miércoles, noviembre 23, 2005

Tequila

Back in Boston for Thanksgiving Break. I'm finishing off the last drops from the beautiful bottle of Tequila (Azulejos) that I picked up last year in Mexico. So tasty.

I'd like to return in the summer, if I can pull it off financially.

Peace.

martes, noviembre 22, 2005

comments

Gracias por sus comentarios. Thanks for comments. Yes, OED look-up is a
better addiction than most.

And, about Ultraists and Creacionists, I really will write more later. I
have found some great books in this search.

martes, noviembre 15, 2005

Far-Fetched

Since I now have instant (I initially miswrote as instinct) access to the OED through the privilege of the university, I can't stop looking up words. The latest? Far-fetched. It's earliest known usage: 1583 STUBBES Anat. Abus. I. (1879) 33

Farrefetched and deare boughte is good for Ladyes, they say.


Hey, Christmas is coming up...

The usage of "studiously sought out; not easily or naturally introduced; strained" isn't recorded until 24 years later, in 1607.

How did those lovely far-fetched things become difficult and strained?

Blogroll

You will be happy to know I finally figured out how to begin the blogroll (i'd like soup with that puleez). Well, Mark, since you recently commented on the boob comment, I have added you first, right between google and edit-me. (Yes, I knew it was about Fence--such small talk in the poetry world, cloistered big talk...what the hell am I saying.) So, stay tuned for other blogs I peek at once in awhile since I am not a hefty duty email or blogger player.

Ok. I'm procrastinating at 12 a.m., making bean soup and blogging, instead of reading about the Ultraists. I have been figuring out the differences between the Spanish and Latin American avant garde movements called creacionism and ultraism. I've been reading the original ultraist texts published in Spanish magazines in the early 1920s. I'll try to say more later.

miércoles, noviembre 09, 2005

Dispatx

Just Received this--It's a great site to check out.If you look at the archive, there is an artist's book that I completed.


We are pleased to announce the publication of the fourth issue of www.dispatx.com : ABANDONMENT. This edition contains 14 works comprising narrative and poetry, essay, photography, oil painting and sculpture, and video.

To speak of abandonment suggests a withdrawal or relinquishment of influence, the exposure of a physical or social structure to the dereliction of time or a cessation of protection. It can also describe a state in which one is given over to forces beyond oneself - the extreme highs and lows of the human condition. Above all, the act of abandonment implies transfer - something orphaned is passed to another controlling agent, something is gained. Understanding abandonment not only as a binary, final state but also as part of a natural dialectic incorporating positive and negative elements has been critical in developing this edition.

Contents

Always-Already - Anna Simmonds [dialogue]
At the Entrance to the Arcade - Stephanie Bolster [topography]
Bifurcate - Ramón Galindo [overlay]
Collie Lane - Shannon Doubleday [recollect]
Erorr [sic] - Aaron Anstett [unease]
Estacionario - Vanessa Oniboni [embodiment]
Holism and the Gestalt - Stephen Levy [refutation]
Inwendig - Maribel Oldigs [placement]
Isolation - Karen Ann Myers [retreat]
Oradour-sur-Glane - Sharon Jefford [evidence]
¿Por qué, Por qué? - Rafael Andreu [assimilation]
The Three Gorges - Jade Ireson [inundation]
Transición - Natalia Guarin & Vanessa Oniboni [vector]
Usos y Desusos - Catalina Salazar [montage]

Please go to www.dispatx.com for details : we will announce a new theme for exploration in December 2005

If you would like to be removed from this mailing list, please let us know.

jueves, octubre 27, 2005

dear potential commenter

(which reminds me of the theme of non-existence),

Due to spam comments, you will need to decipher a blur of letters before submitting your insightful flashes. Think of it as "risk management" or practice in eye-hand coordination.

Yours,
Cheryl

boob one

"oh you got the boob one?" i overheard a poet say

lunes, octubre 24, 2005

A Visitor's Upper Echelons

not surprisingly you talked of
subordinate clauses as your posture
doted on its own arrogance

wingéd elbows
beside your nape-cradled head
the caldera between your legs
a site for rutting elk

the tree outside matched,
and was a match for,
your red shirt, I glimpsed
back into your head
and was lonely there

jueves, octubre 13, 2005

of course

I don't want to name names...so, N. elbows me to say my blog is bland and dried-out and I reply "what about the archive." How useless a response I know because we turn to the blog to see the latest blurb and jottings but I can't seem to keep up. I can barely keep up with sleep, which seems more necessary. Sleep. Rest your eyes for a moment.

Have you? (so phatic, a new word that I have learned. I make learning these words transparent.)

