Thanks to Jim Behrle's encouragement I'm attempting to repost my latest notes on class. Here's to the end of the big post error! {Interesting that the posts are considered big--as in amount of memory used{is memory the right word?}; the posts are not called "long" {the word traditionally {schmaditionally} used to describe a lot of writing}.
~~~~~~~
Culture & Class
{Yes, I've created a new topic before addressing the old ones.}
Why discuss class at all? Christina's email on class {see below} reminded me to consider class & the conditions for the production of {& engagement w/} poetry {having a room of one's own, time to write/read, etc.}. But for the moment I’ll postpone my $.02 re: poetry & class, & instead slide poetry & class into culture & class.

Culture--as a contributor to a high standard-of-living to use --needn't of course be high culture {Botticelli, modernist poetry, jazz, etc.} but merely a living one {including for example folk arts, cooking, etc.} Unfortunately, throughout the U.S., mass culture--which is essentially passive in nature--has for many, many years been a weed overrunning varied *local* cultural ecologies.

It is, of course, now a cliche to say that as a participant in U.S. mass culture, one consumes a lot & produces little {culturally}. {For this very reason kids forming bands & playing in U.U. basements continues to be a subversive act. Literally the underground!? This reminds me also of The Bookcellar readings of a few years ago. Grendel's too? The literal underground. Also, Descent of Alette} Since participating in culture {U.S. style} means consuming culture {films, CDs, Olive Garden cuisine, vacations in Rome, etc.} is one then culturally invisible {or perhaps drowning under the surface of the mainstream} if one cannot afford participation {i.e. consumption}? I guess what I'm saying is that if one buys {nyuk, nyuk} the notion that culture=consumption {of mass-cultural-good-&-services} then one's ability to participate in the culture is limited {or controlled/dictated} by one's income, and more generally, by the access one has to mass cultural products.

{Where cultural production is valued folk arts thrive. One then needs time & whatever raw materials--musical instruments, recipe ingredients, wool, etc.—are available to participate in/produce a living culture. Improvisation & hybridity often result. But that’s another post…}

Of course there are readymade cultural products for nearly all income & education (class?) levels & through them one can always {in a reasonably "well" functioning capitalist society*} participate {i.e. consume}, but this does not preclude cultural striving as a form of social class striving; meaning tho' there are cultural products made for all social classes in the U.S. {ah, capitalism!} our characteristic class striving--our belief that social ascension gives life direction & meaning {which impedes class consciousness but that's another topic, eh?}--leads, in some cases, to cultural striving as well. When cultural products are valued primarily as indicators of social class {often but not exclusively as masks covering one's actual social class w/ the trappings of a higher one}, cultural products that do not support striving may have no value all {since it is the cultural-consumption-as-mask not cultural-consumption-as-experience (i.e. art) that seems to matter}.

[*"'well' functioning" meaning only that someone/something (corporations {corpse} are things often have more rights than someones; here's to etymology!) wants to take money from every strata of society: thus the scare-quotes around "well."
{Straying from class but then returning…}
For USAmericans even when not particularly concerned w/ striving {some psychographic groups, advertisers tell us, are not concerned w/ striving} cultural consumption is still used as a sign/mask to indicated one’s desired identity: class identity, ethnic identity, sexual identity, religious identity, regional identity, etc. and/or the erasure/masking of any of these. {Christina mentioned poor chic in a recent email.} Again, the one implication is that culture-as-experience {art?} is less important than culture-as-sign/mask.

None of this is particularly new but I’d like to propose some implications for poetry.
Though it’s true that the consumption of avant art, like the consumption of any other product cultural or other, creates a mask/identity--{“Have you read the right poets?” “Robert Lowell’s not one of them,” to paraphrase the Silliman silliness}—poetry-as-experience must trump poetry-as-identity-mask {or social gesture, or …} or else poets are simply brand names like any other. Consumption of x brand names=x cultural identity. {Another post about poets-as-brand-names & one about the virtues of hybridity is coming on but those must wait.}

Reading--experiencing words on the page {or aloud} & making something of the experience—is encouraged by work that is not easily reduced. Work that is easily reduced {or which readers-as-non-experiencers have reduced despite the work’s complexity {see also: high school English teachers, my colleagues} more easily becomes a cultural product that can be worn as a mask. Inventive, imaginative work read by readers keen on experience creates a dynamic in which the cultural participant is no longer merely a consumer but has become a maker/producer {producing a meaning or reading}.

There are of course other ways of circumventing the culture=consumption equation. Folk arts are one. To return to the class issue, folk arts often have the additional benefit of practical use. Wear the clothes. Eat the cooking & baking. Sleep under the quilts. Put your O.E.D. inside the bookstand. {The commodification of folk arts must have something to do w/ a desire to escape culture-as-consumption by paradoxically buying & fetishizing an object produced w/in a culture-as-production/creation. {I’d like to go into distinctions between production & creation, but no time. It’s already 2:10. Ach. I’ve been writing this for days/daze…}}

This, of course, has class implications but not binding ones. In other words, it is often assumed {in, for examples, arguments on the poetics list} that working class poetry tends to be more narrative. Working folk don’t have time for that avant-crap is how the argument goes. But then someone else chimes in listing the many experimental/avant-garde poets who come from working class backgrounds.

In my case, culture-as-experience was not highly valued. My father had a favorite poem or two—usual ones like “The Raven” & later “Prufrock”—but he was not keen to find new ones or experience poetry. A book of Eliot’s poetry that I gave him after discovering his interest in “Prufrock”—discovered in a community college class he was taking—went unread. Culture-as-experience was more valued w/r/t rock music. He would often play us albums—most often the Beatles but sometimes Zepplin or Jethro Tull--& would call it cultural enrichment. We would be relatively quiet & still while taking ‘em in. I remember my father explaining satire to me before he played us “Happiness is a War Gun”. This sort of excitement about cultural experience was rare though. TV was ubiquitous & deadening. The ultimate vehicle for culture-as-{passive}-consumption. {Even movies were more exciting; though I saw few movies {no VCR} until I began sneaking into the theater at the mall.}

As for the culture of creation/production, my father sold his guitar in the middle of my childhood. Before I was born he’d been in bands; after I was born he usually just played around Christmas. Folk arts like cooking were mostly neglected in favor of Shake N Bake, pasta w/ sauce from a jar, etc.

