza in line with Dr. Gatens’ forthcoming book, Collective Imaginings: Spinoza and the Ethics of Difference. What Gatens has to say about Spinoza is both attractive and promising. The “special topic” section closes with a fine short story by Glen Helfand and Kevin Killian entitled “The Range of Freedom,” and then follows three short stories by the winners of the 1997 RC Writing Awards in Fiction.

There is also some fine poetry here, especially by Gwyn McVay; and a haunting poetical composition by Andrew Mossin entitled “The Epochal Body.” Each issue of RC features what they call a “Cross Section” segment. Here there are works unrelated to the special topic. In this issue, there are two; Keith Tuma on the poet Edward Kamau Brathwaite, and Mark Nowak in conversation with the poet Maurice Kenny. Both works (indeed, everything here) are just the sort of thing one wants to hold on to for future reference. The editors at RC have come across with an issue that is entirely free of condescension and bitterness. The readability of these works is remarkable. (Perhaps RC will consider including information on its contributors in future issues. Such fine works surely merit it.) Outstanding.


Review of John M. Bennett's Prime Sway from Meat Epoch #22, 1997.

Prime Sway (A transduction of Primero Sueño by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz)
By John M. Bennett
1996; 74pp; Pa; Texture Press, 3760 Cedar Ridge Drive, Norman, OK 73072. $12.

We welcome the appearance of a long work by John M. Bennett. For while it may be that one day his great number of shorter, single pieces will come to be read as one sustained string of afflatus (an edition of Bennett’s collected poems, numbered, dated and indexed by title and first line, is sorely awaited), for the time being at least we must content ourselves with this rare long single poem.

A “transduction” is like a translation in the sense that it tries to capture and stick with the original’s spirit or phrenic energy, otherwise there is no attempt at all at a literal translation. At first blush it seems bizarre that Mr. Bennett would elect to do a transduction of a work by a Mexican RC nun who died in 1695, bizarre, that is, until we consider Sor Juana’s learning and literary productivity, one might even see in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz a proto-feminist, given her difficulties in overcoming the hardships she faced as an intellectual woman with a gift for exposition. We also should note that Mr. Bennett is fluent in Spanish, and that he holds a Ph.D. and has been a professor of Latin American literature. So far as Sor Juana’s text Primero Sueño goes, we ought to say that it is a long poem, an analysis of sleep describing how man’s soul is dazzled at night by its vision of the universe. The poem is an attempt to comprehend the laws of the universe as they are entered into during the dreamscape.

The first stanza of Prime Sway is topnotch Bennett, gripping and welcoming, familiar and yet unfamiliar, and contains a narrative lunge that comes as something of a trap door released beneath our feet. This narrative lunge, we discover, continues for the poem’s entire 974 lines. The world we enter is typical Bennett, a cross between Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Mr. Bennett chooses words as might a lead guitarist choose the notes for his solo, that is to say he is concerned with semantic factors as a matter of stress and sound, and the meaning thereof, rather than with any significance so far as literal denotation may be concerned. Of course, as a consequence of this, meaning is mostwise surrendered to effect. But then this being a postmodern work, a transduction and what’s more a John M. Bennett poem, meaning is not a cardinal consideration, or else, as in the dream sequence, it is a matter of associations, the one to the other and all to the reader’s perceptions. (Interesting, that in composing this work of surrealism, Mr. Bennett should rely on semantic factors of stress and sound locally, rather than on their reference to any part or thing diffusedly. This just might be a universal surrealist device or method. It might help to consider it as a foregrounding of the communicative value of the discourse.) And he never entirely leaves behind Sor Juana’s text, indeed the elements of her life, of her time and place, of her intellect and of her art, are always in company.

Throughout this dreamscape, this Daliesque pianoroll-like unfolding, we encounter passage after passage of stark lucidity where the poet’s technique ceases to be seen and we find ourselves, lose ourselves, in the changing series of plays of language, ideas and oft’times jolting iconic groundwork.

John M. Bennett’s poetic gestures seem primarily concerned to depict the human venture in its crosscurrents of symbol and soma. His command and verbal dexterity seem to flow from some unconscious place. And while his works are indeed quite difficult, they are also manytimes rewarding. With Prime Sway, Mr. Bennett takes a giant step toward creating his masterpiece.


