New contact specs:

As of December 26, reach me here:

Taipei Artist Village
No.7, Peiping East Rd.
Taipei, Taiwan
Tel：886-2-33937377; Fax：886-2-33937389

13 Ways of Looking at a Vulture

after documentary photographer M. Keasler


the eye
of the witness
the I of the commentator


grubby children at the rim
of a Guatemala dump
stunned orphans in Russia


lenses thick
as Coke bottles
motherless boy
in yellowed briefs


finding children
easier to shoot
because they let
adults
in


mirror compositions: nineteen
guajeros sorting through trash
eighteen vultures foraging


payment to a Third World host family tendered in Happy Meals


shellshocked
Louisianans housed
at Reunion Arena
survivors – no, refugees


Momma Key in curlers
in the double wide
taxidermied stags and
an uncle’s annual rite
East Texas: guns & boots
propped against the “I love me” wall


on assignment for
The New York Times:
the scorched remains of
a bus for the elderly
incinerated miles
beyond Dallas


documenting failed
economies amusement
parks crushed by Disney


nineteen vultures
to be located within the frame
eighteen visible, and one unseen


Under 25, the years
in which the artist wore
shit-filled diapers -–
Nan Goldin already
shooting junkies


empty love
hotel rooms
“pregnant,”
with “meaning”

Retroactive updates on the blog of the SoCal reading tour now that I have some wi-fi connection. Happy holidays to family, friends, and loved ones. See you at the new blog.

The Sona Books Gift Publishing Project.

Head over to http://myvocabulary.blogspot.com for a the latest edition of My Vocabulary hosted by Matthew Shindell and Michel Cazay.

In the first hour there is a live in-studio reading with yours truly. In the second hour, readings from H_NGM_N #4 with readings by Clay Matthews, Jen Tynes, Jon Leon,Oni Buchanan, Noah Falk and Matt Hart.

Playlist:

brazil- cornelius
tres cosas- juana molina
hangin' round- lou reed
vicious- lou reed
rebellion- arcade fire
sound and vision- david bowie
joy- circulatory system
lo boob oscillator- stereolab
lover's spit- broken social scene
books written for girls- camera obscura
don't you know- pulp
skip tracer- sonic youth
la madrague- brigitte bardot
danzas argentinas- oni buchanan
space patrol- peter thomas sound orchestra
ghost- neutral milk hotel
walkin' after midnight- patsy cline

From : Lacour, Pierrette M
Sent : Wednesday, December 14, 2005 1:24 PM
Subject : Re: The END... A sad day for Dallas and UTD

After a long battle…The UTD/SouthSide Artist residency Program is no more…Please come and join us for a “joyful” wake at SouthSide, Wednesday December 21st from 7:00pm on…There will be wine, thank you for bringing food ….

Sadly,
Pierrette

From : Metz Greg
Sent : Thursday, December 15, 2005 5:47 PM
Subject : Re: The END... A sad day for Dallas and UTD

This is indeed very sad news. The Southside Residency Program has indeed been a beacon for our school and our Visual Arts Program (for those not in the know).
It has put us in touch with an audience, artists and press that we did not have before. More and more programs are creating satellite galleries and residencies to make their programs more viable, with higher visibility and more community based and at the same time nationally connected. The hardest thing about establishing residencies is initiating them into the stream. With 2 years of very successful programming, this hard work has carved a path sure to be funded both privately and through grants. The pioneering work of Rick Brettell, Karen Wiener, and Pierrette and many others has been a hearty accomplishment and it has been well accepted into the Dallas Cultural landscape. I find it almost unconscionable that we have not found a way to adopt this beneficial accessory into our growing program. Using it to embody outside creative talent and to service our graduating students while creating an adjunct conduit for class instructors are only a few of the benefits.

It seems we are struggling with a growing studio program and no studios, not enough space, and aging constricted building, substandard gallery facilities, few if any current contemporary art history courses, declining budgets and little active administrative vision. To lose this program will erase the visibility and momentum we have gained in the Arts Community with this regard and will stiffle some of the active hope that UTD is a player in the increasingly competitive program status of other university art programs. All of the instructors here have contributed greatly to gaining a higher visibility through outside programming at great expense to their own personal work. It seems counter productive to deny this incorporated outreach program that can in turn provide a nutritious source of stimulus development to overcome some of our other deficiencies.

