Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Rodrigo Toscano

is new to me, and I likely would not be bothering with this post if I hadn't noticed ". . . Toscano is major. . . ." in a comment by Kent Johnson. I have been doing some searches, and found that he has an epc.buffalo.edu page. Early this afternoon I finished reading the Jacket 28 interview of him by Leonard Schwartz. Because of the keenness of the questions, the appropriateness of the responses-- which include parts of poems by Toscano, and the sonic and intellectual flair of his poem-making, this interview is the best entry for anyone who is not familiar with this NYC-based arbiter and author. Here is a direct link to the interview. On his epc page are numerous links. And here is a link to a post by Mark Scroggins. Do not know if this is a general consensus, but Toscano is a post-Langpo author according to at least one person. From what I have read so far the performance quality in his poems is enticing. Dialogue is a core device for him, and since I have used dialogue in several works, it is easy for me to relate to and enjoy that aspect of his writing. bl00339

Monday, April 27, 2009

Mikhail Bakhtin two links

heteroglossia - [ ... ] Humans are always naming things, if for no other reason than the need to remember them. Circa 1985 I wrote a poem which speaks to this. It is entitled "A Cardinal of Consciousness". bl00338

Friday, April 24, 2009

quik thoughts

Not that I haven't been ironic both in my words and in my life but I've grown tired of irony and not that I haven't used allusions but I have grown/ tired of allusions and of being elusive and of illusions and not that I'm never contentious but I have grwon tired of contention and of being content i o u s. - [ Note: At K H is Stephen Burt Elliptical ] bl00337

Thursday, April 23, 2009

With winds gusting

through Sturdy Bush at noon, a butterfly that looked like a Monarch but seemed too small and so may have been a Viceroy was moving from one dandelion patch to another. Also caught a glimpse of a bee on this now cloudy warm day. - Have been following Bank of America this week. A slew of controversy surrounds its solvency and in particular its acquistion of Merrill Lynch. BAC stock dropped to $7 briefly--I think it was early on Tuesday--but mostly has been between $8 and $9. - Ron Silliman placed a challenging post up yesterday which I may link to so I don't have to keep visiting it. Henry Gould's comments are becoming more cogent, a fact that pleases me since I agree with most of his conclusions. - Speaking of conclusions, Coversations With Myself has entered the contest for the title of my collected works. Two others are Idiothead and Your Mother's Dead, and She's Glad. - PM 3:30 -- Mark Wallace's wallacethinksagain.blogspot.com is another site I've been visiting a lot of late. Many of the discussions re American Hybrid radiate from there and Mark nearly always states his thoughts in interesting ways. - Reminder: If you don't have a link to a site I mention, check to see if I do. bl00336

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Sam Hamill on Kenneth Rexroth

in Jacket 23. Would prefer to provide a link to the article, but Jacket has a rather strict copyright policy. So here's the URL: jacketmagazine.com/23/rex-hamill.html One fact in Hamill's article has me wondering how many of the most significant poets had near perfect recall. bl00335

Friday, April 17, 2009

Recently

a pair of warblers or finches along with some zipping around swallows have been near Sturdy Bush. Swallows do nest in the passageways, but I would like to know what kind of bird the other two are. They may have been here past years too in a different location. Recently I've been trying to eat a can of three bean salad. It hasn't been going well. Too stringy and the kidney bean skins get stuck in my throat and other places, and the vinegar, well--it is vinegar. Will be eating the last of it tomorrow. Recently, though I haven't written any down yet, I've been noting lines I like in the anthology of poems I got from the library, and have been attempting to ascertain why I like them. Have renewed the book and will probably do a post on some of Emily Dickinson's lines first. Recently I've been trying to summon the energy to get back to posting the rest of Brian's Brain. It's a large project that once was online at Tripod. Six posts of it are done. Am not sure how many more posts will be needed, but the completed ones are in size 1 Verdana. Those remaining, therefore, will also be in size 1 Verdana. Recently in KH I posted the covers of 5 books, each by a different author, along with 1 poem from each book. A hazy theme connects the 5 poems, so I didn't comment on them. The five authors are William Michaelian, Tom Montag, David Lunde, Charles Behlen, and Gary B. Fitzgerald. bl00334

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Susan Boyle Britain's Got Talent

If you don't already know, do this search: susan boyle britains got talent - She is a singer. Her story is both sad and amazing. "I Dreamed a Dream" is the song she sings. In the Seattle Intelligencer is a post by Steven J. Patrick about life dreams, written because of Susan Boyle's performance. I came upon it as the result of this search: susan boyle american idol There are videos of her singing the song. * bl00333

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Easter

storm approaching; therefore, may this day, as best fits your persuasions, be holy. bl00332

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Literary canon information

I support. It is a short introduction to a specific English course from a faculty URL at Goucher College, Baltimore, MD. I was going to post my views, but decided to search literary canon. Glad I did. What their introduction covers/ are my views since I believe literary canons from the strictest to the loosest are implicit in any anthology of literature and in any literary manifesto, neither of which is likely to cease being while, for whatever reasons, humans interact with the artifacts they create, artifacts which someone contends are literary. There is in all this the question of texts (in canons birthed and nurtured by institutions) devolving into ventriloquisms fit only for the scholars who autopsy them. To me this question has merit, but only in a narrow political sense. Yes, texts can be enhanced or demeaned by scholarly investigations; but, if I come upon an unfamiliar text, and interact with it, my opinions of it at that time will be informed by the degree of my knowledge and persuasions at that time; and even if I were to seek further knowledge, I would not have to be persuaded by it. After its author is no longer able to revise it, a text is a text, and no amount of dissectioning or perverting can alter the original text unless that original is mutilated or destroyed. bl00331

Friday, April 10, 2009

Stupid search engines

have angered me more than long enough; therefore, I have devised a test. I don't know what their problems are, but they consistently return results that assign to me (Brian Salchert) statements made by someone else. From now on/ whenever I comment (even on my own blogs), my comment will begin and end with the date and my initials. If a comment doesn't begin and/or end with this info, it is not my comment. Admittedly, my test may fail. If it does, I will end it. bl00330

Monday, April 6, 2009

passed new rare events

Photo of Sturdy Bush as it was in March. | blossoms: click to enlarge This month light-green leaves have taken over. This afternoon a rare event that was a daily one when I was in Gainesville, Florida: a Mockingbird. The female Cardinal was just ahead of it. Apparently she'd been in its territory/ which is not on this property. The/ the Mockingbird was quiet though, even when it flew in to one of Sturdy Bush's branches, and then out to the recently cut grass, and then back to its somewhere out of sight. The things I see// through my bedroom's cracked window. White/ wing bars! Holy stars! bl00329

Friday, April 3, 2009

blog notes

Posted to all the blogs today. The post at Kyph Herm isn't complete but it's visible since I didn't leave it in draft. God bless my insanity. bl00328

Thursday, April 2, 2009

change notes

Even if it does sound corny, and maybe because it does I will be staying with Baj's Lodges; but you can still use Rhodingeedaddee if you prefer it. Will be difficult, but plan to post money-related items on Money Rho and not on the node blog. Joseph Hutchison's anthology post has rekindled my desire to build a list of contemporary American poets who though not unknown are either not known in blogland or are seen as inadequate. Desire. There are others who are doing what I want to do in the places they know, and organizations with rosters into the thousands; and I am physically disadvantaged. So why should I even try? Besides, maybe those I list don't want to be so listed, or don't want to be listed by me. Hype. bl00327