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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal">On Friday, Dec 2 the Poetics Group met for our first
discussion focused on Andrew Zawacki’s most recent collection of poems, Petals
of Zero, Petals of One, which is comprised of three long sequences: “Georgia,”
“Arrow’s Shadows,” and “Storm, Lustral.” <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">We will continue our discussion this Friday (December
9<sup>th</sup>) from 3-5 p.m. in room 116 of the Whitney Humanities Center</i>.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">All
are welcome to attend, even first-timers.</b><span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>Below I will paste a series of questions drawn from our
prior session.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This should give
people a good sense of what our conversation covered. These questions will then
help shape the course of things this Friday as well—though we will not be
limited to these questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They
really serve as a prompt for what may happen.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">This coming session will be the last of the semester and,
sadly, the last of the academic year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Since two of the three co-coordinators—Jean-Jacques Poucel and I, your
humble narrator—will be abroad next semester, the WGCP will be on a
one-semester pause this spring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This will be
the first time since the group began in January of 2003 that the group has had
a break.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But don’t worry, we will
be back stronger than ever in September.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>So, let us be especially celebratory this Friday!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>And speaking of celebrations, <span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>I will also post here a general invitation for a book party
that will happen next week.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>In the meantime, I look forward to seeing people Friday for
what will be a generative, intense, and thoughtful discussion.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Yours,</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Richard Deming, Co-coordinator</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">+++++++</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">Friends,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">Please stop by to help us celebrate our new books: <b><i>Little Winter
Theater</i> by Nancy Kuhl & <i>poem for the house</i></b> <b>by Katie
Yates. </b>More party details follow; please be in touch with questions. Hope
to see you…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">Nancy & Katie<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">BOOK PARTY:</span></b><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri"> <b><i>Little Winter Theater</i> by Nancy Kuhl
& <i>poem for the house</i></b> <b>by Katie Yates</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">Wednesday, December 14</span><sup><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">th</span></sup><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">, 2011<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">from 5:30 - 7:30 pm<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">at The Bourse – 839 Chapel Street 2</span><sup><span style="mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri">nd</span></sup><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:
15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri"> floor (go through English Market to find
stairs / elevator): <a href="http://www.boursenewhaven.com/our-location"><span style="color:#0023F7">http://www.boursenewhaven.com/our-location</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">More about the books:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">Nancy Kuhl, <i>Little Winter Theater</i>, Ugly Duckling Presse,
Brooklyn, NY: <a href="http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/catalog/browse/item/?pubID=202"><span style="color:#0023F7">http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/catalog/browse/item/?pubID=202</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;
text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">Katie Yates, <i>poem for the house</i>, Stockport Flats, Ithaca, NY: <a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780984028511/poem-for-the-house.aspx"><span style="color:#0023F7">http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780984028511/poem-for-the-house.aspx</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div style="mso-element:para-border-div;border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;
mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;padding:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in"><p class="MsoNormal" style="border:none;mso-border-bottom-alt:solid windowtext .75pt;
padding:0in;mso-padding-alt:0in 0in 1.0pt 0in"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:
15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
</div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">Questions for Zawacki</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:
Calibri">1) On Friday, the group listened to a recording of the poet reading
the long, incantatory poem “Georgia.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Although on the page, the poem is rigorously end-stopped, we noticed
that in the reading, you (Zawacki) wove in caesuras and de facto line breaks
that changed the nature of the lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>What is your thinking in terms of how you read a poem and how it is
looks on the page?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And is there
some authority that a reading has in terms of reflecting the author’s
intentionality?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.25in"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:
15.0pt;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">2) Throughout <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Petals
of Zero Petals of One</i> (and particularly in “Arrow’s Shadow”) there is a
great deal of language pulled from scientific discourse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This discourse mixes with natural
imagery, and what we might call a literary discourse.<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>Is the scientific discourse a way of generating a kind of
dissonance (and is thus used because there is an opacity to it within the
context of a poem). Or is the mixing of the scientific and the more lyric
somehow a claim, a worldview—that the world itself is increasingly a mixture of
these two modes? Extending this idea, we might ask if you are placing a binary
system (1-0-1-0) against the combinatorial possibilities that “Arrow’s Shadow”
points to (especially in its last pages)?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">3) In “Arrow’s Shadow” you paraphrase Zukofsky’s poetics
(“Lower limit speech, upper limit music”) as “lower limit language, upper limit
language.” In that sequence, you do foreground language as language (borrowing
upon certain Language poetry tactics, for instance). The poem itself is quite
long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is there a way that you are
attempting to extend that felt experience of language as language (through
disorientation, estrangement of meaning, de stabilization, and so forth)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Why prolong this mode? What experience
is offered by extending this even after the conceptual point is
established?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Is the experience of
time itself (as revealed in the process of reading such a dense, demanding
text) something that interests you in the movements of a poem?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">4) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Petals of Zero
Petals of One</i> is comprised of three long sequences and poets such as Olson
and Zukofsky are invoked in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</span>Can you say something about the maximalist tendencies of this book?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And how did you go about composing the
sequences?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Did you have an
architecture in place when you began writing?<span style="mso-spacerun:
yes"> </span>Did you keep writing in order to discover the shape? And
what was cut out?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>How did you
shape the work once you had a sense of it?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">5) Since you do work with a variety of discourse in your
poetry as well as translating from various languages, what is your sense of
what constitutes discourse?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And
what is language that your poems reflect back upon language qua language?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">6) How has your sense of poetry changed over the years? How
do you place what you do in terms of a larger tradition (to speak generally) or
in terms of more immediate generations of poets?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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