Hi David,

thanks for the generosity of response. The only reason I asked
about Coolidge and MacLow was to do with the sharpness of their
syntactical 'ears', somewhat reminding me of the Batmemes
results you received but more deliberately and deliciously crunchy.

Jackson, has embodied these initially chance driven cadences to a
sufficient extent that his writing now (without those strategies)
still exhibits their construction (much as Burroughs embodied his
own cut-up articulations in his writing practice).

Coolidge has always constructed. Perhaps that's why the effect appears
more extreme.

Here's a taste of both for those who have never come across these poets.

'governor date
tops snap
dill coin mitts step
anode a tart
dull be to part feet
bank a bank mathing cold
betweens sive
a kind of eat to knot a shell
buttons rotter
gem rose

any bias to cap
amends tenable
ginning class
web node plates pitch
cards belong another
a call as bill
ester bowel during like land
term beat
dress as bird
word as bill.'

(Clark Coolidge: from 'The Maintains' Thjis Press, 1974)

and

Antic Quatrains by Jackson MacLow

derived from the computer printout phase of
"A Vocabulary for Annie Brigitte Gilles Tardos"

'Along a tarn a delator entangled a dragline,
Boasting o'tonnages, dogies, ants, and stones
As long as Lind balled Gandas near a gas log
As it late lit rigatoni and a tag line.

In Dis libidinal radians o'tigons
Deter no generals, no ordinaries,
No Adlerians tarring arteries' DNA,
Triliteral arsenal o'nitid groins.

Begone, senile Tiresias, raser o'tanneries!
Gastonia's grants-in-aid, sesteria to Liebig,
Are raising glissanding sergeant's titillation
In lairs o'daisies, glarier and estranging.

Literal tartlets arrange stilbestrol's banners
And roast nonsalable redlegs, breasts o'lessees,
Rib roasts, entier alations, Ingersoll, Alger,
And age-old Diesel's aborning ingestible trotters.

Irritants beggar Tagore, irredentists,
And irritated designees in gorgets
Agreeing on liberl tittles, Ginsberg, Seeger,
And Stella's transient sortilege, galliards, ginger.

Do gerardias register tanglier antibioses
Or sillier Latrobe allegorise eared seals?
Do literati's binges iodate sand tables?
Internists banter teetotalers in bordels.

Tilden's Iliad tabled alliteration
And a gainless Sartrian ass aired abattoirs
As tonsils' orneriness assigned Ortega
To distillations antedating Sade.

Erelong GI's ideas girdle Borstals
And toadies retrain Orientals as Borgia desserts:
Elated at iodine on starting gates,
Do sonnetising Britons lead orbed otters?

Ill borage's large attendants in bodegas,
Labiating gristlier translations,
Belie agreeable garnerings. No? 'Tain't so?
Go greet Titania in an insensate snit!

Granados labeled a gateleg table stable
As droll goaltenders tensed at tenebrist rites
And an elegant internee sense godlier litanies
In gangrened slattern lotteries in Laredo.

A belligerent gent tainted a nationalist
And an ill-starred seer slogged near Odin's targe
As Rosetta retested gastral allegories,
Riled at a brainless trio's rosaries.

Aretino's gist is bearable
And lister's treatises are greatening:
Siberian gentianella's deteriorating
And loneliness endangers libraries.'

March 1980, New York

published in 'Bloomsday' (Station Hill, 1984)

love and love
cris






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