Reviews for The Life Writing of Otherness

The average rating for The Life Writing of Otherness based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-09-24 00:00:00 Donald Havener With Revolution of the Word, poet Jerome Rothenberg gathers a selection of American avant garde poetry from perhaps the most productive period in the history of American avant garde poetry, 1914 - 1945. Including the following poets in his selection: Walter Conrad Arensberg, Bob Brown, E. E. Cummings, H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Marcel Duchamp, T. S. Eliot, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Marsden Hartley, Mina Loy, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, Harry Crosby, Robert Duncan, Kenneth Fearing, Charles Henri Ford, Abraham Lincoln Gillespie, Eugene Jolas, Walter Lowenfels, Jackson Mac Low, Charles Olson, George Oppen, Kenneth Patchen, Kenneth Rexroth, Charles Reznikoff, Laura Riding Jackson, Louis Zukofsky... Ing? Is it possible to mean ing? Suppose for the termination in g a disoriented series of the simple fractures in sleep. Soporific has accordingly a value for soap so present to sew pieces. And p says: Peace is. And suppose the i to be big in ing as Beginning. Then Ing is to ing as aloud accompanied by times and the meaning is a possibility of ralsis. - Walter Conrad Arensberg, "Ing" (pg. 4-5) I chew tobacco moistly And keep the aquarium. My gold fish are goopy eyed And droopy; The lady ones wear bridal veils And float about the drawing room Languorously toying with their Gorgeous Japanese fans (That stupid folks call fins) Closing and opening them dreamily, Like soft-eyed Spanish senoritas; Flirting with me, Flashing filmy handkerchiefs of crepe And lace before my fascinated eyes. Pruning their weeping willow tails For my praise. [...] - Bob Brown, "The Aquarium Keeper" (pg. 10) r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r who a)s w(e loo)k upnowgath PPEGORHRASS eringint(o- aThe):l eA !p: S a (r rIvIng .gRrEaPsPhOs) to rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly ,grasshopper; - E. E. Cummings, "No Thanks, No. 13" (pg. 16) XXXIX We have had too much consecration, too little affirmation, too much: but this, this, this has been proved heretical, too little: I know, I feel the meaning that words hide; they are anagrams, cryptograms, little boxes, conditioned to hatch butterflies . . . - H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), from The Wall Do Not Fall (pg. ) I wish to state in the first place that . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . that he is the first in the world, and notably superi- or . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . We approve beforehand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . which he commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . we are convinced that . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . inspired by the highest motives. [...] - Marcel Duchamp, "SURcenSURE" (pg. 25-26) Wheels are growing on rose-bushes gray and affectionate O Jonathan - Jonathan - dear Did some swallow Prendergast's silverheels - be drunk forever and more - with lemon appendicitis? - Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Affectionate (pg. 38) SWISH SWISH SWISH on a sandboard to waltztime in the flare of a white SPOT illuminating most splendidly. - Marsden Hartley, from 1920-1922 (pg. ) We might have coupled In the bed-ridden monopoly of a moment Or broken flesh with one another At the profane communion table Where wine is spill't on promiscuous lips We might have given birth to a butterfly With the daily-news Printed in blood on its wings - Mina Loy, "Love Songs, IX" (pg. 59) of ice. Deceptively reserved and flat, it lies "in grandeur and in mass" beneath a sea of shifting snow dunes; dots of cyclamen-red and maroon on its clearly defined pseudopodia made of glass that will bend - a much needed invention - comprising twenty-eight ice fields from fifty to fifty-hundred feet thick, [...] - Marianne Moore, An Octopus (pg. 72) I More than they liked. More than they liked. Them. II For it. To be. At last. Lost. III Which they made ready. For them. IV They were waiting. For them. They were ready when. They were waiting. Then. For them. V More often they were ready. With them. Especially. With them. VI It is a pleasure. For them. To be read. With them. VII As much as they can. Be ready. With them. VIII It is very strange. That when summer begins. They are