Review of Jack Foley's Exiles from Meat Epoch #22, 1997.

Exiles.
By Jack Foley. 1996; 103pp; Pa; Pantograph Press, PO Box 9643, Berkeley, CA 94709. $9.95.

Exiles may well be the closest thing we’ve yet to a Whole Jack Foley Catalogue. In this generous and large format compilation of poetries and essays, of poetical and philosophical outlines culminating in the enchanting lay, Dove Sta Amore, what we have come to consider his most personal and by-now signature themes are here addressed and gain resounding expression: loving and mysticism, sexual desire, the panic of loss, the senses of “home” and the “homelessness” that is the writer’s solitude and station, estrangement, God, the current state of poetry.

But for all his erudition and command, and what seems an irresistible instinct to modulate to expository prose, Jack Foley is straight away the romantic; his world remains a sacred Thou. As open as his mind and eyes are to the ever increasing complexities of art, of artist, of culture and society, such is his heart, and for this reason he is a scrupulous and dependable barometer.

His form of choice, his “structuring device,” is the collage idiom as an assembling of groupings of contents, the one in relation to the other by way of the telling. It is by way of this “telling,” and his plurality of identities, that the deeper structures of his work are experienced. When read in light of the notion of “intertextuality” (where we must be capable of the same putting-into-process of our own identities, capable of identifying with the different sorts of texts, voices, and semantic, syntactic, and phonic systems at play in his composition), Foley can be understood to be a transition figure between the Beat and Bay Area traditions and postmodernism. The flipside to this “telling” is to experience Jack Foley in recital, which is to experience a national treasure.


Review of Mark Wallace's The Lawless Man from Meat Epoch #22, 1997.

The Lawless Man.
By Mark Wallace. 1996; 10pp; Pa; Upper Limit Music, 1743 Butler Avenue #2, Los Angeles, CA 90025. $?

Theme and variations in ten parts. Part one is rather Language-oriented in style and sets the iconic groundwork for what’s to follow, being tales, vignettes, variations on the theme of the timeless and time-traveling, wandering outlaw. Sometimes fabulistic and super-real, and sometimes anachronistic which lends an air of abstract eternity. Really gets going in parts nine and ten which have a sort of “story board” logic. Not at all too advanced in form, despite what we ought to expect from Mr. Wallace, but satisfying, nonetheless, and despite its unrelenting undertones of existential claustrophobia. This slight work, which doesn’t quite seem to know if it wants to be lyric poetry or prose (there is something of a story here, and it would have profited had it not been eclipsed by its lack of a decisive narrative style—it is no feat that parts nine and ten are its best), seems something of a throw-away.


Review of the journal The Minnesota Review from Meat Epoch #22, 1997.

The Minnesota Review
N.s. 47; May ’97. Edited by Jeffrey Williams, Dept. of English, East Carolina U., Greenville, NC 27858-4353.
2/yr; 256pp; flat-spined; $12/2 issues

MR is an academic journal with a Marxist perspective. This number’s series is entitled “The White Issue” and collects essays in a critical analysis of “whiteness” as the “racially dominant culture.” “The premise, in short, is that attending to and undoing the social construction of whiteness is meaningful work for imagining material equality.” The contributors are for the most part affiliated with a university or are doing post-graduate work. There is fiction and poetry, some photography, all selected on theme.

The essays are excellent, if unforgiving, and are, as one might expect, advanced in their politics and methodologies; but this stands in stark contrast to the art, which is not at all “advanced” in form or technique, but only in its subject matter, as with Jay Ruben Dayrit’s short story, “Go-Go Boy,” about a gay, “Miss Saigon in a Bruce Lee body,” stripper. It’s questionable just how advanced, or progressive, such a story really is, for while its appearence may be a sign of demarginalization, its narrative presents not a celebration of gay culture, but just the gloomy miss lonelyhearts pining that has contributed so to the male homosexual stereotype. Even as social realism, does it not fail for its narcissistic autoerotism? Just what is its inclusion here meant to indicate, the liberalism of the editors, or an irresolute aesthetics? Only Warren Lehrer’s poem, “Everything’s White,” and then only for its typography which is reminiscent of Mayakovski (a white man), is in any sense advanced; and then take away its typography and what is left, a shriek? Is there a gay, or lesbian, aesthetics (an advance in form and technique), is there a “non-white” aesthetics (again, I mean an advance in form or technique), or is Marxist aesthetics just a contradiction in terms?

