British Imperialists IN YOUR ASS (Still) Pt 1

Since times are hard (ha) & Nibiru is still a few years away, here's a couple more odds & ends. The first, the material claimed from the recent Caroline Bergvall/Mario Diaz de Leon event at the Hispanic Society of America.



This tasty chap--an especially fine production from well-known Belladonna Books--limits itself to 75 copies. Though, as can be seen below, the colophon announces them as all signed, which they are not (or, at least this copy; I did not examine the others).



If there are any of these treats left for sale, I most highly recommend the pick-up. I believe the people hawking them were the ones associated with Unnameable Books, the mecca of the Brooklyn book world.

A taste from early in the poem:

Hi all Im Alyson,
some people call me Al.
I'm many theyngs to many,
a few thyinge to some &
nothing but an irritant
to socialites and othire
glossing troglodytes
Just don't call me Alice
I dig conversation
but the only rabbit I ever liked
is rabbit in prunes of Agen
sauted in duck fat
or a conys in Hoggepotte.
It's been a long time, quod she,
some & six hundred.
Everything was different
yet pretty much the same.
Godabove ruled all
& the Franks the rest.
Womenfolk were owned ne trafficked
nor ghosted, and so were
most workfolk enserfed.
Sunsets were redder then,
legs a little shorter.
In my time I made my bed
a stretch a streowen
for many leien in hoo we did!

You can also catch Caroline reading on a recent episode of Estefan's Ceptuetics. In the half hour program she discusses some of the mechanics of the piece, which I shan't spoil. Also let's hope someone recorded the event with Mario Diaz de Leon--it was a dynamic collaboration.

Bonus pic of The Knight outside the Hispanic Society :




Note the gidouilles flanking the stairs leading to the Errant.

Roundup Pt 2.1: Hot Shots pt Deux Pt 2

Another yesterday arrival was Bill Pearlman's Inzorbital. At first glance this is an innocent-enough volume of poems put out by Duende in 1974, but the volume curates some interesting associations, to be explored below.




First, the book itself contains several interesting modifications. The envoy on the colophon "For Gus & Felice" is a good start to a good copy. This doesn't seem to be from either the stated 26 signed copies or the special 9 signed copies with an additional poem written in, but the inscription isn't bad, to say the least.



Where things get interesting is the back cover. I know absolutely nothing about graphology & it's uses, but there seems to be another inscription on the back cover in the same hand & pen. Of course, this could be featured on all copies of the book but my instinct is that it is unique. Very few letters from either selection are used in the same way in both sequences, but the capital G's from "Gus" & "Garden" seem rather unique & the lower-case t's throughout are dead on.


It's an interesting challenge to figure out exactly how to read this final, touching phrase, reminiscent perhaps of Melville's Army of Shadows:

I have decided
to Run before
the Shooting Starts.
You are invited
to the Spirit Garden
Opening Night --

Marilyn Kennedy

Then there is the name, Marilyn Kennedy, which could range from any number of real people to the humorous combination of Marilyn Monroe & JFK--Marilyn's would-be married name if she & JFK were to get hitched. The possibilities of what exactly all this indicates, if indeterminate, remains quite interesting. The phrase itself does not seem to appear anywhere via google.

VVhat attracted me to the Pearlman in the first place is that the front matter lists Inzorbital as issue 5 of Fervent Valley, a magazine that I had thought only had 4 numbers from Spring of '72 thru the Summer of '74. I thought I had completed the series a while ago, only to recently find out about this phantom 5th issue.




