<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><!--StartFragment--><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Dear
Poeticians,</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">I
bring you glad tidings of the great joy of our session on Friday, Dec 4<sup>th</sup>.
On that day, we began our discussion of Keith Waldrop’s National Book
Award-wining of poems, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Transcendental
Studies</i>. Professor Olivier Brossard facilitated our discussion.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Before
I get to relating the conversation of that session, I wanted to direct to
people’s attention a short piece about Peter Gizzi written by our very own Edgar
Diaz .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Edgar’s short essay on
Gizzi appeared in the wake of Gizzi’s recent visit to Yale. <a href="http://www.thehydramag.com/archives/238#more-238">http://www.thehydramag.com/archives/238#more-238</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">The
article is part of a larger editorial collective Edgar is part of and the entire
site is worth exploring.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">++++++</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">The
Dec. 4<sup>th</sup> conversation was a dynamic conversation that reached out to
some of the most important and complicated questions posed in and as lyric
poetry. One of the key issues in our discussion of Waldrop’s book was the
question of method and how it does or does not shape reading practices. Those
who had listened to the Charles Bernstein interview with Waldrop learned that
the book’s poems were collages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Waldrop had several books open at hand and he would take words, lines,
and sentences and weave them into new contexts<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>(the poems) and divorced from their original sources. </div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Here
is what Waldrop says about the process:</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">I
brought up a batch of books, all prose books, and no verse, no poetry. I
stacked them on the dining room table. To write a poem I would take three of
the books, of three different kinds: I would have one novel, usually a book of
psychology or science or something, and then some third depending on what was
around. I would start opening them and getting phrases out, sort of at
random... My eyes might go down and light on a phrase, and I would put it in. I
didn't spend a great deal of time doing it. I would put these phrases down,
going from one book to another, and would make one stanza, let's say of four
lines or so. Then I would do it again, and get another stanza of four lines,
and when I had enough that I thought I'm tired of doing this... (it might be a
page, it might be a couple of pages, not more than two or three) I would take
it upstairs to type, and I would retype these stanzas in alphabetical order...
and eventually, in a month or so, I had a book of poems. I arranged them
alphabetically by title. You'll understand also, in retyping them and then
reading over them -- If I didn't like a line or a word I could throw it out, I
could change it, I could add something...It wasn't that I was trying to figure
out something about collage. I was trying to find poems. </div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">And
eventually I had this book.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">(I
took this from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-lydon/keith-waldrop-quilter-in_b_389735.html"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;font-family:Cambria">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-lydon/keith-waldrop-quilter-in_b_389735.html</span></a></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">There
is a fine streaming interview with Waldrop there as well—R.D.)</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">++++++</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">In
creating the new context, Waldrop would change and alter the material as he saw
fit. In the Bernstein interview, he indicated that people who had a real
commitment to collage would dispute that the poems would count as
collages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Furthermore, the
apparatus of the book doesn’t indicate that these are collages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thus, one could read the book and never
know that the words and phrases mainly come from various sources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If the poems absorb their collaged
materials in such a way that they leave no discernible trace of the cut or
suture, can we say that the process has no bearing on the way one reads the
poems?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If one knows that they do,
should that (can it not) somehow shape the meaning of the poems?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As knowing subjects, can we not read
the poems as also commenting on their being pieced together?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In other words, can we read the book as
commenting o the very nature of language as being itself a collage, that all
instances of language use is culled from a commonwealth of language and so no
word is only one’s own.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Brossard
argues that the poems offer a lesson on reading, that they comment on the
process of reading and meaning making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>As he put it, Waldrop’s work wrestles with the central and problematic
question of “How do I say ‘I’?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In
terms of lyric poetry, the issue of subjectivity is perhaps the crucial one in
terms of representation because the poems ask to consider the context of the
words and lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Where do they
come from?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What is the context of
the words?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who is being
addressed?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Who is addressing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What are the contexts and conditions of
the language that is being read?</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Professor
Brossard offered a bravura reading of the book’s cover, seeing a tension
between surface and containment (tape and a cigarette wrapper affixed to brown
paper such as a grocery bag would be made from), a collage by the Abstract
