Got back yesterday from three days in Oklahoma. I was invited to give a reading at Tulsa University by David Goldstein, who like me began this year as an assistant professor teaching both Renaissance lit and creative writing. Also like me, he did his grad work at Stanford, where we first met, though only briefly and seldom.

Anyway, he assigned my Deer Head Nation to his poetry students as the last text of the semester, and in addition to the formal reading, I sat in on their last session, answering questions and talking about my procedure. I also sat in on his Renaissance course, in which they were discussing Paradise Regained; I was blown away that not only had his students clearly read the text, but they were actually engaged with it. Or at least they were engaged enough to talk in interesting and perceptive ways about how unengaging it was.

I think this may be the first time in my life I’ve ever come in contact with conservative college students, or at least more than one at a time. Apparently, quite a few of them there are dyed pretty red, though of course there are progressives as well. One of David’s poetry students–and not even one of the particularly right-wing ones, I don’t think–admitted that several of them had been taken aback by some of the poems in DHN, in light of my name. There was a feeling, he said in as many words, that someone with an Arabic name criticizing America (if "criticizing" is the right word for what happens in DHN) was just a little too much for them to take. When they learned that I wasn’t a Muslim, and didn’t even speak Arabic, they seemed relieved. So I tried to talk about that, and about how it might have been different if I had been Muslim.

The reading itself went fairly well–about twenty people showed up. Earlier that day, I gave a short interview for the local NPR station, but I’m not sure it inspired anyone who was listening to come. Those who did come didn’t laugh much, which worried me at first, but they asked good questions afterward.

All in all, it was a very nice visit, especially as David and his colleagues were great company. One of them, Grant Jenkins, just got finished teaching an African-American lit course with authors like Nate Mackey, Erica Hunt, Will Alexander, et al., so clearly there is some interesting stuff going on in their program.

The one drag was that I was suffering during the entire trip from what is now going on a five-week case of bronchitis. In fact, David had to drive me to a Tulsa urgent care center, where I got fixed up with antibiotics and decongestants. He also fixed me tea, and took me on the last day to have lunch at the White Water Fish Market, where we had what he considered to be the best gumbo he’d ever had (and in addition to being a teacher and poet, he’s a renowned gourmet who’s published in many major food magazines). I was barely able to taste anything, but this gumbo got through even my impaired senses. And that evening, equally fine barbecue at Oklahoma Style BBQ. HOT hot links. I want more.

Here is what we have been working on and what is to come: Language poetry has been our main focus for the past several weeks and we will continue to work. Explore its possibilities. Language poetry is being explored and we are looking at the many techniques.

Language poetry has succeeded in showing us how impossible of a mission it is. Language poetry, for example, being sensuous and metaphoric, is connected with the age of heroism. It might be.

Language poetry will be studied closely. Language poetry should not be set aside when considering Language poetry. I want to examine. Language poetry will be used to provide examples of the need to widen the sense. Language poetry will be the focus of our written language for third quarter. Students will be exposed to 23 different types of poetry and will be composing. Language poetry will be considered, along with some of the great figures.

Language poetry can be defined as the work of an associated network of writers who share in the main. Language poetry can be by making it easier for a wider readership to "enter here, to sit."

Language poetry can be seen as a way of converting the world to human categories. Language poetry can consequently be called another kind of theology (altera quae quondam Theologia fuit). Language poetry can operate a change of level or plane. Unamuno wrote: "thought feels, feeling thinks." Language poetry has the ability to delight the ear and the power to stir our emotions. Language poetry can be beautiful. Of course, there are those for whom flowery language blooms not.

Language poetry can only, and only undertakes to, "liberate" what is already there. Language poetry has succeeded as enactment and is not reducible to formal representation. Language poetry needs no justification, it isn’t an argument that can be refuted. Language poetry cannot be dictated. It evolves on its own. Lastly, there is only one Shayar.

Language poetry would have to grapple with the classic avant-garde dilemma. Language poetry doesn’t contain a single poem appropriate for the predicament of telling someone you love. Far from being cosmetic language, it is intestinal.

Throughout the seventies Language poetry would interest me. Language poetry would require a book, wouldn’t it? Or several volumes, at the least. Language poetry would not have entered literary history.

Language poetry has been the poetics of negation. Those who have given up. Language poetry would feature the importance of negation (my second premise). From negation, critique.

Language poetry would be the most useful, since the meter is always lost in translation. Good choices. Language poetry gives an example of language that is difficult to translate. Fairy tales, myths. Language poetry always seems to be written in an alien language.

Language poetry has come into its own. Peter Gizzi and Elizabeth Willis, for example, studied.

Language poetry is this kind of poetry but the term "Language poetry" has been too abused for use here.

Language poetry has been a guerrilla poetry, persecuted by the establishment but running freely. Language poetry has been important in shaking things up and moving the scene along, whatever.

Language poetry can be got with a reading of, say, two or three of the major books. Language poetry to me is just unendurably boring. But I talk to some of these people who write it. Language poetry would make it much easier to ignore them as marginal.

Language poetry has 165 footnotes not 150,000. 165 were enough. You demean the profession.

Language poetry was always a rather disconnected, aesthetic affair. Language poetry was as much of a movement as we had that point? in American poetry at least? Language poetry was still a very marginal movement, but the CIA was in this.

Language poetry is seen as political act in the deepest sense. This poetry is accessible to an American audience. Language poetry is a particularly American phenomenon that borrows from European traditions and theories. Language poetry is an American phenomenon, not an Australian one.