My mother did crochet—culture-as-production—quite a bit. She also sewed us pants, shorts, etc. in the manner of the latest fashions. {Culture-as-production forced to mimic culture-as-consumption.} My paternal grandmother knit us sweaters that I was embarrassed to wear. After she died I wore them often. I remember making things—w/ shrink-a-dinks & other such mass marketed Do It {but not all of it} Yrself cultural products—while spending a few weeks with my maternal grandparents in the summer. We also picked berries & made things with them.

Making things always meant conforming to patterns, directions, and recipes. This was not fun although using my hands & then using/experiencing the product was far better than passive consumption.

Much of this is memorable because anomalous. The radio & TV beat the equation culture=consumption into my head. One or the other was nearly always on. I could go into how thoroughly I bought this equation {memories of pouring over the Sears Catalogue Wish Book w/ my younger brothers} but I’ll spare us. In h.s. the equation became clear & so as part of my burgeoning class consciousness, I became proud of, for example, the clothes my mother & grandmother had produced. I also started to write.

post-script:
Some of the most vital U.S.American cultural-products have come out of working class cultures. The culture=consumption equation has often created vibrant underground responses. One needn’t passively accept the dogma of passive consumption (see: the origins of hip hop & its blossoming in the late 80s & its survival as expression in misc. underground scenes today; see also punk music; see misc. imaginative uses of folk materials in rock music {Cat Power, etc.}) People struggle against the equation but such struggles are certainly marginalized by the dominant notion that one's culture is what one consumes & more importantly what one is fed & most importantly what one can afford to buy. Occasionally something vital {hip hop, for example} bubbles to the surface & is commodified. Thus, the girl in one of my classes who this year designed a utopia called “Punk Land” in which only “hot” boys would be allowed & they would be forced to conform to particular fashion rules {the details of which escape me}. I think they missed the point. I can think of no better illustration of how culture-as-experience becomes culture-as-consumption here in the U.S.

slainte,
j.c.

Posted this on the Buffalo Poetics List today in response to a question and statement from Kirby Olson:

"Does Gloucester have a poet laureate?"

Vincent Ferrini is the poet laureate of Gloucester.

"Perhaps it should be on the balloting -- and rival poems published in the
papers, so that citizens can choose!"


A local bookstore (The Bookstore) campaigned the city council and the mayor
to create the position and install Vincent. However, friends have thought we
should walk in the July 3 Horribles Parade, passing out the candidates'
poems and ballots w/ their names. (In the Horribles Parade, people dress up
in costumes, etc. though now many of the floats are sponsored by businesses
and religious groups.) A second group of walkers could collect the ballots.
An interesting experiment, no?

Perhaps even better would be for the laureate candidates to read their poems
on the back of a flatbed truck. A good spot for the poets' float would be
right behind the fundamentalist Christian float & its cloying,
kid-friendly(?) music.

But I also like the idea of using the _Gloucester Daily Times_, the local
paper in which Charles O. himself was published, as a means of determining
the poet of the polis. (See: _Maximus to Gloucester; The Letter and Poems of
Charles Olson to the Gloucester Times, 1962 - 1969_, edited by Peter
Anastas, foreword by Gerrit Lansing, 1992.)

As for Vincent, his letters and poems frequently appear on the GDT's Op-Ed
page.

slan,
j.c.
~
I had trouble w/ blogger while trying to post a long note about culture & class on Sunday. I saved the text so will try again when I get home from GHS.

Fixed Xtina's email on class that I posted yesterday. Should now be a bit easier to read.

LISTS:

Reading
*Descent of Alette, Notley
*Selected Poems, Fanny Howe {Click for words on the essay Fanny read Sunday; the proverbial buck has now been passed from Aaron Tieger to me to Chris.}

Ordering from The Bookstore {Gloucester, MA}
*The American Poetry Wax Museum, Rasula

Currently out of the Sawyer Free Library {not overdue}
*Invisible Cities, Calvino {will begin today.}
*Justine, Durrell {finished}

Currently out of the Sawyer Free Library {overdue}
*White Blood Cells, The White Stripes

Missed in yuppified Gloucester for 3rd of July gathering {known locally for the Horribles Parade}
*Christopher Brandon Rizzo
*Jim Behrle
*Greg Cook & Kari Percival
*the Dunns
*the butterflyman
* you {unless you were there}

Beverages {in order of consumption}
*Eight O'clock Coffee (original)
*Ballantine Ale
*Twinings Irish Breakfast (Decaffeinated) {water is boiling now}

slainte,
j.c.

Ach! I've been unable to get on blogger all day. {Problems w/ my local connection.} Then when I finally get on I lose a post.

It's late! Here a note from Christina Strong (xtina.org) in response to the questions I posed concerning class. My mind is not working well enough to reconstruct what I wrote earlier. But I will say that I'm glad xtina tied the question of class to poetry in a few places, especially addressing the issue of leisure. More later {or earlier}.

Christina:
{education & money (esp. issues of having one but not the other)}

My old college's tuition is now $29,000 plus. If I were going to school at all, I never would be able to, either a private or public, I would never be able to afford it. Education is for the rich, and so will libraries, soon, a la a discussion over dinner at Grendel's sunday evening. Debt is for the poor. Yet is education only colleges and universities, what about those that are self ­ taught? Motivation, a quest for knowledge, isn't money driven.


{education as learning & education as job training (this is perhaps one corollary of the first)}

tech and two year community colleges are for "job training", is learning valued in the family or community, depends on how wealthy the community is ­ compare towns of familiarity ­ south Boston vs. Newton (don't know anything about either town, but I'm guessing Newton has more money), expectations of the family, being the first one on my mother's side of the family to go to college at all, I was given a hard time, as in "why are you going to school when you should just find a job" yet everyone in the family recognized me as being smarter, creative, the "black sheep" phrase tossed around one too many times, spoken about in the third person as I am standing there, my father and mother and aunts and cousins, I was also told "you're so smart you should go to college but ha ha, don't know how you're getting there bc we don't have the money" like a like not even a carrot being dangled in front of me, more like straw reported to be a damaged melon.