Edward Gorey’s cover for Franz Kafka’s Amerika.

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Über companionables. Edward Gorey’s covers for The Ambassadors, The Awkward Age and What Maisie Knew by Henry James. On What Maisie Knew, notice Gorey’s initials, bottom right-hand corner.

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SONG

What I took in my hand
grew in weight. You must
understand it
was not obscene.

Night comes. We sleep.
Then if you know what
say it.
Don't pretend.

Guises are
what enemies wear. You
and I live
in a prayer.

Helpless. Helpless,
should I speak.
Would you.
What do you think of me.

No woman ever was,
was wiser
than you. None is
more true.

But fate, love, fate
scares me. What
I took in my hand
grows in weight.



Robert Creeley (1926-2005)

Edward Gorey’s cover for Nineteenth Century German Tales edited by Angel Flores.
  

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E·RATIO SMEARED

Who is Phillip Levine and why is he saying such awful things about me?


This post was found on one of the message boards at Web del Sol:

“Posted by Phillip Levine on Tuesday, 1 March 2005, at 5:30 p.m.

Warning! Eratio Postmodern Poetry by St. Thomasino - some of the worst poetry published on the web. Except for certain poets like Eldon and Foley, the work in Eratio Postmodern Poetry is uneven and often even childish. Some of it appears straight out of a Klingon dictionary while other parts are Hallmark-esque in nature. Good for a laugh, but not to be taken seriously.

PL

ps: don't criticize the editor or he'll make you a feature of his bizarre hate blog.”


St. Thomasino responds:

No, this is not THE Philip Levine, the highly regarded American poet. (If it was I would die of embarrassment.) No, this jerk has two l’s in his name. And curiously enough, this jerk teaches poetry in a poetry workshop. Isn't it interesting, that somebody who teaches poetry should use such language to criticize poetry, to criticize a poetry journal, and to criticize that journal's editor? It's interesting, that this failed poet, this wanna-be poet, this real stinker, should then become the teacher of poetry, but as though to make up for his disappointment he then desires some sort of power and influence and control over those who can.

And just for the record: Sources have informed us here at the eratio blog-auxiliary that for years Michael Neff was a regular speck on the Buffalo Poetics List, and that even then he was self-appointed Wizard of Oz. (But check the archives, see for yourself. . . .) It seems Michael Neff has a “pre-existing condition.”

E·RATIO SMEARED

WHERE’S THE ROPE?

In his infinite wisdom (or is it, “wiz-” dom), Michael Neff, founder, chief artist, and executive director of the Web del Sol Association, has seen fit to elaborate upon Tim McGrath’s “review” (which we all agree was worthless, anyway):

“And yet, the publication has its defenders, like the famous cut-and-paste 'poet' out of San Francisco, Jack Foley, who is published in Eratio PP and fancies himself good buddies with the editor, St. Thomasino. Since the first publication of this review, both of them have used email harassment, flaming, and defamatory blog posts with invented language in an attempt to censor PDS and brand the editors. In addition, one of them wrote an editor's faculty advisory in an attempt to get him booted from his college writing program. Be that as it may, PDS will not be censored, no matter how many cretins arise to inflict retaliation.”

But surely, had Michael Neff the evidence to prove these allegations, surely he would have included it. Did someone say “email harassment”? Did someone say “flaming, and defamatory”? Here is a sample of Michael Neff’s language:

“My advice is to put St. Thomasino's dick in your mouth and suck on it till you orgasm. Then fall asleep. Sleeeeeeeeep, Jack, sleeeeeeep ... into that eternal night. No one will miss you, not even the ticks on your shriveled old balls.”

And so we draw the curtain to reveal the true Michael Neff, the miserable non-person (without honor, without self-control) behind the faux “tragically hip” gloss at Web del Sol. Shame on you, Michael Neff. I will never look at Web del Sol the same again.

Where’s the rope? Indeed. Just for the record:

1. “Invented language”? You do better, Michael Neff, to claim that someone has been sending e-mails using your e-mail account. (It’s the same difference -- a lie is a lie, after all.)

