Izvrstan, golem info-arhiv inovativnih svjetskih pjesnika.
pippoetry.blogspot.com/
List of Poets with Entries
LIST OF POETS WITH ENTRIES and INFORMATIONAL ENTRIES
Below is a list of poets we have included on our PIP site to date.
ACMEISM (Russia)
Helen Adam (b. Scotland/USA)
Helen Adam's "The Cheerless Junkie's Song"
Adonīs (Alī Ahmad Sa’īd) (Syria/Lebanon)
Syrian-born poet Adonis on Syrian President Assad
Adonis Reading His Poetry on Video
Delmira Agustini (Uruguay)
Ilse Aichinger (Austria)
essay on Ilse Aichinger "A Werldy Country: Ilse Aichinger's Prose Poems by Uljana Wolf, followed by two short pieces by Aichinger
Naja Marie Aidt (Denmark)
Nazik al-Mala'ika (Iraq)
Anna Akhmatova (Russia)
Rafael Alberti (Spain)
review on Rafael Alberti "Poet to Painter" by Douglas Messerli
essay "In Memory of Anne-Marie Albiach, 1937-2012" by Robin Tremblay-McGraw
George Albon (USA)
Will Alexander (USA)
Vincente Aleixandre (Spain)
Pierre Alferi (France)
Francisco Alvim (Brazil)
Oswald de Andrade (Brazil)
Oswald de Andrade "Cannibal Manifesto"
Bruce Andrews (USA)
Ralph Angel (USA)
interview with Syrian poet Aïcha Arnaout
David Antin (USA)
essay on David Antin "Fractures of Self" by Douglas Messerli
interview-review "Conversational Critic, Talking Poet David Antin" by Robert Pincus
Arnaldo Antunes (Brazil)
Guillaume Apollinaire (France)
Louis Aragon (France)
Braulio Arenas (Chile)
Walter Conrad Arensberg (USA)
Rae Armantrout (USA)
review-essay of Rae Armantrout "The Present's Chronic Revision" by Douglas Messerli
essay on on Rae Armantrout "Teaching the 'New' Poetries" by Marjorie Perloff
TLS review of Rae Armantrout's Money Shot
Tammy Armstrong (Canada)
H. C. Artmann [Austria]
Nelson Ascher (Brazil)
John Ashbery (USA)
review of John Ashbery's Wakefulness by Marjorie Perloff
Carlos Ávila (Brazil)
Ece Ayhan (Turkey)
essay on Ece Ayham "Flying" by Douglas Messerli
Thérèse Bachand (USA)
essay "Don't Ask Me What I Do Exactly" by Therese Bachand
Ingeborg Bachmann (Austria)
Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński (Poland)
Manuael Bandira (Brazil)
Djuna Barnes (USA)
book by Djuna Barnes The Book of Repulsive Women
David Barnett (England/lives in Wales)
Todd Baron (USA)
Konrad Bayer (Austria)
Samuel Beckett (b. Ireland/France)
Guy R. Beining (USA)
Molly Bendall (USA)
Gottfried Benn (Germany)
Guy Bennett (USA)
Steve Benson (USA)
Interview with Bill Berkson by Thomas Devaney: "The Educational of Poetry"
Irving Berlin (b. Russian/USA)
Tobias Berggren (Sweden)
J. Bernlef [Henk Marsman] (Netherlands)
Charles Bernstein (USA)
interview with Charles Bernstein by Arganil Mukharjee, "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry-A Retrospective" on the Bengali webzine, KURAB Online
book by Charles Bernstein Dark City (1994)
poem by Charles Bernstein "Recalculating"
review of The Salt Companion to Charles Bernstein by William Allegreza
essay on Charles Bernstein's Controlling Interests "Making the Mind Whole" by Douglas Messerli
review of Charles Bernstein's Republics of Reality
review of Charles Bernstein The Attack of the Difficult Poems,"Talking in Circles" by Douglas Messerli
"Poetics of the Americas," by Charles Bernstein
"Sixty-six Writing Experiments" by Charles Bernstein
Mei-mei Bersenbrugge (b. China/USA)
THE BLACK MOUTAIN POETS (USA)
Paul Blackburn (USA)
Introduction to The Collected Poems of Paul Blackburn by Edith Jarolim
essay "A Pre-Face for Paul Blackburn" by Jerome Rothenberg
Lucian Blaga (Romania)
Robin Blaser (USA/Canada)
essay on Robin Blaser "The Fire Behind Myself" by Douglas Messerli
Johannes Bobrowski (Germany)
Maxwell Bodenheim (USA)
Paul Bogaert (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
J. Karl Bogartte (USA)
Christian Bök (Canada)
Klavs Bondejerg (Denmark)
Yves Bonnefoy (France)
Raul Bopp (Brazil)
Daniel Bouchard (USA)
Michael Boughn (b. USA/Canada)
Kay Boyle (USA)
Paul Braffort (France)
Rolf Dieter Brinkmann (Germany)
Nicole Brossard (Canada/writes in French)
Bob Brown (USA)
Franklin Bruno (USA)
Basil Bunting (England)
"Comment on Basil Bunting" by Jonathan Williams
Paolo Buzzi (Italy)
João Cabral de Melo Neto (Brazil)
Selected poems by Cabral de Melo Neto
Jorge Luis Cáceres (Chile)
Omar Cáceres (Chile)
"On Omar Cáceres" by Eliot Weinberger
Martin Camaj (Albania)
Dino Campana (Italy)
Remco Campert (Netherlands)
Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
Age de Carvalho (Brazil / lives Austria)
C. P. Cavafy (Greece)
Blaise Cendrars (Switzerland)
"Blaise Cendrars" (brief essay by Kenneth Rexroth)
Joseph Ceravolo (USA)
Louis Cernuda (Spain)
Ana Christina Cesar (Brazil)
Aimé Césaire from “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land” (29-37)
Andrée Chedid (Egypt/France)
Ingrid Christensen (Denmark)
essay on Christensen by Douglas Messerli "The Danish "It" Girl"
Hugo Claus (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Gentian Çoçoli (Albania)
Wanda Coleman (USA)
Antonio Colinas (Spain)
Danielle Collobert (France)
essay on Danielle Collobert, "Reading Danielle Collobert," by John Taylor
Los Contemporáneos
Stephen Cope (USA)
Kelvin Corcoran (England)
obituary "Cid Corman," by Michael Carlson (The Guardian)
essay "The Poetry of Cid Corman," by Lorine Niedecker
Julio Cortázar (Argentina)
review of Julio Cortázar's Save Twilight by Gregory J. Racz
Jayne Cortez (USA)
Horácio Costa (Brazil)
Poem for Horacio Costa by Douglas Messerli
Eva Cox (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Hart Crane (USA)
essay on Hart Crane: Douglas Messerli, "Out of the Square, the Circle: Vision in Nightmare"
Stephen Crane (USA)
CREACIONISMO/CREATIONISM
Robert Creeley (USA)
audio of Robert Creeley discussing Black Mountain College
essay on Robert Creeley "The Radical Poetics of Robert Creeley" by Marjorie Perloff
essay on Robert Creeley "Robert Creeley's Windows" by Marjorie Perloff
essay on Robert Creeley "Memory Gardens" by Arkadii Dragomoschenko
essay on Robert Creeley "One had the company..." by Pierre Joris
Harry Crosby (USA)
Elizabeth Cross (USA)
Robert Crosson (USA)
essay on Robert Crosson "Finding It Hard to Navigate" by Douglas Messerli
Countee Cullen (USA)
E. E. Cummings (USA)
Nancy Cunard (England/lived France)
Wystan Curnow (New Zealand)
Visant Abaji Dahake (India/writes in Marathi)
Stig Dalager (Denmark)
Rubén Dario (Nicaragua)
Michael Davidson (USA)
Michael Davidson, five new poems
Christopher Davis (USA)
Milo De Angelis (Italy)
Connie Deanovich (USA)
Henri Deluy (France)
Robert Desnos (France)
Mohammed Dib (Algeria)
essay on Dib "A Quiet Man in the Vast and Chattering Desert" by Douglas Messerli
Eliseo Diego (Cuba)
Linh Dinh (b. Vietnam/lives England)
Sharon Dolin (USA)
Hilde Domin (Germany)
Rembrances and essays on Stacey Doris (USA)
Arkadii Dragomoschenko (USSR/now Russia)
Charles Ducal [Frans Dumortier] (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Paul Laurence Dunbar (USA)
essay on Robert Duncan "All Duncan, All the Time" by Joshua Corey
Oswald Egger (b. Italy/Austria)
Gunnar Eich (Germany)
Larry Eigner (USA)
video of Larry Eigner writing a poem
Gunnar Ekelöf (Sweden)
ELAN POETRY GROUP (ECUADOR)
Jan G. Elburg (Netherlands)
T. S. Eliot (USA/England)
Eliot reading "The Love Song on J. Alfred Prufrock"
essay on T. S. Eliot, "The Avant Garde," by Marjorie Perloff
second essay on T. S. Eliot, "Avant-Garde Eliot," by Marjorie Perloff
Kenward Elmslie (USA)
Paul Éluard [Eugène Émile Paul Grindel] (France)
Elanie Equi (USA)
Seyhan Erözçelik (Turkey)
Faiz Ahmed Faiz (b. British India/ Pakistan)
Gerhard Falkner (Germany)
Farough Farrokhzard (Iran)
Farough Farrokhzard's film The House Is Black
Hans Faverey (b. Surinam/Netherlands)
review of Hans Faverey's Against the Forgetting, "Standstill" by Douglas Messerli
Robert Fernandez (USA)
the "Fiftiers" (see Vijfigers)
essay "Ian Hamilton Finlay: the concrete poet as avant-gardener," by James Campbell
"Ronald Firbank as Poet," and essay by Douglas Messerli
Roy Fisher (England)
review essay on Roy Fisher "Roy Fisher's 'Language' Book" by Marjorie Perloff
review-essay on Roy Fisher "Hard Against Time" by Ange Mlinko
J. V. Foix (Spain/writes in Catalan)
THE FOLIO GROUP (Washington, D.C.)