Language poetry has been taking place in Italy over the last few decades. Throughout Italy. Language poetry can be found deeper into France with Magma, born in the early 70′s, recently. Language poetry remains, as it has been throughout the ages, a major part of Irish culture.

Language poetry is by no means a toy in the hands of foreign rulers. Language poetry is more visual in Chinese and Japanese than it is oral. Language poetry is available in English, for example, but it doesn’t have the same value.

Language poetry is tae hae its first owersettin intae Chinese. Language poetry is uniquely accessible to the speakers of that language. Language poetry may be closer to emotions and subjectivity; prose is closer to facts. Language poetry does not present a same interest than prose. Chinese language works in prose.

Language poetry is also better than prose at shaping small subjects to create intimate feeling. Language poetry is much more philosophically-based, and I think my poems are still strongly rooted.

Language poetry has, for the most part, given up on fullness of representation. Language poetry has shifted the interest away from the person. But it’s how you do it. Language poetry has no physical presence. Yet who in this world has not seen it? We have.

Language poetry is what survives translation, not what’s lost in it. Language poetry has lost to the poetry of ethnic identity. Language poetry came from our original ingestion of fermented beverages.

Language poetry makes room for its reader. As Perelman notes here, "Language writing is best."

Language poetry makes sense to me because it highlights the crucial significance of problems. Language poetry does this, of course. Language poetry does, despite Michael Palmer’s claim not to be a Language poet.

Language poetry can aid in the development of children’s language. If we adults model enjoyment. Language poetry makes you a better writer by realizing how difficult poetry can be and how much. Language poetry makes an unveiled challenge to logic-driven composition, muscling in on us with the coherence. Language poetry makes things more transparent and clearer and teaches us to respect–understand–this is serious stuff, language.

Language poetry is also provided. Language poetry is also included. According to Dr Puru Sharma, it is difficult to write poems.

Language poetry needs Shockwave plugin and RealAudio player.

Language poetry is about memory and shared experiences. Language poetry is a technology for memory and speed. Language poetry is the cutting edge of a sphere. Language poetry is here, alive and blooming, but with a pop-culture injection of speed. Language poetry is in its heyday. The galvanizing force has been the regularly scheduled poetry.

Language poetry has become more and more popular and I cannot begin to describe it. Language poetry is the essence and the power of language. I think all of us are poets. Language poetry is the best I’ve found anywhere on the web. Know it, use it, love it.

Language poetry presents a channel from which we can tune out the external world. Language poetry has infested and drugged the minds of young post-Language poets and turned them, oddly, into the scalpels. Language poetry has been institutionalized. Whether he likes it or not, Steve has played a part.

Language poetry is really thinking about a lot of the poetry that one has probably read.

Language poetry is a performance art form involving signing rhythm and movement. Language poetry is about moving an audience with sound and image. Language poetry is the painting of the blind, while painting is the poetry of the deaf. Second, song lyrics are poetry stolen back from the dull.

Language poetry is special language. Language poetry is a very high form of linguistic intelligence. Language poetry is considered centripetal because the author tries to infuse every word.

Language poetry is a type of speech. Language poetry is a message. A language of the old and the young. The language of the weak and the strong. The language of patriots.

Language poetry is subtly being replaced by the emotional difficulties of the ambiguous and confrontational. Language poetry is an art, and it is common for artists to disagree.

Language poetry is a particularly regular and effective tool for learning. Topics are rich. Language poetry is one way in which our pupils see words coming to life.

Language poetry is quoted from other sources, the Writer gives new contexts to material. Language poetry is not as explicitly multi-authored as web networks are, the expressive power of multiple context remains one of its main concerns.

Language poetry is not just a catch phrase to describe the words used in making poems. Language poetry is more like a group.

Language poetry is understood to be an art of imitation: imitation with new inflections. Language poetry is correlative to no object, including its own notion.

Language poetry is not the entire solution to keeping the nation’s language clear and honest. Language poetry is a term I prefer not to use. Language poetry is not "literature" and is not worth wasting parchment and ink on. Language poetry is odious, is hurtful; it hijacks the word language, which belongs to all. Language poetry is misleading. Language poetry is a self-defeating fiction.

Language poetry is autobiographical at its fundament, even if an attempt to purge self.

Language poetry is waka.

Language poetry is a transcendence of logical confinement. A wonderful wine poured into a bottle. Language poetry is at once deep and humorous–deeply, often darkly, humorous.

Language poetry is not for everyone. They place Language poetry as a gender and class.

Language poetry is here understood as simply one of the functions that can be. Language poetry is not a secondary phenomenon: it has a special relation to being and truth.

Language poetry is release (Gelassenheit).

Language poetry is good for you–a bit like eating healthy food. Language poetry is a puppet show, where riders of skyrockets and divers of sea fathoms. Language poetry is flowing. A philosopher is talking to you and yet you just can not. Language poetry is lost, but meaning may become more accessible. Her luminous watercolors, as ever. Language poetry is filled with this type language, but so is regular language. The dog loved.

Language poetry is above all a concentration of the power of language. Language poetry is the only poetry that is language, but the term has long been used.

Language poetry is normally recited. Language poetry should be read aloud! Language poetry is often intended to be read on the page, but there are many poems. Language poetry should be written in spoken language that contemporary intellectuals might use.

Language poetry requires skill in many things such as symbolism, allegory, verse, meter. Language poetry has no meter, but then you might want to argue that that is not true. Language poetry, then, is an art form of this possibility, registered in the sense of verse. Language poetry, for example, is language with rhythm (and sometimes rhyme). Language poetry, for example, is just language with rhythm (and sometimes rhyme, etc.). Language poetry is written in verse; that is, the lamguage which makes up the poem. Language poetry is an art form that places a very high value on rhythm, rhyme, alliteration.

