<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Dear All--<div><br></div><div>August is winding down and with each day the new academic year draws nearer. This means, amongst other things, that a new year of the Working Group in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics will soon begin and this may be our most exciting year yet. </div><div><br></div><div>For newcomers to our group, here's our official description:</div><div><br></div><div><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:
none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Helvetica;mso-bidi-font-family:
Helvetica">The Working Group in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics meets every
other Friday at 3.00 PM in room 116 at the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale
University to discuss problems and issues of contemporary poetry within
international alternative and /or avant-garde traditions of lyric poetry. All
are welcome to attend.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<!--EndFragment-->
</div><div><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none">Our slate of visitors and discussions for this fall is set. This fall will feature discussions with the poets C.D. Wright, Pierre Alferi, and David Shapiro. We'll also have a session led by our very own Hilary Kaplan (poet/translator/scholar) devoted to the work of Brazilian experimental poet Angelica Freitas.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><br></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none">Here's the whole semester's schedule at a glance:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><div class="main"><div class="snap_preview"><p><strong>WGCP Meeting</strong><br>
Friday, September 10 , 3 p.m.<br>
Readings: <em>OXO</em> By Pierre Alferi</p><p><strong>WGCP Meeting</strong>, <strong>Pierre Alferi Visit</strong><br>
Friday, September 17 , 3 p.m.<br>
Readings: <em>OXO</em> By Pierre Alferi</p><p><strong>Related Event: Jean Valentine Poetry Reading</strong><br>
Wednesday, September 29, 4:00 pm<br>
Beinecke Library, 121 Wall Street<br>
Yale Collection of American Literature Reading Series<br>
Contact: <a href="mailto:nancy.kuhl@yale.edu">nancy.kuhl@yale.edu</a></p><p><strong>WGCP Meeting: a Discussion of the work of Angélica Freitas, led by translator Hilary Kaplan</strong><br>
Friday, October 8, 3 p.m.<br>
Readings: Angélica Freitas readings TBA; <a href="http://digitalartifactmagazine.com/issue2/Translating_Poems_from_Angelica_Freitas_Rilke_shake">essay by Hilary Kaplan</a></p><p><strong>WGCP Meeting</strong><br>
Friday, October 22, 3 p.m.<br>
Readings: C. D. Wright work TBA</p><p><strong>WGCP Meeting</strong>: <strong>C. D. Wright Visit</strong><br>
Friday, November 5, 3 p.m.<br>
Readings: TBA</p><p><strong>WGCP Meeting</strong><br>
Friday, December 3, 3 p.m.<br>
Readings: David Shapiro work TBA</p><p><strong>WGCP Meeting</strong>, <strong>David Shapiro Visit</strong><br>
Friday, December 10, 3 p.m.<br>
Readings: TBA</p>
</div> </div>
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</div>
<div class="comments"><p><a href="http://wgcp.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/wgcp-schedule-fall-2010/#respond" title="Comment on WGCP Schedule Fall 2010"></a></p></div></p></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>As you'll see, our first sessions are very soon into the semester--the first two Fridays. This is to accommodate Pierre Alfreri who is traveling to the U.S. from France. We will meet on Sept 7 to discuss Alferi's book OXO (translated by Cole Swensen). Copies are available to group members and can be picked up from our mailbox in the main office of the Whitney Humanities Center . They are there now and these copies tend to go quickly so don't wait to get yours. Alferi will then join us on the 17th to have a conversation about his work.</div><div><br></div><div>Here is some information about Alferi and his book (from his official bio note at the European Graduate School site)</div><div><br></div><div>++++++</div><div><strong>Pierre Alféri</strong> is a French novelist, poet, and essayist,
born in 1963 in France, and currently living in Paris. He earned a
degree in Philosophy at the University of Paris and published his thesis
on William of Ockham (<em>Guillaume d'Ockham</em>) in 1989. In 1991, he published another philosophical essay on questions of language and literature, <em>Chercher une phrase</em>.
Nevertheless, Alféri did not pursue an academic career in philosophy;
instead, he became one of the most innovative French poets of today. He
has since published several books of poetry, including <em>Les Allures naturelles</em> (1991), <em>Le Chemin familier du poisson combatif</em> (1992), <em>Kub Or</em> (1994), <em>Sentimentale journée</em> (1997), <em>La Voie des airs</em> (2004) as well as the novels <em>Fmn</em> (1994) and <em>Le cinéma des familles</em> (1999), and most recently <em>Les Jumelles</em> (2009).</div><div><br></div><div>In Alféri's poetry, language plays a very important role. One of his widely praised collections of poems, <em>Kub Or</em> (translated into English as <em>Oxo</em>),
uses the concept of the bouillon cube, with each poem two-dimensionally
reflecting a side of the cube. The book consists of seven poems, each
poem made up of seven lines and each line composed of seven syllables.
