Rupert M. Loydell, THE WAY THE ARTIST CHOOSES

Benchpress, image by Rupert M. Loydell 

THE WAY THE ARTIST CHOOSES

for Lawrence

Brigadier Benchpress aka The Meter Man

is responsible for pulling the weeds up

each morning, before making breakfast

for the regiment of his dependents.

No-one is authorized to take his place,

he schedules all the activities and sets

the calendar, starting time and pace

of each and every day. He is on his way

to a heightened sense of decorum,

currently manufactures many works

influenced by his childhood dreams

of material expanding into space.

His are crack troops, involved in

art festivals, exhibitions and projects

too secret to name. Benchpress is

creating a complete world of art,

disguised as a garage of old cars

and a scruffy family home. He narrates

the forms of life and the nature of death,

how rust and oil consume metal,

how expensive acrylic paint is,

how he despairs of people in general,

and pursues wisdom and creativity,

old steam trains to take trips on.

Tormented by absence and anxiety,

he attempts to break the still surface

of our consciousness, to stabilize,

restrain and protect. All his threats

are silent, his memories will fade

tomorrow, but we will be left with

knotted and transformed language,

imitating the unconscious, lines

drawn on canvas when words fail

and spectators cannot articulate.

Colourful retrospectives of meaning

demand new purpose for self and time,

transmit life to those who have not

been seduced by digital space.

Benchpress offers us information

about invisible and visible boundaries,

ways to leave traces of belonging,

ways to engage with ourselves.

The world is infinite with no horizons,

only marks created by our hands.

—Rupert M. Loydell

Mike Ferguson, Spambolic Q&A

The Hacker’s Paradise, image by Daniel Y. Harris 

Spambolic Q&A

1

A nutritious asplenium scat –

fern juice fern juice fern juice:

farfetched? It is an endogenous

gastrointestinal squash.

Nutritious? Like chocolate

sicklewort, but beware the

rigorous luxuriant as an

expeditious streptomycin.

2

Incinerate comradery? In a

somersault of snow,

micro snow, to quell the

filthy respite of the codomain.

3

Attach a chamfer

inequivalent, and it is just

protrusion: all slope and no

direction. A meaningless meridian?

4

A girlie girlie sorority

the siren magnetite for girlies?

It is exculpatory to trust

in this inventory of gender.

5

An anthology of psychoanalytics?

It is: vainglorious, mutineering,

eigenfunctional, justiciable by the

fortiori of devious determinates.

6

To unify the metamorphosis of

trepidation and danger into something

awesome: the pupal

of the spam?

7

Adduce audibility to confer the

audible? Then hail ye conferee

of the audibility, this leverage

in the art of hearing.

8

Imploding belief smells of

frailty. Has faith lost its sheen?

In the allegory of this olfactory

snigger, the chronicle of failure.

9

Why are October leaves

at the top of tall poplars the last to

fall? This isn’t in the spam

but just in passing.

10

The stowaway was a

hoot, singing a medley

from Oklahoma.

Was he found straight away?

He was, by a bartender with

a squint, but he heard the

dharma of song.

So he saw the light?

11

To cogitate on the

postponement of infinitum:

paean to the grapheme in a

catechism of these words?

12

The littoral loquacity of waves

in the serendipitous acquiescence

to spam. Is it the wavy sisyphean

handwriting of the imagination?

Or is it the subrogation

in the sharing of the coalitions?

I say it is all about the flexure in

the goose-bumps of meaning.

13

This salvo, this various hail,

this kingdom of words. Does one

dine in a heaven? Yes, in the collocation

of finding questions in answers.

—Mike Ferguson

AC Evans, THE DEVIL WEARS DADA

George Grosz and John Heartfield at the First Dada Trade Fair

Burchard’s Gallery, Berlin, Summer 1920

THE DEVIL WEARS DADA

Chosen for decadence, why not?

All new classic baby doll happiness delivered

Temporary emergency (gentle reminder), but we are

Now approaching artful industrial space:

Old lottery tickets, acupuncture, massage,

Esmerelda du Cane, half price – don’t miss out!