expressionist, Robert Motherwell. Waldrop had seen a show of Motherwell’s work
years ago and had suggested this work as a cover and he has acknowledged how Motherwell’s
sense of form and the materiality in his collages shapes Waldrop’s own poetics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Brossard argues that the use of the cigarette
wrapper written in French but manufactured in the U.S. can represent the space
of translation, and Waldrop himself is a renowned translator of French. At a
certain level, this positions any act of reading or writing or speaking as a
form of translation--a collaging of sources, references. But the wrapper also
speaks to the cross-pollination of influence, even if in this case it is in
terms of a commodity. The image of the faceless helmet that is part of the
wrapper speaks to the ways that Waldrop’s poems are faceless or at least
“de-face” the original context of the sources.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>It also points out the absence of someone wearing the
helmet. Moreover, given the radical parataxis of the lines, there is no clear
presence of a speaking “I,” and the poems’ often difficult turns of syntax and
reference create their own counter logic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Yet, although the poems again and again suggest the presence of meaning,
culture, and history—ghosts of an understanding of the poet’s own genealogies
that persist and haunt the work and become conjuration for any reader’s own
ghosts as he or she fashions meaning. Thus, this terrific reading of the cover
informed our discussion of reading as always being a negotaiion with the traces
of culture, history, and so forth that haunt our understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The charged nature of poetry, it’s
attention to the complexities of sound, reference, and meaning make it the
perfect site to confront these questions.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">I
am attaching to this e-mail Brossard’s very useful <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:
15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri">abécédaire</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-style:
italic"> that he constructed in reading Waldrop’s book and noting some of the
most recurring or resonant words appearing throughout Transcendental
Studies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This formed the
provocative structure for a series of questions that Brossard sent to the poet.
Waldrop’s responses to many of these questions are very enlightening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Professor Brossard’s own comments,
provocations, and interventions during his visit to our group were extremely
generative and took our conversation to terrific heights and depths. We all
join together in thanking him for his terrific work.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-style:
italic"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">This
was the last session of the semester.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>When we start back up in the spring, our first session will be a
continuation of our discussion of Waldrop’s book and the poet himself will join
us for that discussion.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Below
I will also paste a CFP very relevant to many people on this list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It comes from John Cayley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But before that, I will sign off for
the semester.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Happy
holidays and a great break to all.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Richard
Deming, Co-coordinator.</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">+++++++++++++</div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">ELO_AI - Archive & Innovate<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">The Electronic Literature Organization
and Brown University's Literary Arts Program<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">invite submissions to the Electronic
Literature Organization 2010 Conference<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">to be held from June 3-6, 2010 in
Providence, Rhode Island, USA<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">celebrating Robert Coover<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">Deadline for Submissions: January 15,
2009<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">Send to: <a href="mailto:elo.ai@eliterature.org"><span style="color:#2350A9">elo.ai@eliterature.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">Notification of Acceptance: February 25,
2010<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">PLEASE NOTE: We will still aim to
receive full papers by May 1, 2010.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">For more details, please keep checking
the website:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><a href="http://ai.eliterature.org/"><span style="color:#2350A9">http://ai.eliterature.org</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">We welcome:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">- Proposals for critical/academic papers
relating to the topics and themes set out on the site. Submit an abstract -
about 300 words, 500 word maximum - with title and brief bio (indicating
affiliation, if any).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">- Proposals for performative or artistic
presentations, including readings and artist talks. Submit a description and or
artist statement - totaling about 300 words, 500 word maximum - and include a
brief bio (indicating affiliation, if any).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">- 'Panel' proposals - about 300 words,
500 word maximum - but note that these will be folded into 'Seeded' sessions.
(More on this soon.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">- Proposals for the Arts Program which
will focus on installable work. Submit a description and or artist's statement
- totaling about 300 words, 500 word maximum - and include a brief bio
(indicating affiliation, if any).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">- Alternative, innovative proposals
through which we will attempt to diversify the format of the conference. Submit
a description of about 300 words, 500 word maximum.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Helvetica">NB. If you send illustrative, digitized
AV materials, either keep these (byte-wise) small and short, or send us links.</span></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div></body></html>