2. Michael Neff, you demonstrate your bad judgment, your frustration, and your desperation, when you pollute the Palaver and Natter list with your ill will regarding this unhappy episode. Are you attempting some kind of damage control? Are you attempting to propagandize the people on this list? The Palaver and Natter list is “A Locus for High School Writing Programs.” I declare, when you stoop so low as to pollute this list, you are not only demonstrating bad judgment, frustration, and desperation, you are demonstrating BAD LEADERSHIP.

3. For you, Michael Neff, to be so despicably vile and disrespectful to Jack Foley. . . .

SHAME ON YOU, MICHAEL NEFF. YOU OUGHT TO WEAR A DIAPER, YOU'RE LOSING IT ALL OVER THE PLACE.


Since this nonsense first broke with Michael Neff and Web del Sol the eratio blog-auxiliary has been contacted by all sorts of people with all sorts of horror stories all having in common the name and MO of Michael Neff. (As for Tim McGrath, I am convinced he’s just a patsy. And although he came off like a punk -- that is until the instant karma got him -- it is quite obviously Neff who pulls the strings, and there will always be another “Tim McGrath” to take his place, the role requires nothing, save a pinch of ambition.) There really is nothing extraordinary about Neff’s campaign against eratio (evidently, this is what he does -- he gets revenge; or rather he wounds himself, then picks at his scab; for, yes, Michael Neff is a pathology), except this time he stepped out of his weight class, and we got the better of him. Neff is at a loss, he is in the dark, he is clueless to try to figure what has happened, and how it happened, and why. He has nothing but his (oh, what is the opposite of “fancy”?) rote imagination to try to piece together the pieces with. The question begs itself: Why? Why the need to belittle? Why this contempt for the poets? It must be torture, the coming to terms with the realization that you’ll never be well thought of as a poet, that although you’ll be well known for a website, or for some folly or burlesque, you’ll never be well thought of as a poet. Can a popular website substitute for a lack of real poetic achievement? Evidently not. It is Neff who is out for revenge, eratio is only documenting it. Neff must learn to accept the truth, that sometimes he is the cause of his misfortunes, and that he alone can set things right again. Why the need for enemies? Why the fortress mentality? Why the emotional rallying points? And why the ridiculous “tragically hip” gloss? What troubles most about Neff’s “tragically hip” is, there is no sympathy, no simpatico, no sympathetic link with others and the world. This is most telling.

E·RATIO SMEARED

Jack Foley responds:

Various people, including Dana Gioia, have insisted that we need more criticism. No doubt these people are right, but the problem is that most “critics” have no better idea of what constitutes criticism than they have of what constitutes poetry. Tim McGrath’s review of Eratio is a case in point. An enormous amount of the critic’s energy is spent on the name of the magazine’s editor--not on the name of the magazine, which presumably the critic hasn’t a clue about, but on the name of the editor. The critic puts forth many nasty, bullying words, words which constitute his basic way of making his case: “incomprehensible postmodern fodder,” “embarrassing asseverations”--oh, if the critic knows a word like “asseveration,” he must know something. Unfortunately--to continue to quote “Old Man River” or Old Man Discourse--he don’t say nothing. Why should we believe this big mouth? Does he offer any actual quotation to support any of his claims--for instance the designation of editor St. Thomasino as “a pseudonymously guarded narcissist or the tragi-comic hero of a Wes Anderson film.” Oh my, oh my. The strategy here is that if the critic establishes a suitably pompous and/or academic, “authoritative” tone, he doesn’t have to offer any proof: we’ll just believe him. Well, I for one don’t, and I have looked into Eratio. There is no essential difference between what this “critic” offers us and what we are offered by the Bush administration. “Believe me.” “Why?” “Because I’m an authority, that’s why.” If ever we need to “question authority,” it is at such moments. We do indeed need more criticism--words enlightening texts. We don’t need more authoritarian bullshit.

-- Jack Foley


HOUSE PAINTER

I hear you paint houses.
Yeh, it’s mostly the color red.
You wanna be my pal?
Sure.
You can paint some houses for me.
Glad to.
You just stick with me.
Glad to.
You don’t paint my house.
No.
Or if you hafta, don’t make me suffer, ok?
Ok.
You can be my friend.
Yeah.
And I’ll take care of you, you know?
Yeah.
We’ll be pals. I need a friend.
Ok.
You like girls?
Yeh.
You paint houses for me, you get girls.
Ok.
And money. You get money. But don’t paint my house.
Ok.
Not my house. Just those others. Remember that and you’ll be ok.
Ok.
House paintin’. Jeez.