Many thanks to those who have worked hard to keep this visionary initiative alive and active. We should all come toast to their bold pursuit to help make this school a more adventurous program.

Greg Metz
Senior Lecturer
Visual Arts Studio Program,
Gallery Coordinator
University of Texas @ Dallas

From : John Pomara
Sent : Friday, December 16, 2005 5:49 PM
Subject : Re: The END... A sad day for Dallas and UTD

I agree strongly with Greg’s comments. It is truly a loss for Dallas and UTD, especially some of our graduates that have had opportunities there to exhibit their work as well as meet visiting artists from the program. Many of the surrounding Universities were impressed with what we were doing as an out reach in the community and fostering an even more vibrant art community. Rick, Pierrette, and Karen gave so much time and effort into this great endeavor. Many of the faculty here have given their time and support in various ways since Rick first brought this opportunity to the table. It will be a loss for Dallas, South Side itself, UTD, our students and young artists in the region. The public saw UTD as part of this vital energy that was beginning to raise the bar in Dallas with a commitment to the arts in a variety of ways by establishing this residency program.

John Pomara


From : Marilyn Waligore
Sent : Saturday, December 17, 2005 1:34 AM
Subject : Re: The END... A sad day for Dallas and UTD

I believe that all would welcome the expansion of the UTD/Southside partnership. The elephant in the room continues to be funding. Whatever the outcome, I hope that our collective experience may guide the generation of new opportunities for students, artists, and faculty. Given the potential of a satellite exhibition and performance venue/artist residency/student studio space to extend the reach and impact of university programming in the arts, UTD should explore innovative methods in order to maintain its level of contribution, in Dallas and Richardson.

To express gratitude to those who have donated time and energy to makeUTD/Southside a viable reality is both important, and at this moment bittersweet. So, thank you for all of your efforts in fostering the creation of an arts center in Dallas.

Best,
Marilyn Waligore
Associate Professor
Aesthetic Studies / Photography
School of Arts and Humanities / UT-Dallas

Went to the Ahadada reading at Beyond Baroque tonight with Neil. Jesse Glass’s adorable son Yoichi opened the reading with a brief speech on the origins of the press’s name – when he was one-year old, he would say “Ahadada.” Jerome Rothenberg suspects that that he was trying to say “Hahadada” which means “mother and father.” But Daniel Sendecki saw a happy accident in this turn of phrase, relating it to the surrealists, and thus Ahadada was born. The press is run by Jesse Glass in Tokyo and Daniel Sendecki in Toronto. The reading featured Daniel, Bruna Mori, Catherine (Cassia?) Daly, Jesse, and Jerome Rothenberg.

Daniel first read poems from his book Strange Currencies – a travelogue of time spent traveling in the Far East, opening with a piece written upon traveling down the Yangtze River and contemplating the abandoned villages surrounding the 3 Gorges Dam.

Bruna Mori followed with a distracting reading – she got up on stage, took off her full-length coat which she draped over her seat, and rearranged the podium area so she could read while seated on a stool, using a music stand. After a short struggle with the mic, she opened with a Cid Corman poem and followed with homophonic translations of an Argentine poet. She closed with a poem by Corman called “La Bruna” referencing her own name. Bruna seemed to flirt with the audience a bit and to subvert a bit of the evening’s programming – the main event was to be followed by a Cid Corman tribute (which I did not stay for) so her early reading of the Corman work seemed preemptive.

