Marco Giovenale, translated by Linh Dinh:

world dominion, XVII

the shifting of the earth’s axis, no? the collapse of the scaffolding on 4th of November Street, no? the landslide on Ischia, no? a pain on the ribs, no? the success of your last film, no? he was the son of an egyptian, from the first century, no? as elena walks by they turn around, no? a mouthful of air in mexico city, no? spike tried to get up, no? they checked the troubled breathing, no? the nurses were ready for the tracheotomy, no? the journalists arrive in small bunches, no? december hinders the ambulances, no? everyone frantic for presents, no? dust from the sarcophagus, no? she has already disappeared through the back door, no? the room spinned and the light went out, no? driving a taxi the wrong way against a check point he shot and was hit, no? they kidnap people arriving at the airport, no? there’s nothing to be done, no? now they go to notify the relatives, but there aren’t any, no? take a look, not even friends, no? the wife went out the service entrance, no? he only had beauty, no? not very brave but armed, no?

world dominion, XV

not satisfied? help us to improve_ © 2006 _supplying cross bars, a ministerial decree, and they won't be applied homogeneously to all emergencies, the production doesn't seem updated, the scientific one, of the majority of the minority group. why are there two doctors. unhappy. are you unhappy? help us to improve _ © 2007 _supplying medicine, aid, provoking a wave of responses of surprising proportion, unless specified it means that [omitted] has been prescribed for the interviewee. somewhat linked with vomitting. it's very frequent among children, and could appear as an isolated symptom, or accompanied by intestinal irritations. "it was absolutely important that we win." damages from the shed fire. at what point? help us to improve_ © 2008 _supplying workers. keep it hard. don't give up more than 100 euros, i'm not satisfied with my life at all, from the moment my mind became lost in thoughts this evening, i can't remember the password, from any assignment. "we've suffered too much." performances, odd sundays, double shots, dogs

Thanks to some offline encouragement, I’ve decided to start re-posting my column here at Harriet once a month or so. In my time away, I’ve been penning reviews of new working-class poetry volumes (an extremely critical one of the highly problematic The Way We Work: Contemporary Writings from the American Work Place, edited by Peter Scheckner and M.C. Boyes, for Labor History and another more positive one of You Work Tomorrow: An Anthology of American Labor Poetry, 1929-1941, edited by John Marsh, for the Labor Studies Journal).

And I’ve also been watching the economy plunge further since I last wrote for Harriet, reading of its effects on working people across the globe and trying hard to find new poems that innovatively address the current economic clime and its effects on workers in the U.S. and across the globe.

"Garden of Eden on Wheels" at the Museum of Jurassic Technology

Apologies for the silence. I’ve holed myself in LA. And another apology for committing a blogging faux-pas. It’s always obnoxious when a blogger writes a post just to say that she hasn’t written for awhile. Who cares, right? Just get on with the program! I’m in the pit of LA and I’m trying to finish a writing project. I remember talking to Daisy Fried, a former blogger for Harriet, who said that she was fond of blogging in the morning since it warmed her up for her poetry writing. I can’t. I need to shut everything off to write. It’s terrible. So I haven’t even done much in LA (except watch an embarrassing number of hours of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservation). Haven’t hit my favorite hiking routes, taco trucks, not even the Museum of Jurassic Technology. How I love the Museum of Jurassic Technology. This is a poet’s museum. Every poet who’s been to this museum should write an ode to this museum. Anyway, I’ve been reading some fantastic new collections which I’ll blog about soon.

Selections from UbuWeb

January 2009
Selected by James Hoff

1. Sjollander/Weck: Extracts from Monument

2. Ron Rice: A Brief History of Anti-Records and Conceptual Records

3. Alan Sondheim: Run by Me

4. Ulay: Action in 14 Predetermined Sequences

5. Joseph Nechvatal: viral symphOny (28'09")

6. Henry Chopin Performance: Undated

7. CoLab: All Color News Sampler

8. John Cage / Wim Mertens "So that each person is in charge of himself."from A Dip in the Lake

9. Dec-Francis: Rant 2

10. Charlemagne Palestine: Island Song

James Hoff is an artist living in New York City. He, along with Miriam Katzeff, is the co-founder of Primary Information.

December 2008
Selected by Julian Cowley

1. Robert Ashley - Music with Roots in the Aether

2. Joe Jones/ Chicken to Kitchen Fluxus Meditation from Fluxsaints (1992)

3. Robert Wilson - Christopher Knowles The Sundance Kid Is Beautiful (1975) from Giorno Poetry Systems, Big Ego

4. Wolf Vostell - De/Collage [LP] (1980)

5. John Cage and Raahsan Roland Kirk - Sound?? (1966)

6. Nicholas Moore, Spleen (Ubu Editions, 2004)

7. Pina Bausch Documentary (directed by Anne Linsel) (2006)

8. David Behrman, Long Throw (Roulette, 2008)

9. Derek Bailey, Interview by Henry Kaiser (1987)

10. Vito Acconci, The Bristol Project (2001)

Julian Cowley contributes regularly to The Wire and occasionally to other music magazines. He has also lectured and written extensively on literature. During the 1980s he had the good fortune to work closely for several years with poet and critic Eric Mottram, whose inexhaustible conversation was, in effect, a foretaste of the UbuWeb experience.

November 2008
Selected by Neville Wakefield

1. Willoughby Sharp Interviews Vito Acconci (1973)

2. Bas Jan Ader - Selected Works (1970-71)

3. Pipilotti Rist - Video Works (1986-2003)

4. Chris Burden - Documentation of Selected Works 1971-74

5. Johan Grimonprez - Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997)

6. The Films of Jack Goldstein (1974-1978)

7. Gordon Matta-Clark - Splitting, Bingo/Ninths, Substrait (Underground Dailies) (1974-1976)

8. Lawrence Weiner - WATER IN MILK EXISTS (2008)

9. Psychic TV - "Unclean"

10. Robert Smithson - Bootleg of Hotel Palenque by Alex Hubbard (1969 / 2004)

Neville Wakefield is a writer and curator living in NYC. Recent film projects include 'destricted' a compilation of commissioned films by Marina Abramovic, Matthew Barney, Marco Brambilla, Larry Clark, Gaspar Noe, Richard Prince and Sam Taylor Wood. Senior curatorial advisor to PS1 and curator of Frieze he is also creative director of 'tar' magazine.

Harriet asks me to wish you all the best in the new year, and to thank all the readers, bloggers and commenters who've stopped by these last twelve months and more - please do keep coming back!

In the new year's resolution department, she also wants me to remind everyone to be kind as circumstances permit: to fortify and express your passions without injury to those with whom you find disagreement. H. loves the differing viewpoints represented here, but reserves the right (hardly ever exercised, in fact - a tribute to those who put in their two cents or flarf-dollars here!) to refrain from publishing remarks that aim to be hurtful and little more. You know, name-calling, etc.

I'd like to add my own warm wishes on behalf of Poetry, and especially to thank some Poetry Foundation folks who've helped create this interesting place but have moved on to other poetical pursuits, namely Emily Warn, Nick Tremelow, Elizabeth Stigler, and Milan Gagnon. We'll miss them, but hope they'll continue to drop by...

And now, a snippet of an new year greeting by W.H. Auden:

I should like to think that I make
a not impossible world,
but an Eden it cannot be:
my games, my purposive acts,
may turn to catastrophes there.
If you were religious folk,
how would your dramas justify
unmerited suffering?

Here's wishing you a happy '09!

In today's Elizabeth Alexander news: the inaugural poet's three potential "looks" for Barack Obama's January 20th swearing-in ceremony.

And if that doesn't give you every last bit of information you need about the big event, then here are ten more stories from the past two weeks to put it all in persepctive:

Written at the request of Joshua Marie Wilkinson, who's compiling an anthology of "micro essays about approaches to teaching poetry":

Hoard your time, since you’ll need it to be alone to think and to write.

Be frugal, since it’ll allow you to work less and have more time to think and to write.

Try, as best you can, to have an overview of what’s possible in writing, the various strategies attempted throughout history, throughout the world.

Identify the writers or works you admire the most, and read them very slowly, as many times as necessary.

Have faith that you will get better at thinking and writing, and that people will notice it, even if stingily and reluctantly, since you’re not entitled to any attention.

Be prepared to be disappointed over and over.

G. And what have you found in Iceland?

C. What have we found? More copy, more surface,
Vignettes as they call them, dead flowers in an album –
The harmoniums in the farms, the fine-bread and pancakes,
The pot of ivy trained across the window,
Children in gumboots, girls in black berets.

R. And dead craters and angled crags.

Louis MacNeice, ‘Eclogue From Iceland’

This sign greeted me when I arrived in Iceland just before Christmas. I heard no harmoniums, ate no pancakes and wore no beret, but the landscape and twenty-hour nights disarranged my vision and so my economy.

This post is partly what it's like being one of Harriet's ventriloquists. It splices text from Harriet bloggers, commenters, and anonymous robots who deposit semi-truck loads of SPAM for us to delete. Bloggers and commenters from whom I've pilfered include Kenneth Goldsmith, Reginald Shepherd, A.E. Stallings, Ange Mlinko, Javier Huerta, and Bill Knott. (By citing them, this is definitely flarf and not conceptual poetics.) I "composed" it for this year's MLA offsite poetry reading, which was held Sunday night in San Francisco where more than 60 (usually) masked poets read for two minutes each.

Our task is to mind the machine.

Hi Guys! Today I was surfing the Internet
just as everyday. I checked my Facebook profile,

This favorite link may be old news to some, but I was delighted to be hipped to the Caroline Bergvall Dante poem, "Via", sent courtesy Dr. Natasha Saje at Westminster College, Utah. Received with pleasure. Enjoy….

Here's the link: http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Bergvall/Bergvall-Caroline-Via-2004.mp3

universal tinge of sober gold ... (Keats, Endymion)

Photo borrowed from my daughter, bauble paid for in full.

Coming from the hard-knock world of secretaries and billing clerks, grappling with techno-advances in the workplace once seemed like a song. The turnover for “pink-collar workers” had accelerated for decades, starting with electronic typewriters. A gaggle of complaints flew up with each change, shocks coming every five years, then two, then every 18 months, then to whenever new office management came on board. Things chugged faster and faster, if typing speeds fell thanks to the ickiness of keyboard tabs, the visual bias of computer programs and the neutering of Gregg’s. When writing, I particularly enjoyed word programs and the rapidity of editing or restructuring poems, scripts, or stories. Cut-and-paste, an arduous task in the past, sometimes executed on hands and knees, had become pimp simple. The benefits of dot-communism (as one friend calls it) have been many, despite the drawback of “more paper faster” in a purportedly paperless world. Not so here. Laziness, or failure to make a hardcopy for backup of any worthwhile writing, exacts a horrible price, I unfortunately learned—as much as I loathe filing. Inspired by the blues poems of Langston Hughes and Sterling Plumpp, having composed a few myself, I began a new manuscript post-YK2. Painstakingly weaving my blues from scribbles on bits of paper and years of collected lines, my months of creative work vanished when my hard drive crashed. I wasn’t worried at first, until I realized I had made no hardcopies of the poems and my original notes had been scrapped.

A few of these books were published last year, and there are definitely others that we'd like to point out to readers, but for the sake of brevity, we limited our picks. We hope you'll fill in the gaps in the comment stream.

