Kent Johnson has edited Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada (Roof, 1998), as well as Also, with My Throat, I Shall Swallow Ten Thousand Swords: Araki Yasusada's Letters in English, forthcoming from Combo Books. He has also translated (with Alexandra Papaditsas) The Miseries of Poetry: Traductions from the Greek (Skanky Possum, 2003) and (with Forrest Gander) Immanent Visitor: Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz (California UP, 2002), which was a PEN Award for Poetry in Translation selection. He was named Faculty Person of the Year for 2003 at Highland Community College, in Freeport, Illinois, where he teaches English Composition and Spanish.

Thanks to everyone who made our Discrete megaweekend a success: Stefan Grace, Jeff Weeter, Jen Karmin, the readers, Jesse for his mc'ing partnership, and Kim Hayes and Margaret Sloan for their post-reading hospitality.

Next reading is Friday April 9th:
John Tipton (celebrating the release of his book "Surfaces" just out from Flood Editions)
& Kent Johnson

Event starts at 9 p.m.

Poet, translator & essayist Pierre Joris left Luxembourg at age 19 & has since lived in the U.S., Great Britain, North Africa, and France. Rain Taxi praised his most recent collection, Poasis: Selected Poems 1986-1999, for "its physical, philosophical delight in words and their reverberations." Just out from Wesleyan U.P. is his collection of essays A Nomad Poetics. His recent translations include 4x1: Work by Tristan Tzara, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jean-Pierre Duprey & Habib Tengour and Abdelwahab Meddeb's The Malady of Islam. With Jerome Rothenberg he edited the award-winning anthology Poems for the Millennium. In spring 2004 Green Integer will reissue three volumes of his translations of Paul Celan: Breathturn, Threadsuns and Lightduress. He often performs his work in collaboration with vocalist & visual artist Nicole Peyrafitte ( www.nicolepeyrafitte.com ), most recently touring their multimedia show SumericaBachbones throughout Europe & the US. He currently teaches poetry and poetics at SUNY-Albany. During the fall of 2003 he was Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Visit Pierre Joris's website at www.albany.edu/~joris/.

Here now two recent poems:

POEM UPON RETURNING TO THESE STATES AFTER A 6-MONTHS ABSENCE

yes, this is the Titanic
yes, these are icebergs,
no, it is pointless to ask for a
better cabin or to switch
to a stateroom

* * *


This afternoon Dante
will be ex-
pelled from Florence —
a good thing as how could he
have written so well
on the far-away imaginary ex-
ile of the comically divine
realms had he not known
what it meant to walk
over a cold January day’s
ground frost, clod-
breaking, heart beating,
from one city to another
— to come to
this: that exile
is but the next step you take
the unknown there
where your foot comes
down
next, in
heaven or on earth
exile is when you can still
lift a foot
exile is when you are not
yet dead.

Jen Hofer edited and translated Sin puertas visibles: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women (University of Pittsburgh Press and Ediciones Sin Nombre, 2003). Her recent books of poetry include the chapbook lawless (Seeing Eye Books, 2003), slide rule (subpress, 2002), and The 3:15 Experiment (with Lee Ann Brown, Danika Dinsmore, and Bernadette Mayer, The Owl Press, 2001). She is co-editor, with Rod Smith, of Aerial #10, a forthcoming critical volume on the work of the poet Lyn Hejinian. Her writings against the war in Iraq and the war on terror can be found in the special anti-war issue of A.BACUS, and in the anthology Enough (O Books, 2003); other poems, prose texts and translations appear in recent issues of 26, Aufgabe, Circumference, Conundrum, kenning, kiosk, NO: A Magazine of the Arts, and in the book Surface Tension: The Problematics of Site (Errant Bodies Press, 2003). She lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches and translates.