I personally never had a career plan, all I knew was that I wanted to read and write.

{class & neighborhoods}

obvious less money in neighborhoods, more garbage, libraries close, businesses go under, economic depression, everyone¹s too busy finding a job don't have an time for LEISURE which is book reading and poetry writing to a large segment of the population, poetry in rap lyrics instead, easy immediate, preaching, "easy to understand" jumping ahead to cities, we can look at whole cities with different neighborhoods, Boston, Hartford, nyc, san Francisco, Cambridge, Somerville, Brooklyn, urban planning either conducive, is there a starbucks in your neighborhood, oh not yet oh why not, no sir all I have is this abandoned building?

my neighborhood was in a suburb of Hartford, Old Wethersfield actually. One of the oldest towns in CT, also snobbish, not money snobbish, but historical snobbish. We did not live in low-income housing, but my family did live in a not so great house, we did not own it. It was a duplex and as I think about it now, too small to house mom, my father, myself, my brother, a dog and two cats. I knew that bc we did not own our own house, we were "poor," my father's car was beat up, I got the reduced lunch program at school,
which backyard had a pool, which had toys, neighborhood as community, there's more here? but this for starters.

{class & whole cities/towns (i.e. when it is assumed you are of a class because of the neighborhood/street/ city/town/etc. in which you live)}

Rivalry, like sports games, football games bt high school teams on thanksgiving, also regional, generalizations and presumptions, the south vs. the north, what poets can we think of who are from Miami? Think race, think north end of Hartford vs. asylum hill Farmington ave more likely prospect ave towards and in west hartford, the latter which has much more money than Hartford in it's entirety, make assumptions about the other, speak in
accents, make fun of the boston accent, make fun of a queens accent, assume bc they talk funny to someone, less educated

{artists & experiences w/ class &/or money}

artists in the broad, general sense? Add artists, musicians, theatre folk, who is earning money from their "art?" selling out, instead of "language poet" how about "working class poet" how to and how not to feel ashamed of, less than, reactionary towards against, ask in some certain circles and not others, am I the only one without a master's degree? Don't
have the time to read enough books too busy working?


{class & class consciousness}

a matter of how you gain it, bc the question begs "what are you lacking?" and the answer is: "money" or "capital" these days. But how or when does one become aware of this? Early childhood, adolescense, never at all? Then afterwards, with this knowledge, what do you do about it, everything a measure of degree after ­ rebel or embrace.

I rebelled, I questioned, lacking, all verbs, to know, one of the first verbs taught when one is learning a foreign language?

{blurry lines of class}

done by statistics, or hierarchy, who's got more darker skin, who's got more lighter, when a black or these days, African-American moved in my neighborhood, when I was in 3rd or 4th grade, I was told that her father was a doctor. I didn't doubt that, they looked like they had more money than we did. All I noticed was during recess when every girl would want to touch her hair to feel the texture. Isn't that rude? I mean, I'd never go up to anyone and start touching their hair, especially without asking?

Stupid people. That's what I grew up around, prejudice and stupidity.

Questions of Class
education & money (esp. issues of having one but not the other), education as learning & education as job training (this is perhaps one corollary of the first), class & neighborhoods, class & whole cities/towns (i.e. when it is assumed you are of a class because of the neighborhood/street/ city/town/etc. in which you live), artists & experiences w/ class &/or money, class & class consciousness, blurry lines of class, telling the story of one's class/economic situation, listening to stories about another's class/economic situation, what-has-monitary-value & class...

education & money {The tag for bold is now "strong"; hello Xtina}

Some Boston-area university did a sociological study a few years ago looking at families & individuals who lived below the poverty line but had different education levels & circumstances. They found {& this should surprise no one} that those w/ a college education & **access** to the middle class (i.e. through college ties, family members, etc.) lived more comfortably than did those w/ the same money but w/o such advantages.

Many recent college graduates live below the poverty line. Most people reading this post could tell stories of a time when s/he made 10K/year or less {depending upon the time--70s, 80s, 90s, etc.--of one's post-college poverty} & paid $6K/year or so on rent. {I focus on employment wages/rent because that particular statistic best illustrates the economic absurdity of my first two to three years up here in Gloucester; the absurdity of others' situations could perhaps best be illustrated by other statistics.} But despite {literally} most of my money going to rent, I worked w/ interesting people in a {mostly} respectful environment {though many of us made a quarter or half-dollar above minimum wage}, was able to navigate the bureaucracy of postponing the payment of student loans {in a way that I would not have been had I not had previous experience navigating bureaucracies}, had family members {my lovely, lovely grandmother} who paid for me to see a doctor the one time I really needed to. When I lived in a particulary heroine riddled house, Amanda's grandmother found us another place. Although the rent was higher, we were able to pay it {having no kids} & we were much, much safer. {At the new place I even had a study in which to write.} No more middle of the night smashed windows.

Why am I writing about all this? Just to show that though I lived for years below the poverty line, because of my access to middle class family members & a middle class education I was able to live fairly comfortably or at least w/o disaster. This gives people like me (but not me) a skewed perspective of what it means to be *working class* or, perhaps more accurately, the working poor. Such experiences of temporary ersatz poverty allow many of us to construct for ourselves a rags-to-riches story that while fitting the American archetype is essentially a lie. Such peronal narratives are the lifeblood of the particularly vampiric Republican party.

education & money part 2

The first day I visited Gloucester I came up on the train {it would be another five years before I'd have a driver's license} & except for catching a ride to Lanesville {the neighborhood in which Amanda grew up} walked all around, w/ Amanda as Virgil. I don't remember all that I saw that day; most of the places have long since become part of my mental furniture, the muebles that are shifted around nightly in dreams.

But I do remember walking into Amanda's house in Lanesville. The place was a bit dusty, or rather tiny bits of fabric hung in the air. Her mother and stepfather worked in the house making ties, scarves, etc. from her mother's beautifully rhythmic fabric art. Artistic & economic making. Art as necessity w/o the compromise of the Rockport art gallaries I'd later walk past too often.