Poem by Jack Foley

Edward Gorey’s cover for Poor People & A Little Hero by Fyodor Dostoevsky. 

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Edward Gorey’s cover for Redburn by Herman Melville.  
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E·RATIO SMEARED


Letter of 2/11/05:

Dear Editor of Eratio Postmodern Poetry,

Recently, you made an effort to have one of our editors thrown out of his college program at BC for a writing negative critique of your journal on Portal Del Sol. If you had come to us and requested a "taming" of the review so that your name was not compromised, we would have listened and worked with you.

As a rule, we do not censor our editors. They are free to work as they please and are not micromanaged. Be that as it may, we will work with you to remove direct references to your name in the review if you will cease and desist all retaliatory efforts against the editor in question, Tim M, and also remove your blog posting with his name and address in it.

If you must repost a note on your blog knocking WDS for the negative review, that is your right, of course, and we consider that fair play.

Rest assured, we would never attempt to disrupt your career path in NYC by contacting any of your clients. Such behavior is really unconscionable, and as you must know, actionable, i.e., if real harm is done to the plaintiff.

How could you do such a thing, really?

Regardless, I hope you consider our offer.

Sincerely,

The Editor [Michael Neff]



St. Thomasino responds:

Just for the record: Tim McGrath and Michael Neff have runaway imaginations. It would appear that Tim McGrath, in his extremities (a case of "instant karma"), told Michael Neff a whopper of a lie (this "asseveration" that I "made an effort to have one of our editors thrown out of his college program at BC for a writing negative critique of your journal on Portal Del Sol"). But a close reading of these letters shows that, well, one lies and the other swears to it. Here is Tim McGrath in his own words in one of his e-mails to me:

"I write these fucking reviews as a favor to Mike Neff, Web del Sol's editor. And I write them in the style he wants."

I believe you, Tim. And so I am not posting your letters on this blog. But still, I guess you have to have compromised ethics to write for Michael Neff. Certainly, you have to have compromised ethics to dehumanize people.

It's interesting to note that Tim McGrath did have his name removed from the Portal Del Sol masthead. And that "Stephanie" had her last name removed. (Don't worry, "Steph," we already took note of your name. And of your brazenness!) And that "Bodega Babe" is hiding behind an alias. (Talk about your "pseudonymously guarded." At Web del Sol, it's "in house.")

It would appear Web del Sol have the luxury of a ridiculous attitude. (And how they scurry to protect themselves! That Neff, what tooth and claw!)

Hey guys, remember your initial e-mails? You know, the ones you sent prior to the ones I've decided not to exhibit on this blog? You know, the really ballsy, nasty ones? I do. And I still got 'em! Well, you should have figured it out for yourselves: I do not reply to e-mails sent by cranks or by punks. (Ask that other crank -- you know him, Neff, he's an ally of yours -- he'll tell you.) It's just not my MO.

E·RATIO SMEARED

This "review" just up at Web del Sol, by Tim McGrath:


"Eratio Postmodern Poetry :// View | Rating:
Eratio offers up incomprehensible postmodern fodder for critics of postmodern incomprehensibility. Good luck finding anything intentionally; look for links and find a blog, look for poetry and find quotations. And when you realize that Eratio's editor, Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino (whose name suggests either a pseudonymously guarded narcissist or the tragi-comic hero of a Wes Anderson film) has included his own embarrassing asseverations ("Discourse is like a river" is his unqualified and deplorably facile, but apparently quotable, simile) along with the words of Nietszche, Plato, and Jung, you'll start wondering whether this postmodern experiment is, in fact, a postmodern parody. On the same page, alongside the luminous Lord Duke G.V. St. Thomasino, Diane Wakoski is quoted as saying, "I feel that poetry is the completely personal expression of someone about his feelings and reactions to the world. I think it is only interesting in proportion to how interesting the person who writes it is." By Wakoski's logic, the people who bring you Eratio are not very interesting at all."


St. Thomasino responds:

Friends, as contributors to eratio postmodern poetry, you should proudly count yourselves among some of the most talented and influential writers and artists on the scene today. As editor of the site, I can honestly say that many of the works submitted for eratio simply do not make the cut (and I'm sorry if I've rejected your work, Mr. McGrath, but there's always the welcome to send again). I try to be fair when making these judgments, because I know what it means to put your heart into something (especially something like poetry), and how it feels to be rejected.