(a poem from the book-length sequence one)


less then more then less again then (then again) none
not one (the absence of (necessary) silence)

“Looking out of the window of a hotel (at the bombing
of Baghdad) is like looking through a soda straw.”
— Doug Erlenbosch

“How do you experience something you’re not experiencing?”
— Scott Pound


crashing upon the shore nothing is (nothing)
is too coordinated (complex) complex of
designed to prevent congregation overly
to shush demurely resolutely unnoticed
we will continue until there is no need

necessarily alone participatory transit
the self looks out from (the self) and is
known public (a red line in outline) built
too late as what was being before is not known
exactly (so as) so as through a participatory
process to console (beauty crabapples nicely
not largely) we had made plans but so what

to be being is birdsong
in the blue blue of having been

having is wrinkled, pocked against the marked canvas (the marketed power)
folds in the former floor shush refusal (what is not heard) all terrain excess
convoy rebuttal obeys no drafted cartography in a rising wind or bounty
(not acknowledged) plainly a case of terrifically bad luck (clearcut) fledgling
those glints aren’t birds they’re answers that never asked like the green green
grass grinning thirstily sweet grown thinner with no effort if it can be said
that lack is not effort or exceptions obey brittle memoranda escalating
in the realm of the predictable register sight (preparation for preparation) measured
actions (sights) thousands and thousands the familiar smell the unrecognizable view
(thousands and thousands) someone made this bed, now lie in it

at some not prescribed point all of us
having been and not being and not being birds
also not sudden nonetheless breathless airborne
or never the more breathing in the grounded precision
of activity which (buried) bears no resemblance to bombing
which bears no resemblance to freedom which is a conglomerate (word)
and bears no resemblance and resemblance endures beyond understanding
which (wordless) is many migratory words (scarcely) (resourceful) and which like archeology bears no end of exploration

the threads of not listening wrap diligently
the having changed by the being changed
or spool in looks unwelcome easily explained
if not so easily avoided outrage
falls livid on the man-made prepared surface
which otherwise would be inaccessible, very quiet

mostly we export products and feelings
products being trends, bents or belligerence
or being unable to accept the being otherwise
engaged and so less likely to appreciate that many
birds happen in filaments or slices against a gradual
forming the alternate daybreak tilted and mercurial
but who’s counting faltering faulting in grid-like
formation canisters at the ready or gridlock
on purpose so as to be hemmed in

mostly a demise in manners as designated patterns
organically lift toward an outer limit not defined in
sights peripherally trained fields empty tirades empty

as there is no stated location
we are everywhere or we are nowhere
as there is no stated location

that obsessive thought (sky) (sparrow) (winding streets) (a plan)
like a crow like a door (not a call to arms) a cement block
not unlike servitude in a long pink dress tethered
there are ways not to forget
aids colors places homes
withers every night on the vine
and every day reconstitutes (at attention)
constituent parts in vehicles no destination
in the absence of color a tangible
color a loud noise
a loud unpleasant noise

if a wall is a river
a bit of interference
flowing past the checkpoint
makes the image accurate
made by the maker of rivers
if a wall can be beautiful
why is it not made beautiful

Dan Machlin is the author of "This Side Facing You" (Heart Hammer), "In Rem" (@ Press), "Sevenths" (Oasia Pamphlet Series) and a recent limited edition broadside from The Center for Book Arts. He has also
collaborated with singer/composer Serena Jost on a full length Audio CD "Above Islands" (Immanent Audio) and set several poems by the poet HD to music. He is a current curator at The Segue Series at Bowery Poetry Club in New York and is Founder and Editor of Futurepoem Books, a Brooklyn-based publishing collaborative.

(from "White Buildings Mix")
TRAIL MIX / HOME-DYED UNIFORMS

It was pitch black
and clap so loud the

sea unbuttoned
as those making wind

a frame coughed--also
blocked a man of breaks

--tell me
is this, Primo, a man?

this hollow chest
a man whose almost is himself

a cabinet of curiosities
a man of bones, a lonely

cloister of noh-masculinity
a living skeleton

an insignificant self--
I’m just lucky

I survived I think--
So all cells are superfluous

this bent up will
the will of flowers

Don’t want to think of "it"
just give me money

paper scissors

Chuck Stebelton's work has appeared or is soon to appear in Antennae, Bridge, Can we have our ball back?, Conundrum, Near South, Pom2, and Shampoo. He organizes the weekly poetry series at Myopic Books in Chicago.

The following poem is forthcoming in the next issue of Antennae.

