The White Album: A Tale of Two Editions

Yesterday, the second edition of The White Album was released by Eratio Editions. I thought it would be reasonable to post here links to both editions, the Eratio and the Ungovernable Press (2009), so here they are: the au courant and the nine years ago. The discrepancies between the two editions are major, and you can see for yourself who in poetry might prefer which edition to the other, and why.

King of Prussia: Lunar, Loopy

My new page in Otoliths 50 allowed me to discuss the Philly suburb King of Prussia, and its fantastic architecture. King of Prussia (Upper Merion) is as fascinating to me now as it was twenty years ago, if not more so, because the sense of transcendentalism/ethereal levitation in-built to it ages well, has not diminished for me over time, so that being in or seeing King of Prussia is always a treat. Conshohocken (Plymouth-Whitemarsh) architecture tends to be stately rather than lunar or loopy, and the dichotomous tension between the two styles/modes of presentation make for two physiological reactions which complement each other in intriguing ways. I may eventually have something to say about lonesome, windswept Bridgeport at some point too.  

"Squawk, Squawk, Squawk..."

If Mata Hari were about to file her report, she'd be happy to note that the fourWtwenty-eight print anthology, which was released from Charles Sturt University in Australia in December 2017, and features a fragment used in Something Solid, is now available online in pdf form.

Uranus into Taurus, and Apps

The Sun just entered Taurus; more importantly, as a long-term influence, Uranus enters Taurus shortly as well. In the interest of Taurus-level gravitas, another solid auditory Apps experience.

Posit Sounds...

For those who want to hear how Posit sounds. 

April 17, 1998

April 17, 1998, twenty years ago today, was a day like any other in State College, Pennsylvania. I was living in a bedsit flat in North Halls; and about to move into a sublet on South Atherton Street. Yet, it turned out to be a memorable day for me, as it was the day I wrote the first, almost-instantly complete draft of the poem Clean, which appeared in Philly print journal Siren's Silence (as is here shown) later that year. It signaled a leap forward for me and my writing, which culminated in the composition of Mortuary Puppies later that year, which was staged in State College in February '99 by the Outlaws.

On the Fritz in 1613

Another venue for 1613, inviting us to yoke things together by force.

Eden, Milton

It's too bad I never wrote a sonnet sequence in the manner of Trish (about Mary H) for Jen. If I did so, it would have to be about two innocent kids wandering into a sort of Eden, or an Edenic context, and then getting booted out. Eden and plebeian human reality are a macabre juxtaposition. What's in Equations and The Symbolist Book (Answered Prayers), and in the new sonnets (Something Solid), will have to suffice. If I was ever in a place to do a riff on Paradise Lost, it may now be much too late for goodbyes. Maybe.

The Symbolist Book

The book I wrote in State College in the 90s (Answered Prayers and Willard Preachers) manifests the blatant influence of the French Symbolist poets, principally Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud. When I wrote the book ('95-'98), I wasn't necessarily ready for Keats, Wordsworth, and Milton yet. The acid-headed, hallucinatory antics of the Symbolists, however, were germane to me then very much. It helped that 90s State College was an acid-headed (or shroom-headed) kind of place, and the general ambiance was a phantasmagoric one.

Trish: A Romance

Here's a piece which needs some action. And some already consummated action.

Making a Racket, Not a Racket: The Emendation Game

Because Chimes has already been released in several different print editions, what edition number this is is confusing, but this is the first emended edition. Now we have all ducks in an emended row towards solidity, Chimes-wise.

From Otoliths 47, print edition, p. 76

Overt Dialectics, or "O.D."

By making a dialectical structure overt (thesis-antithesis-synthesis) in the new edition of Equations, I wanted to make certain that nobody who reads the book misses what the intellectual backbone of the thing is. This time, for those of you who know the book's history, I won't be forced to "get down on my knees and Begnal"; nobody can accuse me of rambling in a desultory fashion. So there, Pittsburgh...

The Byron Book

I'm now in the habit of calling Opera Bufa "the Byron book." The Byronic levels built into Opera Bufa as a text are there: playfulness, whimsy, raciness, spiky humor, satire, an emphasis on a light (sometimes deceptively light) approach to textuality; and the weird sense of tumult around some of the (scandalous!) circumstances the book has generated is Byronic, too. I'm ready to flee to Italy, or Chicago...