Language poetry is language. A sharp distinction in theory between rhyme and meter. Language poetry is usually presented in lines. Often poets express a great deal. Language poetry is structured in short lines and verses. Most appealing types of poetry are. Language poetry is essentially rhythmic and usually metrical, and it is frequently structured in stanzas. Language poetry is written mostly in iambic meters.

Language poetry is written in iambic pentameters. Language poetry is iambic pentameter, in which unaccented and accented syllables alternate in lines. Language poetry is the syllable. Most poetry in the English language is based on accentual-syllabic meter. Language poetry has its own preferred diction and word order is a servant to meter. Language poetry has to have its rhythms and its lyricism built in. You don’t.

Language poetry should be–at one level at least–immediately accessible to everyone. Language poetry should be non-obscure. Up to 3 shorts, 6 poems. Multiple subs (up to 3). Language poetry should be free of social vanity; no cliches. Why write poetry at all?

Language poetry had to do with the status of the "I." Language poetry may relocate it to the peripheral, imagined insurrectionist consequences. Technology may grind the beef.

Language poetry was our proximate example. Warring camps and battle lines drawn. Language poetry was fighting against, namely, the ugly hegemony of the author-hero.

Language poetry was, in fact, also a cut-rate tourist destination.

Language poetry may seem incongruous. Nevertheless, this difficulty dissolves. Language poetry will be judged anonymously.

Language poetry will remain the people’s means of expression. Language poetry was for me the language of the "buried life"–and so it remains.

Language poetry is held out to be one of the poetic modes of the present moment. Language poetry is a movement of convincing authority in contemporary poetics. Language poetry is the biggest trend I see, experimental writing.

Language poetry was developed. In 1978 Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews began publication. Language poetry was now "readable."

Language poetry was added later to clarify the range of poets and poetic modes. Language poetry was much looser and freer. I felt I had much more freedom in English.

Language poetry was not defined by one man. It just happened. The origins can be traced back.

Language poetry is one of the most ancient and widespread of the arts. Language poetry is older than prose, and abstract speech more difficult. Language poetry was written in back in the middle ages for all of Europe. The most prominent city. Language poetry made its gradual entrance into poetic tradition in the 14th century. Language poetry may include "Battle of Maldon," "Dream of the Rood," "Wanderer," "Seafarer." Language poetry (not Latin church poetry) was pretty sketchy in the 12th century. What exists.

Language poetry was this small cadre of Romany activists doing a bit more. Language poetry was variously marked by a range of other linguistic inheritances (e.g., Irish). Language poetry was still written by and for court audiences. Language poetry was composed in an oral-formulaic style and recited aloud, from memory.

Language poetry was set to music to celebrate the 54th anniversary of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Language poetry was democratic; anyone who "believed" in the aims of Language poetry was also. Language poetry was very much integrated into their life style.

Language poetry was largely devoted to the movement’s politics, drawing heavily on Ron Silliman. Language poetry may seem too removed from denotative sense to be read as making a political statement.

"Language poetry" was originally a term used by those who did not write it, just as "politically correct" is a term reserved for those. Language poetry was the last credible avant-garde in the US to be critically assimilated. Language poetry was not allowed. Language poetry was blamed on tainted baby formula.

Language poetry is twenty years old. Language poetry has been around for twenty years, we can see that. Language poetry "has been repeatedly and favorably singled out in prestigious scholarly journals" and "routinely discussed." Language poetry has been unable to move beyond T.S. Eliot. The call for the description: an essay by Marjorie Perloff. Language poetry would be just as outstanding, and it is nowhere nearly so.

Language poetry is neither genre nor movement. Language poetry is there as a backdrop.

Language poetry is about going beyond the boundaries of traditional/conventional language usage. Language poetry is the refusal to take for granted the tyranny of meaning. Language poetry is not designed basically to communicate information. Language poetry is artistic noise: it resists the dreams of pure communication. Language poetry has moved off into the realm of broken syntax, shards of sentences. Language poetry is the highest form of language.

Language poetry would be tremendously difficult. Language poetry can be quite complex in its simplicity. Think about it literally as well. Language poetry, as you probably know, is.

Language poetry may have been in its classic period for a long time. Language poetry had its ascendancy and is now in decline. Language poetry had come to a dead end for a very simple reason. Language poetry is poetry. Actually, poets can’t do it, either. Unless you believe Language poetry is poetry.

Language poetry is constructed as a niche market. Language poetry is academy-ready.

Language poetry is influenced by theory. Language poetry is also often seen as elitist because it never dealt adequately with issues. The founders of the Language movement were interested in ideas. Language poetry is concerned, then, with what it is to be radical in theory.

Language poetry is a way to make sense of the world. I never really know what I think.

Language poetry is first of all speaking with listening? a peculiar state that is somehow self. Language poetry is more than this. Language poetry also takes the form of statement and declaration. Language poetry is no harder to "get" than Cubism.

Language poetry is one in which there is a number of established poets operating in diverse ways. Language poetry is diverse, including a selection of poems by women. Language poetry is blessed by Rosmarie Waldrop.

Language poetry is a way of expression open to anyone who chooses to use it. Language poetry is central to existence, to the real lives of real people. Language poetry is the passion of language and children enjoy that as well. Language poetry is the language for expressing emotions, as we know. Language poetry is about making language happen. Language poetry is redemptive.

