D (eskryptions) (of an) I (maginary) U (nivercity)
21
II, I
vol 2, no 1
edition b
"whatever"
during winter detail
regents of the fate of the imaginary
convened
...These extrapolated futures are in the great western
tradition of migration and despoilation that begun some
time before 1000 BC. All of the fresh starts on earth,
all of the fresh starts for humans, have been squandered.
This is our advantage. We have lost our innocence. We are
not Adam and Eve. THE IMAGINARY UNIVERCITY exists because
those who matriculate produce it. The students write all
of the books in its library, plan the syllabi of the
courses. We examine ourselves, we confer our own certificates
and degrees.
Now those who educate themselves as posthumans begin to
produce a nation. The course of study is difficult, the
chances for graduation are nil. If you want to study and act,
you will be welcome. OTHERWISE, PLEASE, STAY HOME AND
WATCH MTV. You should know, however, that our Nation of
Noise and Knowledge is at war with the United Nations and
all of its members. You will be required to undertake
dangerous missions. The stakes could not be higher.
--A student, IU, 1995
[from "Posthuman Nation / Knowledge and Noise"
_We Magazine 19 (diu 1-20)_, 1995.]
"It is all very well to enjoy the infinite
bliss of life after death, but it is preferable
not to have died at all."
Poetry comes into existence in the absence of poetry, where words
and language become the objects of a near infinite number
of experiments designed to animate a long since passed away corpse.
The experiments are interesting, but the corpse, however exquisite,
is not. Even the stink, which for some time intoxicated the half-dead
disciples of its cause, has become merely another of a countless number
of environemntal signs of our collective desperation. The most serious
of all work is the most comic, and the most comic the most tragic. The
laughter is no longer joyful, but sardonic. Indeed, the most outwardly
revolutionary of acts have become the most boring.
We learn to live on breath alone. We learn not only to lie
profoundly (as the disaffected poet said, and to ask ourselves,
knowing this, whether mendacity is the best policy), but to understand
that the key to the dissapperance of the world itself has itself,
with the world, dissappeared. The aura surrounding the false
joy of our recognition that we are all ghosts, has become
as repetitive (and thus boring) as the pseudu-political act of revealing
"the corpse" for what it really is. We learn not only to live,
but to live lacking death, so that the over aestheticized funeral
of poetry lacking poetry -- the stillborn child of politicized art --
can finally come to an end.
Life has never been more than life experimenting with life. Poetry, at best,
has ecstatically been both a lamentation and celebration of that fact.
--the As-Of-Yet-Undescribed Student Body
RECENT AMERICAN POETRY HAS LACKED
poems on the death of a goldfish;
baseball metaphors;
happy liberalism (remember Hubert Humphrey);
epics of artificial intelligence;
poems concerning chewing gum--the Juicy Fruit theme;
iambic tetrameter quatrains;
consumer advice;
recipes for smothered pork chops;
famous living poets such as John Ashbery;
instructions on refurbishing antique chifforobes;
Vachel Lindsayism-- boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM, and forth;
good poems on electronic circuitry;
references to Chester A. Arthur;
rich people who'd pay to be mentioned in poems (i.e. serious patronage);
ennobling language;
poems about aliens who eats peoples' small intestines;
lyrics that turn on delicate points of etiquette;
heroic couplets;
exposes (as one says in ascii) of the meat-packing industry;
poems about how to use an arc welder;
the pancreas theme;
poems suitable to set for gospel quartets;
poems about happy middle age;
palindromes;
the theme of the foot, especially corns and ingrown toenails;
fried food metaphors;
images of water skiing;
the family farm, milch kine, the Grange, and so forth;
poems to be spoken by loose, flabby lips;
scandalous revelations about famous academic poets of the 50's;
poems about ice fishing;
fancy words, like "peignoir" or "puissant," used for their meanings;
Studebakers;
poems about the new intelligent house appliances;
any thing as funny as the Coasters' "Poison Ivy";
poems on themes in higher mathematics;
adequate poetic diction: "yonder," "finny tribe," "cyberhacksaw";
rhythms suitable for square dancing;
poems about aliens who write Tide commercials;
mnemonic devices for the names of civil war generals;
skillfully managed Skeltonics;
poems that are really diesel engines;
secret messages ("the walrus was Paul," etc.);
pool halls;
hollow men and hollow women;
poets who take up the persona of the sage investment banker;
an understanding of quantitative verse;
poems about building or living in yurts;
carnivorous poems;
poems about aliens whose genetic code is encrypted on Pearl Jam records;
poetry do-it-yourself kits;
the Latin names of medicinal herbs;
poems on the Vanity of Human Wishes.
WHO SAYS POETRY IS USED UP?
I went to a poetry conference sometime in the 70's at which there was
one of those poetry readings that go on all night. There were seven poems
on the death of gold fish-- two in tetrameter couplets, one in Skeltonics, one
which included three Latin names of medicinal herbs. I have really seen
nothing like it since. In fact shortly thereafter it became unfashionable to
mention any thing at all.