Catherine Daly followed Bruna with a reading of poems from her Secret Kitty manuscript. Catherine is intense – in this particular light, she looked like kari edwards and was extremely serious in her presentation. I was confused by a name change thing, also distracting – she was being introduced as “Cassia” but people were referring to her as Catherine (as on her blog). To write the Secret Kitty poems, Catherine extracted source material from a Hello Kitty coloring book which she then fed into internet search engines like google. She then translated them thru sites like dictionary.com, ask jeeves, and babelfish. Several of the poems were interesting and her turns of phrase even reminded me at times of my own work – particularly my Nutritional Feed poems. But what frustrated me about this work is that in reflecting on my own labor intensive process, I am aware that I work really hard to write poems. It bothered me that the creative process could be so automated/mechanized to remove the energy of the creative process from the making of the poem. In the end, though there were some interesting lines, I felt that Catherine’s longer sequences went on a bit. And apparently, she has more than one project in this vein – perhaps with different search engines/techniques, but the automation of the poem writing process.

Jesse Glass followed Catherine’s reading with poems from his new book – wonderful pieces – a poem after 9-11, a piece on the war in Iraq and a long poem on Phineas Gage, a historical character who was subjected to a horrible, life-altering head injury. Jesse was dressed very sharply and professorial in a grey suit, giving a solid presence to the reading, as did Daniel – I know Mark Lamoureux often wears neckties to his own readings – makes me think of what Chogyam Trungpa wrote about dressing to promote drala and to raise one’s spirit, which I definitely subscribe to.

Jerome Rothenberg finished the set with a performance of a Hugo Ball sound poem and a reading of his own work The Dada Strain – which is derived from a jazz song. After he performed the poem, he read the original lyrics which made for a great performance. Jerome also read from a series of poems written after seeing images of buddhas in the Dong Huang caves of China – the final piece in the sequence he dedicated to Anne Waldman and wrote and read the piece in the style and fervor of Anne’s work. This was a fantastic and diverse reading with Jesse and Jerome giving the strongest readings and a friendly and convivial spirit pervading all.

The Beyond Baroque space itself is an interesting black box theater with a first rate bookstore stocking all sorts of small press publications, and apparently there is also a small press room/archive. Viggo is a member of the board for this little independent space which is located in a residential neighborhood in Venice Beach.

Wrapped up tour of SoCal yesterday with a reading at Tebot Bach in Huntington Beach. Mifanwy Kaiser runs a series based at Golden West College, held in one of the college’s student centers which was transformed from an institutional fluorescent feel, into a salon-like atmosphere thanks to the efforts of the program coordinator Leland. Like most of the other readings I did over the past two weeks, the program kicked off with an open mic comprised of poets from the local community and several college students (many of them students of Mifanwy). James Ysidro read a marvelous poem on the composer Schamburg. Another man by the surname of Bonomo (Italian for “good man”) read with TS Eliot like cadences and presence.

Trip to the Getty Center with my parents and Kort. Weegee exhibition (crime and paparazzi-esque photos) paired with photojournalism images from the Getty’s collections – self-immolating monks and children burned by napalm in Viet Nam. Getty collected mostly European painting and decorative objects, not the most exciting stuff, but the Meier (also built the Rachofsky House) building was worth the trip – the collection split into 4 separate pavilions with several well-landscaped gardens – a cactus garden, and a garden designed by sculptor Robert Irwin, planted with native/desert plants. The Center has a solid rare books collection, only a small fraction of which was on display – worth researching and coming back to visit.Traffic on the 10 was terrible on the way back to Riverside, and it took us 3 hours to get all the way home. I dozed off on the car ride home and awoke to Kort pulling us over to the side of the road with a CHP officer behind us. Kort had gotten in the carpool lane which depending on the time of day allow a minimum of either 2 passengers or 3 passengers. Well, Kort didn’t see the sign until it was too late and by the time he realized it, we had a double yellow line on our right. So it was break the car pool law ($271 fine) or break crossing the double yellow. So he opted for the double yellow and next thing he knew, we were getting pulled over. The officer was really nice when we explained that we were visiting my folks in Riverside and our car was a rental and that we had no idea what the local traffic laws were and were damned either way. He was direct but sympathetic and let us go. Apparently, this is pretty unheard of. My parents drove the 60 freeway and they arrived home after us.

