ExPo #6: Formal Feelings: Shape & Structure

Joshua Clover, "Ça Ira," The Totality for Kids (2006). See: G-Books scan.
NOTE: ça ira ≈ that'll do; it'll be fine. See: Wikpedia on the song Ah! ça ira.

ExPo #5.2: Perspective

The Study in Aesthetics

The very small children in patched clothing,
Being smitten with an unusual wisdom,
Stopped in their play as she passed them
And cried up from their cobbles:

      Guarda! Ahi, guarda! ch’e b’ea!

But three years after this
I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do not know—
For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young Dantes and
thirty-four Catulli;
And there had been a great catch of sardines,
And his elders
Were packing them in the great wooden boxes
For the market in Brescia, and he
Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish
And getting in both of their ways;
And in vain they commanded him to sta fermo!
And when they would not let him arrange
The fish in the boxes
He stroked those which were already arranged,
Murmuring for his own satisfaction
This identical phrase:

      Ch’e b’ea.

And at this I was mildly abashed.

Ezra Pound, "The Study in Aesthetics" (1915).
NOTE: Guarda! Ahi, guarda! ch’e b’ea! ≈ Look, look, how beautiful she is!

Expo #5.1: Persona

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter  

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.

You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.  I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
  As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

     By Rihaku

Ezra Pound, "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" (1915).
NOTE: "Translated by Ezra Pound from the notes of the late Ernest Fenollosa, with the decipherings of Professors Mori and Araga" (Pound). That is, based on the first of "Two Letters from Chang-Kan" by the 8th-century Chinese poet Li Po (i.e. Rihaku).

ExPo #4: "a word that breathes distinctly"

Ronald Johnson, from ARK (1996). Click for full view. See also: Josh Corey's article on Johnson.

ExPo #3.2: A Riddle

           Wednesday, November 4

(3:15 PM)  In this code each letter stands for a
           complex number and when all the words are
           counted the sum will be in the plane of
           real numbers.

David Antin, from "The November Exercises," Talking (1972). EPC.

ExPo #3.1: Some Definitions

A CLOTH.

Enough cloth is plenty and more, more is almost enough
for that and besides if there is no more spreading is
there plenty of room for it. Any occasion shows the
best way.


MORE.

An elegant use of foliage and grace and a little piece
of white cloth and oil.

Wondering so winningly in several kinds of oceans is
the reason that makes red so regular and enthusiastic.
The reason that there is more snips are the same shining
very colored rid of no round color.


A NEW CUP AND SAUCER.

Enthusiastically hurting a clouded yellow bud and saucer,
enthusiastically so is the bite in the ribbon.


OBJECTS.

Within, within the cut and slender joint alone, with
sudden equals and no more than three, two in the centre
make two one side.

If the elbow is long and it is filled so then the best
example is all together.

The kind of show is made by squeezing.


EYE GLASSES.

A color in shaving, a saloon is well placed in the centre
of an alley.


CUTLET.

A blind agitation is manly and uttermost.

Gertrude Stein, from "Objects," Tender Buttons (1914). Full text.

ExPo #2: Sound & Sense

Christian Morgenstern, "Fisches Nachtgesang" (1905). Translation by Max Knight (1963). Click for full view. See also: alternate translation.

ExPo #1: Slow Reading

READ THIS WORD THEN READ THIS WORD READ THIS WORD NEXT READ
THIS WORD NOW SEE ONE WORD SEE ONE WORD NEXT SEE ONE WORD
NOW AND THEN SEE ONE WORD AGAIN LOOK AT THREE WORDS HERE
LOOK AT THREE WORDS NOW LOOK AT THREE WORDS NOW TOO TAKE IN
FIVE WORDS AGAIN TAKE IN FIVE WORDS SO TAKE IN FIVE WORDS
DO IT NOW SEE THESE WORDS AT A GLANCE SEE THESE WORDS AT
THIS GLANCE AT THIS GLANCE HOLD THIS LINE IN VIEW HOLD THIS
LINE IN ANOTHER VIEW AND IN A THIRD VIEW SPOT SEVEN LINES
AT ONCE THEN TWICE THEN THRICE THEN A FOURTH TIME A FIFTH A
SIXTH A SEVENTH AN EIGHTH

Vito Acconci, "READ THIS WORD" (1969). The UBUWEB Anthology of Conceptual Writing.