Eratio is a labor of love, since it generates no revenue for me (but rather costs me time and energy and money). Each issue requires months of work, involving coding, design, correspondence, planning, and an immeasurable amount of frustration. Ultimately, it's very gratifying -- but I cannot say it's fun.

Still, I am proud to publish your work and hope that its presence at eratio gives you some exposure and some degree of satisfaction that you otherwise would not have had, and gives you some encouragement to continue being a poet in an economy that doesn't much care about you.

I do not know Tim McGrath. But if you read him closely you'll see that this is nothing more than a personal attack on me (based on his dislike of my name!). I am distressed because none of the poetry or artworks are mentioned, and in fact I do not believe Mr. McGrath even bothered to read or look at any of it. (But can he, indeed, talk about the poetry, or the content of the page, or the logic of the concept, I wonder? Why the subterfuge of fixating on my name? No one of any real insight or wit would do that -- unless he were inclined to burlesque.)

As a poet and a critic, I take great care to explicate my reasons for "liking" or "disliking" something. More importantly, I consider it my responsibility to try to place a work into context, to appreciate what it is the poet is trying to achieve, and to assess whether this has been accomplished (and sometimes I offer alternatives, but I never ridicule and I am never disrespectful, and I always manage to point out a poet's successes). There are several reviews in the current issue that I took great care in writing, I hope you'll see them for yourself now that the issue is up.

Reading Tim McGrath's personal attack (on my name, for Pete's sake!) is an example of something a poet or a critic should never do. Mr. McGrath has latched on to my name as something that irritates him a great deal, and in the process has ignored your work and mine. Why does Mr. McGrath dislike me personally? Could it be that this is payback? (Or else: What's "pseudonymously guarded" about it? What's "narcissist" about it? I will, however, accept that being a Roman Catholic name it is somewhat "tragi-comic.")

Mr. McGrath's tone -- glib, cynical, condescending, and uninformed and lacking of the requisite vocabulary to comprehend let alone explicate or set a value upon "the postmodern" -- is indicative not only of Web Del Sol but of the "unlettered lad" generally. I do not know why Web del Sol has adopted this attack mentality toward anything to do with "the postmodern," but for sure it is the creativity of resentment.


And here, in situ, is the offending "asseveration":



















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ELECTION EVE 2004

I go out hungry.
Vestiges of ancient meat hang in the branches,
swing from the flag poles, pour like
rain out of windows in rooms
where murder is born. The men there,
a squat, tailored homunculus
surrounded by chanting politicians,
feed on the navels of outland children
forced to machines in Shanghai and Jakarta.
They grow terrible amusements of
death mask zealots that lock me in at the trough.
I go out hungry and mean for the
world's lean spoils and eat till my tongue corrodes.
This is my birthright.
These are my reptile eyes.



Poem by Jake Berry 11.1.04

























“But you ought to know that What is Grand is necessarily obscure to Weak men. That which can be made Explicit to the Idiot is not worth my care.”

--William Blake (from a letter to Dr. Trusler, a clergyman for whom he had made a drawing, 8/23/1799).

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Edward Gorey’s covers for The Adventures of the Black Girl in her Search for God by George Bernard Shaw and Noble Essences by Osbert Sitwell.

Companionables.

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What's Jukka up to at nonlinear poetry?

I've been following the discourse that has sprung up around Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's recent work at his NONLINEAR POETRY blog and I'm inspired to chime in with my own interpretation.

Bill Allegrezza, at p-ramblings, remarks that "they complicate reading patterns in a way that two dimensional writing does not. As a reader I am left wondering where to enter into the text, if there is a consistent text, and if the text is primarily aesthetic or communicative." Jean Vengua, at okir, remarks about "graphic surface (color, shape) and structure. Some partial sense of meaning comes through in the existence of words or word-fragments." And Mark Young, at pelican dreaming, seeing a turn from the poetic to the painterly, remarks, "Now I feel we do not enter the poems but step back from them the way we do with paintings so that we can see them entire. Certainly the words are there, fragmented, hinting, eroded. It is as if we have passed beyond the ocular microscope & are now dealing with electron microscopy that is showing us that what we thought were empty spaces between words and letters have a depth & a topography of their own. The entrance way is way back, in the verbal poems that still are there behind. We've entered a Mandelbrot world of fractals where the poems enter us rather than us entering the poems."