Language poetry is what gets lost in translation. Language poetry is not an attempt to obscure meaning through ambiguity. Language poetry is, as Stevens put it, the difference between the and an.

Language poetry has its own way of saying things, often with figures of speech that operate at both the symbolic and rhetorical level. Language poetry is a special type of language that attempts to express the inexpressible. It is not the pragmatic. Language poetry is highly personal, intellectual and stylistically radical.

Language poetry is impressive. Language poetry is vibrant. Language poetry is Jacob’s ladder for me: a place where earth and spirit connect. Language poetry is our basic connection between our sense of self and the cosmos. Language poetry is a form of expression that allows our deepest soul to be portrayed to others. Language poetry is a way to say something in a way that shows love and elevates that. Language poetry is always the one you can feel more intensively.

Language poetry is in for one helluva ride, I would think!

Language poetry is undoubtedly the most self-critical–in the sense of self promotion. Language poetry is both concise and precise, two of the most important elements.

Language poetry is best served when it attacks not language itself (give me a good clause). Language poetry is shit or that it is the shit–and no doubt that will be educational.

Language poetry is wordplay, without the play. Language poetry is built of nothing but words, and must use what it finds to hand.

Language poetry is a perfect way to describe the blurred understanding of dreams. Language poetry is how we word ourselves across rivers we never crossed before. Language poetry is an echo asking a shadow dancer to be a partner.

Language poetry is in 839.8137 and a Norwegian-language novel is in 839.82.

Language poetry is especially powerful. I think the best way to understand Language poetry is to meet some actual examples of it. Language poetry is, what would you say? W: I don’t think I would be able to explain it.

Language poetry is also fundamental because it speaks to the right content through language. What.

Language poetry is a certain kind or quality of intellectuality, or seeming intellectuality. Language poetry is an experience of referral in the place of transparent signification. Language poetry is a recuperation by "literature" of something that was questioning the poetic. Language poetry is ordered by production rather than reproduction. The reader no longer reflects.

"Language poets" have established themselves as the most rigorous and the most radically experimental avant-garde on the current literary scene.

Language poets have often reminded us, the question of LANGUAGE stands at the center. Language poets are interested in exploring experience through the written word. That includes any. Language poets have continued that exploration for the last three decades.

Language poets were so sociologically savvy; they knew better than anyone. Language poets had two provocative insights, which they pushed. Language poets are so significant, that the crux of the matter is a political one.

Language poets have questioned notions of expressive voice and stable identity.

Language poets had lost the instinct for nature and were unwilling to acquire it through discipline. Language poets had to destroy it.

Language poets have noted the way in which grammar structures tend to support the power structures of western societies. Language poets were a long way away from the lyrical likes of "The Lake Isle of Innisfree."

Language poets were in a bitter struggle over questions of poetic inheritance. I am sure you are.

Language poets were "taking over." Books and magazines were being published by writers. Language poets had begun writing sequences, some of which were already being published in Lynx.

Language poets are chosen for this study from the multitude of similarly oriented. Language poets are also included, as well as some poetry in translation. The poems take.

Language poets were the best masters of discovering and using metaphor. Language poets love metaphors, another case of "language charged with meaning."

Language poets have claimed in the past to be politically and artistically progressive, neither. Language poets are amazingly conservative in the cosmetic "look and feel" of the poem. The difficulty.

Language poets had, at least at an earlier point, a real agenda. They were able to critique. Language poets were attacking an Establishment, but it’s hardly the case that today.

Language poets have joined the academy. Has the latest avant-garde expired? Language poets are for the most part intensely interested in literary theory, and thus see. Language poets are often criticized for being over-analytical; Palmer’s work can be both. Language poets are sometimes addressed in English 210, 284, 285, 265, 261, and 288; and theories of.

Language poets are an extremely diverse though networked group of practitioners. Language poets have always practiced. The only American formalists of the century may well turn. Language poets have left the area, and young writers tend to have conflicting opinions.

Language poets have left open as much as possible their movement through time (things they write).

Language poets have struck ore in their discovery of untapped creative depths. Language poets have refreshed the scene wonderfully, though I sympathies with those who find some.

Language poets use mnemonics to help you memorize words in the language. Language poets have been constructing caves, rooms, hermits’ cabins, abandoned houses, temples, the nine rings of hell. Language poets have attempted to create false power structures or social functions much?

Language poets are good–and McHugh is an extraordinary one. They shuffle language. Language poets do this by upsetting the conventions of poetry through oftentimes. Language poets do make crazy spew the way it comes out pouring, naturally or semi-naturally.

Language poets are out to debunk. The issue is not then, reference per se. Language poets are just as capable of writing drab prose as anyone else.

Language poets have the aesthetic clothes to wear for perhaps a good one-third or more.

Language poets have been not only greatly influenced by haiku, but also often publish haiku. Language poets write "renku" or linked verse in patterns.

Language poets do recognize the fact that it is nearly impossible to dismiss all reference. Language poets are primary toward whatever meaning a reader is lucky enough to cull. Language poets like myself do not necessarily want to make sense but to make what? Startling.

Language poets don’t fit so easily into a fixed mold. My aporia. If poetry is a kind of talk.

Language poets like Bernstein are positing what we might call the absence of the pronoun. Language poets are not William Logan’s cup of tea.

Language poets are concerned with the underlying political ramifications of the American workshop poem. Language poets have all taken a journey past the restrictions of Imagism and classical Chinese poetry. Language poets wish a plague on both houses for their presumed shared sense of self.

Language poets go on vacation, they leave Stein and Wittgenstein at home and take Sappho.

Language poets want to be rhetorical, but subtly, denying the subjectivity of art. Language poets go on and on about this.