YPSO BYSMAL

Backward prancing Thoth off a cliff

The utopian relieved over solo & ensemble

No trees cherry blossoming alone

ritual indecency on a flip diagnosis

That in everyone's heart there is a slumbering

squirrel. There a cold, ferocious lurks

Giants your size are sexy

Garden plants like automatic writing

Music will cradle some into talking

Chronic become in time as paraquat

A quick shot of silver still

recently wooded, still convivial bay

Chris Stroffolino is the author of 3 full-length books of poetry, including Speculative Primitive (Tougher Disguises, 2004 forthcoming), Stealer's Wheel (1999, Hard Press), and Oops (1994, Pavement Saw) as well as four chapbooks, Scratch Vocals (Potato Clock, 2003), Light as a Fetter (Situations, 1997) and Cusps (Aerial/Edge,1995) and Incidents (Vendetta, 1991). His collection of essays on mostly contemporary poetry, Spin Cycle, was published in 2001 and he also co-edited with Dave Rosenthal an edition of Shakespeare's 12th Night. He currently lives in Oakland or San Francisco and teaches English at St. Mary's College of California and is a member in good standing of the rock band Continuous Peasant (www.continuouspeasant.com), whose album, Exile in Babyville, was released in Fall of 2003. Other than that, he needs to catch up on some sleep and probably quit cigarettes (but he's kind of waiting for the non-smokers to give up their SUVS first).

The following poem was published in Conundrum issue 1:

from Fire Log Suite

1.

If you get a shark on its back I hear it's very mellow

And that which lives within me
(whose strong persuasions
to stay inside and tend the fire
I heed despite the protestations
of sidewalks and feet
longing to gather more logs)
Is tyrant today

Not so much that my slight
Writhings on the floor
Are source for any punishment
But discrepancy

So many logs
And no enough floor space.

The ribs pressed against the rug
Know the faster the fire
The more the room will be
Mellow and writhe

Even with the window wide
The battle burning
The tyrant kindling
They'll want to greet the cold
The first log catches

Cole Swensen's ninth collection of poetry, Goest, just came out from Alice James Books. Her work has been awarded a National Poetry Series selection, Sun & Moon's New American Writing Award, the Iowa Poetry Prize, the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She also translates contemporary French fiction, art criticism, and poetry; recent books include Jean Frémon's The Island of the Dead and Olivier Cadiot's Future, Former, Fugitive. She teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Kaia Sand’s first book of poetry, Interval, was just published by Edge Books. She lives in Southern Maryland where she teaches at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Her poetry currently can be found in Antennae, ecopoetics , www.dcpoetry.com, and d u s i e : www.dusie.org. A poetry collaboration with Jules Boykoff is in the latest issue of Lungfull! Magazine, and a recent conversation with Carol Mirakove appears in Banjo: www.banjopoets.blogspot.com. Jules and Kaia also edit the Tangent: http://www.thetangentpress.org/.
The following poem has appeared in the periodical Bivouac and can also be found in Kaia's book, Interval:


Obsolescence

let’s tell the V.P. to quit
his shell games

quit your shell games V.P.

but now is not the time to talk about this

we like our SUVs organic and
our shuteyes jammed with jingoism
our doldrums shaped like chevrons

but now is not the time to talk about our loudmouthed supply

our painted cake pie
in the sky

now is not not the time now is not the time

the V.P. saw pinwheel
when he heard windmill

this abundance a decimation
this unstoppable as we

this loudmouthed supply
yellowcake pie
in the sky

Raymond L Bianchi
chicagopostmodernpoetrycalendar.blogspot.com/
collagepoetchicago.blogspot.com/

Walked over in Times Square

Touching her sleeping breasts they suddenly opened like sharp spikes of a
railroad bridge ripped in two. The trees filled with a silver light growing
with contaminants far from the river. A cluster of barbed wire riddled with
pieces of fur and flesh. The Artist died in 1916 in a ditch filled with
water and rot.

Lacerations colored her white raw nakedness . I won't repeat the things she
said to me smeared with sand and kisses I took her away from the river. I
behaved like what I am; a thick fingered faux man asking the wrong questions
at the wrong time in loud bleats like a pig being cut and dressed for the
first time.

A porous border sits between the colors that matter and the colors that don't .
Nothing here is profoundly American but a collection of nuts and bolts
and colors and old shoes that have no more use for us except to take up
space in the back seat of an old Chevy. Europe has assembled an American
place of extreme and dangerous sensuality.

They model are painted with big fleshy posteriors and large breasts. They
don't seem to fit into the stereotype of high-heeled nudes. Dancers and
circus acrobats; pensive girls who seem so aware of being looked at and are
used to the spotlight that they ignore any direction. The laid back bohemian
life is not possible since smoking is now illegal; thinking is regulated
and we are not allowed to wear black anymore. The twists and distortions of
life are a kind of energized mental jar bouncing and causing your brain to
slosh around and hit the sides of your skull.