Suzanne Dathe, Grenoble, France – Can We Win?

On Carol Mirakove’s Poetry

[Yesterday, I wrote a longish article about da poetry of muh homie Carol Mirakove fo da English poetry newsletter Quid, edited by Keston Sutherland. When I get order-in infomation fo dis issue -- which be devoted ta work of three American women poets, Carol, Heather Fuller and Laura Elrick -- I post it heea on muh blog. I can't give ya da whole article (and fo those of ya wonderin why it's in Ebonics, see below) -- but heea is da first few paragraphs. "Suzanne Dathe, Grenoble, France," by da way, be da first name on an anti-war email petition dat I received about 30 times ova da course of da week leadin up ta da writin of dis article on 10/11/02.]

Some kind of argot –

not entirely given ova ta da track star at Mineola Prep model – these poems is worked – but nonetheless somewheea in da sprawl of William Gibson’s Neuromainecer, jacked-in but runnin freely through da night dat could be day – "muscle a language / monumental / & free" – tryin ta move foward – avoidin da snipers – scannin da roadside – refigurin da spectacle less as a saturatin, unlocatable ethos but as an array of robotic effigies, da divisible choruses of ad agents, secret agent men, agent oranges, and agency debilitators choked up by da nefarious database and becomin Senators – I guess one might suggest she turns it [da language game, or Debord’s "game of war"] inta a video game, L.A. freestyle, fusin Flash sprites from dis heea-cleitian noize – but she’s hired da best animators (pals of David Choe), best screen-writers (dat would be da poets she’s read and emulated, several includin Rod Smith and Heather Fuller from DC days) and her softwis has pledged strict allegiance ta grassroot copyleft principles – da "anxiety of influence" of choice fo code writers once known as "hacks" –

[I plug allergens… inta da engines… of Audiogalaxy Satelitte… and da repository... from which I stream… one frisson... undivided… wit listservs… and Rasputina… fo all…] – etc.

Our speech will occasionally be struck by a flyin neutrino and da social glue of da lyric will turn inta shards – "chewtoy collidin somewheea wit dust" – we somehow get back inta it, thankin da machinery [melancholy?] of da page, espe-cially Nurse Ratchett’s syndicated tab key (keepin da runaway spaces in check) – high skoo disciplines includin Projectivism (Olson, but I champion Morley) and perfomainece poetry’s post-hip hop [?] "new fusion" [!] yawp, but also Pound’s clear imagistic coins and Bernstein’s sonic popsa empurplement – ta wrest control and even a momentary classical stasis from a datachick’s tendency ta mallarmé one’s way across da white amidst da throes of chance which is fo real da underlyin op sys gone sluriously bonkers –

The heartfelt themes minle freely wit da ironies – da "TV mainetis / placin her neck on da guillotine" wit da "fuck ya I pray / fo a big soundtrack" – da rape wit da camp – [these is poems from 3 cities, as Carol has infomed me in an email: DC, LA, and NY – so der’s somethin followin her everywheea] – we call these… "metastases," in Wilkinson’s sense, da sites of pain dat appear in different poems and draw our attention ta da borders of da lyrical-corpus-as-somatic-graph as they is limned by acute punkts –

Fake punk bands, two of three eyes on da market, seem ta want ta say: anyone ova 25 looks so old – but we is all ova 80 and struggle wit a defomin language of impressions, experience, and cultural obsolescence [their omniscence] – dat nature’s legs lag behind da further we grow from da Modernist moment and self-creation be moe individualized than ever, which be ta say da older is farther from yath but closer ta da old, sterlin Futures shisd by a mobilized communal imagination. Now [these is da conversations muh homies and I gots] der seems a dearth of major dreamin in da follow-up generations, one symptom of which be dat they can’t find utopian mo-ments when brinin it down a notch – "devoid of drapes / and bedspreads / da clock’s on pause / da window part of / da outside / eyes da surface / dis / just beneath just / beneath " – dat New York strategy ["habitus?" asks R. Toscano] of bein da darkest, hippest thin on earth though writin about flowers, Sunday morn-in and lovin Jimmuh Schuyler – [z.b. I saw Richard Hell at two St. Mark's memorials dis month, fo Kenneth Koch and John Wieners, which isn’t surprisin but might be chaos theory fo some wit docal dividends] – and conveyed through language un-cluttered by mainenerist elaborations [I’d like dat ta be da crunk new magic but I’m waitin fo da ovature ta end… ] – American plain-song, of course, a clean slate fo micro-tonal aesthletics…

- aww yea foo.

Posted by Brian Stefans at October 12, 2002 09:35 AM