Language poets do not intend to shape "limits" with their poetry but set in motion "conversations." Language poets do that, and poetry of that sort is usually equally obfuscatory and difficult.

Language poets appear more ubiquitous, and more authoritative and powerful, than they actually are. Language poets are just a few examples of the production of our postmodern world.

Language poets do a lot of work that most of the time doesn’t interest me. Language poets do not appear, as yet, to write good poems. Language poets are totally trivial and boring, so I won’t pursue that one. Language poets have inflated egos and love the sound of their own voice, e.g. Victor Hugo. I certainly think.

Language poets have been accused of generating a private discourse, one which their critics suggest. Language poets have taken, it does seem to me, a little burst of anti-intellectualism floating about.

Language poets have encouraged a greater awareness within the field of poetry. Language poets are usefully exploring a frontier and may be making us more conscious of language. Language poets try to give the most exact details possible. Then their readers can imagine.

Language poets use the Poetry: Reference Sources guide to check print sources. Language poets use the Index in Volume 8. Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism, Twentieth Century. Language poets are arranged by name or anonymous title.

Language poets use Art Deco ceramic capacitor, Smack for Blair at Birth of Euro, Lophophora seed. Language poets have traditionally used that plant to suggest the sadness of parting.

Language poets write about love, painters paint it, birds sing it, we all feel it. I have.

Language poets are not the gatekeepers of a citadel of higher consciousness.

Language poets are not so much the unacknowledged legislators as the foreshadowing legislators.

Language poets are people steeped in language. Language gives you the manner of the poem, as well. Language poets have completely subtracted a certain variable–"emotion"–from the poetic. Language poets are writing only about language itself. Language poets get closer to New Criticism as Silliman at one point ruefully admits.

Language poets are dealing with these old notions; there’s nothing new about them. You’re given that. Language poets have answered those questions.

Language poets like Ezra Pound (1885-1972) and T.S. Eliot (1888-1965). Language poets like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Language poets like Garcia Lorca, Jorge Luis Borges, and Miguel de Cervantes. Language poets like Geoffrey Hill, Henri Cole and Anne Carson. Language poets like Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Barrett Watten and Lyn Hejinian. Language poets like Leslie Scalapino, Clark Coolidge, Ron Padgett, and Ron Silliman. Language poets like Bernstein or Andrews. Language poets like Charles Bernstein or Lyn Hejinian or Bob Perelman.

Language poets do not exist as an anathema.

Language poets have been equally comfortable with our abstract-rooted vocabulary, or as skillful. Language poets write about immigration, racism, poverty, exploitation, etc. Rhythm, Content and Flavor.

Language poets try to get beyond poetry that is merely "about" a subject, Ms. Perloff said. Language poets are much more concerned with arranging images than with creating them. Language poets do not invent them out of thin air. To construct a new metrical system.

Language poets are fairly obsessed with technology. Barrett Watten has a poem.

Language poets are really writing.

Language poets do endure and we want them to thrive.

Post-language is some effect beyond experimental poetry. Post-language is nothing more than the sum of speech acts produced in the context of a specific speech community.

Post-language is a network. Post-language is network written by someone outside of our class? Post-language is the result of knowledge, so the question would be better asked whether universals are necessary at all. Post-language is non-proprietary and fully customizable by you, the customer. Post-language is clear to take care of your training needs. It isn’t so open to misinterpretation, esp. when post-language is a slippery subject. Post-language is the double edge sword in our church today. Post-language is very important to all human beings. But it is itself just spell properly. Post-language is fluid. Go with the flow, dude. Post-language is a barrier to justice for all.

Post-language is the #1 barrier. On an unrelated note post-language is viral. Post-language is addictive. Post-language is supposed to completely replace the second paragraph in section 9.1.3, the one that begins: If posting is permitted, the article must be. Certain valid responses are defined to be multi-line; for all others, the response is contained in a single line. Post-language is a "box of tools," an assortment of colors on an artist’s palette, a choice of weapons by which we both attack and defend ourself. "Official" post-language is English. Post-language is way too narrow–there are lots of good, even "experimental" modes of verse (tho that term has a scientism underlying it). And anyway, "post-language" is an interesting term in itself. Now just in your case, it seems that the distinction (in Bengali) between "post-modern" and "post-language" is used very differently than it seems to be used in America. Post-language is power. Grooovey! But with the market comes intrinsic unpredictable dynamics. Should Aeroclown be removed? Post-language is inappropriate for these.

Post-language is with very little smack (maybe good-natured ribbing) and we (the moderators and posters) expect people to know what type of post-language is appropriate for be sure. Are those my only choices? Be sure. And women be sure. Post-language is of course an element which can be considered as a fundamental one, although there can be exception. To realize it. I’m also not sure how you can now reduce language to materiality. Post-language is always formed matter, substance. Do you want the "F" word on TV? Gov says OK. Thanks. It’s extremely ah, how you say oh yes intriguing, thought provoking, and imaginative. Post-language is fascinating, as I’m sure you agree, and reading about language is just well meta-fascinating (reply to this). Post-language is one of the most fascinatine, mind-blowing aspects of human cognition, I think. The latest business-speak fguiers it out aynawy. Good morning all. I will not waste any more of your time.

David Larsen gave me a copy of "Signs, Omens, and Semiological Regimes in Early Islamic Texts," a completed chapter from his dissertation. Which is fascinating reading, and, may I mention, won the 2004 Abduljawad Prize for Best Paper on an Islamic Subject, sponsored by the Al-Falah Program of the University of California’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Sunday night, over to Alli Warren’s party for Jim Behrle, where the now-legendary trampoline antics transpired. By the time I got there, things were in full swing, but I was near-catatonic from exhaustion and general moving-related stress. So I’m afraid I may have appeared standoffish at times, which was not my intention.