Amanda's stepfather--a restaraunteur by training, though then {as now} out of the business-- had painted Amanda & others in the style of Picasso's synthetic cubism. These paintings were on the wall. The bookshelf, in front of me as I walked in, was packed & sagging. Folk art of New England next to _Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein_. Neither Amanda's mother nor stepfather had graduated from college. {And w/r/t the Stein & the many WCW books around the corner in the bookshelf by the stairs, neither Carrie nor Ralph were poets.} At the time this was all very comforting. Others outside the university were making a go of the kind of life I wanted to live; & even more comforting, Amanda was used to (& even expected) such a life.

What does any of this have to w/ class & education? There was very little money in Amanda's Lanesville household. A car w/ a hole in the bottom more or less shared w/ the family across the street. Etc. Is social class more than income level? Is social class also more than income level + level of formal education? Income too-low-to-pay-taxes + high school education would certainly do little to explain the social class of Amanda's Lanesville household. Or would it? Does cultcha factor into social class? One's parents may not have been able to send one to Big Time University, but WCW, fractals, sundried tomatoes, Ella Fitzgerald, & Botticelli may have been part of one's everyday life. How do we describe such a household in terms of social class? (Need we?)

There is no easy relationship between income & education (formal or otherwise) & certainly(!) no easy relationship between income & robust cultural practice. But as the lower middle class or working class parents (& grandparents before them, etc.) strive to make the lives of their children better--as mine did--it seems to me that income (& material possessions of various sorts) & formal education (especially--often exclusively--as a way of attaining income & material possessions) eclipsed participation in a living, active culture as an indicator of something that has been called one's standard-of-living. In other words when striving to make the lives of their children better culture was often ignored (necessarily so? excusably so?) along the way.
***
Does class--as a complex construct--indicate something about one's standard-of-living? {What the hell is social class if it's not some combination of income (& assets), education, & culture?} {I've neglected the type of work one does as an indicator of social class. Damn. I'll have to address that. Does social class also have to do w/ one's values? Or are values something that a social class often shares but doesn't necessarily share?}
***
More to come...

slan leat,
j.c.

Thanks are due Jim Dunn
for hospitality, stories, kind emailed note, & wonderful poem to three Cooks.

Thanks.
Slan.

I've devoted the last two nights to St. Peter & will devoted today to my favorite football team, Glasgow Celtic.

Posts to come:
* contemplating questions of class
* discussing _Justine_ & attempting to answer Aaron Tieger's question about the Leonard Cohen/Lawrence Durrell connection {I'm not sure my response will be very interesting or insightful}
* continuing revision thread (as per responses by Aaron, Mike County, and Michael {Mick} Carr}
* finally responding to M. Carr re: Wieners / email of some weeks past

before I sign off I want to say that the kids're alright...local Gloucester h.s. & just out of h.s. bands played yesterday in the Independent Church/U.U. basement {same spot in which Amanda & I'll be helping w/ readings soon.} Nick Telles (a GHS colleague's younger brother) is the embodiment of what's vital {and knowing!} about punk rock. Rock is *not* dead. His band--Espontaneo--gave me chills. Best $7 I've spent in some time. Though mentioning money in this context seems an act of simony.

slan,
j.c.

{Explanation of *setting* for Wordsworth reading 6/21 as sent to Dave Rich}

As for the Fiesta setting...
I pulled the whole reading together Saturday afternoon. I'd been thinking about it for days but couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do. I knew I didn't just want to read new poems (or old poems) because I knew that none of it amounted to very much & I didn't want to waste people's night (and mental/aural attention). While going through my poems & prose, I realized there where some things, both old & new, that I've tended to neglect, thinking they were distractions from the *real* work.

These neglected things--old & new--seemed suddenly to be the most vital but in desperate need of pruning. "Cell" (written as prose but heard by at least two in the audience as poetry) is an example of one such piece. In mid-reading I decided not read one other such piece (though I was going on a bit too long...) A few other such pieces (mostly prose) were in need of more than one afternoon of revision, though I've already gone back to them & will continue to do so this summer.

Then I got the idea to read only those translations of Lorca's Suite of Mirrors that seem to be as much about doubt as they are about belief. This (along w/ a certain measure of alienation from the world as given) seemed to be a theme of some of the neglected writing. That lead naturally--this chronology isn't quite accurate--to the selection from "Further Notes for Polis" (that Aaron Tieger thought might've been Lorca; I'm flattered). Creeley & Zac's poems fit the theme as well. Zac's poem offered a necessary bridge from the religious concerns of the poems to the imprisonment of "Cell" (though the "virus" idea is has serious religious implications). I could go on about why I selected each individual poem but you want to know about the setting--which came last.

I wanted to read the "infernal machine" passage of Lowry's _Under the Volcano_ but decided that would be too much so instead decided to evoke Fiesta (on the solstice!). The Zipper has long reminded me of the "infernal machine" & Fiesta's mix of the sacred & profane seemed right on for the fifteen pieces I'd planned to read. Why the "infernal machine"/zipper? They are nauseating. The pieces (esp. "The Cell" but others too) are nauseated. The idea of nausea & disquiet are of course linked in modern lit.: the former a favorite metaphor of the existentialists & the later is found in the title of Pessoa's prose. Nausea & disquiet vis-a-vis faith & the world-as-given were the emotions I wanted to create in the listeners. Fiesta & Lowry also evoke humidity--oppresive air--weather conditions appropriate to the feeling I wanted to created.

I wish I had a bit longer to develop the whole thing but am relatively happy w/ how it all came off.

...

slan leat,
j.c.

Like Mike County (mikecounty.blogspot.com--yes I know I sd I wld learn links & I will I will I will) I was unable to post yesterday because of changes to BLOGGERtm. I've also been experiencing difficulty w/ my internet connection from home so I've snuck into GHS to do some emailing & such.

I saved a note I'd meant to post yesterday but of course it's on my hard drive at home. It was about the reading I gave at Wordsworth Saturday, explaining the *setting* for the poems. I will post the explanation along w/ the pieces I read (w/ a setlist) sometime soon (hopefully today but given the connection problems, no promises).

Read book one of _Justine_ yesterday. Reminds me of Leonard Cohen. His songs not his prose.

