Just wanted to let everyone know if I am slow on responding to any emails or comments this would be because we are in the middle of getting all of the ducks in a row on moving over to a new dedicated server.
Hopefully this won’t take too long, but it seems to me our “moving guys� have bricks in their shoes.
— are being migrated to a new home. As the DNS changes propagate you will begin to have access to the sites on the new server.
DNS propagation can take up to 48 hours to fully complete for servers, so some users may experience problems in site access. If so, then keep retrying, as your browser will query alternative name servers during the 48 hour transfer period.
Domains should resolve normally by Tuesday morning but please let us know if by Tuesday you still have problems connecting to a domain—it would be greatly appreciated.
Diane di Prima gets it right: Page 222: “For isn’t it not that we ‘find our voice’ as poetry teachers are so fond of saying, but rather that voices find us, and perhaps we welcome them? Is not poetry a dance from possession to possession–’obsession’ in the full sense the word had in nineteenth century magick? We are “ridden” as by the gods.”
We are ramping up activities for the promotion of our newest title, Oulipoems. The Oulipoems press release/sell sheet is available here.
For those of you wondering how you can help, one small thing you can do is print out a few copies of our press release/sell sheet and distribute to friends, coworkers, etc. Post it on your office door. Put it in a window. Place in libraries. Every little bit helps!
Our press releases are intended for interested parties and media professionals who are looking to learn more about Ahadada Books or a particular title. We hope you find this information useful and if you can’t find what you are looking for, please feel free to contact us.
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All press releases, to the best of our knowledge, are timely and accurate when issued. However, the passage of time can render information stale, and you should not rely on the continued accuracy of any such material beyond the date of issuance. Ahadada does not assume the obligation to update this information.
Oulipoems is now available for order from Ahadada Books. Click here for more information. Or — go directly to our shop and order.
Copies are on their way to Small Press Distribution — but not available for order yet. We’ll keep you updated. For now, order copies directly from us!
“The title of Philip Terry’s brilliant book pays explicit homage to the Oulipo; but while he uses many of the group’s methods, he invariably goes his own way with them, making poems that are full of an original sense of wit and wonder. He has taken the notion that poetry can emerge from arbitrary procedures and transformed it into a sumptuous variety of explosively novel delights.”
—Harry Mathews
Philip Terry was born in Belfast in 1962 and has been working with Oulipian and related writing practices for over twenty years. His lipogrammatic novel The Book of Bachelors (1999), was highly praised by the Oulipo: “Enormous rigour, great virtuosity—but that’s the least of it.” Currently he is Director of Creative Writing at the University of Essex, where he teaches a graduate course on the poetics of constraint. His work has been published in Panurge, PN Review, Oasis, North American Review, and Onedit, and his books include the celebrated anthology of short stories Ovid Metamorphosed (2000) and Fables of Aesop (2006). His translation of Raymond Queneau’s last book of poems, Elementary Morality, is forthcoming from Carcanet. Oulipoems is his first book of poetry.
Maro Ajemian was one of the best of Cage’s “prepared piano” players. This poem is taken from Babette Deutsch’s Collected Poems 1919–1962 (Indiana University Press, 1963.)
Piano Recital
(for Maro Ajemian and John Cage)
Her drooping wrist, her arm
Move as a swan should move,
First singing when death dawns
Upon the plumaged flesh.
But here no swan wings thresh,
No river runs. A woman
Strikes hidden strings in love.
Now slow–as fronds of palms–
Her fingers on the keys.
Lifted, her listening arms
Ponder the theme afresh,
until it seems young flesh
Is momentarily transmuted
To echo’s effigy.
No no–the risen hands
Pounce on the keys, destroy
The hush, rush on, command
The blacks, the ivories,
in flight now with the keys
To grief’s unwindowed prison,
To the low gate of joy.
She leans with sparkling looks
Toward the dark wood, her strong
Hands work as gleaners should.
Then, as who would caress
A birdlike wordlessness,
She stoops–to drink the meaning
At the still brink of song.
Chivers in the Milwaukee Sentinel, Tuesday, December 26, 1837.
I found this while scanning through the microfilms at the Milwaukee Public Library in 1980, and just recently rediscovered it in papers destined for the University of Maryland library.
For The Milwaukee Sentinel
Mr. Editor— The enclosed beautiful lines, I cut from a Philadelphia paper. There is beauty, pathos, and melancholy in the scene, which belongs only to the aspirations of poetry to delineate. I present them to you, considering them not unworthy of a place in your columns. M…E.
Song, Arranged to a Popular Southern Melody, By C.F.
On the lake where drooped the willow,
Long time ago!
Where the rock threw back the billow
Brighter than snow–
Dwelt a maid beloved and cherished
By high and low:
But with autumn’s leaf she perish’d,
Long time ago!
Rock, and tree, and flowing water,
Long time ago–
Bird, and bee, and blossom taught her
Love’s spell to know–
While to my fond words she listen’d,
Murmuring low–
Tenderly her dove-eyes glisten’d,
Long time ago!
Mingled were our hearts forever!
Long time ago,
Can I now forget her?–never!–
No, lost one, no!
To her grave these tears are given–
Ever to flow!
She’s the star I miss’d from heaven,
Long time ago!
1. Room Spaces, Michael J. Schumacher, CD1> t1) Room Piece XI, CD2> t1) Piece in 3 Parks, t2) Still, t3) Untitled, t4) Still, recorded at Diapason Gallery, NYC, XI Records
2. Spoken words by Jesse Glass, Dec – Jan, 06/07, t1) for Ralph Lichtensteiger, t2) Hospital Singing, t3) Mourn Him, t4) Museum, t5) Oh Japanese Poh! Etz, t6) Pantoum, t7) SEZ, t8) This Only (Teku Teku), t9) Untitled Sequence, t10) Down, Chiba-ken, Japan
From the Clarksville, Tennessee Town Gazette and Farmers Register, July 19th, 1819:
“Lord Byron was one evening in company with the daughter of William Godwin and a Mr. Shelly [sic]; the conversation turned upon the stories of ghosts, &c. and it was agreed among them, that each should write a story of those terrific beings. The result of Miss Godwin’s labors has been published under the title of Frankenstein; the Vampyre was lord Byron’s performance–the effort of Mr. Shelby [sic] has not yet been published.”
Indeed, Mr. Shelby [sic] was not yet recognized as one of the greatest English language poets in 1819.
It’s a wonderful book. Unfortunately, ahadada books did not have the resources to bring this one out. We wish Shin Yu Pai continuing success and tip our hat to 1913 Press. —Jesse Glass
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