Tua Forsström (Finland/writes in Swedish)
Graham Foust (USA)
Niels Frank (Denmark)
Kathleen Fraser (USA)
Else van Freytag-Loringhoven (German/USA)
Robert Frost (USA)
Robin Fulton (England/lives Norway)
Antonio Gamoneda (Spain)
Pedro García Carbrera (Canary Islands)
Federico Garcia Lorca (Spain)
Claude Gauvert (Canada/writes in French)
Eva Gerlach (Netherlands)
obituary, "Jack Gilbert, a Poet Whose Words Transformed Lives Is Dead at 87," by Bruce Weber
Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (France)
Abraham Lincoln Gillespie (USA)
Maruice Gilliams (Belgium)
Liliane Giraudon (France)
Oliverio Girondo (Argentina)
Alberto Girri (Argentina)
Alfredo Giuliani (Italy)
Michael Gizzi (USA)
Peter Gizzi (USA)
on Gizzi's Threshold Songs, by M. D. Snediker
Enrique González Martínez (Mexico)
Dieter M. Gräf (Germany)
Jonathan Greene (USA)
Luuk Gruwez (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Barbara Guest (USA)
essay on Barbara Guest "The Countess of Berkeley" by Douglas Messerli
Jorge Guillén (Spain)
Katrine Marie Guldager (Denmark)
Nicolai Gumilev (Russia/USSR)
Albert-Paris Gütersloh [Albert Conrad Kiehtreiber] (Austria)
Hagiwara Sakutarō (Japan)
Alan Halsey (England)
Marsden Hartley (USA)
Hayashi Fumiko (Japan)
Review/essay on Hayashi Fumiko, "Forget Fugi!" by Douglas Messerli
Michael Heller (USA)
Zbigniew Herbert (Poland)
Miguel Hernández (Spain)
Stefan Hertmans (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Georg Heym (Germany)
Leland Hickman (USA)
Dick Higgins "A Taxonomy of Sound Poetry"
Short obituary on Christian Ide Hintze by Anne Waldman
Itō Hiromi, “Cooking, Writing Poetry"
Jóhann Hjálmarsson (Iceland)
Anselm Hollo, some poems
Peter Holvoet-Hanssen (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Paul Hoover (USA)
Fanny Howe (USA)
Susan Howe (USA)
review-essay on Susan Howe, "Keeping History a Secret," by Douglas Messerli
essay on Susan Howe,"Poetry as History Revised:Susan Howe's 'Scattering As Behavior Toward Risk'" by Ming-Qian Ma
essay on Susan Howe and Ron Silliman, "Language Poetry and the Lyric Subject: Ron Silliman's Albany, Susan Howe's Buffalo" by Marjorie Perloff
essay on Susan Howe "WHOWE: On Susan Howe" by Rachel Blau DuPlessis
TLS review of Susan Howe's That This
Peter Huchel (Germany)
Langston Hughes (USA)
Peter Hughes (England)
Vicente Huidobro (Chile)
William Hurtado de Mendoza (Peru/writes in Quechua)
Gyula Illyés (Hungary)
IMAGISM (Imagisme)
Mark Insingel (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Kenneth Irby (USA)
Julia Istomina (b. USSR/USA)
Itō Hiromi (Japan)
Francis Jammes (France)
Andrew Joron (USA)
Robinson Jeffers (USA)
James Weldon Johnson (USA)
James Weldon Johnson Preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry
Patricia Spears Jones (USA)
Roland Jooris (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Susanne Jorn (Denmark)
Nuno Júdice (Portugal)
Roberto Juarroz (Argentina)
Pia Juul (Denmark)
Mark Kanak (USA)
Frigyes Karinthy (Hungary)
Robert Kelly (USA)
Sandro Key-Åberg (Sweden)
Ger Kileen (b. Ireland/USA)
Kim Su-yŏng (Korea)
David Kinloch (Scotland)
John Kinsella (Australia)
Sarah Kirsch (GDR/Germany)
Joanna Klink (USA)
Edvard Kocbek (Slovenia)
Janus Kodal (Denmark)
Uwe Kolbe (GDR/now Germany)
Rutger Kopland (Netherlands)
Srečko Kosovel (Slovenia)
Gerrit Kouwenaar (Netherlands)
Alfred Kreymborg (USA)
Ryszard Krynicki (b. Austria/Poland)
Günter Kunert (DDR/Germany)
Reiner Kunze (DDR/Germany)
Kusano Shinpei (Japan)
Pär Lagerkvist (Sweden)
Else Lasker-Schüler (Germany)
John Latta (USA)
Jan Lauwereyns (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Sarah Law (England)
D. H. Lawrence (England)
Katy Lederer (USA)
Eino Leino (Finland)
Michael Lentz (Germany)
José Lezama Lima (Cuba)
Alfred Lichtenstein (Germany)
Enrique Lihn (Chile)
Paolo Lemlinski (Brazil)
Vachel Lindsay (USA)
Ramón López Velarde (Mexico)
Kito Lorenc (DDR/now Germany/writes in Sorbic)
Amy Lowell (USA)
essay "On Imagism" by Amy Lowell
Mina Loy (England)
essay on Mina Loy "On 'Songs of Love'/'Songs to Joannes' by Peter Quartermain
essay on Mina Loy " English as a 'Second' Language: Mina Loy's Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose" by Marjorie Perloff
Rupert Loydell (England)
Lisa Lubasch (USA)
Leopoldo Lugones (Argentina)
Arthur Lundkvist (Sweden)
Oleh Lysheha (Ukraine)
Antonio Machado (Spain)
Duda Machado (Brazil)
Nathaniel Mackey (USA)
Archibald MacLeish (USA)
Jackson Mac Low (USA)
essay on Jackson's Mac Low's Stanzas for Iris Lezak, "Mac Low as a Shadow Beatnik" by Chris Funkhouser
Aaron McCollough (USA)
Campbell McGrath (USA)
Claude McKay (USA)
Jayanta Mahapatra (India)
Barbara Maloutas (USA)
Osip Mandelshtam (Russia/USSR)
LA MANDRÁGORA (THE MANDRAKE GROUP)
essay "The Modernists of All Andalus" by Djelloul Marbrook
F. T. Marinetti "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature"
F. T. Marinetti and others "Futurist Synthesis of the War"
Pierre Martory (France)
Harry Mathews (b. USA/lives France)
Maruyama Kaoru (Japan)
Carlos Marzal (Spain)
Edgar Lee Masters (USA)
Medbh McGuckian (Ireland)
Deborah Meadows (USA)
Catherine Meng (USA)
Douglas Messerli (USA)
essay on contemporary poetry and reviewers "What Is to Be Done?" by Douglas Messerli
review of Messerli's Some Distance and Dinner on the Lawn by Peter Inman
Henri Michaux (Belgium)
Christopher Middleton (England)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (USA)
O. V. de L. Milosz (b. Lithuania/France)
Ange Mlinko (USA)
Eugenio Montale (Italy)
Dom Moraes (India/writes in English)
Marianne Moore (USA)
Els Moors (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Christian Morgenstern (Germany)
Félix Morisseau-Leroy (Haiti)
César Moro [Alfredo Quíspez Asín] (Peru)
Rusty Morrison (USA)
Erin Mouré (Canada)
Sandra Moussempès (France)
Jennifer Moxley (USA)
Harryette Mullen (USA)
Sheila E. Murphy (USA)
George Murray (Canada)
Martin Nakell (USA)
Gellu Naum (Romania)
Gale Nelson (USA)
Ágnes Nemes Nagy (Hungary)
essay by Murat Nemet-Nejat, from "Qestions of Accent" (What Is Then Accented Poetry?)