Another observation: There's a lot of talk about the importance of *Alexandria* but I don't feel its whatness in the same way I've felt a city in other works (Glasgow, _How Late It Was, How Late_ for example). There are other pleasures in Durrell's novel, however, & I do like all the talk about the city's influence on the characters. It's something beyond them akin to fate.

I also read more of _The Descent of Alette_ yesterday. (Thanks Christina {xtina.org}; hope all around you are being good to you today.) I like it more & more but will not comment just now.

Aaron Tieger (fishblog.blogspot.com) jumped into the revision discussion. He's a non-destructive reviser. Talked about tinkering with words & commas--often having dozens of versions of single poem in which there're only small changes. But that isn't what he does so much now. Hm. Revision.

When I revised at the end of last week for the Wordsworth reading Saturday, I mostly cut things out and rewrote accordingly. I was definitely in the *mind* of the piece as I did so which felt good. But then again, most of the revision I did was of prose pieces (or what I thought of as prose pieces though some in the audience heard them as poetry).

***
A few days ago I said I would say more about *class* (picking up on a discussion begun this Sunday in Gloucester). I haven't eaten yet today & I think I should do so before I step into that particular minefield. But before I head off perhaps a few topics: education & money (esp. issues of having one but not the other), education as learning & education as job training (this is perhaps one corollary of the first), class & neighborhoods, class & whole cities/towns (i.e. when it is assumed you are of a class because of the neighborhood/street/ city/town/etc. in which you live), artists & experiences w/ class &/or money, class & class consciousness, blurry lines of class, telling the story of one's class/economic situation, listening to stories about another's class/economic situation, what-has-monitary-value & class...

O.K. that'll help when I come back to this train {wreck} of thought after eating. Anyone else want to chime in on any of those topics or others?
How about an on-line symposium on class & poetry?

W/ encouragement from Gerrit Lansing, I'm all for symposia. (Also would like one on polis: towards a green polis {Gerrit's idea}, polis vs. nomadism {Pierre Joris?}, etc.
O.K. time to eat.

slainte.
j.c.

The original Weiss post & response to my post has ignited further thoughts about class & such, first sparked by Mike County (mikecounty.blogspot.com) yesterday. Perhaps more to come. In the meantime thanks to everyone who came out to Gloucester from the Boston-area & to those who came across town. I'd like to say more but I'm preoccupied by thoughts of a response to the response.

slainte,
j.c.

Here's something I posted to the Buffalo Poetics list in response to a post by Mark Weiss about yuppies on the Fort (Olson's neighborhood). He responded to my note by insisting that Gloucester had been "yuppified" but conceeded that Gloucester is probably a nice place to live.

I know I'm a little behind on this thread, but I'd like to offer another
perspective on Gloucester, MA.

*There are "yuppies" in Gloucester but as far as I can tell they do not live
on the Fort. And there are far fewer young urban professionals & their
*shoppes* in Gloucester than in other nearby places like Newburyport, MA &
Portsmouth, NH.

*Perhaps you found no children on the fort because of the many grandparents
who live there.
Some year (perhaps this one) you should come to Gloucester on the last
Sunday of June when a statue of St. Peter is carried through the Fort while
these grandparents & their grandchildren throw confetti from second story
windows. {The celebration for San Pietro begins this Thursday: the sacred &
the profane are seldom closer!}

*Also, you perhaps did not find the Portuguese "slum" on the Fort because
Sicilian immigrants have been more visible in that particular area since the
early twentieth century. St. Peter's Fiesta, a Sicilian celebration, was
born in the Fort in the 20s. "Portugee" Hill is some distance from the fort.

*Recently, the culture of Gloucester (at least as I see it as a high school
teacher here) has been far more influenced by the arrival of Brazilian
immigrants than by a (non-existant) invasion of yuppies.

*As for fishing, my brother-in-law is a fisherman, though one who like many
others has been forced to supplement his income with other employment. If
you're looking for fishermen in Gloucester try the Jodrey State Fish Pier
(from the Fort go further into the inner harbor). Also, it must be said that
overfishing & the resulting regulations--not yuppies--*have* changed
Gloucester. In fact (much to the dismay of many pro-tourist politicians in
town) the decline of the fishing industry has not meant a yuppie invasion on
the scale many other seaside towns have experienced. As Olson predicted, the
A. Piatt Andrew bridge which extends route 128 into Gloucester irrevocably
changed the city. Gloucester citizens were "isolatos" no more...or at least
less so. But this change was already underfoot when Olson was writing.

*There is an excellent independent bookstore (The Bookstore) not far from
the Fort. (I met Olson's Danish translator there one summer day. I think I
also met the list's own Aaron Vidaver there too.)

*Dogtown, which comprises a significant portion of the interior of the
"island," will never (knock on wood; forgive the hubris) be filled with
cul-de-sac developments. Though you are likely to run into more off-road
cylists, Dogtown is still an excellent place for a walk. (Bring the Maximus
Poems poems with you ye Pilgrims...and perhaps Marsden Hartley's "Dogtown
Doxology" if that's your thing). Ravenswood is also quite wonderful.

*Gerrit Lansing lives in Gloucester!

*My wife (www.ironstonewhirlygig.blogspot.com) might disagree w/ me about
this, but winters are hard in Gloucester--though, again, not because of the
yuppies. Not a lot happens here during the winters. But because of Jim
Behrle, Bill Corbett, etc. there are many exciting events & people in Boston
(a 50 minute drive or hour train ride from Gloucester). Yesterday, a half
dozen Boston-area poets came out to our apartment here in Gloucester for
food, drink, walks, music, & poetry.

If anyone wants to come to Gloucester let me know.
jcgloucester@hotmail.com

slainte,
j.c.

I believe it was Michael Carr who pointed out to me that I'd planned to post daily at exactly the wrong time.

Here's an aborted post from Tuesday night:
I've graded finals for three of five classes. Not that you care. Or, rather, some care hoping that I'll write/talk about something else soon. Yeah I'm playin' the woe card. W'oh!
Tonight I need to grade the fourth group of finals & calculate term averages for the fifth class (who'll take their exam tomorrow).