I surrendered my plastic Voice Changer to Stephanie Young when I read at Kelly Holt’s earlier this month. Stephanie brought it to the party, and Jim was abusing it. No, I mean really abusing it. With his whole body. And it was complaining. Rumor has it that Jim may be considering a West Coast move: great news, if accurate! But everyone, please, hide your Beaver Mustard.

There was a little group reading by candle- and flashlight out by the trampoline, and when asked to participate, I became cranky and finally would do no more than open up a nearby anthology of Great English Poems and commit grave disservices upon Emerson, whose "Threnody" I began reading until it became clear to me that I had no feeling for it, and so switched over to Marvell’s "The Garden" and Drayton’s sonnet "How Many Paltry, Foolish, Painted Things." Why? No idea.

A few fleeting reflections:

James Meetze read again from his longish poem "Synthesizer," which I’ve come to think of as a reliable folk instrument he keeps strapped to his back, like a wandering minstrel. I’m not sure if he’s still revising it, but each time it sounds a little different, and its resonances define this passing summer for me in large part.

Stephanie read two pieces by Jennifer Knox, including the very funny "Chicken Bucket." She gave me a copy so I could report back to her on what connection, if any, Knox’s work has with Flarf. Thinking about it: Flarf isn’t really a style, maybe, but a position already enunciated and therefore already occupied, filled in, buried up. There is no Flarf, or if there is, it happened before any poems were actually written, as an occluded publicity stunt. Still, see the newest Village Voice for a nice article by Jordan Davis on same.

When Alli read, she read with a new lilt and swagger that startled me awake. Her work emerged sometime last year as near as I can tell in a state of nearly fully realized "maturity"–that is, the poems were instantly recognizable not as the precocious exercises of a bright student, but as the committed work of a serious artist. Now they’re even stronger, and I expect they will keep setting new standards for themselves for longer than anyone should bet on. She’s one of maybe ten or fewer Bay Area poets under 40 whose writing strikes me as marked with … I want to say permanence, but that sounds so T. S. Eliot-like. What the hell: permanence.

And sandwiched sneakily into the middle of Alli’s set, a poem written and recited by Carra! A wonderful poem in which

the dirt pile[s] up on the linoleum, this one giant night,
so that a level may be reached
from which our story can be taken
in a single frame and held up as
a convenient store for posterity.

What else? I finally picked up a copy of Lyn Hejinian’s The Fatalist, and it’s one of those books that makes my excitement at its contents compete with an impatience to set it down so I can tap the current of that excitement to write something myself.

The National Poetry Foundation Poetry of the 1940s Conference at the University of Maine in Orono ran from Wednesday to Sunday of last week. Some reconstructed memories of the whole big blur:

Wednesday afternoon I spent in my office frantically typing up [read: finally composing] my Marianne Moore presentation, with the goal of finishing before seven p.m. so I could attend the opening events of the conference. I succeeded, to my amazement.

The first attraction, after the welcome speech by Burt Hatlen, was a "reading" by Robert Creeley. "Reading" in quotes because it was mostly just a talking, albeit a very engaging one. He did read some poems by himself and others, including a wonderful recital of some lines by Hart Crane.

This was followed by a tribute to Louis Zukofsky, with contributions from Bob Perelman, Lyn Hejinian, Barrett Watten, Creeley, and Mark Scroggins.

Most of the rest of the first evening was mingling and drinking with Mike Magee, Lytle Shaw, Susan Schultz, Phil Metres, Andrew Epstein, Mairead Byrne, Louis Cabri, Kevin Killian, Aaron Kunin, and others.

Next day, up for a Zukofsky panel at eight a.m., with what seemed like an excellent paper by Louis Cabris on myth and the "inertial word." Unfortunately, Louis was last in the line-up, and didn’t have enough time left to get to the inertial word part.

Then a reading by Jackson Mac Low of his early poem "HUNGER STrikE whAt doeS lifemean," plus a few shorter pieces.

I missed Harvey Shapiro’s reading, but attended a one o’ clock Objectivists panel chaired by Lyn Hejinian, before the Marianne Moore panel in the same room at 2:45, where I delivered my paper. Kirby Olson and I both discussed her WWII poem "In Distrust of Merits," which also, it turned out, was the focus of Cristanne Miller’s plenary speech scheduled for Saturday, as she let us know during the Q&A session.

Sometime in the midst of all this, I had time to check out the book fair, where I picked up Lyn’s My Life in the Nineties and Ben Friedlander’s Simulcast: Four Experiments in Criticism.

That evening, J. Hillis Miller gave a talk on Williams and Stevens, about which frankly I can’t remember much except that it was about the figure of the "indigene" and that he spent much more time on Stevens (especially "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction, especially the last part about the soldier dying gladly with noble words etc.) than on Williams, but ended up pretty much saying that Williams was better. And, during the Q&A in dialogue with Bob Perelman, saying that as a prosodist Stevens was a "clod" in comparison with Williams. Unfair! Bob muttered dismissively in agreement, "yeah, iambic pentameter," which reduction I wanted sorely to complicate with some remarks of my own, but then time was up for questions.

This was followed directly by a lecture by Alan Trachtenberg on the forties as the "noir decade." Interesting, but somewhat broad, and the poetry he considered to be representative of the period was pretty dull.

