Helsem's Rising Star.

Paradoxism.

Finally, a publication i was waiting for.

Don't read this. (via dr menlo) [I guess if this
election thing doesn't work out, we could just
all join the Republican Party, eh?]

Overview of Xenakis.

A brief email exchange on the exo/esoteric divide:

"Michael,

Very useful info. Thanks. I'm shocked that this
essay is still up! Or maybe you saw it cached
through Google? I haven't had that AOL account for
years. The essay was part of a class I taught at
the Garret about three years ago, I think. It was
intended as a kind of blog before there was blogging,
but not many people responded to it. I'll see if I
can still access it and add your comments as a note.

Very interesting that you mention "folk poetry,"
which is a phrase I've been using in my recent
thinking as a way to distinguish poetry whose author
is not deeply invested in whether or not s/he has
an audience from poetry that is written as an entree
into the po-biz marketplace and thus is written
with the express goal of cultivating an audience,
whether that audience is other poets, critics, readers,
or search committe chairs. It's probably not
"folk" in the way that the folk art (painters,
sculptors) is "folk," though, where the term seems to
connote lack of academic training and thus no
adherence to the conventions of "High" art, though not
necessarily a withdrawal from the trade marketplace
(Finster, for example, must make quite a good
living). I think I use the term in reference to poets
who choose to stay outside the game of "courting"
approval. I think entangled in my thinking about
this is also what seems to be a trend in the last
five years or so (maybe it's post-post?) to go "Low"
in diction, tone, subject matter (I think of
Brenda Coultas's new book A Handmade Museum). In
fact, I probably got off on this track while thinking
about the current popularity of the prose poem,
which seemed to rise creepily out of many people
realizing simultaneously that the prose poem is a
flexible way to achieve the ends of poetry while
simultaneously working in a way that was at the
moment considered to be out of vogue...
notwithstanding the underground tradition of the
prose poem itself.

bc" (Brian Clements)

>From: michael helsem <*************.com>
>To: ************.com
>Subject: evolution of difficulty
>Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 12:07:23 -0700 (PDT)
>
>i think the proper framing of this issue
>is in the distinguishing of "folk poetry"
>from "court poetry", which is visible in
>many, if not all, of the world's considerable
>literatures. in our Western European lineage,
>the Alexandrians seem to have been the first
>poets to write for other poets; & the name
>of Lycophron became synonymous with "pretentious
>obscurity". among the Troubadours, there was
>such a thing as "trobar clus"--& the same poet
>could write both hermetic & accessible poems
>without incongruity. in Old Norse Court Poetry
>(perhaps the most difficult--in every sense--
>that has ever been written) it is hard to imagine
>these involuted figures as anything except brain-
>teasers for people with WAY too much spare time.
>finally, in Late Tang poetry, such writers as Li
>Shangyin wrote poems that were so equivocal the
>very subject of them has been an object of debate
>ever since. i think we can conclude that wherever
>coteries form, their natural inclination is toward
>privatizing their discourse.
>