Creative Event Boutique, smash and grab

Run for it Kev! It’s the rozzers!

Eyelashes in all directions (but you’re so gorgeous)

Bongo la, bongo cha cha cha.

She was singing to herself very, very cute. Then,

Suddenly, a crowd of kinky latex pony girls

Ran yelping and screaming through the hall.

Wow!

Unlock the power to pop up anywhere, any time

Keep it personal speckled clouds (whatever).

Yeah, we’re behind the scenes at a trade fair,

Classy bricks cash & carry, confused onlookers,

Gateway to The Rising Sun, bar, BBQ and flashing novelties

Or Shade Enterprises family bucket, why not?

It’s your warm, caring workforce

Collect, swap, play, swipe right, scan this way

Local fresh. And lo! Behold! The Devil Wears Dada!

We saw a weird effigy pinned to the wall

Head like a glowing light bulb (whatever).

It’s not a joke, it’s not funny anymore.

Oi do me favour!

Diversion ends, no entry free to go,

New level… Hello? Hello?

We met up with young Melody Candles, and

Launched a drone from the top of Tatlin’s Tower

So we could film the scene; boy, the pictures were amazing!

Inter-star heavy cut to size award-winning dream designs

Pioneered by ‘Sexy Sophie from Staffs’, but

The Empress Octavia showed us the ropes and

All the tricks of the trade; you wanna climb my rigging?

Ready? Comments? Complaints? Suggestions?

No thanks, yeah, why don’t you…

Die kunst ist tot, the bitch whispered in a husky voice,

As she lovingly kissed the tip of my nose.

Bongo la, I whimpered submissively.

Welcome to the heart,

Oh nah nah nah, what’s your name?

Questions, questions, too many questions.

All across town skirt-crazy blokes are

Looking for Her,

‘Cos that She-Devil Wears Dada.

It was a great number; old press cuttings

And Constructivist make-up.

No doubt about it.

A great number, a great routine.

Well, did you evah?

—AC Evans

            

Colin Winborn, John Tauler

Tauler Erasure, image by Irene Koronas 

John Tauler

(c. 1300 - 1361)

One man can spin,

another can make shoes.

             learn

inner      [...]

[…]        hidden.       ground

late fruit            ,,           

of dust                     derive

    

            of.       is

speaking out.      recording

     sparks come

at night.   earn.       sojourn

                no

                mere.       lore            found

    

                                         erring

babbling water.     seed.             utter.               

     first light    riven.          un

shining.         is.                     strive or

abutting.                  a bounding 

is still    just                within

     [...]                                        reach          

mother

this little           perimeter.               of           

                               [...]    is not.

               aloft

—Colin Winborn

Jonathan Mulcahy-King Interviews Eileen R. Tabios

Eileen R. Tabios

Love in a Time of Belligerence, X-Peri Series, Swan World, 2017 

Jonathan Mulcahy-King 

Interviews Eileen R. Tabios

JMK: What was the first piece of experimental writing that influenced your current trajectory and how can it be seen in your work today? 

ERT: The first “experimental” poets to move me in a deep way were John Yau, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Arthur Sze. I met them—both humans and their poems—through my book BLACK LIGHTNING (1998) that interviewed leading Asian American poets. I had just began writing poems two years earlier, so they had a major impact. At about that time, I also discovered the work of Jose Garcia Villa and I admired his eager textual experiments. Their work helped me break linear narrative which is how I began writing poems. Their poetry taught me alternative paths to poem-creation which, for me, came to incorporate a trust in the reader’s ability to help create significance out of a poem (this trust in the reader versus the poet preaching meaning at the reader also fit the transcolonial tendencies I brought to English which had been used to help colonize my birth land, the Philippines). I tend to think that the poet begins the poem’s experience, but it’s the reader (or audience) who finishes it.