Fervent Valley issues 1, 2 & 3:



Fervent Valley, though technically short-lived, was as exciting & well-edited as any of the early 70s zines that are probably more famous. Each issue, including the fifth, inhabits a different size & style of binding. Issue one was edited by the conglomerate of Stephen Rodefer, Larry Goodell, Charlie Vermont, Bill Pearlman & Lenore Schwartz. Inside there is work from Allen Ginsberg, Ken Irby, Tom Clark, Bukowski, Fielding Dawson & Andrei Codrescu, along with the editors. Number 2 finds only Rodefer, Goodell & Pearlman at the helm but adds work by Burroughs, Lewis MacAdams & Summer Brenner along with another appearance from Bukowski & more work from the editors. By the time bright pink issue 3 rolls into town (Spring '73) Larry Goodell & Gus Blaisdell edit along with Lenore Schwartz (now) Goodell. Editors past & present are again represented but added to the mix are Tom McGrath, Tom Raworth & Larry Eigner. Removable artwork by Brian Leo is tipped into the rear, perhaps to get a fuller grasp of the piece, perhaps due to stapling oversight.

Issue 4:


The fourth issue features one of the better covers of the mimeograph era, designed by George Grosz. The issue is solely edited by Rodefer. The contents are perhaps the most star-laden. The issue is led by Charles Olson, followed shortly by a Frank O'Hara/Bill Berkson piece "Reverdy". Rodefer puts his own work between these two deceased heroes (Berkson is obviously alive) to round out the first three entries. Soon follow Phil Whalen, Anne Waldman, T.S. Eliot, Groucho Marx, Gregory Corso, Ford Madox Ford, Robert Creeley, Marcel "Duchamps", Michael McClure & Allen Ginsberg. Slightly less household contributors include names such as Valentino, (G) Young, Hirschman, Malanga, Mead, Leavitt, (S) Ortiz & the usual suspects of Rodefer, Goodell, Pearlman, Vermont.

Overall, issue four presents the best synthesis of editorial selection & jokiness to be seen in any of the issues of Fervent Valley, perhaps pointing to the editorial genius that informs Rodefer's Villon, issued a few years later.

* * *

The fun, however, is far from over. I cannot, at the moment, relocate where I read about the following dual-item. It was somewhere online digging through google searches of Rodefer, or perhaps somewhere else entirely. Surely there are other (potential) readers who might be able to square up the history, but I won't dally.

What follows below is both the official copy of the Winter-Spring 1969 double issue of the New Mexico Quarterly & the fugitive 'censored' mimeograph response, the New Mexico Quarter. Rodefer appears in both issues, "Susan's Stone Shoes" & "The Electrified World" in the official copy, "Ode to the University of New Mexico President and the Santa Fe Legislature" in the samizdat.


The verso of "The Quarter":


Without the details of the history to refer to, exactly what was censored from the main issue, & why, remains difficult to parse. For instance, the Michael McClure poem below, "Plume Ode," featuring the phrases "they spray from the dark cunt & cock" & "TO THE HUGE PICTURE OF CUNT AND FOOD" appears in both issues. One other McClure item, "On Beginning Romeo and Juliet" appears in the official number, while two others, "Hummingbird Ode" & "Me Raphael" surface in the censored copy. Interestingly, the most traditionally vulgar material in any of the McClure items was that listed above, from the poem appearing in both issues--seemingly not the reason for the season, so to speak. Along with Rodefer & McClure, Robert Creeley also appears in both numbers: "For A Valentine" in the friendly copy, "The Hole" in the after midnight version.



What we can learn in "General Editor" George Arms intro to what he describes as the last issue of NMQ (perhaps Rodefer killed it) is that the "special editor, Gene Frumkin, poet and teacher of creative writing at the University, has brought together a group of poems, stories, and critical essays that happily climax the long career of the magazine." Thus, the name of Stephen Rodefer is never attached in any of the issues to any sort of editorship. The 'censored' issue contains no editorial information whatsoever.

Things are partially illuminated by Rodefer's entry in the Quarter, "Ode to the University of New Mexico President and the Santa Fe Legislature." A closeup of the epigraph follows:



Here is the full poem, which you should be able to click on, as with many of my blog photos, in order to enlarge:



So I think it's safe to guess that this poem might be the crux of the whole issue. It would be hard to believe that the page excerpt from the last episode of Ulysses, part of Molly's glorious monologue, would have been cause for war in 1969--she jacks off a sailor into a handkerchief & keeps it. & it seems probable that Stephen retitled this work after the incident, whatever it was. But these are only some introductory details surrounding this interesting publication.

