Clark's Cool Edge

So where have you been?

Here. There.

What have you been doing?

Reading. Work stuff. Not getting down to it.

Oh.

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A trajectory (of sorts):

Eva Hesse.

Sol Lewitt & Carl Andre at Tate Modern. Thinking in terms of Minimalism and its influence upon L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets.

Barrett Watten ‘The Constructivist Moment’.

Peter Gizzi’s new one – ‘The Outernationale’ – sends me back into the earlier volumes.

J.G. Ballard & Borges short stories. Ballard's landscapes.

Miles Davis ‘Complete Jack Johnson Sessions’. Teo Macero & editing. ‘Love’ by The Beatles. George Martin & editing.

Gizzi’s interview with Michael Palmer in Exact Change Yearbook.

Emilie Simon. Waif vocals & glockenspieling. (same cabinet as Lisa Ekdahl, Stina Nordensten).

Michael Palmer – poems from ‘Blake’s Newton’ and the early pages of ‘Notes from Echo Lake’.

“my poetry ... tends to concentrate on primary functions and qualities of language such as naming and the arbitrary structuring of code – its fragility – the ease with which it empties (nullifies?) itself or contradicts what might simplistically qualify as intention. (And I might add conversely, its tyranny – how it resists amendment.” (Palmer p164, the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E book). McCaffery’s text, too.

Bill Evans ‘Live at the Village Vanguard’ & ‘Everyone Digs’

‘Don’t Start Me Talking’ eds. Allen & Duncan - especially Out To Lunch spilling his Mr Ben baked beans and Harry Gilonis and Sean Bonney.

Lisa Jarnot’s ‘Black Dog Songs’ on the day I went to the zoo with Lara. Inspired. Inspiring.

Robert Creeley ‘Pieces’ and ‘Words’ and essays and interviews.

And, above all, Clark Coolidge and ‘The Crystal Text’. Ten pages a day.

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“Quartz is the original untampered word.
When I propose a live reading of poem I think of
going up there to cut some fine edges”

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“What do you see when you look out with your language?”

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“One could divide it all up into
those who know how the work should be
and those who never know before the work.
But then those who did not know began to know
the materials, an intimate action ... “

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"For whatever you can’t know you do write”

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“A phrase is also a wave”

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“Everything that surrounds
it and is not
part of it”

...

(from ‘The Crystal Text’)