Paulo Neruda (Chile)
Amado Nervo (Mexico)
DER NEUE CLUB (THE NEW CLUB) - GERMANY
Vítězslav Nezval (Czechoslavakia)
Giulia Niccolai (Italy)
Lorine Niedecker (USA)
A. L. Nielsen (USA)
Paul Niger (Albert Béville) (Guadeloupe)
Nishiwaki Janzaburō (Japan)
Mostafa Nissabouri (Morocco)
Noguchi Yone (Japan)
Interview with Amy Sugegoha on Yone Noguchi
Leonard Nolens (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Cees Nooteboom (Netherlands)
Andreas Okeopeko (b. Czechoslavakia/Austria)
Toby Olson (USA)
George Oppen (USA)
essay on George Oppen's Of Being Numerous by Marjorie Perloff
essay on Carlos Oquendo de Amat by David-Baptiste Chirot, "An Outsider Poet of the No"
Maggie O'Sullivan (England)
Olga Orozco (Argentina)
Eugene Ostashevsky (b. USSR/USA)
OULIPO-OUVROIR DE LITTÉRATURE POTENTIELLE
José Emilio Pacheco (Mexico)
Ron Padgett (USA)
Elio Pagliarani (Italy)
Elio Pagliarani's death
Aldo Palazzeschi (Italy)
Michael Palmer (USA)
"Against Elegy: Michael Palmer's Book of the Dead" (a review of Thread by
Patrick Pritchett
Ethan Paquin (USA)
Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italy)
Joaquím Pasos (Nicaragua)
Oskar Pastior (Romania/Germany/writes in German)
Octavio Paz (Mexico)
Okat p'Bitek (Uganda)
Juan Sánchez Pelález (Venezuela)
essay on Marjorie Perloff: "Ways of Reading: Marjorie Perloff and the Sublimity of Pragmatic Criticism" by Charles Bernstein (USA)
essay on Marjorie Perloff's The Vienna Paradox: "Davy Crockett's Hat," by Douglas Messerli
John Perreault (USA)
Saint-John Perse (b. Guadeloupe/France)
Dennis Phillips (USA)
Francis Picabia (France)
review essay, "In Order to Be Nothing" on the Picabia collection I Am a Beautiful Monster
by Allan Graubard
short obiturary on Décio Pignatari by Charles Bernstein
János Pilinszky (Hungary)
Nick Piombino (USA)
Sybren Polet (Netherlands)
Francis Ponge (France)
Vasko Popa (Serbia)
Antonio Porta (Italy)
essay "Pure Poetry" (on Cole Porter's lyrics for Anything Goes) by Douglas Messerli
"The Sciart Origins of Bern Porter's Found Poems" by Joel Lipman
Ezra Pound (USA)
Pound interviewed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Antonia Pozzi (Italy)
Frances Presley (England)
PROFIL GROUP (Norway)
THE PROJECTIVE FOR INNOVATIVE POETRY (USA)
Meredith Quartermain (Canada)
Henrikas Radauskas (Lithuania/USA)
Sándor Rákos (Hungary)
Carl Rakosi (b. Germany/USA)
"Looking for the Real Carl Rakosi" by Marjorie Perloff
Celebration of Rakosi's 99th Birthday at Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia (tapes, biography, and introduction)
Carter Ratcliff (USA)
Stephen Ratcliffe (USA)
Tom Raworth (England)
Tom Raworth's book Eternal Sections
Christopher Reiner (USA)
Rendra [W. S. Rendra] (Indonesia)
Kenneth Rexroth interviewed by Jerome Rothenberg and David Antin at the Five Spot
Kenneth Rexroth reads "Married Blues" with a jazz combo
Alfonso Reyes (Mexico)
Laura Riding [Jackson] (USA)
Michael Riley (Australia)
Monika Rinck (Germany)
Joachim Ringelnatz [Hans Bötticher] (Germany)
Yannis Ritsos (Greece)
Lisa Robertson (Canada/lives France)
Edwin Arlington Robinson (USA)
Matt Robinson (Canada)
Paul Rodenko (Netherlands)
Gonzalo Rojas (Chile)
Martha Ronk (USA)
ROOF magazine, essay "Looking Over My Shoulder: Roof at 35" by James Sherry
Claudia Roquette-Pinto (Brazil)
Mirta Rosenberg (Argentina)
Jean-Pierre Rosnay (France)
Joe Ross (USA)
review of Joe Ross' Wordlick by Mark Wallace
review of Joe Ross' Wordlick by Jennifer Dick
Amelia Rosselli (Italy)
Michael Rothenberg (USA)
Jerome Rothenberg (USA)
"Jerome Rothenberg at 80" by Jeffrey Robinson
Jacques Roubaud (France)
Jaime Sabines (Mexico)
Nelly Sachs (Germany)
Mílos Sahtoúris (Greece)
Said (b. Iran/Germany)
Valentine de Saint-Point (France)
Mark Salerno (USA)
Carl Sandburg (USA)
Håkan Sandell (Sweden)
Frank Samperi (USA)
Three books by Frank Samperi
Leslie Scalapino (USA)
essay on Leslie Scalapino "Leslie Scalapino's Rhythmic Intensitites" by Charles Bernstein
Standard Schaefer (USA)
Bert Schierbeek (Netherlands)
Sabine Scho (Germany)
James Schuyler (USA)
Susan Schultz (USA)
Rocco Scotellaro (Italy)
Jaroslav Seifert (Czechoslavakia)
Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal)
Ian Seed (England)
David Shapiro (USA)
Anne Shaw (USA)
James Sherry, see also Roof magazine above
Shin Kyong-Nim (Korea)
Peter Jay Shippy (USA)
THE SKRYNIA GROUP (THE "CHEST" GROUP)-UKRAINE
Rod Smith (USA)
Paul Snoek [Edmond Schietekat] (Belgium/write in Dutch)
Edith Södergran (Finland/writes in Swedish)
Gilbert Sorrentino (USA)
Roberto Sosa (Honduras)
interview with Phillipe Soupault
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INNOVATIVE POETS
Sjoerd Spanniga [Jan Dijkstra] (Netherlands/writes in Frisian]
Adriano Spatola (b. Yugoslavia/Italy)
essay on Adriano Spatola "Investigative Procedures: Publishing Spatola" by Douglas Messerli
Maria Luisa Spaziani (Italy) George Stanley (b. USA/Canada)
Nichita Stănescu (Romania)
Rob Stanton (England)
Gertrude Stein (USA)
dossier on Stein's World War II years in France by Charles Bernstein and others
essay on Stein "The Making of Tender Buttons..." by Joshua Schuster
essay on Stein: "Tender Buttons as Narrative Fiction" by Douglas Messerli
performance from Patriarchal Poetry by two high school students
book by Giuseppe Steiner Drawn States of Mind
Wallace Stevens (USA)
Ulf Stolerfoht (Germany)
Alfonsina Storni (Argentina)
August Stramm (Germany)
David Levi Straus (USA)
José Antonio Ramos Sucre (Venezuela)
SUN & MOON PRESS: A JOURNAL OF LITERATURE & ART
essay on Sun & Moon Press: A Journal of Literature & Art--A Youthful Reflection
Jules Supervielle (b. Uruguay/France)
Abraham Sutzkever (b. Lithuania/Israel)
essay on Stuzkever "Hush and Travail" by Douglas Messerli
Cole Swenson (USA)
Tada Chimako (Japan)
Tamura Ryūichi (Japan)
John Taggart (USA)
Rabindranath Tagore (India/writes in Bengali and English)
Takahashi Matsuo (Japan)
poem by Takahashi Matsuo "This World, or Man of the Boxes" on the artist
Joseph Cornell
Jüri Talvet (Estonia)
Brian Teare (USA)
Jorge Teillier (Chile)
Toon Tellegen (Netherlands)
essay "Maghrebian Surrealism" [Essay and Manifesto] by Habib Tengour
Susana Thénon (Argentina)
John Thomas (USA)
Umar Timol (Maritius/writes in French)
essay, "The Miracle of the Written Word" on Umar Timol
Mark von Tongele (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Jean Toomer (USA)
Rodrigo Toscano (USA)
Tomas Transtömer (Sweden)
Review of Tomas Transtomer's poetry by Emil Siekken
essay "Rowing Up to the Silence" on publishing Tomas Transtromer
by Douglas Messerli
Anja Utler (Austria)
Turgut Uyar (Turkey)
César Vallejo, from Against Professional Secrets (Book of Thoughts)
Paul Vangelisti (USA)
Sarah Vap (USA)
Tarjei Vesaas (Norway)
Orhan Veli [Kanik] (Turkey)
Pasquale Verdicchio (b. Italy/USA)
Vijfigers (the "Fiftiers") (Dutch poetry group)
José Garcia Villa (Phillippines/USA)
Villa Aurora—los angeles
Simon Vinkenoog (Netherlands)
Jan Erik Vold (Norway)
Karen Volkman (USA)
VORTICISM: essay by Douglas Messerli "Vorticist Lewis/Vorticist Pound"
Arnold de Vos (b. Netherlands/Italy)
Alexander Vvedensky (Russia/USSR)
G. C. Waldrep (USA)
Anne Waldman (USA)
Keith Waldrop (USA)
Rosmarie Waldrop (b. Germany/USA)
Mark Wallace (USA)
Diane Ward (USA)
Lewis Warsh (USA)
WIENER GRUPPE (THE VIENNA GROUP) (Austria)
John Wieners (USA)
essay on John Wieners "Between Visions" by Douglas Messerli
book by John Wieners 707 Scott Street
video of John Wieners' last public reading, 8 days before his death
Nachoem M. Wijnberg (Netherlands)
John Wilkinson (England)
William Carlos Williams (USA)
essay on William Carlos Williams "A World Detached" by Douglas Messerli
Elizabeth Willis (USA)
Terence Winch (USA)
Karel van de Woestijne (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Allyssa Wolf (USA)
Grezogorz Wróblewski (b. Poland/Denmark)
"XUL" (a review of The XUL Reader by Douglas Messserli)
William Butler Yeats (Ireland)
Saül Yurkievich (Argentina)
Adam Zagajewski (Poland)
Andrea Zanzotto (Italy)
Visar Zhiti (Albania)
essay "The Poetry of Louis Zukofsky" by Lorine Niedecker
Below is a list of poets we have included on our PIP site to date.
ACMEISM (Russia)
Helen Adam (b. Scotland/USA)
Helen Adam's "The Cheerless Junkie's Song"
Adonīs (Alī Ahmad Sa’īd) (Syria/Lebanon)
Syrian-born poet Adonis on Syrian President Assad
Adonis Reading His Poetry on Video
Delmira Agustini (Uruguay)
Ilse Aichinger (Austria)
essay on Ilse Aichinger "A Werldy Country: Ilse Aichinger's Prose Poems by Uljana Wolf, followed by two short pieces by Aichinger
Naja Marie Aidt (Denmark)
Nazik al-Mala'ika (Iraq)
Anna Akhmatova (Russia)
Rafael Alberti (Spain)
review on Rafael Alberti "Poet to Painter" by Douglas Messerli
essay "In Memory of Anne-Marie Albiach, 1937-2012" by Robin Tremblay-McGraw
George Albon (USA)
Will Alexander (USA)
Vincente Aleixandre (Spain)
Pierre Alferi (France)
Francisco Alvim (Brazil)
Oswald de Andrade (Brazil)
Oswald de Andrade "Cannibal Manifesto"
Bruce Andrews (USA)
Ralph Angel (USA)
interview with Syrian poet Aïcha Arnaout
David Antin (USA)
essay on David Antin "Fractures of Self" by Douglas Messerli
interview-review "Conversational Critic, Talking Poet David Antin" by Robert Pincus
Arnaldo Antunes (Brazil)
Guillaume Apollinaire (France)
Louis Aragon (France)
Braulio Arenas (Chile)
Walter Conrad Arensberg (USA)
Rae Armantrout (USA)
review-essay of Rae Armantrout "The Present's Chronic Revision" by Douglas Messerli
essay on on Rae Armantrout "Teaching the 'New' Poetries" by Marjorie Perloff