We once had a gold fish named bubbles, who lived much of the time on
our kitchen table, and she was mentioned in poems by at least three visiting
poets with whom I sat after dinner discussing Skeltonics and arc welding
and drinking coffee. In those days poets spoke of serious matters.
Bubbles lived a long life for a gold fish, and when she was grievously
flushed, it was no longer considered fashionable to write on that theme, so I
wrote about my 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk, thus, substituting the death
of my car, named after a mighty raptor, for Bubbles. It was a cunning
stratagem.
Your assingment for next week is to write on the vanity of human wishes.
This is a theme even older and nobler than dying gold fish, which itself goes
back to the Sung dynasty. If you think you are not ready to handle such
lofty material, you may attempt to remedy any of the lacks in recent poetry.
--The Poetry Work Chop Advisor
The while seven other knots hold you. The while you
nailed to your bed.
The while Trees in wet cement were branded.
The while, the while that you want to escape would die to escape.
Skrecic, it sounds the same in all the languages.
Skrecic, it sounds the same in the seven languages.
Skrecic, it sounds the same in the wet cement, the same
burning in the fires.
*** Sk. (Polish) : contort,
--MANOWAK
in my garden bleed to death
snowball trees of madness
from geometrical fountains
thrushes of madness
in my garden bleed to death
from geometrical fountains
from geometrical fountains
bleed to death in my garden
thrushes of madness
in my garden bleed to death
fountains of madness
from geometrical snowball trees
geometrical snowball trees
in my garden bleed to death
from fountains of madness
from geometrical madness
bleed to death in my garden
thy snowball trees at fountains
--HCA trans. by M. Hegemony
To The Bloodless Refugees Of Emptiness
"Through the suburbs sleepless people stagger,
as though just delivered from a shipwreck
of blood."
-Garcia Lorca, The Dawn
What now exists as palpable global destiny? What are its markers,
its sculpted crimson signs?
The psychic atmosphere implies a return to troubled fiefdoms,
to monarchies trebeled by ferocious glints of bloody erosion. The
sun continues to burn, the tides swarm across their shores with their
sulphurs, while human continuity appears and disappears, like a
netling grimness of ghosts. What arises from this startling anti-
mass is the progressive neutering of the species. During this con-
tinuing dearth of higher foci even lightning is misconstrued as
mere electrical theatrics. World citizenry now progresses as an
artificial epitath, as a spotted hyena starving on kelp, in an
atmosphere of plight, hovering in balanced enigma. A spoiled voltage,
a principle lacking in cohesion, where horizons disintegrate,
where ideographs explode into darkness.
Humanity, like generic refugees, profanely strewn across a
dome of exploded heliographs. The politicians crave for momentary
incisions, for influential poison, much like staggered antelopes
searching for sublime direction. For instance, a once dependant
compass, now a locust eaten crystal. The collective path, a roving
generation of hatchlings, devolving in sullen mental savannahs.
We've witnessed many centuries of emigres, of disruptive holocaust
phantoms. Now, all the fiestas and dieties somatically crippled,
maundering like leaves across sudden hurricane waters, with their
destinies entangled in a liminal brushfire pyroclastic.
At present, the shadow of our phylum wafting through an un-
remitting mime osmotics. The linear goal, the abstracted referent,
now remains increasingly hidden in tumultuous occlusion. And what
is engendered by the latter, is the bloodless wake for uni-direc-
tional propoganda...
--WA [to be continued in DIU 22]
Nubian Roots Playlist
Sunday, January 29, 1995, 12-3pm
90.1 KZSU Stanford
DJ Cat
Abbey Lincoln Afro-Blue Abbey is Blue
Sun Ra Plutonium Nights Angels & Demons at Play/
Nubians of Plutonia
Ethnic Heritage Ornette Coleman Dance with the Ancestors
Ensemble
Fred Houn A Blk Woman Speaks Tomorrow is Now!