I tried. And I have tried to go to sleep and sleep cajoles "nice try." As so the blog begins to tease me much the same. Who is in control here? When the telephone rings I remind myself that I am in charge of deciding to answer it. The ringing phone is not my master. Discpline is a ciphen.

N., I hope I've done some justice. Yet, I've drifted from my subject: the fascination with "of course." No. When I wrote that poem I hadn't read that other poem. So, how is it multiple people are driven to repeat the expression "of course."

Its earliest meaning was a nautical term...oh, so many nautical terms that seeped into our speak...and then it took on the meaning of "customarily," and, most currently, the meaning of "obviously," which is also often used as an emphatic affirmative response that stands alone. I am butchering this progression. Let's turn to OED for the earliest indications of this latter meaning of "obviously":

1823 J. D. HUNTER Captiv. N. Amer. 39 She made some very particular inquiries about my people, which, of course, I was unable to answer.
1838 DICKENS O. Twist xxxiv. 266 You will tell her I am here?..Of course.
1861 M. PATTISON Ess. (1889) I. 32 It would be easy, of course, to exaggerate this truth of the continuity of history into a falsehood. Mod. And you were present? Of course; why not?


In these jottings I rest for now. In "of course" we stand alone emphatically but we are in a current current, apparent waves, and we question what's customary.

May I only blog in bogs of sleep....

martes, agosto 23, 2005

beginning this entry I am reminded of my diary when I was eight

this week's entry would say:

recently I moved, got married, started grad school, had horrible experience with Enterprise Rental Car

then:
need lightbulbs, figure out how to put my bike together

then add:
someone asked about my poetics

I said "to erase"

viernes, agosto 05, 2005

on the go

Hey, I'm in the midst of a move so I will blog when I settle in a bit more.

martes, julio 26, 2005

Poematic

Do you want online magnetic poetry? If it barely gets used on the fridge, you could try here.

Spies

Subway:

Your eyes
Your ears
Our security

Your eyes
Your ears
Our security

Supposedly
I've joined
some team


Moving on...


Computer:

settings
hijacked

Familiar spy
Suspicious spy
reason to believe
small or large

familial spy

viernes, julio 22, 2005

Summer, Revising more

I keep trying to approach this peice. Not sure if previous version was holding a center. I was interested in the language of the beginning, but it may be of a different poem.


Stirred up

We the jalopies
playing on the driveway
flirting with the dart board foraging
the red dot, unlikely
given a melodious limp wrist
(the handbrake)
and mode of transport:
synchronicity, wild flowers,
first sighting of a minnow trap
... slowly recovering
its genus from a less than
steel-trap headwhirl
where minnows were
erroneous birds
thrashing about their wings
inside mason jars.

Creeley

Not unlike many others, I've been spending a lot of time with Robert Creeley's writings. I remember his reading on the porch of the Longfellow House in Cambridge when he talked about Acton, MA and read his poems about his travels abroad--(at the moment I can't remember the collection). More recently, I had signed up for his workshop in July at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, but you know how the story goes...

There is an excellent video of a reading and conversation with Creeley on April 1, 2004 at the University of Chicago. He tells a great little story about leaving a jazz club one night! See Video of Creeley reading.

May good company continue...

viernes, julio 15, 2005

Collage




As I was packing, I found this collage.

Summer, revising

Some changes thus far.

Stirred up

The manifesto (a misnomer) grew tired
before it raged. The worry wart
you burned off. The sliver
you buckled under, born-again
complainer given to rise to fist fight
with the neighbor kicking back a cool one:
a better-not juggernaut. A mandate
for training: training wheels for man.
A truncated version of the mandate:
Modulate, modulate, modulate!
We the jalopies playing on the driveway
flirting with the dart board foraging
the red dot, unlikely
given melodious limp wrist (the handbrake)
and mode of transport: synchronicity,
wild flowers, first sighting of a minnow trap
... slowly recovering its genus
from a less than steel-trap headwhirl
where minnows were erroneous birds
thrashing about in mason jars.

lunes, julio 11, 2005

Summer

Hello, here is draft of a poem from today. What the heck!

Stirred up Summer

A mandate for training: training wheels for man.
A truncated version of the mandate. Modulate,
modulate, modulate! The manifesto
(a misnomer) grew tired
before it raged. The worry wart
you burned off. The sliver
you buckled under, born-again
complainer. Ward off fist fight with neighbor
imbibing a cool one: the juggernaut.
We the jalopies playing on the driveway
flirting with the dart board foraging
the red dot, unlikely
given melodious limp wrist, and mode
of transport: synchronicity, wild flowers,
the minnow trap that slowly recovered
its genus from a less than steel-trap
headwhirl where minnows
were birds thrashing about
in mason jars.

lunes, junio 27, 2005

Maine

Blogwise, I've been quite inactive. Otherwise, quite active. I just returned from a 10 day camping trip in the White Mountains in Maine. Hung with the moose!