Being not only a propitiatory number, a good omen and the number of
daily life, the number seven also challenges the dominant prosody in
French poetry and the use of even-numbered syllabic lines. This
asymmetric meter produces surprises, cuts and overlapping, with each
poem describing some aspect of modern Paris in seven short lines. Being
interested in the minutiae of modern life, it comes as no surprise that
the media occupy the center of attention in these poems – cinema, TV,
advertising – as well as the artifacts of low and high culture. Alféri
takes the reader on a journey through the streets, commercial life,
politics, music, and the questions of how much the figures from the past
inhabit the consciousness of the present. As a poet, he is not
alienated, but always prepared to engage actively with the variety of
experiences he encounters. In the same way, this engagement is expected
from the reader as well – if the poems are bouillon cubes, the mind of
the reader is the boiling water in which to dissolve them and fully
taste the modern life.</div><div><br></div><div>++++++</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I'll paste below a useful review of Oxo by John Couth. In the meantime, pick up your copy and we'll convene on Sept 7 for another exciting year of the WGCP.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Onward--</div><div><br></div><div>Richard Deming, Co-coordinator</div><div><p><span class="pageName"><strong><font color="#990000">Pierre
Alferi</font></strong>: <font color="#003300"><strong><em>Oxo</em></strong></font></span><span class="style1"><span class="style5"><br>
(Translated
by Cole Swensen; Burning Deck, Providence, R.I., 2005; paperback,
60pp, $10; isbn 1886224668)</span></span></p><p class="style3">Pierre Alferi
has published four books of poetry in his native French: <strong><em>Oxo</em></strong> is
the translation into English by Cole Swensen of his third book (<strong><em>Kub
Or</em></strong>, 1994). Although it would have been interesting to
have the French original on the page opposite the translated text,
it's evident from the acknowledgement that poet and translator have
worked in close collaboration. (Also one can make out the case for
exclusion of the originals on aesthetic grounds because, for this book
to work, its presentation must remain visually sparse and tightly conceived.)
The language style that results is informal, American and spare.</p><p class="style3">The book's
structure relies on the notion of the bouillon cube, with each
poem two dimensionally reflecting a side – but this is no conventional
regular hexahedron, rather one reliant on cube as in root, in
this case a cube root of seven. Each poem is made up of seven
lines of seven syllables, with each section containing seven
poems. These comprise the 'cube' which Alferi offers to imaginative
dissolution. </p><p class="style3">In Hebrew
the number seven represents completeness and totality; in Oxo,
the poet seeks to make complete, to give shape, pattern to disparate
experiences of daily city life – the seven sections represent
the completeness, the totality of the ordering system. The floating
impressions of a succession of external and internal experiences
require structure if sense is to follow, poet and reader work
side by side as the generators of such order and understanding.</p><p class="style3">An idea
of what's being attempted is signalled in 'preface', the seventh poem
in the book:<br>
</p><p class="style3">here is
seven times seven<br>
times seven times seven a<br>
far-fetched grunge idea for<br>
you in hard cubes of almost<br>
anything goes like on T.<br>
V. in fact it's almost as<br>
good as compacting the trash</p>
<blockquote class="style3">
<blockquote><p> <em>preface</em><br>
</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote><p class="style3">It's 'a
grunge idea . . . like on T.V.' and like TV the book combines all things
together regardless of connection or harmony; the unifying principle
is the medium, as here it's the bouillon 'compacting the trash'. The
artefacts of the low and high cultures of the Paris cityscape are ordered
within the book like a succession of adverts within a commercial break
which jostle for our attention while sequentially contributing to a
greater picture. The book's final poem, entitled 'coda', talks about
the absorbency of 'tampon words', at once both redolent of personal
and cultural reference, which need to be 'unfurled', dissolved in our
psyches if we are to glimpse beneath surfaces. Interpretively, we must
create the 'boiling water' in which to dissolve these poems that represent
to us the variety and intensity of experiences we daily encounter but
may fail to make mean. Alferi suggests that just as under scrutiny
the poems will continue unfold new meanings, so too will experience.
It's like greedily supping the bouillion:<br>
</p><p class="style3">ah it's
so very ah how<br>
absorbent these tampon words<br>
made to be unfurled so<br>
quick one more one last one quick</p>
<blockquote class="style3">
<blockquote>
<blockquote><p> <em>coda</em></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote><div> <br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><p class="style3">The book's
first poem introduces the notion of a shuffled 'flip-book', which
fits appositely with our experience of the rapid succession of
scenes that ensue, that and the cinematic technique of the jump
cut. Playing such a central part in contemporary life, it's little
surprise that the media should occupy Alferi's attention – cinema,
TV, the Walkman, advertising are reduced to their cubes of scrutiny. </p><p class="style3">But everything's
worthy of attention. In 'regular', the poet focuses on the meaning-full,
important sounding, quasi-scientific language of a health product
ad, replete with its evident vacuous inability to deliver – the
'if' of the poem's beginning creating the logical uncertainty
of what the 'low low price of regular' can never buy:<br>
</p><p class="style3">if it's
true that it contains<br>
quite naturally the enzyme <br>
necessary for modern<br>
life then this built-in leak-proof<br>
agent protects enriches<br>
the ozone layer at the<br>
low low price of regular</p>
<blockquote class="style3">
<blockquote>
<blockquote><p> <em>regular</em><br>
</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote><p class="style3">Other of
the poems in the 'shuffle' deal with street and commercial life, politics,
music and the ways in which figures from high culture, such as Charles
Ives and Flaubert, can inhabit a consciousness in the present:<br>
</p><p class="style3">. . . all
I can tell you<br>
is that life which paces you<br>
in the distance as Paris<br>
once did me will but too late<br>
be completely fulfilling.</p>
<blockquote class="style3">
<blockquote>
<blockquote><p> <em>the
france of henry james<br>
</em></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote><p class="style3"><em>Oxo</em> expresses
Alfieri's determination not to be paced 'in the distance'.</p><p class="style3">The tone
of the poems range from humorous, satirical, affectionate, resigned,
committed; alienation is never an issue, with the poet at all
times prepared to engage intelligently with the variety of experience/reality
he encounters. The language throughout is spare and precise,
as one might expect given the strictures of form, almost devoid
of tropes, closer indeed to what Aristotle might have described
as rhetoric. The cube device allows for nothing wasteful – dissolution
of the bouillon is only possible through the reader's engagement.</p></div></body></html>