I have just finished reading Natasha Trethewey's Bellocq's Ophelia. This is a slim volume containing 28 poems, a cohesive series that seems just the right length for a chapbook but is presented in a very attractive collection. The book's premise, the poet wrote ekphrastic poems based on the portraits of E.J. Bellocq, a photographer in the early 20th century who photographed the prostitutes working in Storyville, the red light district in New Orleans. One of Bellocq's models was a light-skinned African American who is known in this collection as Ophelia. The poems in this book contemplate Ophelia's life, how she was lured into the house of Countess P and subsequently exploited for her exoticness. There is a section of epistolary poems written from Ophelia's perspective, and a sonnet sequence that closes out the book. The variety of form and narrative, flashbacks into Ophelia's life before Storyville, sustains the book and makes it compelling read.

For more on Bellocq and the Storyville portraits, check out this page. Bellocq's photographs were not known or recognized until well after his death, when the negatives passed into the hands of photographer Lee Friedlander who printed Bellocq's original images and exhibited them.

Now reading Margaret Gibson's Memories of the Future: The Daybooks of Tina Modotti, another interesting collection of ekphrastic meditations on a historical figure.

In the mail yesterday arrived a copy of Andrew Schelling's latest book, Erotic Love Poems from India. This is a beautifully designed hardback book with a painting of an Indian maiden washing her hair against a rich saffron background gracing the cover. The end pages are a deep orange color nicely mirroring the cover image. These poems are translations of the Amarusataka, the "one hundred poems of Amaru", one of India's finest collections of love poetry. The book is laid out one poem per page and includes both an introduction and aferword by the poet. As I opened the book to browse thru the poems, the cloth bookmarker fell open to the following poems:

8

Your lover sits
dejected
scratching figures in the dirt outside.
Your friends won't eat
their eyes are swollen from crying.
There's no silly chatter from the
household parrots
and you're a wreck.
Stubborn girl, isn't it
time to quit
sulking?


9

Women of intrepid
charm
can't be stopped -
they'll even steal what they want.
Why be timid? Tears cannot bring
satisfaction.
You want him,
he's hungry fo sexual pleasure
try some crudely explicit suggestion
and make
him your own.

If you are not already familiar with Andrew's work, check out his earlier work Dropping the Bow and Tea Shack Interior. I can not recommend his work enough.

Originally uploaded by shinyu32.

Eduardo has a nice Felix Gonzales-Torres image up on his blog. Here is a photograph of a piece that appears in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago that I took on my November trip. The bulbs burn out reflecting the ephemerality and transience of life.

Thank you Charles Coe and poets for organizing this important effort:

Poetry Fundraiser for Tsunami Disaster Relief
Thursday, January 27, 7 - 8:30 pm
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
138 Tremont Street, Boston
(Across the street from the Park Street "T" Station)

Readers: Bob Buckley, Charles Coe, Danielle Legros Georges, Gail Mazur and Elizabeth McKim.

leafblower at my window
the barking dog next door
my urban artist's "retreat"

I audited for one night a course called "The Artist as Writer" which raises some questions in my mind - there being an automatic privileging of art above literature in the phrase "artist as writer", which makes me think of variations on this theme. The main text books for this course are Robert Goldwater's Artists on Art from the XIV to the XX Century and Stiles and Selz's Contemporary Art, a Sourcebook of Artist's Writings. The class critiqued the anthologies and the instructor spoke of how anthologies are not meant to be read but used. Hmm.... Incidentally Artists on Art was the text which the instructor was reading during his graduate days in 1960s era Ivy League institution. Apparently, no one has made a better version, and consequently, what is taught is a source book filled with questionable translations and which sorely needs updating. The contemporary text for this course looked much more interesting in its scope of artists speaking on their process though some appeared to be miscategorized.

Much as I can't imagine going back to school on any sort of full-time basis anytime soon, much less for a course of study in anything scholarly, there are some wonderful poetic topics to be mined from the quotes and stories which come out in the course of listening to someone brilliant doing their thing. I learned last night for instance, the whole history of Western painting can be traced back to the painting of one perfect sheep by a young boy named Giotto di Bondone....