TLS review of Rae Armantrout's Money Shot
Tammy Armstrong (Canada)
H. C. Artmann [Austria]
Nelson Ascher (Brazil)
John Ashbery (USA)
review of John Ashbery's Wakefulness by Marjorie Perloff
Carlos Ávila (Brazil)
Ece Ayhan (Turkey)
essay on Ece Ayham "Flying" by Douglas Messerli
Thérèse Bachand (USA)
essay "Don't Ask Me What I Do Exactly" by Therese Bachand
Ingeborg Bachmann (Austria)
Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński (Poland)
Manuael Bandira (Brazil)
Djuna Barnes (USA)
book by Djuna Barnes The Book of Repulsive Women
David Barnett (England/lives in Wales)
Todd Baron (USA)
Konrad Bayer (Austria)
Samuel Beckett (b. Ireland/France)
Guy R. Beining (USA)
Molly Bendall (USA)
Gottfried Benn (Germany)
Guy Bennett (USA)
Steve Benson (USA)
Interview with Bill Berkson by Thomas Devaney: "The Educational of Poetry"
Irving Berlin (b. Russian/USA)
Tobias Berggren (Sweden)
J. Bernlef [Henk Marsman] (Netherlands)
Charles Bernstein (USA)
interview with Charles Bernstein by Arganil Mukharjee, "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry-A Retrospective" on the Bengali webzine, KURAB Online
book by Charles Bernstein Dark City (1994)
poem by Charles Bernstein "Recalculating"
review of The Salt Companion to Charles Bernstein by William Allegreza
essay on Charles Bernstein's Controlling Interests "Making the Mind Whole" by Douglas Messerli
review of Charles Bernstein's Republics of Reality
review of Charles Bernstein The Attack of the Difficult Poems,"Talking in Circles" by Douglas Messerli
"Poetics of the Americas," by Charles Bernstein
"Sixty-six Writing Experiments" by Charles Bernstein
Mei-mei Bersenbrugge (b. China/USA)
THE BLACK MOUTAIN POETS (USA)
Paul Blackburn (USA)
Introduction to The Collected Poems of Paul Blackburn by Edith Jarolim
essay "A Pre-Face for Paul Blackburn" by Jerome Rothenberg
Lucian Blaga (Romania)
Robin Blaser (USA/Canada)
essay on Robin Blaser "The Fire Behind Myself" by Douglas Messerli
Johannes Bobrowski (Germany)
Maxwell Bodenheim (USA)
Paul Bogaert (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
J. Karl Bogartte (USA)
Christian Bök (Canada)
Klavs Bondejerg (Denmark)
Yves Bonnefoy (France)
Raul Bopp (Brazil)
Daniel Bouchard (USA)
Michael Boughn (b. USA/Canada)
Kay Boyle (USA)
Paul Braffort (France)
Rolf Dieter Brinkmann (Germany)
Nicole Brossard (Canada/writes in French)
Bob Brown (USA)
Franklin Bruno (USA)
Basil Bunting (England)
"Comment on Basil Bunting" by Jonathan Williams
Paolo Buzzi (Italy)
João Cabral de Melo Neto (Brazil)
Selected poems by Cabral de Melo Neto
Jorge Luis Cáceres (Chile)
Omar Cáceres (Chile)
"On Omar Cáceres" by Eliot Weinberger
Martin Camaj (Albania)
Dino Campana (Italy)
Remco Campert (Netherlands)
Jorge Carrera Andrade (Ecuador)
Age de Carvalho (Brazil / lives Austria)
C. P. Cavafy (Greece)
Blaise Cendrars (Switzerland)
"Blaise Cendrars" (brief essay by Kenneth Rexroth)
Joseph Ceravolo (USA)
Louis Cernuda (Spain)
Ana Christina Cesar (Brazil)
Aimé Césaire from “Notebook of a Return to the Native Land” (29-37)
Andrée Chedid (Egypt/France)
Ingrid Christensen (Denmark)
essay on Christensen by Douglas Messerli "The Danish "It" Girl"
Hugo Claus (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Gentian Çoçoli (Albania)
Wanda Coleman (USA)
Antonio Colinas (Spain)
Danielle Collobert (France)
essay on Danielle Collobert, "Reading Danielle Collobert," by John Taylor
Los Contemporáneos
Stephen Cope (USA)
Kelvin Corcoran (England)
obituary "Cid Corman," by Michael Carlson (The Guardian)
essay "The Poetry of Cid Corman," by Lorine Niedecker
Julio Cortázar (Argentina)
review of Julio Cortázar's Save Twilight by Gregory J. Racz
Jayne Cortez (USA)
Horácio Costa (Brazil)
Poem for Horacio Costa by Douglas Messerli
Eva Cox (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Hart Crane (USA)
essay on Hart Crane: Douglas Messerli, "Out of the Square, the Circle: Vision in Nightmare"
Stephen Crane (USA)
CREACIONISMO/CREATIONISM
Robert Creeley (USA)
audio of Robert Creeley discussing Black Mountain College
essay on Robert Creeley "The Radical Poetics of Robert Creeley" by Marjorie Perloff
essay on Robert Creeley "Robert Creeley's Windows" by Marjorie Perloff
essay on Robert Creeley "Memory Gardens" by Arkadii Dragomoschenko
essay on Robert Creeley "One had the company..." by Pierre Joris
Harry Crosby (USA)
Elizabeth Cross (USA)
Robert Crosson (USA)
essay on Robert Crosson "Finding It Hard to Navigate" by Douglas Messerli
Countee Cullen (USA)
E. E. Cummings (USA)
Nancy Cunard (England/lived France)
Wystan Curnow (New Zealand)
Visant Abaji Dahake (India/writes in Marathi)
Stig Dalager (Denmark)
Rubén Dario (Nicaragua)
Michael Davidson (USA)
Michael Davidson, five new poems
Christopher Davis (USA)
Milo De Angelis (Italy)
Connie Deanovich (USA)
Henri Deluy (France)
Robert Desnos (France)
Mohammed Dib (Algeria)
essay on Dib "A Quiet Man in the Vast and Chattering Desert" by Douglas Messerli
Eliseo Diego (Cuba)
Linh Dinh (b. Vietnam/lives England)
Sharon Dolin (USA)
Hilde Domin (Germany)
Rembrances and essays on Stacey Doris (USA)
Arkadii Dragomoschenko (USSR/now Russia)
Charles Ducal [Frans Dumortier] (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Paul Laurence Dunbar (USA)
essay on Robert Duncan "All Duncan, All the Time" by Joshua Corey
Oswald Egger (b. Italy/Austria)
Gunnar Eich (Germany)
Larry Eigner (USA)
video of Larry Eigner writing a poem
Gunnar Ekelöf (Sweden)
ELAN POETRY GROUP (ECUADOR)
Jan G. Elburg (Netherlands)
T. S. Eliot (USA/England)
Eliot reading "The Love Song on J. Alfred Prufrock"
essay on T. S. Eliot, "The Avant Garde," by Marjorie Perloff
second essay on T. S. Eliot, "Avant-Garde Eliot," by Marjorie Perloff
Kenward Elmslie (USA)
Paul Éluard [Eugène Émile Paul Grindel] (France)
Elanie Equi (USA)
Seyhan Erözçelik (Turkey)
Faiz Ahmed Faiz (b. British India/ Pakistan)
Gerhard Falkner (Germany)
Farough Farrokhzard (Iran)
Farough Farrokhzard's film The House Is Black
Hans Faverey (b. Surinam/Netherlands)
review of Hans Faverey's Against the Forgetting, "Standstill" by Douglas Messerli
Robert Fernandez (USA)
the "Fiftiers" (see Vijfigers)
essay "Ian Hamilton Finlay: the concrete poet as avant-gardener," by James Campbell
"Ronald Firbank as Poet," and essay by Douglas Messerli
Roy Fisher (England)
review essay on Roy Fisher "Roy Fisher's 'Language' Book" by Marjorie Perloff
review-essay on Roy Fisher "Hard Against Time" by Ange Mlinko
J. V. Foix (Spain/writes in Catalan)
THE FOLIO GROUP (Washington, D.C.)
Tua Forsström (Finland/writes in Swedish)
Graham Foust (USA)
Niels Frank (Denmark)
Kathleen Fraser (USA)
Else van Freytag-Loringhoven (German/USA)
Robert Frost (USA)
Robin Fulton (England/lives Norway)
Antonio Gamoneda (Spain)
Pedro García Carbrera (Canary Islands)
Federico Garcia Lorca (Spain)
Claude Gauvert (Canada/writes in French)
Eva Gerlach (Netherlands)
obituary, "Jack Gilbert, a Poet Whose Words Transformed Lives Is Dead at 87," by Bruce Weber
Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (France)
Abraham Lincoln Gillespie (USA)
Maruice Gilliams (Belgium)
Liliane Giraudon (France)
Oliverio Girondo (Argentina)
Alberto Girri (Argentina)
Alfredo Giuliani (Italy)
Michael Gizzi (USA)
Peter Gizzi (USA)
on Gizzi's Threshold Songs, by M. D. Snediker
Enrique González Martínez (Mexico)
Dieter M. Gräf (Germany)
Jonathan Greene (USA)
Luuk Gruwez (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Barbara Guest (USA)
essay on Barbara Guest "The Countess of Berkeley" by Douglas Messerli
Jorge Guillén (Spain)
Katrine Marie Guldager (Denmark)
Nicolai Gumilev (Russia/USSR)
Albert-Paris Gütersloh [Albert Conrad Kiehtreiber] (Austria)
Hagiwara Sakutarō (Japan)
Alan Halsey (England)
Marsden Hartley (USA)
Hayashi Fumiko (Japan)
Review/essay on Hayashi Fumiko, "Forget Fugi!" by Douglas Messerli
Michael Heller (USA)
Zbigniew Herbert (Poland)
Miguel Hernández (Spain)
Stefan Hertmans (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Georg Heym (Germany)
Leland Hickman (USA)
Dick Higgins "A Taxonomy of Sound Poetry"
Short obituary on Christian Ide Hintze by Anne Waldman
Itō Hiromi, “Cooking, Writing Poetry"
Jóhann Hjálmarsson (Iceland)
Anselm Hollo, some poems
Peter Holvoet-Hanssen (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Paul Hoover (USA)
Fanny Howe (USA)
Susan Howe (USA)
review-essay on Susan Howe, "Keeping History a Secret," by Douglas Messerli
essay on Susan Howe,"Poetry as History Revised:Susan Howe's 'Scattering As Behavior Toward Risk'" by Ming-Qian Ma
essay on Susan Howe and Ron Silliman, "Language Poetry and the Lyric Subject: Ron Silliman's Albany, Susan Howe's Buffalo" by Marjorie Perloff
essay on Susan Howe "WHOWE: On Susan Howe" by Rachel Blau DuPlessis
TLS review of Susan Howe's That This
Peter Huchel (Germany)
Langston Hughes (USA)
Peter Hughes (England)
Vicente Huidobro (Chile)
William Hurtado de Mendoza (Peru/writes in Quechua)
Gyula Illyés (Hungary)
IMAGISM (Imagisme)
Mark Insingel (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Kenneth Irby (USA)
Julia Istomina (b. USSR/USA)
Itō Hiromi (Japan)
Francis Jammes (France)
Andrew Joron (USA)
Robinson Jeffers (USA)
James Weldon Johnson (USA)
James Weldon Johnson Preface to The Book of American Negro Poetry
Patricia Spears Jones (USA)
Roland Jooris (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Susanne Jorn (Denmark)
Nuno Júdice (Portugal)
Roberto Juarroz (Argentina)
Pia Juul (Denmark)
Mark Kanak (USA)
