Am in the midst of reading three fine books by Mr. Lazar: Days (Lavender, Inc.), Elegies & Vacations (Salt) and The New Spirit (Singing Horse Press).

While I was skimming through Amazon a couple of weeks back, the scan function turned up two hits for my name in two totally unexpected places!

*American Brutus; John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiraces, by Michael W. Kauffman (Random House).
*The Pietist Theologians, edited by Carter Lindberg (Blackwell Publishing).

Kauffman alludes to my Shaw research, and the scholar Donald F. Durnbaugh refers to a bit of speculation I indulged in a few years back about Jane Lead. Some synchronicity is involved in the Lindberg book, as I’d just recently picked up a small anthology of Pietist writings in New York. (I particularly enjoy Zinzendorf and the hymns of Freylinghausen.) Anyway, more good reading! Both American Brutus and The Pietist Theologians are wonderful discoveries and I’m so pleased to be included there in the back matter of both!

Jesse found another gem on YouTube and forwarded to me. Here it is!

Courteousy UBUweb:

Demetrio Stratos was born in Alexandria, Egypt on 22 April 1945. He studied the pianoforte and the accordion at the Conservatoire National d’Athenes. In 1962, he moved to Italy, where he enrolled in the Architecture Faculty at the Politecnico di Milano. In 1967, he joined the “Ribelli” rock group as keyboard player; he soon adandoned this to dedicate his activities to voice research. He started to experiment on vocal phenomena…

His research into the field of phonetic and experimental poetry led to his freeing his voice every naturalistic restraint, restoring its depth and dimension. The result of this van be heard in the two recordings of his compositions “Metrodora” and “Cantare la Voce” where what sounds like an instrument is in fact his voice.

He died in June 1979 at the New York Memorial Hospital. He was admitted the evening before a concert held on his behalf at the Milan Area. Over 100 musicians played in front of an audience of 100,000.

A disturbing avant-garde film by Micki Pellerano, based on a passage from Maldoror.

Micki Pellerano is an artist and filmmaker wiith a background in experimental theater. He currently lives in Brooklyn.

This film is part of a larger project. Learn about it and buy it here.

It’s all there on You Tube! I spent a good two hours yesterday exploring the You Tube site and found such goodies as the complete “Passion of John of Arc” which features Artaud as one of the monks. I also found “Pull My Daisy” with the whole Beat Gang, a video of Neal Cassady driving the Merry Prankster Further! Bus as he talks on and on in a high twangy voice I never imagined he had, two brilliant realizations of excerpts from Maldoror–especially the “I Have Made a Pact with Prostitution” film,–and Tuli Kupferberg reading/chanting poetry in scruffy cap and bath robe! Then there are the pulsing abstractions of Harry Smith, folklorist and experimental film maker that blew me away. It’s all there, folks. Hopefully Dan will put up some links to the videos/films I’ve just mentioned here. When the Google crew paid those billions for the rights to You Tube they knew what they were doing.

A beatifully done CD-Rom of new poetry, video and sounds that includes many new names and features “close to 200 poems from Japan, Hong Kong, Macau, New Zealand, Holland, Canada, Brazil and the USA,” as it says on the back of the jewel box. For information about price and submissions, please go to: www.papermedia.com.

I just received word from a friend at work that Montreal poet Robert Allen passed away last Friday. Jon Paul Fiorentino was a friend and colleague of Robert Allen. Check out his blog for more information. Jon writes:

Writer, teacher, editor, mentor, and dear friend, Robert Allen, died on Friday, November 3 2006. He was the author of nine collections of poetry, three novels, and one collection of short fiction. His most recent book was the brilliant long poem, The Encantadas, published just this spring by Conundrum. Without a doubt, The Encantadas is one of the best Canadian poetry books ever published.

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of reading his Encantadas— it’s a beautiful book. I agree with Jon’s claim; it’s brilliant. Condolences from Ahadada Books go out to his friends, family and colleagues.

Some short poems that “work” for me:

Two from Cid’s book Livingdying (New Directions, 1970):

Of course,
life matters.
Twitter,

sparrow,
and let me
know it

Why do I like these six ambiguous–even confused–lines? I think it’s because of the sudden intervention of that word Twitter which leads the poem from head to heart, from windy abstraction to a Keatsian engagement with the concrete. I also appreciate the lack of a period at the end–the song continues beyond the poem, can you hear it? The sparrow of course informs the intellectual of its position.

Where I kneel
a rock stands

So much is said in the unsaid of these two lines.

Harvey Shapiro is a poet I am appreciating more and more as I read through his fine collection The Sights Along the Harbor (Wesleyan, 2006). Shapiro has many wonderful short poems, and whereas Cid remains rather cold and metaphysical, Harvey is not afraid to use Henny Youngman humor in his work. The following is just one example among many:

Glory

In the museum of antiquities
I ran my hands over
The breasts and thighs
Of the young Aprhrodite
And heard her say, kiss my ass.

I wish people writing in English would forget those words for a while. Both have become as ductile as double bubble bubble gum and twice as cheap.

Yet another beautifully produced offering of short poems from Noon. Among the many familiar names, pride of place goes to John Parsons–a new name for me–for this untitled poem that smacks a little of Samuel Menashe:

two
buzzards
grappling
spiral
down
together
he stops
to stoop
retrieves
her
falling
feather.

I think I would have changed “her” to “a,” to maintain the objective feeling of the piece. Parson’s use of a strategic rhyme takes this poem to another level of structure and complexity compared to the faux haiku that comprises the majority of the work featured in this issue. The sly allusion to Whitman is nice too.

Lots of other interesting work. Contact noonpress[at]mac.com for information about subscriptions and submissions.