Currently reading "Art Talk: The Early 80s" edited by Jeanne Siegel - a series of interviews with contemporary artists on their art-making practices. Particularly striking interview with Andy Warhol who talks about his "Myth" series of paintings, Disney characters and cartoons which made me think of course of my own collaborator, David Lukowski's work which appropriates liberally from pop culture iconography.

Please read the newest issue of Big, RED, and Shiny founded by SAIC alum Matthew Nash for the latest art news around my most recent hometown. And be sure to check out this piece which provides some interesting perspectives on the place and necessity of poetry in conversation with the visual arts.

Quiet weekend filled with reading and analysis. The DiLeo anthology "On Anthologies" arrived in Friday's mail and has provided some very engaging reading on the economics and pedagogy of anthologies. I read thru a few of the essays in the collection and than turned to two other books - Leslie Marmo Silko's "Storyteller" and Norma Elia Cantu's "Canicula". The two books are similar in that the both bring together archival photographs with narrative texts, but Silko's "Storyteller" is far superior in its writing and range and scope of interests. Silko includes both photographs of relatives and images of the landscape, the Laguna Pueblo, devoid of the human element, and at no point do the photographs feel like a device for the author's larger project. The images are printed and presented in a variety of ways from full page bleed to sharing the page with text. Some images feel cropped. This contrasts with the selection of photos in Cantu's "fictionalized memoir" which has a feeling of the family photo album/scrapbook (the least interesting of which appear to be modern day yearbook and school dance photos). Cantu treats the photographs as objects which inspire the speaker's memories and meditations on the past, and frequent reference is made to the images, all of which include people. The speaker of Cantu's tales, are a young narrator speaking from the perspective of the girl in the photographs reflecting on a host of cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. which in time grows difficult to sustain. In Silko's book, the author tells the stories not only of the Marmon family clan, but also delves into the myth and legend of the Laguna people - in this way, the stories in this collection provide a wider angle into the exploration of memory and myth and the cultural experiences of the narrator of this book. And of course, the formal elements of "Storyteller" are far more interesting - ranging from prose to songs to poems sprawling across the page, vs. the strict narrative prose of "Canicula" which translates roughly as "dog days of summer". Silko annotates the photographs at the end of the book, whereas Cantu chooses to leave these poems in the realm of memento mori - playing again with the line between truth and fiction. Which do I prefer? "Storyteller" triumphs hands down.

paper is my kryptonite

college ruled
and three hole
punched, reams
of bright photo
copy quality white
cuts and reckless
bloody file manila
folder reports

paper beats rock beats scissors beats paper

cuts surface wounds and deeper incisions

sting of air
sting of water
sting of lemon
sting of contact

butcher paper covering
tables at the local Italian
eatery, sharper edged than
metal destroying wood in
the year of the Iron Rooster
feng shui horoscopes warning
beware metal no mention

of paper
green takes away
and red adds power

slice open a thumb making
xeroxes for poetry class
bright blood seeping a bad
year for paper -wood
based industries a bad
good year for poetry

Exhibition Announcment:

observe
Misty Keasler Saskia Jorda Baseera Khan

February 18-28
Special event on February 26: poetry reading with Shin Yu Pai and Mong Lan, 6-7 p.m.
Reception to follow immediately

at

The Janette Kennedy Gallery
South Side on Lamar
1409 South Lamar
Dallas, TX 75215

painted on the walls
of the P.O.W. barracks
"use your head or lose it"

lost in the homeless
sweep on Cadiz
Eddie Jackson’s family Bible

Amy Ouzoonian is soliciting work for "It Was Apparent to the Orphans: Poems for the Tsunami Survivors" (Foothills Publishing). All of the proceeds for this book,with the exception of the cost for production, will go to a relief fund for the victims of the tsunami.  If you have a poem that you believe belongs in a book of this nature, if you have a poem that addresses a desire for social justice, empathy for survivors, disgust for the apathy of leaders of unaffected nations (just to throw around a few ideas)  send these poems to Amy Ouzoonian, as soon as you possibly can.

The deadline for this collection is soon -  January 22nd at the latest!