not ready. For them. Because during the winter. They are busy. Occupying themselves. With them. IX Mine. One. At a time. X It is very ready. To be ready. With them. Are you ready. XI For them. Or. With them. XII Many. Are ready. For them. - Gertrude Stein, They May Be Said To Be Ready (pg. 92-93) Let them return, saying you blush again for the Great-grandmother. It's all like Chsitmas. When you sprouted Paradise a discard of chewing-gum took place. Up jug to musical, hanging jug just gay spiders yoked you first, - silking of shadows good underdrawers for owls. First-plucked before and since the Flood, old hypnotisms wrench the golden bough. Leaves spatter dawn from emerald cloud-sprockets. Fat final prophets with lean bandits crouch: and dusk is close. under your noon, you Sun-heap, whose ripe apple-lanterns gush history, recondite lightnings, irised. O mister Senor Mademoiselle with baskets Maggy, come on - Hart Crane, "The Mango Tree" (pg. 120) Do you know what an explosion is or a madness? Do you know the three great elements in an attack? Do you know the voltage required to create a current between the artery of the heart and the Sun? - Harry Crosby, "Alchemy of Stimulants" (pg. 124) [...] There, this resignation. Whether signed in a Turkish bath, with a quart of rye, or in a good hotel, sealed with a bullet, is none of your business. None at all. There is no law compelling any man on earth to do the same, second hand, I am tired of following invisible lives down intangible avenues to fathomless ends. Is this clear? Herewith, therefore, to take effect at once, I resign. - Kenneth Fearing, "Agent No. 174 Resigns" (pg. 139) READIE-SOUNDPIECE (after a suggestion of Hilaire Hiler)(synchro-with Orchestrauto maton) A. Lincoln Gillespie, Jr. (two chord-puffs, trumpets) Snaredrum,stringplucks,mandoline) -----------------> /|\ /|\ (PP) POKER ......funny- -post-adolesCollege-days- -Fall- -return- -Glee -----------------> -------------------->--------------------> -------> Club- -rehearse- AssemblyHall- walk-fifteen-minutes- -FratHouse- -supper-rush (insts.swoon) (typewriters' clickpict----------------------------------> /|\ /|\ -eat-late-arrive- -inside- quantity-Freshmen-flit-past- <> (fife-peers,a'la recherche intermingle) - Abraham Lincoln Gillespie (pg. 144) mira ool dara frim oasta grala drima os tristomeen. ala grool in rosa alsabrume lorabim masaloo blueheart of a roolata gasta miralotimbana allatin juanilama - Eugene Jolas, "Mountain Words" (pg. 149) [...] O Few O Poets mourn for Apollinaire. He has sunk and will not rise and still through the rainy nights of Paris moves his unuttered poem and lives still in the mind's persisting Spring. - Walter Lowenfels, "Apollinaire An Elegy" (pg. 165) good guy can't carry cash crash good guy can't carry cash cood cguy cgan't gary gpash g la ss g la ss g la ss g la ss g la ss (gloss) - Jackson Mac Low (pg. 176) Take, then my answer: there is a tide in a man moves him to his moon and, though it drops him back he works through ebb to mount the run again and swell to be tumescent I The affairs of men remain a chief concern We have come full circle. I shall not see the year 2000 unless I stem straight from my father's mother, break the fatal male small span. If that is what the tarot pack proposed I shall hang out some second story window and sing, as she, one unheard liturgy Assume I shall not. Is it of such concern when what shall be already is within the moonward sea? Full circle: an end to romans, hippocrats and christians. There! is a tide in the affairs of men to discern. Shallows and miseries shadows from the cross, ecco men and dull copernican sun. Our attention is simpler The salts and minerals of the earth return The night had a love for throwing its shadows around a man a bridge, a horse, the gun, a grave. - Charles Olson, "The K" (pg. 178-179) Bad times: The cars pass By the elevated posts And the movie sign. A man sells post-cards. - George Oppen, from Discrete Series (pg. 188) Let us have madness openly, O men Of my generation. Let us follow The footsteps of this slaughtered age: See it trail across Time's dim land Into the closed house of eternity With the noise that dying has, With the face that dead things wear - nor ever say We wanted more; we looked to find An open door, an utter deed of love, Transforming day's evil darkness; but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth, and within the head A rotting bog of lean huge graves - Kenneth