Frigyes Karinthy (Hungary)
Robert Kelly (USA)
Sandro Key-Åberg (Sweden)
Ger Kileen (b. Ireland/USA)
Kim Su-yŏng (Korea)
David Kinloch (Scotland)
John Kinsella (Australia)
Sarah Kirsch (GDR/Germany)
Joanna Klink (USA)
Edvard Kocbek (Slovenia)
Janus Kodal (Denmark)
Uwe Kolbe (GDR/now Germany)
Rutger Kopland (Netherlands)
Srečko Kosovel (Slovenia)
Gerrit Kouwenaar (Netherlands)
Alfred Kreymborg (USA)
Ryszard Krynicki (b. Austria/Poland)
Günter Kunert (DDR/Germany)
Reiner Kunze (DDR/Germany)
Kusano Shinpei (Japan)
Pär Lagerkvist (Sweden)
Else Lasker-Schüler (Germany)
John Latta (USA)
Jan Lauwereyns (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Sarah Law (England)
D. H. Lawrence (England)
Katy Lederer (USA)
Eino Leino (Finland)
Michael Lentz (Germany)
José Lezama Lima (Cuba)
Alfred Lichtenstein (Germany)
Enrique Lihn (Chile)
Paolo Lemlinski (Brazil)
Vachel Lindsay (USA)
Ramón López Velarde (Mexico)
Kito Lorenc (DDR/now Germany/writes in Sorbic)
Amy Lowell (USA)
essay "On Imagism" by Amy Lowell
Mina Loy (England)
essay on Mina Loy "On 'Songs of Love'/'Songs to Joannes' by Peter Quartermain
essay on Mina Loy " English as a 'Second' Language: Mina Loy's Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose" by Marjorie Perloff
Rupert Loydell (England)
Lisa Lubasch (USA)
Leopoldo Lugones (Argentina)
Arthur Lundkvist (Sweden)
Oleh Lysheha (Ukraine)
Antonio Machado (Spain)
Duda Machado (Brazil)
Nathaniel Mackey (USA)
Archibald MacLeish (USA)
Jackson Mac Low (USA)
essay on Jackson's Mac Low's Stanzas for Iris Lezak, "Mac Low as a Shadow Beatnik" by Chris Funkhouser
Aaron McCollough (USA)
Campbell McGrath (USA)
Claude McKay (USA)
Jayanta Mahapatra (India)
Barbara Maloutas (USA)
Osip Mandelshtam (Russia/USSR)
LA MANDRÁGORA (THE MANDRAKE GROUP)
essay "The Modernists of All Andalus" by Djelloul Marbrook
F. T. Marinetti "Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature"
F. T. Marinetti and others "Futurist Synthesis of the War"
Pierre Martory (France)
Harry Mathews (b. USA/lives France)
Maruyama Kaoru (Japan)
Carlos Marzal (Spain)
Edgar Lee Masters (USA)
Medbh McGuckian (Ireland)
Deborah Meadows (USA)
Catherine Meng (USA)
Douglas Messerli (USA)
essay on contemporary poetry and reviewers "What Is to Be Done?" by Douglas Messerli
review of Messerli's Some Distance and Dinner on the Lawn by Peter Inman
Henri Michaux (Belgium)
Christopher Middleton (England)
Edna St. Vincent Millay (USA)
O. V. de L. Milosz (b. Lithuania/France)
Ange Mlinko (USA)
Eugenio Montale (Italy)
Dom Moraes (India/writes in English)
Marianne Moore (USA)
Els Moors (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Christian Morgenstern (Germany)
Félix Morisseau-Leroy (Haiti)
César Moro [Alfredo Quíspez Asín] (Peru)
Rusty Morrison (USA)
Erin Mouré (Canada)
Sandra Moussempès (France)
Jennifer Moxley (USA)
Harryette Mullen (USA)
Sheila E. Murphy (USA)
George Murray (Canada)
Martin Nakell (USA)
Gellu Naum (Romania)
Gale Nelson (USA)
Ágnes Nemes Nagy (Hungary)
essay by Murat Nemet-Nejat, from "Qestions of Accent" (What Is Then Accented Poetry?)
Paulo Neruda (Chile)
Amado Nervo (Mexico)
DER NEUE CLUB (THE NEW CLUB) - GERMANY
Vítězslav Nezval (Czechoslavakia)
Giulia Niccolai (Italy)
Lorine Niedecker (USA)
A. L. Nielsen (USA)
Paul Niger (Albert Béville) (Guadeloupe)
Nishiwaki Janzaburō (Japan)
Mostafa Nissabouri (Morocco)
Noguchi Yone (Japan)
Interview with Amy Sugegoha on Yone Noguchi
Leonard Nolens (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Cees Nooteboom (Netherlands)
Andreas Okeopeko (b. Czechoslavakia/Austria)
Toby Olson (USA)
George Oppen (USA)
essay on George Oppen's Of Being Numerous by Marjorie Perloff
essay on Carlos Oquendo de Amat by David-Baptiste Chirot, "An Outsider Poet of the No"
Maggie O'Sullivan (England)
Olga Orozco (Argentina)
Eugene Ostashevsky (b. USSR/USA)
OULIPO-OUVROIR DE LITTÉRATURE POTENTIELLE
José Emilio Pacheco (Mexico)
Ron Padgett (USA)
Elio Pagliarani (Italy)
Elio Pagliarani's death
Aldo Palazzeschi (Italy)
Michael Palmer (USA)
"Against Elegy: Michael Palmer's Book of the Dead" (a review of Thread by
Patrick Pritchett
Ethan Paquin (USA)
Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italy)
Joaquím Pasos (Nicaragua)
Oskar Pastior (Romania/Germany/writes in German)
Octavio Paz (Mexico)
Okat p'Bitek (Uganda)
Juan Sánchez Pelález (Venezuela)
essay on Marjorie Perloff: "Ways of Reading: Marjorie Perloff and the Sublimity of Pragmatic Criticism" by Charles Bernstein (USA)
essay on Marjorie Perloff's The Vienna Paradox: "Davy Crockett's Hat," by Douglas Messerli
John Perreault (USA)
Saint-John Perse (b. Guadeloupe/France)
Dennis Phillips (USA)
Francis Picabia (France)
review essay, "In Order to Be Nothing" on the Picabia collection I Am a Beautiful Monster
by Allan Graubard
short obiturary on Décio Pignatari by Charles Bernstein
János Pilinszky (Hungary)
Nick Piombino (USA)
Sybren Polet (Netherlands)
Francis Ponge (France)
Vasko Popa (Serbia)
Antonio Porta (Italy)
essay "Pure Poetry" (on Cole Porter's lyrics for Anything Goes) by Douglas Messerli
"The Sciart Origins of Bern Porter's Found Poems" by Joel Lipman
Ezra Pound (USA)
Pound interviewed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Antonia Pozzi (Italy)
Frances Presley (England)
PROFIL GROUP (Norway)
THE PROJECTIVE FOR INNOVATIVE POETRY (USA)
Meredith Quartermain (Canada)
Henrikas Radauskas (Lithuania/USA)
Sándor Rákos (Hungary)
Carl Rakosi (b. Germany/USA)
"Looking for the Real Carl Rakosi" by Marjorie Perloff
Celebration of Rakosi's 99th Birthday at Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia (tapes, biography, and introduction)
Carter Ratcliff (USA)
Stephen Ratcliffe (USA)
Tom Raworth (England)
Tom Raworth's book Eternal Sections
Christopher Reiner (USA)
Rendra [W. S. Rendra] (Indonesia)
Kenneth Rexroth interviewed by Jerome Rothenberg and David Antin at the Five Spot
Kenneth Rexroth reads "Married Blues" with a jazz combo
Alfonso Reyes (Mexico)
Laura Riding [Jackson] (USA)
Michael Riley (Australia)
Monika Rinck (Germany)
Joachim Ringelnatz [Hans Bötticher] (Germany)
Yannis Ritsos (Greece)
Lisa Robertson (Canada/lives France)
Edwin Arlington Robinson (USA)
Matt Robinson (Canada)
Paul Rodenko (Netherlands)
Gonzalo Rojas (Chile)
Martha Ronk (USA)
ROOF magazine, essay "Looking Over My Shoulder: Roof at 35" by James Sherry
Claudia Roquette-Pinto (Brazil)
Mirta Rosenberg (Argentina)
Jean-Pierre Rosnay (France)
Joe Ross (USA)
review of Joe Ross' Wordlick by Mark Wallace
review of Joe Ross' Wordlick by Jennifer Dick
Amelia Rosselli (Italy)
Michael Rothenberg (USA)
Jerome Rothenberg (USA)
"Jerome Rothenberg at 80" by Jeffrey Robinson
Jacques Roubaud (France)
Jaime Sabines (Mexico)
Nelly Sachs (Germany)
Mílos Sahtoúris (Greece)
Said (b. Iran/Germany)
Valentine de Saint-Point (France)
Mark Salerno (USA)
Carl Sandburg (USA)
Håkan Sandell (Sweden)
Frank Samperi (USA)
Three books by Frank Samperi
Leslie Scalapino (USA)
essay on Leslie Scalapino "Leslie Scalapino's Rhythmic Intensitites" by Charles Bernstein
Standard Schaefer (USA)
Bert Schierbeek (Netherlands)
Sabine Scho (Germany)
James Schuyler (USA)
Susan Schultz (USA)
Rocco Scotellaro (Italy)
Jaroslav Seifert (Czechoslavakia)
Léopold Sédar Senghor (Senegal)
Ian Seed (England)
David Shapiro (USA)
Anne Shaw (USA)
James Sherry, see also Roof magazine above
Shin Kyong-Nim (Korea)
Peter Jay Shippy (USA)
THE SKRYNIA GROUP (THE "CHEST" GROUP)-UKRAINE
Rod Smith (USA)
Paul Snoek [Edmond Schietekat] (Belgium/write in Dutch)
Edith Södergran (Finland/writes in Swedish)
Gilbert Sorrentino (USA)
Roberto Sosa (Honduras)
interview with Phillipe Soupault
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INNOVATIVE POETS
Sjoerd Spanniga [Jan Dijkstra] (Netherlands/writes in Frisian]
Adriano Spatola (b. Yugoslavia/Italy)
essay on Adriano Spatola "Investigative Procedures: Publishing Spatola" by Douglas Messerli
Maria Luisa Spaziani (Italy) George Stanley (b. USA/Canada)
Nichita Stănescu (Romania)
Rob Stanton (England)
Gertrude Stein (USA)
dossier on Stein's World War II years in France by Charles Bernstein and others
essay on Stein "The Making of Tender Buttons..." by Joshua Schuster
essay on Stein: "Tender Buttons as Narrative Fiction" by Douglas Messerli
performance from Patriarchal Poetry by two high school students
book by Giuseppe Steiner Drawn States of Mind
Wallace Stevens (USA)
Ulf Stolerfoht (Germany)
Alfonsina Storni (Argentina)
August Stramm (Germany)
David Levi Straus (USA)
José Antonio Ramos Sucre (Venezuela)
SUN & MOON PRESS: A JOURNAL OF LITERATURE & ART
essay on Sun & Moon Press: A Journal of Literature & Art--A Youthful Reflection
Jules Supervielle (b. Uruguay/France)
Abraham Sutzkever (b. Lithuania/Israel)
essay on Stuzkever "Hush and Travail" by Douglas Messerli
Cole Swenson (USA)
Tada Chimako (Japan)
Tamura Ryūichi (Japan)
John Taggart (USA)
Rabindranath Tagore (India/writes in Bengali and English)
Takahashi Matsuo (Japan)
poem by Takahashi Matsuo "This World, or Man of the Boxes" on the artist
Joseph Cornell
Jüri Talvet (Estonia)
Brian Teare (USA)
Jorge Teillier (Chile)
Toon Tellegen (Netherlands)
essay "Maghrebian Surrealism" [Essay and Manifesto] by Habib Tengour
Susana Thénon (Argentina)
John Thomas (USA)
Umar Timol (Maritius/writes in French)
essay, "The Miracle of the Written Word" on Umar Timol
Mark von Tongele (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Jean Toomer (USA)
Rodrigo Toscano (USA)
Tomas Transtömer (Sweden)