This trust in the reader is seen in my work through my belief that words come with meanings and significances far beyond the dictionary and (thus) which the poet cannot anticipate. Thus, if you put any combination of words (and perhaps letters, but haven’t gotten there yet) together at random, it’s possible for a poem to surface. I push this perspective most recently in my “Murder, Death, Resurrection Project” which includes what I call “The MDR Poetry Generator”. This Generator contains a database of 1,167 lines that can be combined randomly to make a large number of poems; the shortest would be a couplet and the longest would be a poem of 1,167 lines. More information about it is available HERE: MDR I’ll also be releasing what will be this five-year poetry performance project’s monograph in 2018.

JMK: If your collective work were a piece of music, what would it be?

ERT: I actually feel this question should not be answered by me but by readers who know my work.

Once, someone ascribed cello music to my poetry, something I did not anticipate and for which I had no authorial intention. But I don’t disagree with that assessment.

JMK: I can see that, for me, it would be something post-classical, Nils Frahm, Max Richter, Olafur Arnalds, a kind of refined classical piece interceded by electronic movements…

ERT: I’m heartened they are raised by my poetry … though not from any intentions on my part—which is an example of how poetry transcends autobiography.

JMK: How would you describe the current state of poetry? Could you name some writers/ publishers that excite you right now?

ERT: Judging from poetry I recommend on LinkedIn, my top favorite publishers seem to be Ugly Duckling Presse at the number one spot, and then (in no particular order) Ahsahta Press, Black Radish Books, BlazeVOX Books, Dos Madres Press, Dusie, Farrar Straus Giroux, Flood Editions, gradient books, Graywolf Press, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Les Figues Press, Litmus Press, Lunar Chandelier Press, Marsh Hawk Press, New Directions, Norton, Omnidawn, Otoliths Books, Shearsman Books, Singing Horse Press, Talisman, Wave Books, Wesleyan and Zephyr Press.

Obviously there are authors who would be among my favorites and who are not necessarily published by the above. I won’t name names but cite instead those who actively interrogate (experiment with) form. Perhaps that’s why, looking at the above list of publishers, I have a preference for mostly those who are invested in the experimental tendency as a way to widen poetry’s expanse (there are some exceptions as some published an author or two with experimental tendencies who caught my eye but don’t generally have that interest as publisher).

I’d describe the current state of poetry as blessedly active. It’s also specifically active in reflecting the effects of technology (the internet, social media, et al). I don’t find this to be negative but I do sense some imbalance. The issue with technology is how it maximizes speed for quick results—by itself that process is not good or bad. But there is a lot to be said for its opposite, which is scale. Many things require large scale in order to be created or be effective. Scale includes time and attention. And sometimes technologically-based efficiency works against that. Right now, the scale seems tipped against works that require the depth of scale.

JMK: Is your MDR project a reflection of this culture, a kind of satire, as the work produced therein boasts a similar depth of source material, using manual algorithms to generate large-scale poetry?

ERT: Hm—I’d never thought of it as satire, though that’s certainly a legitimate read of the project, as are your reasons for thinking so. And perhaps, unconsciously on my part, there is that aspect as I’m nodding more in agreement than not.

Yet my conscious intention was actually to pay homage to the brilliance of those who created the programs that generate poetry. But I should note—partly as I’m not as technologically brilliant as those programmers—that my MDR is inspired by them but is deliberately manually generated. When I created the lines for MDR’s database, I read through each of the root source: 27 prior poetry collections. I then created lines not simply by copy-n-pasting excerpts but by noting my personal/subjective/temporal reactions at the time of readings; with hindsight, I perhaps emulated “artificial intelligence” rather than a computer program.

(As an aside, I’d like to share a link to a relatively obscure essay I wrote about my loving engagement with one of the contemporary world’s most adept poet-practitioners of technology/computer programs, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen: Moria Poetry You can see that I rely on manual versus computer programming partly due to my beliefs in subjectivity.)

The MDR certainly poses several layers of implications about poetry and modern society—or I hope there are. But several of these significances are as up to the reader as they are to me.

JMK: How would you describe “Babaylan Poetics” to a new reader, and the personal and political motivations behind this form?