Poetry at the Loft in Redlands tonite. We got bumped from the Mitten building which was double-booked with a holiday party. The curator, Sholeh Wolpe, was able to move us over to the Boiler Room – I had pictured a soggy basement, but the Boiler Room turned out to be the name of a really nice, well-lit bar adjoining the Mitten. The open mic at this event was brief – just 3 readers reading 1 poem each – Neil Aitken, a local student in the MFA program at UCR, read a gorgeous Pushcart nominated poem, and 2 other locals also shared their work. Marie Char, a traditional Chinese musician, played erhu. Check out Neil's blog for a generous write-up of the evening's programming.

Gneiss Series in Palm Desert – past the windmill fields and Palm Springs in the Coachella Valley. Palm Desert has risen to replace Palm Springs – a high-end destination with European fashions and gourmet restaurants. This was probably the most dazzling of venues – the reading was held at the penthouse of the Denise Roberge Gallery, where Kort and I also stayed overnight, surrounded by contemporary art and Botero-esque images. David Dodd Lee, a former painter cum poet from South Bend, Indiana, read poems about fishing, killing turtles and painting. I met poet Louise Mathias briefly, a friend of Victoria Chang and a friend apparently of David’s, who was helping out by selling books. As I approached to say hello/introduce myself, the friendly greeting I received was “Here’s your money.” We headed to a tapas bar post-reading with David, the curator Lori Davis, a painter Walter Lab, Kort, me, and Louise. David, Lori and I talked about poets who “turn things on their sides” for us – David cited Michael Burkhard and Vallejo (pronounced it “Va-le-ho”) Lori cited Transtromer. I mentioned how important Arthur Sze and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge have been to me. Later, Walter the painter told me about an opera that he is working on – five shorts with or without music, yet to be determined. Visual interpretations of poetry. Walter painted stage sets in Hollywood for 20 years, before moving to the Desert to start a business as a mural painter for restaurants and private homeowners.

In San Diego for Matt Shindell’s My Vocabulary on KSDT. Read poems for about an hour interspersed with songs from Broken Social Scene, David Bowie, and other great tunes selected by Michel Cazary. The radio station is on the old student center/campus of UCSD. I’d never been inside a radio station and the musical set-up was interesting – independent bands and labels, the more obscure the better, though I did spy some They Might Be Giants and The Swirlies and some old Pavement.

Riverside Public Library: Despite heavy promotion efforts, only two Chinese-Americans came to the reading. My friend Cindy sent several of her lit students from RCC, and poet Judy Kronenfeld from UCR came out – Judy as it turns out, is the mother of one of my old schoolmates. When we were growing up, I had no idea that her mom was a published poet/scholar. I had been warned that there might be children in the audience or adolescents, but we got mostly adults and seniors which was a least a little bit of a frustration, as I had seriously toned the presentation down to be kid-friendly, cutting most of my recent material. Still, Kathryn M did a fine job with getting a sizeable audience together and also put together a small reception with persimmons, sesame balls, and Oreos. Not sure how the Oreos went with the Asian theme, but a nice lo-cal option She printed out digital pix of my work from the website and posted the images around the room.

Reading at John North High School in Riverside - The kids were split up into two groups of about 100 each. I was able to see my old theater teacher and my senior year English teacher who’s now teaching history exclusively. The readings went well and the kids were engaged, asked mostly good questions with the exception of a few questions that were out of left field – “do you listen to rap?” and “are you rich?” When I told the group that I am more of a folkie and listen to Bob Dylan, this one hippy kid yelled an enthusiastic “YES” complete with arm pumping gesture a la Tom Cruise. After the reading, Kort picked me up and we went to see Walk the Line, the Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash movie. This movie is just amazing.

Recently, I received a very kind rejection note from a publisher to whom I had sent a copy of SIGHTINGS: Selected Writings (2000-2005) - [title borrowed from Jerome Rothenberg, referencing here the visual quality of the poems and their site-specific quality where written for collaborations].

Here's what the editor had to say:

I've read through your manuscript SIGHTINGS with great interest.

I wish we were publishing as many books as we used to; instead of four a year as previously, however, we are down to three every two years.... SIGHTINGS just isn't at the top of the pile, sorry.

