Demented, crazy, stupid, dumb, there are so many. I did use plenty myself,
and still do (and you have to double the quantity because I use them
indistinctively, in Italian or in English). If not directly, then in the
evaluation of some people. Nonetheless I feel very uneasy with these posts.
First by mine, which were _Oh so light, with the dances_ (what has dance to
do with serious poetry?)
Then by the consecutio.
And I am sorry for Trevor, whom I evaluate a very refined person and a great
observer of his list, patient, even too much.
For Rebecca who had to apologize for having been once happy.
For Alison who had to criticize.
For Erminia who burst out senselessly.
For Mark Weiss who was able to trace a most interesting distinction inside
the American community.
For the mails on Frost, which explained further trends happening within a
poet and inside a market.
For the comments on an article sent by Ron on Niedecker and started the two
previous topics.
And for all who contributed lately and feel they are demented.

I haven't personally read Barthes in the last ten years. I have no idea if I
am keen on going back to him with the perpetual amount of work I have here
to face like a brick wall between me and the others. But if someone wants
to, I won't cancel the mail, unless it is 300 pages long, and even in that
case I might still save it in a file and try my best.
Dylan Thomas ranks high in my evaluation. Yes, go ahead Erminia, tell us
what you wish of him.

The pub question _ since we do not have pubs in Italy _ could just be fine
with me, on the other hand. And I consider Lawrence's last mail on the tide
a poetic composition, which fits the main line of the list.

No comment on mine which followed, and which seems highly demented.
Gulping through the third day of the year, a

From: "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]>


Erminia,

Well, many business people are demented too! there are
garden varieties of this affliction. It has been suggested by
some that I am often or permanently demented, but I don't
frankly see what use it is unless it is as Dickinson put it
"much madness is diviner sense/ to a discerning eye." Though
naturally, being demented, I see eye as I, invariably. But to suggest
that your prolific posts of the last few hours, which have had the
point of attacking Trevor and the list, as if we were all one puddle
of stagnant water, have to do with the 'dementia' of Mallarme's
poems. That seems like a great inflation, inflating posts which
are no more than a kick in the shins, in the particular or in general,
with such works of language. I would be more convinced if you
were to engage in some real work that evinced these qualities
of dementia, until then, I'm afraid it just all seems like rhetoric
and attention-getting and kicks in the shins.

I also don't know
what you are talking about in your other posts. Various list members
have spoken of their embarrassment in meaning to send posts to
the lists and simultaneously or instead sending b/c's, and there's
even been extensive discussions of the list protocols (which unlike
the protocols on other lists and which one habituates oneself to) which
make this occur. Personally I would be mortified at sending a b/c
to the list, and I don't frankly see anyone at the moment bombarding
the list with abusive or worthless or irrelevant messages but you. I don't
know what you want of us, but basically, if you wish to engage in
meaningful discussion, it would be much better, I think anyway, to give
me a choice as to what might interest me or not. I'm not inclined to talk
to anyone who is, from the get go, inclined to kick me in the shins or
compare me to a museum of the false. That's not exactly the way "to win
friends and influence people" no?

Best,

Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Erminia Passannanti <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Jan 2, 2004 7:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Poetry Summit Friday 9th to 11th january [next week].

Happy new year, Rebecca,

dementia is an important part of the writing process.
Had we not be all demented, we would be business people.
As for the word dementia itself, I have a great respect for both what it
defines and what it implies. Because we are not talking - at least not in
my case - of vascular dementia - we have to believe to the Latin root
suggesting that the verb 'dementare' is to go "out of one's mind" ; but
then we must ask ourselves what is this owning of one's mind. How do we go
in or out of it? There are states of permanent dementia, and how do we
distinguish them from other normalities. So we speak of changing or moving
State of Mind. Is any change of mental state , the moving out of one's
mind , a demential dynamic? The sway of the mind remains powerful in any
case. It goes without saying that certain authors have been profoundly
demented.
In France Mallarmé was unquestionably one of them. He was the first to show
his dementia to the public. For him, for us all, it is dementia which
speaks out of his pages.

erminia