Patchen, "Let Us Have Madness Openly" (pg. 190-191) 1 "From any event intervals radiate in all directions to other events, and the real and imaginary intervals are sepa- rated by a cone which is called the null-cone." gonaV ; ing ev IT dras 2m3nL1/2 pros *proS instoting tismaD PROXY gela domi immoderate PROSPECT savours curve doing instant conceptual bipartite engine West inclination 32 PERSPECTIVE engine ENGINE MACHINE CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVE ENGINE x y z motor-organ-organ-motor-........................ds! [...] - Kenneth Rexroth, "Fundamental Disagreement with Two Contemporaries (pg. 200) 1 THE IDIOT With green stagnant eyes, arms and legs loose ends of string in a wind, keep smiling at your father. 2 EPIDEMIC Streamers of crepe idling before doors. 3 TWILIGHT No stars in the blue curve of the heavens, no wind. Far off, a white horse in the green gloom of the meadow. 4 GHETTO FUNERAL Followed by his lodge, shabby men stumbling over the cobblestones, and his children, faces and ugly with tears, eyes and eyelids red, in the black coffin in the black hearse the old man. No longer secretly grieving that his children are not strong enough to go the way he wanted to go and was not strong enough. 5 APHRODITE VRANIA The ceaseless weaving of the uneven water. 6 From the fog a gull flies lowly and is lost in fog. The buildings are only clouds. 7 How difficult for me is Hebrew: even the Hebrew for mother, for bread, for sun is foreign. How far have I been exiled, Zion. - Charles Reznikoff, from Five Groups of Verse (pg. 213-214) What to say when the spider Say when the spider what When the spider the spider what The spider does what Does does dies does it not Not live and then not Legs legs then none When the spider does dies Death spider death Or not the spider or What to say when To say when To say always Death always They dying of always Or alive or dead What to say when I When I or the spider No I and I what Does what does dies No when the spider dies Death spider death Death always I Death before always Death after always Dead or alive Now and always What to say always Now and always What to say now Now when the spider What does the spider The spider what dies Dies when then when Then always death always The dying of always Always now I What to say when I When I what When I say When the spider When I always Death always When death what Death I says say Dead spider no matter How thorough death Dear or alive No matter death How thorough I What to say when When who when the spider When life when space The dying of oh pity Poor how thorough dies No matter reality Death always What to say When who Death always When death when the spider When I who I What to say when Now before after always When then the spider what Say what when now Legs legs then none When the spider Death spider death The genii who cannot cease to know What to say when the spider When I say When I or the spider Dead or alive the dying of Who cannot cease to know Who death who I The spider who when What to say when Who cannot cease Who cannot Cannot cease Cease Cannot The spider Death I We The genii To know What to say when the Who cannot When the spider what Does what does dies Death spider death Who cannot Death cease death To know say what Or not the spider Or if I say Or if I do not say Who cannot cease to know Who know the genii Who say the I Who they we cannot Death cease death To know say I Oh pity poor pretty How thorough life love No matter space spider How horrid reality What to say when What when Who cannot How cease The knowing of always Who these this space Before after here Life now my face The face love the The legs real when What time death always What to say then What time the spider - Laura Riding Jackson, "Elegy in a Spider's Web" (pg. 224-228)

Review # 2 was written on 2018-05-01 00:00:00 Tracy Weatherman Rothenberg is the supreme editor for experimental literature, and this collection ranges across the period between the end of WWI and the end of WWII with an engaging and sometimes explosive collection of poems. He includes some well-known modern poets, like cummings, Moore, Sandberg, Crane, etc. cheek by jowl with people the reader might not think of "poets" - like Marcel Duchamp or Marsden Hartley. I love the sequence from Harry Crosby, perhaps the ultimate poet maudit, as the French put it, who committed suicide after spending the last two years of his life producing obsessive, fascinating work.