*
I just got a call that one of my students won a prize in a local poetry contest. Don't worry. Neither she nor I had to pay to enter, though she did need a sponsor. When I talk to her tomorrow, I'll ask Tammi if I can post her poem here.
*
I've borrowed Descent of Alette from Xtina. I'm excited.
I also plan to re-read Ulysses . {Happy belated Bloomsday. Read about Amanda's Bloomish walk about Cambridge at ironstonewhirlygig.blogspot.com! A covert homage to Leopold?}
Two other city books--Justine by Durrell & Calvino's Invisible Cities--have come w/ (separate) recommendations. {Thanks Ben Webster & Mark Lamoureux.) That

It stops just like that. I knew I wanted to say a lot more about Talking to Ben (at a Somervlle Diner) & Mark (at Charlie's) but I knew I didn't have the time. I retuned to the essays. Finished 'em all. Finished grades. Though in an hour or so, I'll ride my bike down to GHS to finish cleaning my room & to learn the book buying process from the retiring Program Leader (read: Department Chair). {I don't think I'll get (or want) the job but I'm applying nevertheless.} When we're through, I hope to convince Dennis to accompany me to the Blackburn Tavern for a pint or two.

Over the last four years we've *wasted* hours {when we should have been grading} talking about Joyce, Hamlet , Jansenist Catholicism, foreign policy, County Cork, Dorchester MA, etc. etc. Recently, we've briefly discussed his difficulties w/ the poetry of the last 100+ years. It is one significant area which we can't really talk about. Beyond Eliot we have no common reference points. So I hope to start w/ Eliot & go from there. He's been wonderfully eccentric mentor & I'll miss him next year.

I've often asked questions on this blog that I've been disappointed not to get answers to. {Responses from Brenda, Behrle & M. Carr have been great though.) In retrospect I realize that they were probably boring questions. {I've confessed to a few of you that I read a half-dozen to a dozen blogs (for a few minutes between 2pm & 6pm) to provide friendly and/or lively relief from grading & bureaucratic tasks. I'm sure blogs serve a similar function to many others out there.}

To return to the matter: {Words. Words. Words.--as the prince sez} Mike County recently asked for comments & experiences w/r/t revision esp. destruction vis-a-vis revision.

I too enjoy revision. Seven or so years ago Amanda wrote a poem to me in which I was a kind of Prufrock saying something like "I must make revisions." {I don't remember the context. I'll have to ask her about it. I do remember though that in the poem I wanted to revise oral speech.} I admire spontaneity in others & am a big fan of a book called The Culture of Spontaneity (thanks Gerrit; perhaps more on the book later). But I am not spontaneous.

I do, however, like to improvise w/ given materials. When I'm secure in a context that is--like a musician knowing the song, etc.--I find pleasure in responding to changes w/in the context, re-arranging, recombining aspects of the context,etc. Revision is like that for me. There are phrases, motifs, sounds, ideas, & I'll move them around seeing how each movement affects the whole--amplifying or foregrounding a kool sound may obscure the idea, or {joy! joy!} may make it clearer. This is the sort of revision I do when the original material is not yet a poem but contains some seed--or seeds--a riff or two, say. When the text I come back to seems to have life of some kind--some kind of internal organization {planned or unplanned} that makes it a something--then I sort of have to re-enter that something or the poem's best left alone.

I got what was for me good advice from Duncan's writings about process. Six or seven years ago I read Duncan's prose maniacally & w/o discipline. I was drinking it in not interested in discriminating between this & that. At the time it was a necessary (drug-like) distraction from problems w/ exhausting, deadend jobs & very high rent. I remember Duncan carving a middle ground between first tho't best tho't & tinkering-as-revision which I'd learned at Emerson (not that it was taught overtly) in my late teens. As I remember it he talked about re-entering the genius of the poem so revision was re-envisioning the poem. There is something Platonic about this that appeals to my mind molded by fears of & belief in a hidden God.

O.K. enough.

Paul Metcalf's Will West!!! For an excruciatingly revealing description of the physical & mental processes of pitching read the first chapter. Fans. Mechanics (of the arm & the ball's flight). The mind's ear/eye. Race & ethnicity. Us/them. Single moments blown open so history (personal & otherwise) comes pouring in. Precise & painful.

If fans/supporters watched baseball like Metcalf & futbol like Eduardo Galeano, I'd feel much less conflicted about my passion for those two sports.

slainte.

I'm in the midst of grading the first of five finals I'll be giving over the next three days.
Bad essays on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and a story by Danny Santiago called "The Somebody".
They're bad not because the students can't write better essays but because it's late June & GHS doesn't take finals very seriously at the administrative level--not to say that administrators say they don't take them seriously. But when grades are due in the computer only eighteen hours after the last two exams are given I'll bet you can imagine what kind of half-assed assessments are given. It's not that I want to make kids miserable. Ask 'em. But intense study--not that everyone's into that ...--yields fruit. There's a pleasure in it.
I hear you. Of course, you're right. No jest. You're right. It's not for all kids. Or all adults. There are other pleasures. Other ways of living proceeding, etc. But I like to think that I give kids the option of persuing lit. & writing that they might get into. I prefer not to control all of it: open the field, show 'em around, but then turn 'em loose. But then I expect to see some evidence of what they've gathered while wandering the pasture, swimming, climbing, what-have-you.
When I've taken students to Boston in the past & turn them loose to eat (& explore in small groups) for a few hours, they almost inevitably hand-out in the nearest BK, Wendys, McD's, etc. (If I'm near I go to Falafel King of xtina.org fame.) A few have ventured forth to buy flowers & such things. They give me hope. It's much the same w/ reading & writing. I'll take 'em to a field of knowledge, show 'em around & turn 'em loose. Most hand around near the cliches, slogans, & such. No {alarms & no} surprises but it's still depressing.
So these essays I'm reading which were meant to be reflective & exploratory are mostly outlines-in-disguise that adhere faithfully (fundamentally) to the "five paragraph essay" learned in 9th grade & before. It's a fine scaffold perhaps but after 180 days I'd hoped for better.
Some are quite good. But it's good to take a break to clear one's mind. No?

slainte.
*
{Listening to Beck's Sea Change, the Mountain Goats' Tallahassee, & the Clash hits Vol. 2 {the only clash I have on CD not vinyl; some of 'em need *up*?grading}

I have all but finished grading assignments for three of the five classes I have left.
