ExPo #14.2: Poetry of Witness and Protest

The Dullest Blog in the World

ExPo #14.1: Poetry of Witness and Protest

George Oppen / Of Being Numerous / 1968

ExPo #13.2: Metapoetry: Ekphrasis

Steve McCaffrey / Carnival / 1967-75

ExPo #13.1: Metapoetry: Containers

Darren Wershler-Henry / The Tapeworm Foundry / 2000

Expo #12.2: Influence & Allusion

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


Thos Os Jost To Soy
by Tom Kong

O hovo ooton
tho ploms
thot woro on
tho ocobox

ond whoch
yoo woro proboblo
sovong
for brookfost

Forgovo mo
thoy woro dolocooos
so swoot
ond so cold

Expo #12.1: Influence & Allusion

Transposed Hamlet
by Kenneth Koch


(HAMLET, wearing avant-garde clothes.)

HAMLET.

  Tube heat, or nog tube heat: data's congestion.
  Ladder tricks snow blur Hindu mine dew sulphur
  Tea slinks end harrows have ow! Cages portion
  Orc tube rake harms hay canst a Z oeuf bubbles
  Ant ply cop posy kingdom.

(He goes crazy.)

Kenneth Koch, "Transposed Hamlet," One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays (1988).

Expo #11: Elegy

DieKu / Nick Beef (elegiac haikus posted by Goldsmith at Harriet)

ExPo #10: Love & Lust: During

from CHAPTER U

Dutch smut churns up blushful succubus lusts; thus
buff hunks plus hung studs must fuck lustful sluts:
Ruth plus Lulu. Ubu struts. Ubu snuffs up drugs. Ubu
hugs Ruth; thus Ruth must untruss Ubu's tux. Ubu
fluffs Lulu's tutu. Ubu cups Lulu's jugs; Ubu rubs
Lulu's buns; thus Lulu must pull Ubu's pud. Ubu
sucks Ruth's cunt; Ubu cuffs Ruth's butt. Ubu stuffs
Ruth's bum (such fun). Ubu pumps Lulu's plush, sun-
burnt tush. Ubu humps Lulu's plump, upthrust rump.
Ubu ruts. Ubu huffs; Ubu puffs. Ubu blurts: push,
push. Ubu thrusts. Ubu bucks. Cum spurts. Ubu cums.

Christian Bök, from "Chapter U," Eunoia (2001).

ExPo #9: Love & Lust: Before & After

Having a Coke with You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
                                                            I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
               it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it

Frank O'Hara, "Having a Coke with You" (1960).

ExPo #8.3: Formal Feelings: Sestina

Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape

The first of the undecoded messages read: “Popeye sits in thunder,
Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain’s hue, a tangram emerges: a country.”
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: “How pleasant
To spend one’s vacation en la casa de Popeye,” she scratched
Her cleft chin’s solitary hair. She remembered spinach

And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach.
“M’love,” he intercepted, “the plains are decked out in thunder
Today, and it shall be as you wish.” He scratched
The part of his head under his hat. The apartment
Seemed to grow smaller. “But what if no pleasant
Inspiration plunge us now to the stars? For this is my country.”

Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the country.
Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number 2 can of spinach
When the door opened and Swee’pea crept in. “How pleasant!”
But Swee’pea looked morose. A note was pinned to his bib. “Thunder
And tears are unavailing,” it read. “Henceforth shall Popeye’s apartment
Be but remembered space, toxic or salubrious, whole or scratched.”

Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched
Her long thigh. “I have news!” she gasped. “Popeye, forced as you know to
   flee the country
One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of his wizened, duplicate father,
   jealous of the apartment
And all that it contains, myself and spinach
In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder
At his own astonished becoming, rupturing the pleasant

Arpeggio of our years. No more shall pleasant
Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the scratched
Tree-trunks and mossy foliage, only immaculate darkness and thunder.”
She grabbed Swee’pea. “I’m taking the brat to the country.”
“But you can’t do that—he hasn’t even finished his spinach,”
Urged the Sea Hag, looking fearfully around at the apartment.

But Olive was already out of earshot. Now the apartment
Succumbed to a strange new hush. “Actually it’s quite pleasant
Here,” thought the Sea Hag. “If this is all we need fear from spinach
Then I don’t mind so much. Perhaps we could invite Alice the Goon
   over”—she scratched
One dug pensively—“but Wimpy is such a country
Bumpkin, always burping like that.” Minute at first, the thunder

Soon filled the apartment. It was domestic thunder,
The color of spinach. Popeye chuckled and scratched
His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country.

John Ashbery, “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape,” from The Double Dream of Spring (1966/70).

ExPo #8.2: Formal Feelings: Sestina

Self-Stable Blues

“It is odd to have a separate mouth.”
                        —Bill Berkson

I’m just another pizza delivery girl
Without a pizza, a raconteur with nothing
To recount. I heavy-breathe by the rabbit
Iconography, refusing to multiply. Mina Loy
Is my favorite video game.
I love blowing up those enemy nouns.

Do you think we could escape into a city without nouns?
Be the thought-repressor-gesture demanded of each girl
Who sticks her tongue into the game
Of another’s ribs. With lights off, nothing
Could stun us more than a Mina Loy
Christmas tree, decorated with pink rabbits

Feet key chains. Oh no. Rabbits!
They’re like a new breed of nouns
Multiplying like a couple of Mina Loys
Into a pointillist ex-girl
Paradise of verbs. Nothing
Could really be better than this game

In which nothing feels like it is a game,
And dead friendships like sick rabbits
Swirl a sonata into the single nothing
In the disarray of things. Damn nouns,
Please stop muting my explosions. You’re too girly
Dressed to kill like Mina Loy,

Pretending you’re just a minor Mina Loy.
Don’t think I’m putting down all games.
I love the exquisite popcorn fiasco of those girls
Dancing until they turn into a thousand rabbits
Chewing on a slew of predigested nouns,
Swallowing the last of all those so-called “things.”

I wish I could be happy to be just a thing,
To decorate the foyer like a post-poem Mina Loy,
To be content with all the useless nouns
Before they fracture into neon games.
Imagine what peace those rabbits
Could inspire if they stopped chewing the ribbons
   of the girls.

Who said nouns? I’ve enjoyed the migrating waves of game.
There’s nothing really left to my memory of Mina Loy.
The stuffed rabbits on the pillow sleep like the sweetest
   smallest girl.

Joanna Fuhrman, "Self-Stable Blues," Ugh Ugh Ocean (2005). See: review by Jordan Davis.

ExPo #8.1: Formal Feelings: Villanelle

Retronormativity

The 1950s end for you in Eden
and end again under impressive tits.
This is a favorite clichéd history of reading,

and is, as well, the failure of our every meeting—
why I feel like such shit
when you claim the 1950s end for me in Eden.

Is this where all those words were leading?
You burn a match you claimed was never lit.
This is a favorite clichéd history of reading:

"a couple so in touch they don't need meaning."
I want to whittle down these words until they split.
The 1950s end for some in Eden.

Enough! To hell with all your dreaming!
It's as if you did not know that I could exit
your favorite clichéd history of reading.

I'm sorry if you find this all misleading.
Words spark beyond their surface blitz.
The 1950s end for you in Eden.
This is a favorite clichéd history of reading.

Joanna Fuhrman, "Self-Stable Blues," Ugh Ugh Ocean (2005). See: review by Jordan Davis.

ExPo #7: Formal Feelings: Sonnet

Darren Wershler-Henry, "Sonnet to Bonnie," Nicholodeon (1997). See: quick review by Christian Bök.

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.