Amy Ouzoonian
uzismurf2000@yahoo.com

Ray Bianchi of Chicago has a particularly provocative posting up on his website on the politics of anthologies and publishing and the need for more "cross-pollination" with the other arts...

140,000 lost to
flood & deforestation
can't see the forest for the trees

My friend Whiting has work in an upcoming show at the Aldrich Contemporary which is detailed below. If you are in the NYC/CT area, please go and see this wonderful exhibition of MacDowell Colony artists.

Solitude and Focus
January 23 - June 22, 2005
Opening Reception: Sunday, January 23, 2005, 4 to 6 pm

The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is pleased to present the exhibition, Solitude and Focus: Recent Work by MacDowell Colony Fellows in the Visual Arts, featuring the work of thirteen artists who participated in recent residencies at The MacDowell Colony. The exhibition will be on view at The Aldrich from January 23 through June 22, 2005. An opening reception will be held on Sunday, January 23, from 4 to 6 pm. Round-trip transportation from NYC is available, please call the Museum at 203.438.4519 for reservations.

Founded in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1907, by the American composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, Marian MacDowell, The MacDowell Colony is one of the most revered artist retreats in the US. Each year more than 240 artists, including architects, composers, filmmakers, writers, visual artists, and those working in interdisciplinary genres, come to MacDowell from all over the world to focus on their work in an inspiring environment created to foster the imagination. The Colony's mission remarkably parallels that of The Aldrich in their commitment to supporting new work by visual artists.

Organized by Richard Klein, Aldrich director of exhibitions, the exhibition will represent a cross-section of visual arts disciplines, including photography, painting, drawing, animation, sculpture, printmaking, video, and installation. Participating artists include: John Bisbee, Lynn Cazabon, Neil Goldberg, Mark Greenwold, Bill Jacobson, Joyce Kozloff in collaboration with Judith Solodkin, Sarah Jane Lapp and Mark Dresser, Jane South, Whiting Tennis, Alan Wiener, and Amy Yoes. A new video by New York-based artist Neil Goldberg will provocatively explore the need and motivation to create art. Shot in 2001 while Goldberg was a Fellow at MacDowell, the video pieces together interviews with five other artists who were in residence at the time and will premiere at The Aldrich. Each work chosen for this exhibition will aim to convey a sense of the individual achievement of MacDowell Fellows and their ongoing contribution to America's cultural ife. A catalogue will be published in conjunction with the project, including commentary by Klein and participating artists.

The MacDowell Colony nurtures the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which to produce enduring works of imagination. Since its inception in 1907, more than 5,500 women and men of exceptional ability have come to the Colony. Situated on 450 acres of woodlands and fields, the Colony has 32 studios, is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, and is a National Historic Landmark. Works of art conceived, developed, and completed during residencies at MacDowell have added immeasurably to our country's cultural life. In 1997, The MacDowell Colony was awarded the National Medal of Arts for "nurturing and inspiring many of this century's finest artists."

Kort and I caught the DART over to the Museum last night. When I worked at the Museum 5 years ago,and for many many years, i.e. throughout Kort's childhood, attendance was free to the public. A new Deputy Director came to the Museum from SF and restructured the institution which is now reflected in the $10 admission fee. Thursday nights are free after 5 p.m., although the special exhibitions are still by admission fee only - in the case of the China show that's $16 a person. Which is well more than the cost of going to see the newest blockbuster movie in the theaters. We ended up wandering thru very familiar galleries, observing the changes that have taken place in the last 5 years. Most noticeably, the Indian and Pacific galleries have undergone some major changes. The Indian art works have now been moved into a space across the hall where Egyptian reliquary works on loan from Boston were once housed. In the former gallery where the Indian art was once installed, the walls are now painted white (once a dark purple that made the space seem very small), much better lit and showcase the new acquisitions for the Pacific collection - largely ancestral figures in pairs. The Indian works are in the old Egyptian gallery, and it is apparent that many of the pieces in the collection have been taken out of storage and are now on display. The gallery feels claustrophobic and cluttered, and one strange visual effect is that against one purple painted wall, pedestals of varying height show off various statuary. Rather than all being of a consistent height, the pedestals and works of art bob up and down and cause a major visual disruption. As I looked around the crowded gallery, my eye fell on enlarged color photographs of the far East which I had never noticed paired with the collection. Nothing too impressive, but a context for where some of these works come from. Upon further examination, I noticed that these photographs with credit line were attributed to the husband of the Asian arts curator at the DMA. Interesting. Upstairs in the American collections, I was glad to see a temporary exhibit on loan to the Museum, a collection of African American art collected by professional athlete Grant Hill. There were great collage works in this show by Romare Bearden and pieces by some very talented painters, among them John Biggers. It was great to wander these galleries and to see other visitors which this show attracted - professional African Americans browsing the catalogs and looking at this work - so perhaps the museum has made some head way in becoming more of a museum for the community - though again with the admission prices, I would still argue that... the museum's own collection of African art is fairly limited, though they do have one very nice Bearden piece and though there pieces were buried in a small corner of the American galleries, having just walked thru the Hill Collection, there were some nice resonances. All of the contemporary galleries were down for some major reinstallation and the Pollocks had been moved into the modernist area of the European collections just opposite some Picasso - there is of course the connection of Pollock's earliest figurative works to Picasso's influence, but it seemed terribly out of place to see these works hung in the European section.