Review of Tomas Transtomer's poetry by Emil Siekken
essay "Rowing Up to the Silence" on publishing Tomas Transtromer
by Douglas Messerli
Anja Utler (Austria)
Turgut Uyar (Turkey)
César Vallejo, from Against Professional Secrets (Book of Thoughts)
Paul Vangelisti (USA)
Sarah Vap (USA)
Tarjei Vesaas (Norway)
Orhan Veli [Kanik] (Turkey)
Pasquale Verdicchio (b. Italy/USA)
Vijfigers (the "Fiftiers") (Dutch poetry group)
José Garcia Villa (Phillippines/USA)
Villa Aurora—los angeles
Simon Vinkenoog (Netherlands)
Jan Erik Vold (Norway)
Karen Volkman (USA)
VORTICISM: essay by Douglas Messerli "Vorticist Lewis/Vorticist Pound"
Arnold de Vos (b. Netherlands/Italy)
Alexander Vvedensky (Russia/USSR)
G. C. Waldrep (USA)
Anne Waldman (USA)
Keith Waldrop (USA)
Rosmarie Waldrop (b. Germany/USA)
Mark Wallace (USA)
Diane Ward (USA)
Lewis Warsh (USA)
WIENER GRUPPE (THE VIENNA GROUP) (Austria)
John Wieners (USA)
essay on John Wieners "Between Visions" by Douglas Messerli
book by John Wieners 707 Scott Street
video of John Wieners' last public reading, 8 days before his death
Nachoem M. Wijnberg (Netherlands)
John Wilkinson (England)
William Carlos Williams (USA)
essay on William Carlos Williams "A World Detached" by Douglas Messerli
Elizabeth Willis (USA)
Terence Winch (USA)
Karel van de Woestijne (Belgium/writes in Dutch)
Allyssa Wolf (USA)
Grezogorz Wróblewski (b. Poland/Denmark)
"XUL" (a review of The XUL Reader by Douglas Messserli)
William Butler Yeats (Ireland)
Saül Yurkievich (Argentina)
Adam Zagajewski (Poland)
Andrea Zanzotto (Italy)
Visar Zhiti (Albania)
essay "The Poetry of Louis Zukofsky" by Lorine Niedecker
February 4, 2013
Green Integer On Net
In conjunction with our educational efforts, these books will be offered free or for reasonable prices for our visitors: students, scholars, and readers of modern and contemporary poetry. Please note that any money we receive for books will go toward the maintenance of our site and for royalty payments for authors and translators. I do not receive a salary for my ongoing and quite endless activities.
Books now available:
[ordered PDF files ship within 24 hours]
David Antin Definitions $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Djuna Barnes The Book of Repulsive Women free
Djuna Barnes Interviews $10.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Charles Bernstein Dark City free
Bresson Notes on the Cinematographer $7.00 (PDF available to download
through Paypal)
Paul Celan Lightduress $8.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Blaise Cendrars Films without Images 7.00 (PDF available to download
through Paypal)
Clark Coolidge Solution Passage: Poems 1978-1981 $5.00 (PDF available
to download through Paypal)
Domício Coutinho Duke, the Dog Priest $5.00 (PDF available to download
through Paypal)
Henri Deluy Carnal Love $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Jose Donoso Hell Has No Limits $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Arkadii Dragomoschenko Xenia $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Elsa von Fretag-Loringhoven Subjoyride: Poems $5.00 (PDF available to dowload through Paypal)
Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm Jensen Gradiva and Dream and Delusion in Jensen's Gradiva
$5.00 (available to download through Paypal)
Alfredo Giuliani I Novissimi: Poetry for the Sixties $10.00 (PDF available to
download through Paypal)
Peter Glassgold Hwaet! A Little Old English Anthology of Modernist Poetry $5.00 (available to
download through Paypal)
Julien Gracq The Peninsula $5.00 (PDF available to download through
Paypal)
Lyn Hejinian My Life $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Ko Un Ten Thousand Lives $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Ko Un Songs for Tomorrow: A Collection of Poems 1960-2002 $5.00 (PDF available to
download through Paypal)
Ko Un Himalaya Poems $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Lucebert Collected Poems, Volume I $10.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
F. T. Marinetti The Untameables $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Harry Martinson Leaves from a Tuft of Grass $5.00 (PDF availalbe to download through Paypal)
Douglas Messerli My Year 2004: Under Our Skin $5.00 (PDF available to download
through Paypal)
Douglas Messerli My Year 2006: Serving $5.00 (PDF available to download through
Paypal)
Douglas Messerli Reading Films: My International Cinema $15.00 (PDF available to
download through Paypal)
Douglas Messerli, ed. The PIP Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century, Volume 8
$7.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Jules Michelet The Sea $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Ivo Michiels The Alpha Cycle: Volumes 1 and 2 (Book Alpha and Orchis Militaris $5.00
(PDF available to download through Paypal)
Christopher Middleton Depictions of Blaff $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Yuri Olyesha Envy $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Tom Raworth Eternal Sections free
Amelia Rosselli War Variations $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Joe Ross Wordlick $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Severo Sarduy From Cuba with a Song $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Arthur Schnitzler Dream Story $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Gertrude Stein Stanzas in Meditation $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Gertrude Stein Tender Buttons $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
Guiseppe Steiner Drawn States of Mind free
Susana Thenon distancias/distances $5.00 (PDF available to download through Paypal)
John Wieners 707 Scott Street free
Language
in Action
An
Interview with Douglas Messerli
Interviewed
by Gretchen Johnsen and Richard Peabody Born in Iowa, Douglas Messerli is currently Assistant Professor of English at Temple University in Philadelphia. He has written extensively on modern poetry and fiction, and is the author of Djuna Barnes: A Bibliography and editor of Barnes' Smoke and Other Early Stories. His poetry has been published in many magazines including Doc (k) s, Roof, Shuttle, Washington Review, Interstate, The World, The Difficulties, Credences, The Bad Henry Review, Mississippi Review, Poetry in Motion, Gargoyle, and many others. His poetry has been collected in River to Rivet: A Poetic Trilogy which includes his two earlier volumes Dinner on the Lawn and Some Distance. Douglas lives in College Park, Maryland (he taught for a while at the University of Maryland) and co-publishes Sun & Moon Press books with Howard N. Fox. They ran Sun & Moon: A Journal of Literature and Art from 1976 to 1982. Douglas also guided Là-bas through twelve issues between 1976 and 1978. This past summer he edited the special "Manifestos" issue of the Washington Review and Contemporary American Fiction. He is currently completing a novel, Letters from Hanusse, and is working on Several Revolutions, a political opera.
Interviewers: Let's begin with the history of
your journal, Sun & Moon. Why did you start a literary
magazine? What made you bring it to a close?
Messerli: I began Sun & Moon: A
Journal of Literature & Art in 1976, although I actually conceived of
the magazine on May 30th, 1975 — my 27th birthday. I had planned to publish Sun
& Moon
as an
inexpensive mimeographed journal in the tradition of the little magazines I had
been reading: The Floating Bear, The Nice Series, etc. But, as is true
of most beginning editors, I didn't really know what I was doing, and I asked
for work from an extraordinarily eclectic group of writers and artists (the first issue
contains work by people as radically different as Gilbert Sorrentino, Fielding
Dawson, Leonard Michaels, Lewis Turco, Marge Piercy, Daphne Athas, and Anne
Truitt) which diverted me from following my models. So, even before Howard Fox
and I had published the first issue, we decided to change our notions of format
and audience, changes that were to affect the magazine for the rest of its
issues, and have influenced what I'm currently doing as a publisher of books.
Instead
of publishing a magazine expressing the ideas and writings of a particular
group of poets and artists, we decided to open it up to a somewhat broader base
of contributors and readers; rather than publishing only that work to which, as
a poet, I was most committed (as, say, James Sherry was doing in Roof), I
attempted to create in the magazine a sense of a forum for advanced poetry,
fiction, and art. My model shifted, accordingly, from The Floating Bear to
John Ashbery's Art and Literature; hence, the subtitle: A journal of
Literature & Art. That decision certainly has had its advantages. I think over the years we have served as a kind of forum, as a connecting link, of sorts, between younger writers and artists and those who have established careers. And that has meant that even a beginning writer whose work appeared in the pages of Sun & Moon has had a broad base of readers. If individuals and libraries bought the magazine in order to read the works of writers such as Paul Bowles or Walter Abish or a critic such as Charles Altieri, they also had set before them new poems by Charles Bernstein or Bruce Andrews or -- to use examples of poets first published in our pages -- Jim Wine or Rafael Lorenzo. Its handsome, almost "academic" format also meant that Sun & Moon could generally count on NEA and CCLM grants.