* * *

Bonus Pic: Robert Creeley's "The Hole" from the New Mexico Quarter:


You can hear Bob read this one thru the decades at PennSound, including twice in October of '66. It is clear that he thinks highly of the poem, from the fact that it shows up several times in several decades. Also, his placement of the work in his set list--once third to last, once last. At least one version seems to have another small page of text, making for yet another curious detail to today's explorations.

Rodefer Pictures

How better decorate your hot Brooklyn pad than with the badassery of one of the best poets of like 3 or 4 generations? My first Rodefer book was his entry in the Tuumba series--#36 Plane Debris. That title was also one of the first I acquired in my quest to complete the entire Tuumba publications. The format of the series changed to the classic style at issue 12; it historically hit its stride with editor Lyn Hejinian's second entry, Gesualdo, which was issue 15. The only other formal anomaly is Rodefer's entry, featuring delightfully oversized wraps, more than 2 inches wider than the other pamphlets, as if it's protruding place on the bookshelf constantly reminds you how extravagant & great the contents are.

About a year ago I bought some of Rodefer's "language pictures" from Greg Fuchs, a fact I've previously documented here. Never, though, have I provided photos of the framed jobs hanging on my walls.



These two flank the fireplace in my living room. The quote from the item above, which I call to myself "23," is reprinted as an epigraph to the poem "Brief to Butterick," found both in the pamphlet Leaving & the larger collection Left Under A Cloud. It reads,

Yes, the tooth of time is black to the root
I have done all I could do
To appear mirthful

This second piece, which I call to myself "The Order," is a most pleasant collage of artist Mathew Barney over one of those September 11th remembrance name-lists. The item was created on December 20th in the year of its happening. It is most interesting in the context of the other, linguisto-minimalist pieces, & is striking as a somewhat more conceptual texture than any of the other items.

The final picture, which I call to myself "Fuck Death," follows below. It is a variation on one of the items Rodefer displayed at the Bowery Poetry Club in February of 2007. It hangs above the fireplace in my bedroom. This one isn't on paper, but rather a rollable burlap sack, with a painted sheet of paper towel between the two words.

SxSW: Roundup pt 1

Items are piling up in my crib. In my crib, items are piling. Please join me on a brief tour of recent acquisitions. First, a survey of a small but notable haul at a recent book fair featuring the likes of Roof, The Figures, Cuneiform, Bootstrap, Portable Y0-Yo etc, & Ugly Duckies.




The Weiners I had been after for what seemed like a full year, though I don't think it's been out that long. Deals were to be had at this event--publishers, bookfair visitors, take note, always have a deal. People want them. Some of the most interesting items though were some special things from Geoff Young. On his table were paperback copies of Clark Coolidge's Space, published long ago in 1970 by Harper and Row. When I lamented to Geoff that I had a hardback signed copy that was somewhat beat up, he produced a lavishly new HC copy from his bag behind the table. My eyes were so wide I saw Fuji. That, along with a copy from a recently-discovered handful of Kenneth Goldsmith's No 111, marked the true finds of the day.



What follows documents various sorts & sites of acquisition. For the most part, this will be only a general pictorial survey, as there is still more yet to come. The careful voyeur may notice the 'pataphysical jets destinationally aflame, for very good reason. Those goodies to be depicted in part 2 of this post.












The Clark Coolidge/Glen Baxter collab, out from Arc Publications, a UK outfit, is the first edition of work originally from 1974, & it is something similar to Ted Berrigan's picture-drawing-texts featured in the Aaron Fischer bibliography Granary put out. The Stephen Rodefer item is from Equipage, in what is almost a totally Tuumba-inspired design, replete with oversize wraps with too-easily bumped corners. The copy is signed. The early Rod Smith title The Boy Poems is my 2nd copy of this book but it was up for grabs for cheap at his recent Zinc bar reading so I grabbed. Of the Atlas stuff, the Peret is especially choice, a 1986 title that is among the most elusive of the early Atlas product.