One of my mates in the program who grew up in Plano told me that the museum has been highly criticized by the community of artists here in Dallas for not supporting local artists, or acquiring their works, favoring instead expensive purchases of German art (Polke, Richter, Struth). While they have a program that gives grants and recognizes emerging artists, they do not necessarily purchase work to add to their collections.

The Japanese galleries had not changed at all, and the Chinese area seemed fairly static as well (one room each, if I remember right).

The other major observation made last night - I'm not too keen on the new programming - yoga in the galleries. The museum has cleared a space in the Egyptian galleries and brought in a yoga teacher who charges $10 per session and folks plop down on the hardwood floor into the downward dog and various other unflattering poses right there amidst the artwork. Barefooted on their tapas mats, just feet away from ancient reliquaries and embalmed mummies. Something about this just felt terribly terribly wrong and out of place. Call me an elitist!

Well the year is off to a better start than I could have imagined several weeks ago. Admit Two just took a batch of poems from my "Nutritional Feed" project. Look for an announcement very soon about an e-chapbook version of the sports poems. In other news, the good folks at Convivio Bookworks tell me this is the year that my project "Works on Paper" will come out. All this wrapping up of old projects before the lunar new year on February 9 which will mark the transition into a rooster year, which is TERRIBLE for rabbit born folk like myself, is definitely a good good thing. On to bigger and better things.

Poem as Image
The Studio
(Armonk NY)

Poem as Image, an exhibition about poetry as a visual expression, will be presented at The Studio, an alternative Space for Contemporary Art, in Armonk, NY in the Fall of 2005. This group show will examine work which integrates written and visual metaphor, in mediums touched by hand, which speak of individual experience usually drowned out by the noise of politics and popular culture. The show is organized by Cathrin Hoskinson, artist and independent curator. a catalogue will be published. Work should not be larger than 24" wide.Please send up to 10 slides, or jpegs on CD, SASE, $10 check made out to The Studio, bio., and artist's statement to: Cathrin Hoskinson,21 West Street 24E, New York, NY, 10006. Questions contact: cathrin@tgram.com or view www.thestudiony-alternative.org

Application deadline: March 30.

yellow journalism
critiquing
The Next Generation

A very nice review of America Zen: A Gathering of Poets in The Cleveland Plain Dealer.

If you live in Chicago, go and see this show:

Politic Of A Moment

January 9 - February 13, 2005
Opening Reception: Sunday, January 9, 2005

The Evanston Art Center opens the 2005 exhibition year with Politic Of A Moment curated by Marjorie Vecchio. This show features the work of four Chicago artists who make art that comments on the specifics of their social and private lives. The common thread between the artwork is the commercialization of objects, people and ideas through sentimentality. But each artist is quirky in imagery and method of working, and in this political climate, the quirkiness provides a breath of fresh air while continuing the examination of our social practices. Exhibiting artists include: Lucy Mueller, Larry Lee, Sarah Wild, Jeffrey Grauel.