I like the reference to Benoit Mandelbrot, and to fractals (I think there is much in the Mandelbrot set, and in fractal geometry, and in a close study of reiteration, to interest, and perhaps to inspire, all creative poets). And the question of the primacy of the "aesthetic" or the "communicative," which I am here wont to interpret as "the showing" or "the telling." Of course both are "aesthetic," and both are "communicative," but there are distinctions, such as to matters of technique and of genre, and most importantly perhaps, in what sense "communicative," by what means and to what end. And then there is that "sense of meaning," which "comes through in the existence of words or word-fragments." I interpret this as though to say, we sense that "meaning" is present, that "meaning" in some form or other is to be perceived, to be comprehended, but as to what exactly is meant or proposed, how exactly to satisfy our interest, here we are given to pause.

What strikes me most about these comments, is that they all seem to allude to what Mr. Young points out as the "painterly" turn in Mr. Kervinen's work. "Painterly," "aesthetic" and "graphic surface" all seem to refer to something being "shown," to something we do not exactly "read" so much as "see" or "pore over," as we would when faced with a painting, or with a work of concrete art. Inasmuch as these works attract us and hold us in suspension, that in and of itself is enough to recommend them (even to the casual blog surfer).

What if what we were seeing were only details (cropped portions, each) of a greater whole? What if that greater whole were, say, a mural? The mural is a wall-size painting, we need step back to see it entire. I agree with Mr. Young that we must, in a sense, "step back" to see these works entire. And I agree with Mr. Young's reference to the Mandelbrot set, as here, too, we see a whole represented in a part, an instance of the macro in the micro. . . .

I think there is a relation between these works and Nico Vassilakis' STAMPOLOGUE and John Byrum's "placeholders." I think this relation is as much to do with technique as with genre, although as regards technique the relation may not be obvious. I want to leave aside the question of technique with regard to craft and focus instead on genre.

When Jean Vengua remarks that "some partial sense of meaning comes through in the existence of words or word-fragments," (granting that existence) I think she is speaking of the intimation of meaning only. That is to say, this is not "meaning" as that which is intermediate, as signification is the bond that holds between a signifier and a signified. This meaning, this potential meaning, is prior, it is anterior. It is not actual meaning, but meaning in posse (that is, in possibility, or, rather, in process).

Mr. Kervinen's works "speak" to us in terms of grammata, and not in terms of pragmata, and then only in terms of a grammata that is in abstractus--drawn away, if you will, from any thing, from any pragmata. And thus these words and word-fragments do not signify, but come to symbolize.

What we see, what we construe to be words and word-fragments--hinted at, yes, but not, I think, eroded (it is rather as though we're given to witness them in phases, in appearances of intellection, in phases of mentation!)--are not words and word-fragments as such, but the anterior, pre-articulate phase of expression--this is the sememe phase (and is as such prior to the morpheme and phoneme phases).

I see this work as a type of concrete poetry, and a specialized type at that. I call this "eidetic poetry." And what's more, I see this as a special type, a specialized type of "eidetic poetry." I call it the "eidograph"--because it presents us with a picture, or, more precisely, an aperçu, of language-in-eidos, language in ideal form. This is the atomic language of Wittgenstein's logical space. As I see it, Mr. Kervinen is giving us to see (via aperçus) language as a postulated transcendent totality of system. This is language in ideal form, language in conceptus, language in situ, the world in logical space. The eidograph is an aperçu, if you will, at once an insight into and a summary, a brief digest of, language-in-eidos. These works are eidographs. They are eidographic.

How Mr. Kervinen goes about creating these aperçus, these eidographs, is topic for another discussion. Suffice it to say here that he is in complete control of his craft. It would be delusive to introduce the idea of chance or the element of randomness into this investigation, that is unless one understands that even here Mr. Kervinen works with strict deliberation.

Jukka-Pekka Kervinen is a true artist, immune to the fetish of celebrity. I've been on his trail for a year now (he introduced me to stochastics) and it inspires me that he is my contemporary. These recent works of his, at NONLINEAR POETRY, are most deserving of deep consideration.