Interviewers: How did you come to publish a
second magazine, Là-bas, at
the same time?
Messerli: Well, those very successes of Sun
& Moon
presented
problems as well. I quickly began to feel a bit impatient with the waits
between expensive issues and with the enormous outlay of time and money it took
to produce each number of the journal. And for those reasons, I guess, I published
12 issues of Là-bas
during 1976 and
1977. Là-bas
was almost the
polar opposite of Sun & Moon. It was mimeographed, and
it took a much more advertly radical stance. But, most importantly, it was
mailed out with great regularity (at first monthly and then, bi-monthly) to
about 350 poets for free. That meant that almost any "interesting"
poet of the period would likely see the work of those in Là-bas'
pages. It was a wonderful
idea -- and it worked. There's a limit, however, even to my energies;
and as I began work on my PhD dissertation, I realized that I would have to
give up one of the journals. Là-bas was the
obvious choice; for, despite its success, I simply couldn't find in it the kind
of balance of audience and contributors in which I was -- and still am -- most
interested. I mean, I can never understand why anyone would want to publish poetry
or fiction to be read by a few friends or even by poets and fiction writers
only. It seems to me it would be easier just to
send around the work in manuscript or to read it aloud to friends when they
stop by for a drink.
An
artist wants to affect someone other than his fellow artists, friends, or lover.
It is the possibility of emotionally and intellectually moving someone you've
never met that seems to be of most importance to me.
In
fact, it was for that reason, in part, that I stopped the publication of Sun & Moon
in
1982 (although, I'm publishing a few books as issues of the journal to finish
up subscriptions). As important as magazines are to the survival of
contemporary writing, it is the book which, in the end, defines or reveals what
a particular writer is doing in his or her art. In saying that, I'm not really
fetishizing the book as an object; I'm just stating the obvious -- that, until
writers are an everyday occurrence on television, telephone, radio, and stages,
we must rely on the object to transmit our art.
It
is that understanding of books, along with two other important factors, which
has led me to move away from the journal. It was inevitable
perhaps that, as I was publishing contemporary authors, the "younger"
poets
were also amassing enough material for book publication; and I wanted to help
make some of those books happen. So, even while I was active with the journal,
I published books by Charles Bernstein, Ray DiPalma, Peter Inman, and others.
And then, it began to be increasingly
apparent that commercial publishing was moving in an entirely different
direction from that of contemporary fiction and poetry. There will always be a
few exceptions -- like the fact that Walter Abish has been
signed by Random House -- but, for the most part, it is clear that as
far as advanced literature is concerned, the big publishing houses are deaf.
You can't sell books in supermarket quantities without sacrificing something;
and the corporation godheads behind the publishing industry have chosen as
their lambs poetry and fiction. Combine that with
the
fact that, by and large, the most adventurously-minded university professors have shifted in their habits
from reading contemporary literature to immersing themselves in critical and
philosophical theory, and
you
realize that one or two generations of authors have been ignored into near-extinction.
Being a
missionary at heart, I vowed that I would do everything possible -- puny as my
attempts might be -- to keep publishing books during what may someday be seen
as the Dark Ages of American Literary History. One keeps hearing from
reviewers, critics, and readers that contemporary poetry and fiction are dead;
but I think it's the opposite:
contemporary poetry and fiction are wonderfully alive, but the reviewers, critics, and readers
have died. However, the books that prove this are just not getting out to a
wide enough audience for anyone to see the truth. That's where I'm trying to
move -- into that ignorant gap.
Interviewers: The success of Sun & Moon
Press' publication of the Djuna Barnes collection of stories has been
phenomenal. When and how did you first become interested in Djuna Barnes?
Messerli: Djuna Barnes' uncollected short
stories seemed a perfect place for the press to begin its serious publishing --
that is, to begin printing books in a recognizably standard format and to
publish clothbound editions. I love Barnes' work, and I've taught Nightwood
for years in the
university. But, it's more than that; almost every experience I have had with
Barnes and her work has been serendipitous.
In
graduate school I did a bibliography of Barnes' work (later published by David
Lewis in New York) for a bibliography and methods course; and the very day that
I was planning to complete my months of research, a librarian at the University
of Maryland Library asked me why I was looking at The
Little Review. I
told her I was working on an obscure writer of the 20s and 30s.
"Who?" she demanded. I named Barnes, and she said, "I thought
so. You know, the Rare Book Collection upstairs has just purchased all of Miss
Barnes' letters, books, and papers." Obviously, I did not know; so I went
charging up to the Rare Book Collection, where I came upon Robert Beare,
rummaging through chests of Barnes' letters, clippings, books, and memorabilia.
It took
me four more months of working every day in the Rare Book Room to describe and
annotate the· clippings.
Then,
later I actually did get to have an hour's conversation with Djuna Barnes. But
I've written about that incredible visit elsewhere (in The New
York Native), so
I won't repeat it here.
Anyway,
I believe Barnes to be one of the major writers of this century; but like
Wyndham Lewis, Gertrude Stein, and later, Jane Bowles, she wrote something
outside the context Of "high
Modernism," something more akin to what contemporary writers are doing -- and
that made her a sort of pariah. I'm extremely gratified to have any role in the
wider recognition of her work. Of course, Barnes' death has had a great deal to
do with the success of Smoke and Other Early Stories. It's unfortunate
that the literary establishment seems intent upon recognizing only the dead -- and
near dead.
Interviewers: What does Sun & Moon
Press plan in the future?
Messerli: Oh, we're doing some great
books! Djuna Barnes' Interviews, for one -- incredibly funny and witty
interviews she did with celebrities such as Flo Ziegfeld, Mother Jones, Diamond
Jim Brady, Alfred Stieglitz, Frank Harris, Coco Channel, and dozens of others;
a marvelous book. And then, we're printing new fiction by Russell Banks, The
Relation of My Imprisonment; a
long, indescribably moody and moral-toned novel by Steve Katz, Weir & Pouce; and a brilliant and stylish book
of stories by Tom Ahern, Hecatombs of Lake; Charles Bernstein's collected critical writings, Content's
Dream; a beautiful
novel about American Indians in the 18th century, by Johnny Stanton, Mangled
Hands; and other
good books by Hannah Weiner, Fiona Templeton, Gil Ott, Ted Greenwald, Len
Jenkin -- oh! and an anthology of new American drama, edited by John Wellman.
I'm running out of adjectives; but I get enthusiastic just by remembering my
reading of the books in manuscript.
We're
also beginning a new series, The Contemporary Critical Series, devoted to
critical books on contemporary authors and a few modern ones (like Djuna
Barnes) who have had an impact on today's writing.
Interviewers: To turn to your own criticism,
in your essay, "Experiment and Traditional Forms in Contemporary
Literature," reprinted in the sixth Pushcart
collection, you
discuss the influence of Pound on constructionist theories of poetics, the
emerging conviction that "poetry should be a thing of linguistic process
as opposed to representing a set of preconceived ideas and images bound to
convention." What is at the heart of this curiosity
about "linguistic process"?
Messerli: That's a near impossible
question to answer. I mean, it all depends upon of whose heart you're asking.
For Pound, it had, perhaps, something to do with his damnable egotism, which
kept him at arm's length from most of the people he encountered, and forced
him, early on in
life one suspects, to center everything upon that unsuccessful -- and therefore
fascinating -- tool of communication, language. But then, of course, he had
read most of the world's "great" poets, and he recognized in the best
of them that language was what it (poetry) was all about.
I
have the sensation, however, that your question is not about Pound, but about
contemporary writing, about the focus of poets such as those connected with L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E on "linguistic
process." That too has to do, in part, with (as Pound might write it)
Edecaysion, with reading poets like Pound, William Carlos Williams, Emily
Dickinson, the Russian Futurists, Gertrude Stein, and even those against whom
the "Language" poets seem most to react, John Ashbery and Frank
O'Hara. I remember Gilbert Sorrentino saying somewhere, something to the effect
that it eventually becomes apparent to any writer worth his salt that language
is what it (again, writing) is all about.
But,
obviously, there's more at stake than that. For me -- and from my conversations
with poets like Bernstein and Andrews, I surmise they would support some of my
sentiments -- language is just
everything. It is the way -- the only way -- we have of
making reality, the act others describe as "comprehending
experience." But for me, it is truly a "making." Every day,
every moment we speak
and,
through language, think
the
world into existence. Therefore, it's of the utmost importance that a few of us
-- even if we're seen as a bunch of myopic babblers -- spend some time
contemplating, playing with, challenging, and delighting in the ways in which
the society uses it. Hopefully, we can affect a few people, who can -- to use
the jargon of an advertisement currently shaping our collective consciousness
-- affect two more, who can affect two more and so on ... and so on ... until
we have the whole country reevaluating, listening to, and reinventing language
-- not as an intellectual exercise, but as a matter of life and death (and I do
not speak metaphorically).
Interviewers: In
that same essay, you cite Ron Silliman's claims for a new genre of prose poetry
in which "actual elements of poetic structures" enter "into the
interiors of sentence structure itself." Could this sort of integrated
activity represent a possible fusion of non-analytic, co-figurational
perceptions/"structures"
with more traditional processes of language, the conventional patterns of
"making a statement"?
Messerli: Well,
I don't know, of course, what you mean by "conventional patterns." If you're talking late Nineteenth century
to mid-Twentieth century "conventional patterns," I'd say
"no," I don't think that's the direction any really challenging
contemporary poet or fiction writer is moving. There's no real fusion possible
once you have allowed the Romantic
dichotomy between world and self to become your "conventional pattern"
of thinking. In fact, I don't believe that any writer in whom I'm most
interested is seeking a "fusion," that third element in the Structuralist
trinity of the fodder, sun and holly growth. I don't really know if what
I'm saying is applicable to Silliman, however, or not. He seems often at odds
to what I'm concerned with. I mean, he is
a
sort of structuralist, and his sentences are composed according to structural principles
which appear to be at the opposite end of the tunnel we may (or may not) both
have entered. I'm not really interested in overall or "preconceived"
structures -- just in discovered
or
uncovered ones. What delights me is the fact that most of the structures I
"uncover" -- no matter how radically I push the language -- already
exist. Now, that makes me believe in Northrup Frye, if not in
myth. And that's a kind of structuralism. But I'm not at all interested in
"applying" structures to poetry, which, it appears, Silliman is.
