Got back yesterday from three days in Oklahoma. I was invited to give a reading at Tulsa University by David Goldstein, who like me began this year as an assistant professor teaching both Renaissance lit and creative writing. Also like me, he did his grad work at Stanford, where we first met, though only briefly and seldom. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is what we have been working on and what is to come: Language poetry has been our main focus for the past several weeks and we will continue to work. Explore its possibilities. Language poetry is being explored and we are looking at the many techniques. Read the rest of this entry »

Language poetry is really thinking about a lot of the poetry that one has probably read. Read the rest of this entry »

Language poetry is held out to be one of the poetic modes of the present moment. Language poetry is a movement of convincing authority in contemporary poetics. Language poetry is the biggest trend I see, experimental writing. Read the rest of this entry »

"Language poets" have established themselves as the most rigorous and the most radically experimental avant-garde on the current literary scene. Read the rest of this entry »

Post-language is some effect beyond experimental poetry. Post-language is nothing more than the sum of speech acts produced in the context of a specific speech community. Read the rest of this entry »

David Larsen gave me a copy of "Signs, Omens, and Semiological Regimes in Early Islamic Texts," a completed chapter from his dissertation. Which is fascinating reading, and, may I mention, won the 2004 Abduljawad Prize for Best Paper on an Islamic Subject, sponsored by the Al-Falah Program of the University of California’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Read the rest of this entry »

The National Poetry Foundation Poetry of the 1940s Conference at the University of Maine in Orono ran from Wednesday to Sunday of last week. Some reconstructed memories of the whole big blur: Read the rest of this entry »

This morning, went on a beautiful country drive with Ben and Carla to the nearby town of Unity to visit their U of Maine colleague, poet David Adams, who lives there in a small wooden house by the lake with his Siberian husky Kiska. Read the rest of this entry »

Brief but eventful weekend in Boston–my first time there. Read the rest of this entry »