2603 Sheridan Rd
Evanston, IL� 60201
Phone: 847-475-5300

After a very half-assed attempt at reading Chip Kidd's novel "The Cheese Monkeys", I am going to have to put the book back on the shelf where it belongs. The book is beautifully designed with quirky typography and surprising layouts but the first 50 pages dragged and were filled with entirely too much dialogue. Sadly, the plot is what hooked me into getting this book - this narrative is a fictional account of Kidd's experiences in art school studying under a design guru who he ultimately breaks with. Best quote from the book: "Good is dead". Indeed. Kidd did not design his own novel, although he has designed plenty of other bestsellers for Knopf, including titles by David Sedaris, Cormac McCarthy, Oliver Sacks and others. Some writers who sign contracts with Knopf even stipulate in their contracts that Kidd must design their book covers. Veronique Vienne's catalog on Kidd's work provides a wonderful essay on his development as a designer, his fascination with Batman and comics, and talks also about trends in book design - the way that one of Kidd's colleagues pioneered the use of photography on book covers for works of fiction - grounding these works in a more realistic experience, vs. using illustration to brand a book.

Sneak preview of The Wisdom Anthology of North American Buddhist Poetry edited by Andrew Schelling.

El Serenito has been blogging regularly about the tsunami and a general trend in narcissim in the blog world. So true, so true. While I have not written much about the tragic disaster in Asia, in the days immediately after the tsunami, my thoughts are very much with its victims. We have a friend on a monastic retreat in Burma who we have not heard from. We have contacted other people we know with loved ones in the region to check in. I talk about the event with most everybody I come into contact with.

A friend from highschool called me to say happy new year. My friend is a firefighter and accustomed to death and emergencies. When the subject turned to the tsunami, my friend threw up a wall of aversion and expressed his discomfort and unwillingness to look at the front page images of parents mourning over their children lost in the tsunami. "Some thing about looking at a picture of a parent losing child is just wrong," he said, himself, the father of 3 young daughters. My response was that it is important for the world to see these images and to realize the severity of the situation abroad and to come together in humanitarian aid efforts. My friend than shifted the subject to the aid organization that his church sponsors (I assume you donate funds to the church and they manage and allocate them accordingly) and how they come to the aid of any country in danger when disasters happen. Where is this organization based I asked? Do they have a branch in Asia? My friend could not tell me. While I was pleased to hear that my friend is vaguely involved with some mechanism for aid, I felt that there was definitely a distancing towards the overall disaster that has affected over 100,000 people, a vast majority of them children.

Another conversation, though this one more humorous transpired between me and Kort's dad. Kort's dad asked for help with finding Buddhist organizations supporting the tsunami relief effort in Asia to which he would like to donate. I said, sure no problem, I'll see if I can find a list of organizations and email them to you, but what's significant about them being "Buddhist"? He proceeded to explain his logic of many of the people of the countries worst hit as being Buddhist. Well actually there are probably a fair share of Muslims and Hindus in those regions too, I responded. So I ended up sending him a mixed list of secular and religiously affiliated aid organizations.

The day following the tsunami, Kort and I went to India Palace, which is owned and run by a friend of the family. Pardeep, who is from Northern India which was spared in the disaster, had in his lobby reporters and patrons taking phone calls from relatives overseas in the regions worst hit. Channel 6 called Pardeep on the phone and asked if they could do a story or talk to him - amazing that India Palace serves as such a community gathering place.

things I did this weekend:

- had dinner at Veracruz with Kort and his padres
- hung out with Kort and Chip at the Main Street Cafe in Deep Ellum
- put together weekly class/reading schedule and other materials
- worked out
- made/steamed stuffed cucumbers
- soaked garbanzo beans; made fresh hummus
- hemmed pants using hem tape - discovered wrong way and right way to melt tape adhesive
- vaccuumed apartment
- procrastianed on reading The Portable Poetry Workshop
- set up new blog project
- unloaded film in Holga and SLR cameras from Marfa trip
- recharged battery for digital camera
- washed a lot of dishes
- experienced first cooking related injury
- established new account at Blockbuster
- watched movies:
Before Sunrise
Before Sunset
Collateral
The Virgin Suicides
Envy