If, by the term "making a
statement" you mean "having a meaning," I'd say "Yes, I'm
interested in that." But the whole Modernist notion of making a statement
apart from the experience of encountering the language of the poem or fiction
itself is alien to my way of thinking. I have ideas; my language is them.
Interviewers: You
also discuss several other examples of this kind of approach -- what might be called
a language dialectic in Postmodern writing. There's Eleanor Antin, who talks
about the space between herself and her name, a space which "has to be
filled with credit"; Norma Jean Deak's two-tiered performance dialogues;
various experimental "autobiographers" who seem to pursue some kind
of authentic self-in-language. Can we assume that an accommodation can be made between
language, its structural conventions, and some more immediate "quality of
experience?"
Messerli: Again,
you seem to speak of "accommodation" as a kind of mediating device,
as something which can bring what you perceive as discordant or contrary
concerns into the same arena. But what if I said, "This is a baseball
field," when it was set up for football, or "This is a football field,"
when I had clearly outlined three bases and a homeplate. I suppose you could
attempt to resolve my confusion by playing rugby or cricket, but that wouldn't be to
deal with the contradictions I've created. For, I didn't ask you to
"compromise," but asked you to work in the arena with the contradiction
itself. That, it seems to me, is what Eleanor Antin -- and David Antin, in a
radically different way -- Norma Jean Deak, and fictional autobiographists such
as Walter Abish, Toby Olson, and Raymond Federman ask. They seek not for an
"accommodation," but for an "engagement" with both
realities simultaneously. Theirs is an art that asks for the "I" of
the self and the "eye" of the character to perceive the unequivocal differences
of experience occurring at the same time and place.
Interviewers: Do you see any connections
between these examples and what is currently being discussed as the contrast
between Right- and Left-brain patterns of perception and response?
Messerli: Of course, that is behind the
dialectic most authors presume, which results in their desire for
accommodation, a synthesis. But, in my own work -- and I think this can be
applied to the works of most of the writers I've mentioned -- there is an
outright rejection of the dialectical structure. I'm not interested in writing
a poetry that employs or activates Right- or Left-brain thinking, or even in
creating a work that lies somewhere in the middle. I want to create a
literature that is constantly slipping between one and the other -- or that is
using them both simultaneously -- that would be best.
Recent
physiological and psychological experiments seem to indicate that each half of
the brain can take over the activities of the other half. So, I'd like to move
randomly between them, asking the so-called "analytical" faculties to
hear music and requiring that "part" of the brain that activates
reverie to count pistons. But here, I am speaking metaphorically, because I
really don't think you can separate pistons from music. As I
keep saying, I'm interested in using all the faculties, at full gear, in the
very same instant. Most writers, I'm afraid, have never heard anything but
contrapuntal music -- at least, it seems that way if you study the ways in which they
use language. I want a symphony in words -- maybe two or three symphonies going
at the same time as in some of Charles Ives' compositions.
Interviewers: Can we compare Postmodern poetry
with indeterminate music, which, unlike serial music, depends on the process to
create meaning, to create a situation in which music and extra-musical
activities occur, with no predictable or desired
outcome?
Messerli: Sure;
why not? Only, I've given up on the word "Postmodern." Everybody
means something different by it -- and that's okay, but not when it's the very
opposite of what others mean to say. A lot of people have begun to use that
word to mean nearly any kind of writing since 1960 or to mean
"experimental" writing or to describe something they don't
understand. To me, Postmodernism, as applied to literature, has nothing to do
with moving forward from Modernism (if you can define Modernism), but has to do
with going back and rediscovering and revising traditions the Modernists -- in
their damnable search for unity and purity -- rejected or refused to
acknowledge.
But
yes, I'd agree with your comparison. Only, the goal, in my case, isn't the
indeterminacy. It's only because I employ so many levels of language -- the
private, the formal, the archaic, jargon, clichés, unfinished phrases -- simultaneously
that any particular poem doesn't have closure. To "close" such a poem
would mean making a choice, picking the oboe, say, over the bassoon and the
tuba, or -- at the very least -- asking everybody to play from the same score
in the same room. And then, I'd never find out if can
make a whole new language, if I can uncover a whole new way to make meaning.
The indeterminacy, in other words, is not a goal but a result.
Interviewers: I was
surprised to learn that Dinner on the Lawn and Some
Distance, your
first two books of poetry, were parts of a larger trilogy. They strike me as
different in terms of line length and style. What are you up to in the third
section and how does each segment function as part of the whole?
Messerli: If you're speaking in formal terms, the
books don't function as a whole. It's just that I write in series -- which
(this may surprise some of my readers) are thematically, as opposed to
stylistically and linguistically, linked. And suddenly, I had written three
such series of almost the same length. The first, Dinner
on the Lawn, was a very personal book about language
and
love; the second, Some Distance, was a book that attempted through
language to explore my childhood in the Midwest with my present life; the
third, River
to Rivet, was
a manifesto explaining why I wrote the other two the way I did. So I decided they were all really of one
piece, each growing out of the other -- except that I put the manifesto smack
in the middle to explain the poetic and thematic principles of those at each
end. I suspect, however, that you might see these three volumes as an attempt
to say similar things in different voices; perhaps I should have a simultaneous
performance of the three volumes -- but then it would be hard to sort out the
emotional lyrical intensity of each. I guess it would be better to remember
each volume as you go along, letting the words and phrases of the first wash
over the second and those of the first two, in turn, over the third. Then there
would be formal connections.
Interviewers: What
is the importance of chance, or the accidental, in your work?
Messerli: It's
quite important in the early stages of writing. I mean, I use everything -- my
imaginary dyslexia, misheard phrases of conversation, wild associations,
sometimes (but very seldom) even dream-induced connections -- in the early
processes of writing. But, I think the fact that I revise each poem about 30
times or more reduces the significance of chance and accident in the final
draft. In short, my poetry is always ready to take advantage of accident and
chance, but it doesn't treat them as if they were sacrosanct. Sometimes the most
incredible leaps of the imagination -- the ones that really create a whole new
way of seeing and saying something -- are extraordinarily contrived. Chance
most often results in the predictable, in the same old patterns of perceiving.
Interviewers: Have
you been influenced by any particular theory of linguistics, any particular
line of etymological research? Whorf, Chomsky, "deep structures" vs.
models of language as a product of cultural adaptation, etc.?
Messerli: I'd
have to say, none of the above. I certainly do appreciate the fact that some
semioticians, and linguists, have theories that support the notions I've come
to through poetry, but it really hasn't been a source for my work at all. Of
course, I've been trained in the university, and I'd have to be a dunce in
these days not to know about the Prague school, Saussure, and the Russian
Formalists and Futurist poets. But as I've been hinting, I'm incredibly
anti-formalist -- for all my interest in genres. I think everyone should read
the linguists, semioticians, and deconstructionists. But I don't at all
advocate one using them as a basis for poetry or fiction -- or even criticism.
Interviewers: Do you
see form, as used in Postmodern writing, as a protection
against artistic or psychological "chaos," -- or as a means, an instrument,
for investigating that apprehension of potential chaos?
Messerli: Yes, I
think for many contemporary writers form is a sort of shield from what they
perceive as "chaos." I think you could see a lot of the parodists -- Kenneth
Koch, John Barth, sometimes even Sorrentino in that
context. Those writers of the front-line of the war against Modernism. Others,
perhaps, have used forms more as a way to encounter chaos; they've had more
time to psych-out the enemy, so to speak. And I find them to be more
interesting. I'd say that's true, in part, of Sorrentino at his best, Walter
Abish. Maybe my generation has been at the front for such a long time that we
don't even see the same things as "chaos." I mean, I find chaos to be
pretty rare in the world; I might even say that it's only in my poetry, in my
use of language that I really have encountered it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not
saying that things in the world don't create difficulties for me and confuse
me. But, I don't understand that as chaos really. I invite chaos -- "Come
to me," I call out. But, sure enough, I find another form underneath what
I thought might be meaningless. In fact, I find more meaning in it than in what
most people point out to me as having meaning. So I don't know if I can even say that I'm using poetry to
encounter chaos; it's just a desire to experience it. I should add, that I
don't see war as issuing from chaos, but from an insistence upon order -- the
preference of one order over another. A nuclear holocaust is not chaos -- it is
death. My poetry is centered in life, whether structured or chaotic.
Interviewers: Does
contemporary poetry (and prose) participate in a framework which investigates
its own origins? Psychological/epistemological as well as technical? Or is this
a matter of degree which varies with different practitioners?
Messerli: A
great deal of it does. Some writers, quite obviously, are more self-conscious
than others. I am very
interested in showing what I'm doing while I'm doing it. Of course, someone
like Harold Bloom might argue that this is a sort of self-reflexiveness
brought about by our hyperconsciousness of the traditions before us, our
anxiety of influence. But I don't buy that. I'm not interested in exploring
where I'm coming from out of some intellectual desire to purge or revel in my
spiritual antecedents, but because I want everybody to join in my performance
of the poem, to participate in the process of my writing it. I think, in the
end, that lends the
poem a kind of honesty. And it's that kind of honesty which allows me to put
myself on the line (perhaps I should say in the line), to let my stomach hang
out, so to speak. So, when I want to use a corn-porn pun or a ridiculously archaic
word or I want to rhyme, I don't have to worry about what the reader might
think. I let the reader in on the game at the very beginning: this isn't a poem
about me, or let's say, this isn't a poem about me alone, but about you and me
working with words. That isn't to say that I don't manipulate the reader or
make fun of him or her when they refuse to keep up. But I am fair to them in
asking for their participation. I keep them abreast of what I know as we move along
together in language.
Interviewers: Can language itself provide a
kind of modern "mythology," as an authentic source and context of
meaning?
Messerli: Yes, that's exactly what I'm
saying. Language is truth. Language makes meaning. Language is meaning. And
that signifies that to write a poem is to shoulder immense responsibility. As a
poet, can one afford to accept the world as it is? Mustn't one work with the
reader to try to recomprehend it, to reshape it?
Interviewers: Is there something to which
language -- or language artifacts -- should be faithful, responsive? Language
itself?
Messerli: To language in action, which is
life.
Interviewers: Where on earth do you find the time or energy to commute, teach, edit, publish, and write poetry, fiction, and critical essays?
Messerli: From an unearthly source,
obviously.
Reprinted from Gargoyle No. 24 (1984)
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar