Julia wrote a poem based on Rimbaud today. Nothing to do with thanksgiving.

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Email is still trickling in from Monday. I won't answer too many of those "ask a language poet" letters I've been getting. Especially the ones with the equal signs between the letters of LANGUAGE. I usually prefer my own forced humor to your forced humor.

Dear Language Poet:

I am a three-year old female Golden Retriever. Every time I see a cat or squirrel I cannot help but chase it. I've never caught one, and don't know what I'd do with it if I could. They always jump up on the fence or climb a tree before I can get there. I know I will be scolded for this activity, but for some reason I cannot help myself.

Can you help me?

Desperate Dog

Dear DD:

Unfortunately, Language Poet is on vacation, and I am filling in for him. I am a thick, white, viscous condiment made of egg yolks and oil. Since I am an inanimate object, I am having a hard time grasping the concepts of your letter. My only advice is to lay as flat as possible; spread yourself out evenly on the slice of bread rather than letting yourself remain "clumped" up into unsightly gobs. I hope to have helped.

Yours,

Mayonnaise

If you've emailed me recently I might not have gotten the message. The university server has been coping with a huge spam attack, and legit messages are being blocked also.

Dear L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poet:
 
My brother's son is only four years old and has already decided he wants to be a "language poet" when he grows up.
 
The task has fallen on me to convince this precocious four year old of the folly of the task. I try to tell him that while all the "cool kids" may think it is fun to "deconstruct the core memes of cultural hegemonic processes pertaining to the implied absence of 'otherness' in post-avant discourse" and refusing to read Dr. Seuss despite assignments by the teacher, calling it "formalistic nonsense verse", that he may one day be harming his chances for tenure at a major university.
 
He will be moving from junior kindergarten to kindergarten next year, and it is time to start thinking about tenure track.
 
My brother has given up and it has fallen on me, as the "poet in the family" to convince the young boy that poetry can only lead to no good, of which my own life is a prime example.
 
Please give me some advice.
 
 
thanks,
 
the michael
 
Dear the michael:

"Each new page insults the past, only to apply for membership.

The school teacher patrols the yard at recess.

A man in a room hits his forehead with the butt of his hand."

As for us who love to be amazed. Dr. Seuss is a language poet. I hope to have helped.

Yours,

LP

Nota bene: this is an actual letter I received today in my email. The answer is plagiarized from an actual Language Poet whose initials are RS.

Texture Notes

"Oysters

It must be its ability to embody wetness better than other items of food and beverage. Raw oysters are even more wet than water, I would wipe my eyes with it in a desperate moment. Or rather, desperate for something that could act as a tonic, I would feed it to the next person who was in danger of drying out, yes you."

This beautiful text reminds me of Francis Ponge. I love the alternation between the singular and the plural.

Hugh Kenner has died. I found out just now from Language Hat.

A year ago today in Jonathan Mayhew's blog:

National Middle-brow Radio officially fell to National Low-Brow Radio today with Terry Gross's interview of minor celebrity ex-spouse Tom Arnold. He had nothing interesting to say about his dysfunctional life. Rose briefly to highbrow with a discussion with Wendy Steiner and Arthur Danto on beauty in art--flawed because noone seemed to be asking the questions that I would have asked. The panelists seemed to assume that modernist art and literature were ugly by definition and that we needed to return to beauty. Back to National Middle-Brow Radio with an interview with Jonathan Franzen, a rather dull and earnest novelist, most famous for snubbing Oprah (a middle-brow gesture if ever there was one) plugging his book of essays. That's what I get for having to spend five hours in my car.

I have two major objections to what I wrote: the objection that Steiner and Danto didn't address my particular concerns is absurd: how could they read my mind? My characterization of Franzen as a dull novelist is unfair, because I've never read his novels. He may or may not be a dull novelist. What I meant to say is that he's a dull person to interview.

Short but intenser than thou work week.

Julia's sestinas.

A new advice column:

Ask a Language Poet

Dear Language Poet:

My husband and I haven't been communicating very well lately. He talks in a string of seemingly disconnected sentences, only some of which are related to the topic of discussion. He frequently accused me of something called "hypotaxis." Can you help me open up a line of communication with him?

Yours,

M**** J*****

Dear MJ:

We are them who love to be amazed. Am I right to see myself introduced into the introduction of all those other things you might have held me to? Pencils. A communication strategy implies an ideology. Take two aspersions and call me in the morning. I hope to have helped.

Yours,

LP

Dear Language Poet:

"Sometimes the words will not mean / what they must mean to others to me. / Have I changed them so their / meaning only I will know / and yet do not?"

Yours,

C. C.

Dear CC:

?Not do yet and
know will I
only meaning their so
them changed I have
me to others
to mean
must they
what mean not will words
the sometimes.

Yours,

LP

A year today ago in Bemsha Swing (then Jonathan Mayhew's Blog), I wrote this:

"In my car yesterday, listening to NPR. A nice feature on Copper Canyon Press, how they only published poetry and have two out of five nominees for National Book Award. Of course, the question in my mind was 'who are the two poets in question?' I stayed in my car for an extra five minutes to find out, and of course the feature ended with no mention of the actual names of the poets."

I went to a drum clinic done by Rusted Roots drummer Jim Donovan yesterday evening at a local store. He had us playing djembes in no time. I had never been to a drum circle before, and it was quite satisfying. Of course, the minute it was over I was in my usual state of anxiety, but it was a welcome relief for an hour and a half.

Joseph Duemer has been found!

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Oops. I've fixed the link above.

Blog doldrums... Jordan is in California and not posting. Lend him a computer, someone! Gary, Nada, and Kasey are posting at a reduced rate recently. The skeptic has committed suiblogicide. Joseph Duemer's blog has disappeared into thin air. On the other hand The Jim Side is going stronger than ever.