"From the cool cisterns of the midnight air/ My spirit drank repose;" writes Longfellow (born in Maine), which isn't why I went.

I'm also thinking of Forrest Gander and Kent Johnson's striking new translation of Jaime Saenz's _The Night_, which begins
"The night, its rack of antlers twitching in the distance..." (Check out the 7th edition at Mandorla.)

I am now preparing to move so pardon the sporadic bloggin'. I will post soon! And I need to fatten up my blog skills like creating links and "sidelines." Ciao!

domingo, mayo 22, 2005

Shorn

I own no bed or cooking ware or sheets or utensils or sofa or couch. I have books and bookshelves, and I'm not even sure I'm going to bring the shelves. I'll make my own shampoo and cleaning detergents as long as I remember which mixture of elements don't combust. These are my daydreams of frugality and I have incessant nightmares of disappointing and annoying and angering everyone I know or threw away. I am unable to wake up from their tisk-tisk. Waking myself up from nightmares is on my I-would-love-to-learn-that list--not to mention...isn't the point for it to go unmentioned? All I want is to drink sake and bourbon and moonshine. They move me. Unfortunately, I'm not drinking liquor, coffee, or any caffeinated drinks at the time so I could be chosen for a sleep study for $1,000. Waiting to see if they will select me resembles my version of Miss America. Will they pick me? Flossing makes me new. Every once in a while curly hair comes back. I keep going funny though nothing seemed funny today. I keep going wacko and nothing was funnily wacky today. Am I in someone else's landscape?

viernes, mayo 13, 2005

martes, mayo 10, 2005

Not Even a Ditty

Submission Rejection note:

Better luck
when dead

sábado, abril 30, 2005

Hopscotch

At times, I take some prior ramblings and revise in the blogsphere. Here we go.


Hopscotch is the Savior

amulets and bird droppings
the cardinal at my door
adamant
for me to screech into the playing ground of a furrowed field

just as there is no "I"
in team (so it's said)
there's no "u" in footwork
(so it's never said)
it's fatal nonetheless

take me for what I am
big willy soft spot
rake me for what I am
some perrennial in the hour of planting
to sprout in some other year
some other texture
claiming your saviour
with a "u"

jueves, abril 28, 2005

Carve

Now available!

CARVE 5 April 2005

Cheryl Clark

Richard Caddel

William Corbett on Richard Caddel

Jordan Davis Guillermo

Juan Parra

Stacy Szymaszek 32 pp.

Visit Carve

domingo, abril 17, 2005

take in fatality

there is no fiction when
unrelegated pronoun is blessed to return
to the midst of hopscotch

hopscotch is the savior


what could protect you

amulets and bird droppings

the cardinal at my door

adamant

for me to screech into the playing ground of a furrowed field



boxed up poker face selling for my demands

"fast spacer" key (lament lament)

de-morphed into sculpture


take me for what I am

big willy soft spot

rake me for what I am

some perrennial in the hour of planting


i'll come in some other year
some other texture


claim your saviour
with a "u"

martes, marzo 08, 2005

Papers book

Hey ya'll, The book I made from the poem "Papers" by Ruth Lepson and James Carson is complete, and the virtual book is posted online at Dispatx. Visit Dispatx:


I just e-fell into this journal from Eastern Michigan University called Bathhouse. Listen to this musical intro for Vol.2 #1!

viernes, febrero 11, 2005

In Chicago


In Chicago
Originally uploaded by cherword.

Visit to hometown in December

CrossofChurch


CrossofChurch
Originally uploaded by cherword.

CloseupChurch


CloseupChurch
Originally uploaded by cherword.

Church that burned down in my neighorhood

martes, febrero 01, 2005

Winter Poems

Here are some new drafts of Boston winter poems.


THE FIRST GRADE HALLOWEEN PLAY
THE YEAR MY FATHER DIED

On the stroke of May
bats made their way
into children's plays,
and the spelling bee flew
into the wrong word
for a sickness
able to floor you,
at least for 24 hours-but
an inconvenient 24 hours-
heaving into flapping
bat wings of black
construction paper. I chose
no corpulent pumpkin.
No ghost for me.




AT THE MUSEUM

Meeting you here
isn't fancy.

The bathroom here is fancy.

Even the women on plaques
have two kinds of dresses:

an upside-down umbrella,
another choking the midriff.

Our meeting here is akin to
metal chairs in the courtyard,
mugged by snow.