ERT: “Babaylan” refers to an indigenous Filipino leader who functions as a healer and  community leader, among other roles. I had referenced the term to relate to indigenous Filipino practices, specifically “kapwa,” a construct of Filipino psychology meaning togetherness. That is, that all beings are related. In an earlier poetics essay, I’d correlated these indigenous elements with my poetics as such:

There’s an image from pre-colonial Philippine times of a human standing with a hand lifted upwards; if you happened to be at a certain distance from the man and took a snapshot, it would look like the human was touching the sky. I’d described the significance of this image as the moment, the space, from which I attempt to create poems. In the indigenous myth, the human, by being rooted onto the planet but also touching the sky, is connected to everything in the universe and across all time, including that the human is rooted to the past and future—indeed, there is no unfolding of time. In that moment, all of existence—past, present and future—has coalesced into a singular moment, a single gem with an infinite expanse. In that moment, were I that human, I am connected to everything so that there is nothing or no one I do not know. I am everyone and everything, and everything and everyone is me. In that moment, to paraphrase something I once I heard from some Buddhist, German or French philosopher, or Star Trek character, ‘No one or nothing is alien to me.'”

Last night I did a reading of my poem “PilipinZ” from my new book Love In A Time of Belligerence and it ends with the lines:

“But I will never forget we walk on the same planet and breathe the same air. I will never forget the same sun shines on us. I created my own legacy: No one is a stranger to me.”

It may be an impossible goal, but in poetry that’s my goal: that no one or nothing is a stranger to me. I hope to practice a poetics of both knowledge and empathy.

Volodymyr Bilyk, Scanography 9

Scanography 9, Volodymyr Bilyk

Volodymyr Bilyk is a writer, translator, and visual poet from the Ukraine. His works include: visual poems in the series This is Visual Poetry (2013), CIMESA (2013), Casio's Pay-Off Peyote (2013), SCOBES (2013), THINGS (2014), Laugh Poems (2014), Vispo Ay Ai Ay (2014), “To When Tea Ties Hence to Wank It Too” / “Eminent Means of Basil Dado Hem-Welt” in The Chapbook 5 (2015), “Heartbeat, Footclick, Machine Gun Vocalizes” (2016), Understanding (of language) are not enough (2016).

Daniel Y. Harris & Jonathan Mulcahy-King, Excerpt 1.6 from Licentiam

γυνή, image by Olia Svetlanova  

Excerpt 1.6 from Licentiam

1.6

docility stitch unfurled spews  leydig cells to mount

vainglorious modem cellules cue the pulping mallet

failed RTCPeerConnection horns  somatic apologia

brace for  web-farm insertion well-greased fuck  toy

as scorp and stingray wrist or  carotid artery   daubs  

resurgent lick if heavenups knots to comb  hismatic

hair by deavatars in the ruck to foretell cum catalos,

stump to let out the nose as duct tape in a gloryhole
          sate a palfrey slow wax and sulphur melt  boils resin 

                       —Daniel Y. Harris & Jonathan Mulcahy-King

Nathan Spoon, Excerpts from Doomsday Bunker

Rise of the Eschatons, image by Daniel Y. Harris  

Excerpts from Doomsday Bunker

Labyrinth + Nozzle

This is horrible

as a leather cupcake and

as delicious too.

It is roadkill and cloud erection

thrills of whales leaping

from miniature oceans

only to fall back into

paranoid computational

theories. Thank goodness

for red vines crawling a rock face

in a hopscotch neighborhood.

This feels like a comfortable

if out-of-use silo only

D. H. L. would pinch

the nipples of. Break off

another heel with

a buttered face and a hairdo

of live eels. Bulls are

appropriated for art daily

and the tornado that

sucked up a tidy lawn

has sprayed it against the walls

of the book somebody

will check out indefinitely

tomorrow. Another child

is weaponizing bones while reading

The Anathemata.  It’s true

coffee is a necessity

for millions who have trouble

sleeping with stranglers.

As Cinematic as Fingers

The ring goes boom!

The ring is panoramic.

The ring adds color

to watery horoscopes.

