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Commentary on Dictée.

This is a record i had to listen to over & over, with dawning recognition of its beauty & power. At first, i didn't even like it (& i listen to a lot of way-out stuff). I would say, a lot of free jazz depends on momentarily creating cadences which are played with & then mutated--or discarded--& it's not that hard for a practiced listener to recognize them in real-time. But with this record, Coltrane is not working with cadences but with textures & clashes of textures. He's utilizing implications & absences, & it's the knowledge of his deep foundation that is what grows on you with every further listen. Poets who are wedded to the unspeakable are occasionally allowed a place in poetry, painters make a fetish of their love of mysteriousness, but musicians who go to the same place only get a sad, knowing smile from "musician's musicians" because if this is also music, everything they've spent a lifetime learning is—wrong. via

Writing Self Writing Nation.

      "Gregg"

Mallalieu y l'Age d'Or
malfunctioning garage door
      tramped down path
   to the blue pool
absent · its sometime guests
watching the world · wake up from history
      watching out
   days of Hormuz
& mine sweeper grim

Previously Unpublished Works by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.