Hi Bob
I have no great knowledge of and so no valid opinion on the Buffalo show.
The main part starts, I believe, in first peoples' (is that what we say
now?) writing - on walls.
So that's potentially interesting.
Mind you, how valid the connection is, I remain unsure. I recall some of
the origins traced by houedard and by cobbing / mayer; and, while it was
good to know, maybe, it didn't help me much in what I am doing and looking
at --beyond a general counter argument to those who see what is _modern_
as somehow deficient -- and that battle, if it is a battle, is still being
fought
I agree that he needs a one man show in North America. Though I am not
seeking it just now, only to say _not yet_, I'd certainly welcome hearing
from anyone who could facilitate such an event and would do all I c ooud
to make such a thing happen
Sounds like the Buffalo thing could be okay, Lawrence. I’m definitely biased because the people doing things for visual poetry at SUNY, Buffalo, with the exception of Mike Basinski, who is a librarian there, not a professor, have not helped any of the people in my precinct of visual poetry, and could have. They have been making early visual poetry nicely available on the Internet (because, I must cynically say, it is not in competition with the contemporary work they favor).
I’m on the margins of the margins so far as winning visibility for visual poetry goes—BUT, I have a young friend in Florida, Andrew Topel, who seems active and fairly effective at doing that, so I’ll try to get him to maybe work up something for Cobbing. Probably won’t come to anything, but . . .
all best, Bob
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