Dear all,
Back a week from Halifax & am sad to see that the posts have dwindled to a
trickle: well, newly refreshed after the trip, I'll add a few things to the
past two weeks' accumulation:
1) Doug, many thanks for your list of female authors from (mostly) the US
and UK, though it's so long and unsignposted I don't know where to begin!
I thought I'd toss in a few names from Canada. I've only recently come to
know the work of Lissa Wolsak, due to the good offices of Pete Smith, & her
as yet unpublished sequence _Pen Chants_ is one of the most interesting
things I've come across in the past year. Selections can be found at
<http://interserver.miyazaki-med.ac.jp/~east/tc/wolsak/a.htm> and
<http://home.ican.net/~alterra/wols.html>. I'll copy in one section that
appeared in issue #2 of my own magazine _The Gig_ (sorry, this is not meant
as just a plug!):
The destination of all sung poetry
organs of walking
uncoffer lakelight, schoon
people at their most innocent
what final urge
is not met by
ritualized fainting
embodiment of seizure
gravid habit and fear.
Yma Sumac, on that scarp
ebbist.... nimbi kneeling
o soil,
what mouth-torch?
Another name I'd only recently come upon is Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, whose
work I've only seen in magazines, though she has one book out (I think it's
called _Redactive_); those interested should take a look at, e.g., "OOPS
UPSIDE YOUR HEAD" in _Raddle Moon_ 17. -- Other estimable writers whom I've
only seen bits & bobs of, & want to see more, are Susan Clark (_RM_'s
editor) & Nancy Shaw. -- OK: enough flag-waving, next item.
2) I'm currently assembling a bibliography for the Peter Riley special
issue of _The Gig_ that's due out at the end of this year. Peter's kindly
done most of the work in assembling the bibliography of his own work;
however, I also want to provide an account of criticism and reviews of his
work. My impression is that these are quite scarce. So far here's what
I've come up with (informally: I'll add details later)--I'd like to know if
listmembers could add to this.
* John Hall's review of _Lines on the Liver_, _Tracks and Mineshafts_ and
_Two Essays_ in _The Many Review_ 2
* Tony Lopez's review of _Sea Watches_ in _Parataxis_
* Keith Tuma's piece on _Distant Points_ in _Chicago Review_, later
collected in his book _Fishing By Obstinate Isles_
* brief accounts in a couple James Keery group-review pieces in _PN Review_
* Peter Philpott's review of _Lines on the Liver_ in _Grosseteste Review_
* short but intelligent reviews of _Distant Points_ and _Alstonefield_ in
_Object Permanence_
Could people add to this list? I'd imagine journals like _Perfect Bound_ &
_Reality Studios_ must surely have run reviews of Peter Riley's books at
some point....
3) Am a little puzzled by Clark Allison's comment on "Shakespeare's
relative looseness and slapdashness with the strictures of classical
metre", given that (assuming he means the now-established
accentual-syllabic, five-kerthumps-to-a-line norm) such strictures were
only established after Shakespeare's death, in the 17th and 18th centuries.
A glance at the verse of Surrey, Hawes & Wyatt, or at treatises like
Gascoyne's letter on versification, will show that such strictures were
certainly yet to be established firmly. -- If Peter Riley weren't in
Transylvania he could now illuminate us all, as he's said interesting
things to me in the past about the history of metrics...
and that's all for this morning. Except to say that one of the most
interesting & formally innovative books I've recently seen isn't a book of
poetry: it's Kamau Brathwaite's _ConVERSations with Nathaniel Mackey_ (We
Press & Xcp: Cross-Cultural Poetics, 1999; <[log in to unmask]>), a
palimpsest interview, with different formats & typefaces indicating the
layers of additions.
all best --N
Nate Dorward
[log in to unmask]
109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada
ph: (416) 221 6865
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