Pump a series of hairy fangs

into the spirit of the ring.

The ring! The ring! It is

a byte and a conglobulation

of bytes sliding up the banister.

The ring is made of wings

and flies around the banister

in a large trunk with

an escort. Kindness

is erasing generic notions

of equality while the ring

glints in real time

as if Bavarian gentians

are typically spun

from neon code. Love

is talking in a forest of toes. Love

is reducible to quantity.

Tomorrow shocks from the future

are collaged into excesses

of Northern Light activity.

The ring slides between

animal species. From crevasses

glands drip pheromones

leaving eyelashes in various states

of distortion. A vodka cream puff

sleeps inside the moon.

W of Bones

A priss knows hard work

is the celestial root.

In the photo of No Go

along gloppy edges people

are running in terror.

People are kissing in rain

in antique photographs

where conscious choice

writhes in lavender water.

It is time to detonate

the eyes of bees covered

in dust in Wittgensteinian

pudding rare as the grass straying

the shallows of rivers.

A data scoop through

the backdoor left firebrands

scattered across elastic meadows.

The academe, the academe

is waiting for new liver petals.

In breech a stain of pain

beeps major allegiance

walks backward through

compartmentalization. Hordes

of seasick wires are warming

the black Northern air. John F.

is the rivulet he was

before his birth. Try wrecking

a poet’s name by changing a letter.

The pants proper exercise

will inspire are fantastic foil!

Astrological Proclivities

Bells from hell are clanging

through water lilies

and numerous hours

are squishy now. Gemini + Virgo

= Virgo + Gemini. The best time

for easing into happiness

is now. All live in a good world

which will achieve totality

of saturation tomorrow at noon.

It is night across most of space.

Space is big. Spacious even.

All touch space. All are comprised

mostly of ghostly space. Space

is what makes a good world.

Space also makes hours squishy.

Space is easy. It’s the good world

and all else exuding complexity.

Thank goodness for complexity!

Space is an infant being

continuously birthed into

a casket covered with hashtags.

Because of this sentient beings

each have a star sign

although inanimate objects

do not. Period. Because of this

commas are mostly extraneous

and days of the week break

out their finest occultwear.

Rusty gills are exhuming magic

spires puncturing heaven.

To a Culture Vulture

Yesterday is the preferable day

for humanity. It is the day

life slides gracefully through

its own veins. Yesterday

is a basket fashioned from silk.

What matters more however

is what will happen tomorrow.

Today is the sigil of tomorrow.

Today is the sigil of weird

analytics which must be stopped

before they can curtain

windows. All who yearn

for weird analytics will be

tasked with creating interface

for animadversive investors

in the sigil of tomorrow. Silk

+ milk = milk × silk ÷ by tomorrow.

These are not equations.

These are facts and eventually

facts will erase tomorrow.

A doctor finds pleasure

in keeping tomorrow alive today.

A doctor is a demon of sorts.

When a hand lands it snorts

in a manner Paul V. once felt

shapeshifting up his elemental

spine. A doctor breaks the unity

of earth water fire and air. All

are prepared to gesticulate among

mounds of paint powder.

The Congratulators 

Owls are perched along

the bottoms of her eyelids.

Owls clear as dreams

are guiding her to the next reddit

selling fried baloney sandwiches.

A sea soused up the sun

and clacked around in armor

colored by newish fevers. Owls ensure

it’s time for an omnivorous snorkel

and a praise. Owls with oars

for feathers are resisting

metronomic currents in bio lines.

Thank goodness for owls!

When music blows out

of nuclear devices the talons

of owls will defend what is left

of nature leaving only the unnatural

world to burn. Owls will be

headquartered at hidden locations

beneath mountains. Although the air

wants punctuation thank goodness

for drinkable water! Thank goodness

for stubbornness and folly! One day

sock phobias will evaporate. For

now it’s time to drink as H. said at C.’s

demise. Someday drinking will save

the owls. Thank goodness

for voices of owls! Thank goodness

for rocking chairs and reddits

and the bottoms of her eyelids!

—Nathan Spoon