I SHOT DAYLIGHT

Pellet holes in panes of glass,
antennas of cracking.
Daylight could have sought
retribution at nightfall.
Hues relinquished
in pursuit of a gray worm,
and in silence thickly
spackled disease.
I spun around a sapling,
all elbow grease exhausted.



DOODLED NAME-DROPPINGS

Pablo Picasso meets Georgia O'Keefe.
Alfred Steiglitz and he rumble.
Helen Frankenthaler pours a bucket of paint on them.
Louise Bourgeois sculpts her mother
as a gigantic bronze spider,
eyeballs peek out of the grass.
Agnes Wright draws rectangles around the house.



BOOK OF THREE DAYS

1/24/05 6:18:12 PM

Popsicle stick people
drone on, appearing
to lipstick my long face
in light of contusion.
Until catapulted.

Pick up new object.


1/25

No room for cream. No milky space.

*

I heated black until red.
Then singed yellow
until it escaped as char
into the night.


1/26

I have a date with my shovel at three.
A flurry of activity before:
Typing notes
Listening to recorded poem

viernes, enero 28, 2005

Call for Papers ---Los Estados Unidos

Here is a forward about a conference. Let me know if you submit. I'm curious.

Thirteenth Annual NYU Columbia University Graduate Conference on Spanish and Portuguese Literatures

This Conference will be held at the King Juan Carlos I Center, New York University, on Friday and Saturday, April 8th and 9th 2005

LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS

Keynote Speakers include:
Julio Ramos, Department of Spanish and Portuguese (UC Berkeley); José Quiroga, Department of Spanish and Portuguese (Emory University); Sylvia Molloy, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Comparative Literature (NYU); Mary Louise Pratt, Department of Spanish and Portuguese (NYU); Ana Maria Dopico, Department of Comparative Literature, Spanish and Portuguese (NYU); and George Yúdice, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Department of Spanish and Portuguese (NYU).

Suggested topics:

Representations of Latin America on the US
North/South: appropriations, looting & influences
Mass Culture / Pop / Globalization
Latin American readings of the US
Politics of the Empire / Colonialisms / Hegemony
Latin American and Iberic Studies inside the American Academia
Borders / Travel writings
Migration / Exile / Diaspora
Bilingualism / Spanglish / Slangs & jergas
Latinos in the US
Races & ethnicities / Gringos & Spiks

Representaciones de Latinoamérica en los Estados Unidos
Norte / Sur: préstamos, contrabando e influencias
Cultura de masas / Pop / Globalización
Lecturas latinoamericanas de los Estados Unidos
Políticas del Imperio / Colonialismos / Hegemonía
La academia norteamericana
Los estudios latinoamericanos e hispánicos en US
Fronteras / Travel writings
Migraciones / Exilio / Diáspora
Latinos in the US
Bilingüismos / Spanglish / Slangs y jergas
Razas y etnias / Gringos y Spiks

Please submit a one-page abstract in English, Spanish or Portuguese, with a separate title, page, stating name, address, e-mail and phone #

Send by e-mail to cgs245@nyu.edu or by mail to:

Los Estados Unidos
Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures
New York University
c/o Claudia Salazar
19 University Place 4th Floor
New York, New York 10003

Deadline: February 12th 2005

miércoles, enero 19, 2005

Dispatx

Infrequent spurts of blogging. I've been writing more in my paper journal. So archaic. I love it. Maybe I will scan or type to you. The ubiquitous you. I've been working on Spanish to English poetry translations. Now I have all these random words in my head. Words that didn't fit or made me recall other words. I'll tell you later.

Check out this project I've been working on with Ruth Lepson. I am making a book from a poem called Papers by Ruth Lepson and James Carson. It will be posted on Dispatx online journal. Go to http://www.dispatx.com/wip/en/papers/01.html

martes, enero 04, 2005

Art Institute

If anyone is going to Chicago, I encourage you to check out this exhibit (Hero, Hawk, and Open Hand: American Indian Art of the Ancient Midwest and South at the Art Institute). http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/herohawk/overview.html

"The exhibition assembles some 300 masterpieces of stone, ceramic, wood, shell, and copper created between 2000 B.C. and A.D. 1600....[sic]..of the midwestern and southern United States."

As Alex and I walked through the exhibit we noted the similarities to, and deviations from, artifacts of Latin America. During 2000 B.C. the cultures across the entire Americas were even influencing each other. It was amazing to see and consider. The exhibit included a timeline of tribes across the Americas, however, it didn't explore the artistic interplay of these tribes for each peice. We tended to superimpose this look on the entire exhibit. Nonetheless, it is worth a trip.