But you have lots of talent and you know how to assemble a provocative and enticing manuscript. Your speculations on language, the visual, gender, and poetic lineage show an original and inquiring thrust of mind. Why wait until you're old and gray before putting together a book of selected poems? It may be daring, but in your case, well worth the effort.

Thanks for sending us the portion of the book. I expect that you won't have a lot of difficulty placing it with another firm that is ready for you now.

I have to say, this was the most compassionate letter I've ever received from an editor in my history of publishing. The reality of small press publishing (and the financial resources needed to actually print a book) weigh in my mind lately, as I begin to contemplate the project of partner-based collective publishing and financial investment in my own work, i.e. alternative models to getting the work out there. Why shouldn't I invest in my own work? Why indeed wait until old and gray? What difference do age and experience hold - i.e. what difference do these aspects make in giving me "credit" in the "bank" of poetry? Who is ready for my work now? I am ready for my work now. And where there is will, there is a way.

This blog will relocate temporarily on December 26 to the following address:

73 days in Formosa.

There has been a lot of nice feedback on the new website. I worked very closely with a local Dallas-based web designer on creating the site, on the architecture, design motifs and layout. We copied the layout for the publications section from Oliver de La Paz's site, arranging the journals in a gallery style presentation giving a sense of the funk and aesthetics of small press publications. Ultimately, my hope is that we can find a way to host videos on the site and put up the Hedwig Dances collab that premiered in Chicago in November 2004, as well as video interviews I've done with New Hampshire Public Television and with Greg Metz's Art Admin class from UTD which curated our UTD show this past summer. There are many many negatives and photos I need to scan and upload to the gallery section - photos from Taiwan, photos from night shoots, and from Marfa. This will probably be a long-term goal as the next 3 months are completely tied up. At my students' reading on Tuesday, an audience member asked me about my work and Equivalence, where to get it, etc. Rather than getting into the whole history of my poetics and the evolution of my aesthetics and current body of work, it was really nice to just say "here's my web address."

I walked out the front door of our building this morning to be greeted by an angry mob of all male protestors gathered in front of police headquarters on the corner of Lamar and Belleview. A group of men from various ethnicities, though primarly African-American holding signs and chanting "What about Jesus?" The signs had something to do with Dallas Mayor Laura Miller - and had some references to getting citizens off of drugs - I can only guess that this may be a response to the closing of one of the local homeless shelters downtown (because it's located too close to a public school). I don't actually know if it's happened yet, but know that it's been talked about for quite some time and the treatment of the homeless in this town is somewhat appalling - unannounced police and trash sweeps, seizure of possessions, etc. I was puzzled that the protest was happening in front of police HQ - the news crew (Fox in particular) shoot stories here all the time with the multi-million building as a backdrop - but the environment typically has nothing to do with the story. Why wasn't this group over at City Hall?

Sent in this morning's mail: student portfolios and my application for a PhD program at Goldsmiths College in London. I decided to apply for one school. This could be a setback if I don't get in, but one can certainly hope. No GRE, no subject exam, no dissertation exams, no foreign language, no foreign language exams, no scholarly dissertation - just creative with a critical component.

Entered grades for my students on the automated system - 11 A's and two B's. I was annoyed to find out from the university that at the graduate level, + and - are not accepted in the system, so if I had assigned a student an A-, their grade would have been upgraded to an A. If I gave a B+, downgraded to a B. I find that problematic. In my book, A's are for students who exceed just doing the work, more than what's needed to get by - they show up to every class, participate in discussions, show engagement and generosity with the work of their peers, etc. A- is for those students who say very little and write good poems but otherwise show reserved/controlled engagement, or it is for students who have shown great growth in their deepening of the craft, do not yet quite "get it" but who's radical efforts merit acknowledgement. I gave one B+, to a student whose work changed very little and who when I'd call on him he would blow sunshine/heap praise vs. delivering on a focused critique. This was sadly rounded down in the system. Of course, this is all total bullshit because on the deeper level, I do not believe in grades, I believe strictly in PASS/FAIL with a "grade option" - i.e. if they want the performance measurement for their transcripts, I'll dispense it but otherwise, forget the end outcome and focus on the process.