Am working on number four.
Just graded journals in response to ...
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
The Stranger
The Fall
Siddhartha (2 more)
The Importance of Being Earnest (2; yeah I know it was first performed in 1895 & so is not a twentieth-century play but the kids like Wilde)
Good Morning, Midnight (Jean Rhys!)
Shadow of a Gunman (again; why that one of all the O'Casey?)
I'm sure I'm forgetting others.
Oh another student's project focused on
Yeats (10 poems), Langston Hughes (10 poems; I almost wrote just "Hughes" but that'd bring Ted to mind considering the project was to focus on Europe...I allowed students to pick one Euro & one North American poet), & misc. European modernist artists (five).

In the new Elicitor the GHS lit mag, there's a clever parody of faux-Irishness that includes a character named William B. Yeats. (I forget what the B. stand for but I know it's not Butler.)

Only eight more journals to grade. Then the Hamlet soliloquies & medieval lit. exams.
A few of the journals have been quite good. No. Really.

Hope all is well with all.
Slainte.

Blogger was down for updates so I've failed in my attempt to post daily.
Last night read nine student journals on a twentieth-century European novel, play, or poems.
Read responses to ...
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Cherry Orchard
Murder in the Cathedral
Siddhartha (3)
Shadow of a Gunman (though the student called it Tale of a Gunman)
Things Fall Apart
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Thirty or so left to grade.
~
Went to sleep re-reading The Amerindian Coastline Poem & listening to Tallahassee by The Mountain Goats.
~
Missed dinner with Amanda, Gerrit, Gerrit's nephew Gerrit, Timotha, John, and Patrick in order to read & grade journals.
~
School day begins now ...
~
slainte

Fountains of words
fall against the window
every one
different from
the other, and,
wanting to taint oblivion,
I organize them

Nothing is true.
*
Fanny Howe, from The Amerindian Coastline Poem
~~~
I'd like to go on rereading this book on and off for the next day or so. I love rereading. I love texts that ask to be reread.
~~~
This seascape fits exactly with
the geography of my mind:
whatever is close is dangerous
*
from The Amerindian Coastline Poem
~~~
At ironstonewhirlygig.blogspot.com Amanda mentioned our drive from Lanesville to Rockport (the two northern most parts of Cape Ann, the former actually being part of Gloucester though very different in character from downtown, West Gloucester, East Gloucester, Magnolia, Annisquam, etc.). Along this drive the outermost rocks of Folly Cove were particularly alluring today. & though the seascape did not match my mind, looking at it I was able to recall times past when that seascape has fit my mind's geography. I wish for those times to return.
~~~
I have another class-worth of short essays & comic strips on Kafka's Metamorphosis to grade before tomorrow morning.
Teaching the book went well considering the novella/long-short-story was a last minute replacement after I was forced to ditch my plans to teach Catcher in the Rye because we'd run out of books. It lead to many interesting discussions about dreams, alienation, revulsion, & family dynamics. I hope I will be able to teach the book again. {I had no idea GHS owned it until I came upon it while desperately searching for interesting titles in the catacomb-like English Department Book Room.}

Next year, I probably will not be teaching tenth graders anymore, but I will probably be teaching a senior Great Books class in which I can use Metamorphosis & for which--judging by the lack of "great books" in the catacombs--I will be xeroxing & asking students to purchase a few books. Ah, but that's next year. Another week & finals to go in this one. Much work still to do.

slan leat.

I just finished grading the last of the personal essays written by my GHS juniors.

{To get these finished I've had to miss the BoPo Marathon's first three days. Tomorrow I'll miss the last day because of graduation.}

I have to admit I'd intended to say something cogent about teenagers' writing but am speechless. I'm overwhelmed by the experiences & observations of these sixteen & seventeen year-olds. Pain of betrayal. Thrill of transgression, followed by self-hatred. Self-mutilation followed by self-discovery. Hallmark-ish triumph over very real adversity. Crises of faith. An Affirmation of faith. A Quiet (pain-filled) sermon against smiley-faced hypocrisy. Various solipsistic existential crises by very intelligent & self-important students.

Reading over forty confessions of sorts has made me very nervous. I'd planned to read some Fanny Howe tonight--from The Amerindian Coastline Poem--& I may just do so before falling asleep, but first I need to clear voices out of my head not add another one.

I quite like the cover of Fanny Howe's 1975 book. It shows the Atlantic Coast from northeastern Quebec (the part the curls above New Brunswick & Nova Scotia) down to northern New Jersey. The map extends east to western Newfoundland & west just short of the Great Lakes. New Brunswick & Nova Scotia are in the vertical center of the cover. I feel particularly close to these two provinces & hope to spend a few weeks in them again this summer as I did last summer.

In the inner fold of the book there is a cropped map of the same coast. This map's center is a bit further north & west; it also reverses the coloring of the land (white on the cover, dotted in the center map) & water (dotted on the cover, dotted in the center). The shift north & west and the inverted colors conspired to make the familiar coast strange. (I even considered looking at my atlas to figure out what the hell I was looking at. Then, just before getting up out of my chair, I figured out (duh!) to switch the land & ocean. It was hard to do. Hard to unlearn the first map's language. But quite instructive.

I'd like to hear from anyone who has attended the readings this weekend. I'd especially like to hear about Fanny Howe's reading Friday night.

slainte.

See xtina.org (I've yet to learn how to do links; in two weeks, when school's out, Amanda will help me with that) for news about the BoPo Marathon.
~
I like that at canwehaveourballback.com/pm.htm (Popular Mechanics) Jim put big spaces between the poems & the poets. This gave me a chance to guess the poet after reading the poem.

I guessed correctly for Christina's, Aaron's, and Mark's poems (though at least half way through, I thought Jordan Davis' poem might be Mark's). Of course, it helped significantly that I knew who to look. But still it made me happy that I know the work of these poets well enough to recognize some combination of words, phrasings, linebreaks, motifs, etc. as theirs.

~
Time to catch a bus home. Haven't decided if I'll be able to make it down to beantown for tonight's marathon leg. Much end of year work to do--little time in which to do it.