POETRY FOUNDATION STAFF PICKS

CHRISTIAN WIMAN

Creatures of a Day
Reginald Gibbons
Louisiana State Univeristy Press
ISBN: 0807133183

Creatures of a Day was a finalist for the National Book Award, deservedly so. There are some poems in this book that have become a permanent part of my consciousness. I remember reading “Sleepless in the Cold Dark” in manuscript and thinking that, though you could feel the antecedents (Williams mostly), something here was new. The poem is flat-out beautiful, and it accomplishes its effects with such small, sharp precisions of syntax and linebreaks that you hardly feel your heart breaking until it’s already happened.

Twigs and Knucklebones
Sarah Lindsay
Copper Canyon Press

Sarah Lindsay’s new book is unusual among books of contemporary poetry for several reasons. It’s almost completely devoid of the first person pronoun, for one thing. Most of Lindsay’s poems are historical or (as in the stunning sequence “The Kingdom of Nab”) pseudo-historical. One of the most memorable poems in the book is a strange, moving piece called “Elegy for the Quagga.” A Quagga was a zebra-like creature which was hunted to extinction in the late nineteenth century. Lindsay links this extinction with the eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia, and by the time you finish this poem you realize you're never going to hear this sound that is the poem’s subject -- and yet you're now dying to. The poem ends "a kind of horse, less picture-esque than a Dodo, still we mourn what we mourn, even if when it sank to its irreplaceable knees, when its unique throat closed behind a sigh, no dust rose to redden a whole year's sunsets, no one unwittingly busy two thousand miles away jumped at the sound, no ashes rained on ships in the merciless sea."

Before the internet, writers interested in weird, amateurish or specialized lingos had to scrounge for them in used book stores and porn shops. There was no Google to barf verbiage onto your lap. I used to spend hundreds on magazines with names like Over Fifty and Fabulous, K.O., Soldiers of Fortune, Flying Saucer Digest and Teen. Bad, bumbling English is always a happenin' planet, stretching your horizon, dude. In the visual arts, one artist in particular, Jim Shaw, alerted us all to the weird, goofy world of amateur creativity. He collected thrift store paintings and arranged them in installations. His 1991 show at Metro Pictures, NYC, was declared by critic Jerry Saltz as "one of the most important shows of the decade [...] it brimmed with dementedly entertaining art [and] unlocked the doors to scores of dead, forgotten, or otherwise devalued painting genres. It was a gold mine of overlooked pictorial information, a mother lode of untapped graphic imagination and pictorial possibility." Sounds like flarf to me. It was flarf, flarf, flarf, before there was flarf.

Audrey called a week ago today. I went for family visit. We have been friends for forty years—a friendship that has corresponded to my literary pursuits. She has always appreciated my quest, if not so inclined. Like involuntary saints, we are survivors, having spent our lives in America’s unforgiving economic underclass—former long-time residents of some of the toughest neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles. Whenever we get together, “the headcount is a mutha”—among our dearly departed my son Anthony, her son Darryl, her brothers Emmet, Joe and Carl. Over coffee, scrambled eggs, bacon and rice, we surveyed our hearts, totaled up damages and dramas, and gave thanks that we’re still throwing blows and chasing the raggedy remains of our dreams. Sated on the personal, our talk turned worldward—we whooped about communal stupidities, “how they still harrassin’ us”, the O.J. fiasco (ssshiiittt, he never spoke out for Folk back in the day), and how—thanks to the housing and stockmarket crashes—we’ve got plenty of new company on the lower rungs. Then I say how me-and-mine cracked a bottle of spumanti and celebrated New Years on November 8th. Everybody in the house did the Obama holler. Comprising the first generation, Audrey and I yelled “I never thought I’d live to see the day!” Amens came from the second generation, Sean and DeShaun signifying, “We never thought we’d see the day!” Then Audrey’s twenty-something grandsons crowned our moment, “Hell, we didn’t think we’d see it in our lifetimes!”