Back to the cash bar for more late-night group and open readings. It’s too long ago now for me to remember all the highlights (and lowlights) of these wee-hour-happenings, but I have to mention Mairéad (rhymes with parade) Byrne. Have you ever heard her read? The woman is a fury! OMG, I am such a fan now. She traded me a copy of her book Nelson & the Huruburu Bird for Deer Head Nation, and I haven’t had a chance to sit down with it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

Also Thursday night, my old Stanford buddy Michael Golston showed up, about which I was greatly stoked. Mike and I shared an office in our postdoc year, and spent many an hour talking about Gertrude Stein, Robert Grenier, Clark Coolidge, Charles Bernstein, Harryette Mullen, et al., with the ultimate result that essentially I started pursuing poetry again after several years of doing nothing but studying Renaissance British lit. If it weren’t for him, you could say, I probably wouldn’t be blogging here on these matters today. (We had also been in Marjorie Perloff’s course on lyric together a couple years before, which was maybe the only other experience during my whole time at Stanford that kept my interest in contemporary poetry and poetics from going completely dormant.) Also arriving around that time (or maybe the night before, or after): Sean Killian, Doug Rothschild, Kelly Holt, Barbara Cole, Kim Bird.

Friday morning, a Stevens panel, and then, during the ten a.m. slot left open by Harryette Mullen’s cancellation, I read in a group reading with Bill Howe, Lytle Shaw, and Bob Perelman. Missed the Margaret Avison reading, which I later heard was excellent.

Long lunch with Mike Golston, Marjorie, Jonathan Ivry, Al & Barbara Gelpi, and a couple of other Stanford people.

At 2:45, a fine panel entitled "Beginning in the 1940s" with papers on Mac Low, Ashbery, James Laughlin, and the recently deceased Bern Porter (the last delivered by my student Arlo Quint, who was one of the last people to see Porter alive; he had visited him at his Maine rest home the day before he passed away, just two weeks earlier).

By dinnertime a bunch of us were going a little bonkers from being nowhere but on campus for so long, so we had a sizeable exodus into town for burgers and beers at the Bear Brew Pub. Mad dash back to the U for Marjorie’s lecture on Beckett and wartime "hiding." This was complemented by Joan Retallack’s talk on Stein and her dubious wartime "politics and poethics."

Back to the cash bar! It all blurs together now. Don’t ask me for details.

Saturday, an eight a.m. Williams panel with Lytle Shaw (on W. and Smithson), Mike Magee (on W., Kenneth Burke, and Ralph Ellison), and Carla Billiteri (on W.’s "aristocratic" "aural politics" in his critical writing). I may be biased, as these are all people I like immensely, but nevertheless, this was probably the most consistently smart and engaging panel I saw.

Plenary Speaker # 6 was Al Filreis, whose paper consisted largely of a recital of various 1940s anti-communist critics’ fascinatingly conflicted attacks on modernism. He was followed by Speaker # 7, Cristanne Miller, who spoke on Marianne Moore’s "In Distrust of Merits" and "The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing" (she read Moore’s work beautifully, and even sang a little bit).

After lunch, Lyn read some passages from My Life, followed by some news clippings she had dug up about California in the 40s, during the years of her girlhood covered by the sections of her book she had read. She also read excerpts from Oaxaca: A Short Russian Novel and a new work entitled Lola.

I tried to go to Mike Golston’s 2:45 paper on Williams, the "variable foot," and the bomb, but missed the first half. Then I had to leave halfway through Don Byrd’s paper–something about cybernetics–because I was seriously crashing.

Fortunately, I managed to get my second wind for the big lobster dinner. Before dinner, people gathered in the lobby of the banquet hall and we had a candlelight memorial for Carl Rakosi, who–it had been announced the day before–had passed away in San Francisco at the age of 100. Robert Creeley, Lyn Hejinian, Burt Hatlen, and a couple other people read from his poetry.

Mmm, lobster. Sat with Mike Magee, Andrew Levine, Creeley, Mairéad Byrne, Clive Bush, and Robin Brox (another of my Orono students, and previously of Creeley’s at Buffalo). Creeley regaled us with rousing old poet stories. Midway through dinner, Burt Hatlen had Creeley, Marjorie P., Bob Perelman, and Laura Cowan come to the microphone and give tributes to Hugh Kenner and Carroll Terrell, gone this past year.

Once more unto the cash bar, dear friends! At this point all coherence was gone. The one thing I can remember (shudder) is Doug Rothschild taking off assorted articles of clothing for rhetorical effect. I stayed up till 4:45 to catch a shuttle to the airport, and thus was off homeward. So I can’t tell you what happened on Sunday, the last day of the conference.

Others with whom it was very good to visit: Michael Scharf, Annie Finch, Matt Cooperman, Greg Biglieri, Jonathan Skinner, Michael Basinski, Susan Gilmore, Aldon Nielson, Brian Carpenter, Heather Webb, Deborah Levine, Michael King, David Adams, John Beer. All in all, quite a fine time, despite disappointing cancellations by Harryette Mullen, Lorenzo Thomas, Peter Gizzi, Liz Willis, and Eleni Sikelianos.

I would be remiss if I did not make special mention of the great kindness and excellent company provided by Ben Friedlander, Carla Billiterri, Steve Evans, and Jennifer Moxley. They made my entire stay in Maine exceedingly pleasant. They fed me delicious meals, drove me to interesting places, accommodated my dirty laundry, helped me prepare my talk, gave me books, and most gratifying of all, engaged me in interesting conversation. I salute them!

What else? My new book is out! More on this soon.