slan agat...

I've decided I will try to post something everyday.
I will not be attending the first night of BoPo Marathon tonight. Sorry Dan. I have no transport & have far too much grading to do.
~
G.H.S. student a few years back: "Well a zero's better than nothing."
~
Was just reading about the Hotel Wentley Poems on Silliman's blog {sorry Jim} & am now listening to the Cat Power (Chan Marshall) song "Names":
"her name was Naomi
beautiful round face so ashamed
she told me how to please a man
after school in the back of the bus
she was doin it everyday
she was 11 years old"

The song describes five such kids (aged 10, 11, 12, 13, 14); all of whom have disappeared from the narrator's life.
I think when I get home 'round seven, I'll read more Wieners while listening to Cat Power.
~
I am curious about what others think about Silliman's comments on Kidnap Notes Next. Anyone?
~
Also, I'd like to hear any news about tonight's reading especially since Dan's opening of the BoPo thing a few years back was such a memorable event for me.
~
Can epiphanies (misunderstood as the ah-ha moment) be reclaimed from closed-off New Yorker poems?
Michael Carr called me on my breezy assertion that Joyce used epiphanies in Dubliners. As far as I know, he used none of the epiphanies he recorded in notebooks (cf the well-known letter to his brother) in Dubliners. But I would maintain that there are moments in Dubliners--the conversation between two young Brits & the shopminder near the end of "Araby" for example--that fit Joyce's own definition of epiphany, even though these moments are not from the notebooks. I'd also say that these moments that seem epiphanic in Joyce's own sense would not be considered epiphanies by my colleagues here at GHS or by the textbooks we use. I dare say--trusting Michael's memory of the collected "The Epiphanies" which I'd like to get my hands on--that Joyce's own recorded epiphanies would not be considered such by my colleagues & the Prentice Hall anthologies. More later.
~
Back to the essays
~
slainte!

Art Space Arts Pace
Glosta
last Wednesday Night

Joe Torra concluded the featured readers portion of the Artspace coffehouse by reading his chapbook "August letter to my wife and daughters." At the time Joe began to read the audience had already heard five open-mic performers and two readers with a brief intermission between the five and two. Despite this, Joe's poem & reading captured the ears & eyes of the assembled minds. It was a brilliant reading.

One of handful that I've experienced in my young life. I hope to hear more. With Joe around it's bound to happen. Of the great readings I've attended, two others also involve Joe: at Artspace at the end of 1999 or 2000 (Joe read "The Second Coming"; Willie Alexander performed; Henry Ferrini showed his film "Radio Fishtown," a brilliant young saxophonist lead a trio, & Gerrit Lansing read brilliantly, as always; he's got chops, as they say) & at MIT this past winter Gerrit & Joe read together during a snowstorm.

Others? Creeley reading at Harvard shortly after Allen Ginsberg's death. Creeley began by reading Allen's "Transcription of Organ Music." R.C.'s reading of the poem was quite different that A.G.'s, but equally attentive. What a joy to hear those words given breath at just that moment.

Others? Dan Bouchard opening the second or third Boston Poetry Conference (now the BoPo Marathon--opening this Thursday as it happens) by reading WCW's rant against Massachusetts w/r/t the Sacco & Vanzetti executions. The conferences/marathons seldom have fire. Dan's reading did that night. Oh, & although he was not given a long enough slot for my taste, Dan made quite a bit of the well-heeled audience squirm w/ the political poems he read at Pen/New England new writers reading at the BPL last year.

Before I go on about the Charles Olson festival, etc. etc. I'll bring things back to Joe's reading of "The Second Coming" before the changing of the millennium by recalling the phrase (something like) "the worst of full of compassionate intensity" which Dan used to draw the worst of Yeats's era w/ the "compassionate conservatives" of our own--at least that's what I've always assumed Dan was doing. Dan?

Joe's reading of "August Letter to My Wife and Daughters"--available from Pressed Wafer--was spellbinding. I've chosen that word carefully. Xtina Strong later wrote & sd that I was keeping time along w/ Joe's reading. {Students have pointed out to me that I do the same when reading poetry in class, especially Shakespeare's iambs.} My friend Greg remarked upon the power of the lists of, for example, banks. The sounds & their permutations took over. But then the poem has a narrative too, a fractured one to be sure, but narrative nevertheless. The poem leaps around in time but in following the one always ends up on one's feet--even after stumbling for a line or two. Joe has a keen eye for epiphanic detail.

I often go on about how Joyce's youthful conception of epiphany as discussed in Stephen Hero & used in Dubliners has to do w/ an object's whatness (or a person's or situation's whatness) showing forth, radiating out. It's not quite the "ah ha!" moment that most people take "epiphany" to mean. So back to Joe: his poems are full of details (objects, exchanges, phases of the mind itself, juxtapositions) that effect epiphanies. This is also related to Joyce's use of the term "epicleti" where the Holy Ghost is evoked to transform the bread & wine into body & blood.

In Joe's poem commonplace details (honed by the mind down to the level of the phrase) & the arrangement of the details into sonic, rhythmic, & associational patterns (this one leads to this one; this one leads to that--though not necessarily chronologically or causally, etc.) transform fragmented (isolated) experience into a communion: from the experience, through writer/reader, to the audience (literally hear-ers); just as the blood & wine through the intercession of the priest becomes communion for the parishioners. This formulation is nothing new. Joyce had thought this through in letters to Stanislaus a hundred years ago, but it bears repeating for those of us who fled formal religion for the greener (more furtile not more lucrative) pastures of poetry seeking a more (not less) inspirited world.
***
The evening at Artspace ended with a few more open-mic performers. I don't remember much just now & must return to grading essays. But I do remember the woman who performed last. She played guitar and sang a song about loss that while cliched was delivered in so sincere a manner that, but the end of the performance, I felt a bit ashamed to have ever even thought about the failure of the words to convey the emotions she felt. At the time I may even have felt a snicker, though again the sincerity of the performance came through to surpress it.

Amanda asked a question about the difference & relative value of writing songs & performing them. At best both parts are strong. But a convincing performance can make up for an awful lot it seems. & of this I'm certain: a convincing performance can make up for far more than a skillful performance.

slainte & paz.