In this series of items, the Benjamin Friedlander pieces are of special note. The first is the premier issue of Jimmy & Lucy's House of K, a small-run mag of the mid-80s west coast scene. Friedlander co-edited the journal along with Andrew Schelling. It is similar to L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E in the sense that it is 99% prose, but on the whole seems less militantly critical, tending occasionally toward biography & remembrance. The first issue for instance opens with Stephen Rodefer on Ted Berrigan's then-recent passing, & ends with Barry Lane on filmmaker Hollis Frampton, who had just died also. In surveying issue one, particular note should go to Nancy May's giraffe artwork, featured throughout the issue, which is a nice formal touch, as opposed to featuring it in one's own separate section. By issue six of Jimmy & Lucy's House of K, a survey of Tuumba press which I've previously owned for a while, a similar interactivity between pieces is achieved by allowing the different pieces to end & begin on the same page, much like L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.

The second Friedlander-related item is a tiny, rare, visually interesting collab with Rodefer, which was "originally published in March 1984 on the occasion of a reading...This new and revised edition of 200 copies printed Spring 1987 and assigned to the reader," published by Phraseology, entitled Oriflamme Day. By total coincidence, the innards of this one highly resemble the Baxter/Coolidge collab, featuring visually random bits of collaged image & text heading in all directions.




Also totally by coincidence, I recently pounced on what was then my second copy of Kenny Goldsmith's No 111. The only copy for sale online was going for over $200, so when I saw one for a much more reasonable price, I stepped on the gas. The pristine copy arrived, &, much to my pleasure, bore a nice stamp & signature from Goldsmith--a detail that was not included in the description of the book when I bought it. So now I have three copies of the book.

Latinos need not be frightened by the canyon

Everyone is happy & swimming buh-cause a new Rodefer item found it's way home, this a three way joint project (similar to Writing Out of Character) with Geoff Ward & Ian Patterson. Translations of Rilke. Elegies. It is limited to 200 copies & curiously features no binding. It seems ripe for staples but I must say that I applaud the nude decision.


The first is by Geoff, the fourth by Ian, the sixth by Stephen. Published by Peter Riley, printed by Michael Coles.

FUCK DEATH\\\RODEFER PAINTINGS

A while back I met up with Greg Fuchs & purchased a few Stephen Rodefer paintings. They had them on the wall at the BPC & I had lusted after them in person, & tried to buy one, but no one got back to me until they had been taken down. I was flummoxed, pissed off, on, etc, until Greg Fuchs emailed me bluely a few days afterwards, saying he was storing the paintings in the meantime & I might stop by to take a look. It was a rainy floody day but I went up to the Bronx anyway. I got a total of 3, two of which can be seen in this photo: a September 11th piece (just to the right of Stephen's left shoulder, see a better picture below), & the one that looks like it has the number 23 (I'll call it the Michael Jordan piece) beyond Stephen's left toe. [The text reads: "Yes the tooth of time is black to the root...I have done all I could do... to appear mirthful"] The third piece I got is a variation of FUCK DEATH, which surrounds Roddy's head. Mine is larger, not on paper or cardboard but more like a rollable burlap sack, with a strange blackwhite centerpiece between the text., seemingly made from papertowel. Though I love them all, this FUCK DEATH variation is probably my favorite.


Meeting with Greg Fuchs was entirely excellent, as he gifted me a few Buck Downs Books I didn't have, along with at least one I didn't even know about: Hoa Nguyen's Hood. He also popped my Open24Hours cherry, giving me a few of the books recently produced there. Everything from the Rodefer to the company to the setting of his office, out in the middle of some river (my geography is no good)--was totally great. I hope there can be more visits with Greg in the future. His wife even used to teach, oddly enough, at C of C.