This morning, went on a beautiful country drive with Ben and Carla to the nearby town of Unity to visit their U of Maine colleague, poet David Adams, who lives there in a small wooden house by the lake with his Siberian husky Kiska.

David showed us materials from a project he’s been working on, which will supply material for his presentation at the NPF conference: old copies of Chronos The Golden Goose, and other publications edited by Frederick Eckman in the 1940′s. The Golden Goose in particular was one of the most important small magazines of midcentury, published out of Ohio State and featuring work by William Carlos Williams, Louis Zukofsky, Robert Creeley, Norman MacLeod, and many other writers loosely identifiable as situated somewhere in the Objectivists/Black Mountain nexus. Another treasure: his copy of Jargon 45 (1964), an incredibly lovely chapbook of six excerpts from Sherwood Anderson’s poem sequence Mid-American Chants, illustrated by haunting black-and-white photographs of midwest farmscapes by Art Sinsabaugh, with an introduction by Jonathon Williams and an afterword by Eckman. Its horizontal format (about a yard in width) is striking: wider in its proportions than even Cinemascope, so the photographs really capture the expanse of their subject.

This New England literary heritage thing is getting under my skin. I can see why American poets have traditionally viewed its influence as both inspiring and monolithicallly oppressive. I have this increasing urge to start writing long semi-confessional poems in loose pentameter with lots of reference to Native American placenames.

My class is terrific. I have only six students, all of them very sharp and engaged. One of them, Arlo Quint, is preparing a conference presentation on Bern Porter, found-poetry pioneer, who passed away here in Maine this last Monday at the age of 93–a day after Arlo visited him in his nursing home.

Spent last weekend in North Carolina at the Carrboro Poetry Festival masterminded by town Poet Laureate Patrick Herron (long may he reign). A huge success, as you can see from all the other blog reports. It was a great pleasure finally to meet in person bloggers Chris Murray, Tony Tost, Mike Snider, Marcus Slease, Tim Botta, and Clayton Couch, as well as poets Mark DuCharme, Linh Dinh, Carl Martin, Chris Vitiello, Brian Henry, Murat Nemet-Nejat, and Hassen. Also nice to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen for a long time, like Standard Schaefer and Lee Ann Brown. An especially nice time was had with my gracious host Ken Rumble, whom I had met once before for about fifteen seconds in Washington DC, and who welcomed me into his beautiful country home for the weekend.

The readings themselves were stunning. Almost everyone was terrific, including those of the people listed above who were on the program, and some readers that were mostly new to me: Jeffery Beam, Gerald Barrax, Daniel Wideman, Brian Blanchfield, shirlette ammons, Joseph Donahue, olufunke moses, Ravi Shankar, and others. A special surprise: member’s of Carrboro’s "Noon Poets," a group of mostly elderly locals who gather regularly to read and discuss their work. I was especially blown away by David Manning, Michael Ivey, and Mitchell Lyman. Their work was conceptually inventive, politically charged, and wonderfully sensitive to language.

So right now I’m in Orono, Maine, visiting with Ben Friedlander, Carla Billiterri, Steve Evans, and Jennifer Moxley while I teach my poetry of the 40′s class and gear up for the big NPF conference. Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.

Brief but eventful weekend in Boston–my first time there.

Friday night got into South Station by Concord Trailways bus (on-"flight" films: Peter Pan and Chasing Liberty), hopped on the Red Line to Harvard Square and met Jimmy Behrle at WordsWorth Books, where he was just finishing work. We had double cheeseburgers down the street with John Maloney and then walked to his Medford den, where we tried to watch a video of X-Men 2 but I passed out from humidity and the natural fatigue of encroaching middle age. Next morning up bright and early and was picked up by Dan Bouchard and driven to Gloucester to meet Mike County, James and Amanda Cook, Patrick Dowd and his wife Ariana (sp?), and Gerrit Lansing, at whose seaside home we relaxed for awhile, admiring his rooms full of books. Gerrit gave me a copy of his book, A February Sheaf (Pressed Wafer, 2003). Bummed around in Gloucester some more, lunch with all at Alchemy (local restaurant), shopping at Mystery Train (books and music). Found a copy of Larry Eigner’s The World and Its Streets, Places (Black Sparrow, 1977). Back to Sommerville/Medford area, where Dan gave me a copy of his book Diminutive Revolutions (Subpress, 2000).

Then back to Cambridge for my WordsWorth reading with James Meetze, where I met in person for the first time Mark Lamoureux, Sara Veglahn, Xtina Strong, Nick Moudry, Mairead Byrne, Katey Nicosia, Joel Sloman, and a couple of other people I can’t recall names for offhand. Noah Eli Gordon a familiar face and tatooed limbs! Reading ensued, and afterwards dinner at Pho Pasteur. Folks went off to various places, and Jim and I went to meet his friends Liz and Hillary and go see Dodgeball. Very high on the laughometer. Back to Jim’s, finished watching X-Men 2, minor eyelid-shutting episodes.

Up early, back on the bus, watched Peter Pan again with the sound off while reading Gerrit’s book (wonderful!), The Poker 3, and Pressed Wafer 1. Then Lara Croft 2 (something about an orb that leads to Pandora’s box, which apparently has biological warfare applications) with the sound back on.

Oh yes: don’t ever, ever get in a situation where you have to watch Chasing Liberty.

My selection of details to focus on, in the midst of a weekend that was really rich with experience and rewarding social interaction, is indicative no doubt of my general away-from-home-too-long fatigue. Anyway, it’s Father’s Day, so here’s a picture of my great-great-great-grandfather Jeremiah Merithew.