Johnny Dyani Quartet Blues for Meyake Angolian Cry
Bobby Hutcherson Catta Dialogue
Michael Benita Quartet Babel Soul
Eric Dolphy Feathers Out There
8 Bold Souls A Little Encouragement Ant Farm
8 Bold Souls Half Life Ant Farm
Reggie Workman Close Encounter Summit Conference
John Coltrane Satellite Coltrane's Sound
Di Meola/McLaughlin/ Frevo Rasgado Friday Night in San Francisco
DeLucia
Kahil El' Zabar Ritual Ornette Renaissance of the Resistance
Arthur Blythe Faceless Woman Blythe Spirit
Ran Blake The Short Life of The Short Life of Barbara Monk
Barbara Monk
Marilyn Crispell/ Old Thumper Band on the Wall
Eddie Prevost Dogbolter Band on the Wall
Apart Band on the Wall
Don Pullen Ode to Life Random Thoughts
John Jang Monk's Strut Self Defense
Giuseppi Logan Quartet Dance of Satan Giuseppi Logan Quartet
Andrew Hill Flight 19 Point of Departure
Steve Coleman Shift on the Fly Drop Kick
available soon as a CD boxed set
IN THE AMERICAN OPRY: COUNTRY-WESTERN, POETRY, REALISM
compiled by John Denver
& featuring
Bernadette Mayer & Lee Ann Brown <-> The Judds
Jed Rasula <-> Jimmy Buffet
Steve Benson <-> Jim Nabors
Ron Silliman & David Melnick <-> Roy Clark & Buck Owens
Thad Ziolkowski <-> Lyle Lovett
Charles Bernstein <-> Roger Miller
Hannah Weiner <-> Minnie Pearl
Johanna Drucker <-> Reba McEntire
Marjorie Perloff <-> Alabama
Diane Ward <-> Roseanne Cash
Jean Day <-> Carlene Carter
Don Byrd <-> Porter Waggoner
Lyn Hejinian <-> Loretta Lynn
Nick Piombino <-> Garth Brooks
Carla Harryman & Barry Watten <-> Tammy Wynette & George Jones
Clark Coolidge & Michael Palmer <-> Waylon & Willie
Stephen Rodefer <-> Johnny Cash
Alan Davies <-> k.d. laing
Abby Child <-> Kinky Friedman
Bruce Andrews <-> Charlie Pride
David Bromige <-> Merle Haggard
Robert Grenier <-> Boxcar Willie
Kit Robinson <-> Hank Snow
Tom Mandel <-> Conway Twitty
P. Inman <-> Ernest Tubb
Tina Darragh <-> Kitty Wells
Bob Perelman <-> Johnny Paycheck
Susan Howe <-> Hank Williams Sr.
Rae Armantrout <-> Mac Davis
Michael Davidson <-> Glen Campbell
James Sherry <-> Barbara Mandrell
Ray DiPalma <-> Jimmy Webb
Joan Retallack <-> Red Sovine
Jackson Mac Low <-> The Pioneers
Tom Raworth <-> John Anderson
Mark Wallace <-> Graham Parsons
Andy Levy <-> George Strait
Jessica Grim & Melanie Neilsen <-> Flatt & Scruggs
Jeff Derksen <-> Jimmy Rodgers
Jerry Rothenberg <-> Kenny Rogers
Fanny Howe <-> Dolly Parton
Alice Notley <-> Lefty Frizzell
Keith & Rosmarie Waldrop <-> Jennifer Warnes & Leonard Cohen
Benjamin Hollander <-> Freddie Fender
Leslie Scalapino <-> David Lindley
Peter Gizzi <-> Tennessee Ernie Ford
Ben Friedlander <-> Slim Whitman
Rod Smith <-> John Prine
Douglas Messerli <-> Ray Stevens
Rumour has it that in what may be an attempt to
flee the ruins, many members of the royalty (including
Prince Gizzi) are currently flocking to California in
what has (with some tongue in some cheek) been recently
dubbed "Project Restore Coast." While some of the
native inhabitants fear that such an infusion of "avant-garde"
sensibilities might not sit well in what has been called
"one of the most alarming mixes of flabby pseudo-sixties
idealism and crass mercantilism" ever witnessed, others
have stated quite bluntly their favorable position:
"Why not hire all of them and have the best poetics
program in the nation?"
According to inside sources who spoke on condition
of anonymity, Top Cop Bob Perelman -- perhaps because of
his en-vogue role in the recent film "Postmodernism: The
Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"-- is the front-runner for the
recently opened position at Lost Coast University. Some still
contend, however, that despite Perelman's acting experience,
the fresh young face of Supporting Actor Aaron Shurin
because of his wide-market appeal and, as
one audience member put it, "ability to relate," is still in
strong contention.
We've received no reports yet on the tryout performance
of Cecil Giscombe, though rumour says that his reading
went on, as scheduled, without incident, and that a good deal
of fine wine was consumed by all parties involved.
We now await the arrival of Prince Gizzi.
Let us not fall into the sea
Til its best time...
--as of yet dis-integrated student body
The Last Days of the White Race, Readlist
10 Feb. 1995, Radio Free Northamerica
_The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes_ edited by
Arnold Rampersad (Knopf 1994):
"Songs to the Dark Virgin"
"God"
"Goodby Christ"
"Sunday Morning Prophecy"
"Madame and the Minister"
"Who But the Lord?"
"Bible Belt"
"Little Cats"
___
"Would
That I were a flame,
But one sharp, leaping flame
To annihilate a body,
Thou dark one"
"Spring!
Life is love!
Love is life only!
Better to be human
Than God -- and lonely"
"Goodbye,
Christ Jesus Lord God Jehova
Beat it on away from here now
Make way for a new guy with no religion at all --
A real guy named
Marx Communist Lenin Peasant Stalin Worker ME --
I said ME!"
"Come into the church this morning
Brothers and Sisters,
And be saved --
And give freely
In the collection basket
That I who am thy shepherd
Might live"
"He said, Sister
Have you back-slid?
I said, It felt good --
If I did!"
"No I do not understand
Why God don't protect a man
From police brutalities"
"It would be too bad if Jesus
Were to come back black.
There are so many churches
Where he could not pray
In the U.S.A."
"What happens to little cats?
Some get drowned in a well,
Some run over by a car --
But none goes to hell"
*-*-*-**
DIU circulates by the logic of snowflakes
thru cf2785@albnyvms.bitnet
--**-*-*-***