I started my initial comments with this poem by Lucille Clifton:

which really set the tone for everything else I said. You really cannot go wrong with Ms. Lucille, her poetry just keeps on giving.

I have more gratitude to share, but I am going to let this sit here a moment.

The post Gratitude #1 first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

Over the years it has been so cool to see the work of so many poets who are friends, who I have met or whose work I just love on The Academy of American Poets website (and Poetry Foundation too).

To quite honest, I never thought anything I had written would find itself there. So you can imagine how beside myself I am with gratitude and jot that 2 of my poems Austerity and Currency are now on The Academy of American Poets’ website.
One of those poems, Currecncy is included in The Next Verse Poets Mixtape Volume One: the 4 X 4 (Central Square Press) which you purchase here.

The post Gratitude #0 first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

I heard John read for the first time here in DeeCee at the Dark Room Collective Reunion reading and I was blown away by this poem

The post Dark To Themselves by John Keene (from Jazz Poems ed. by Kevin Young) first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

A few months ago, I was very lucky to be invited to by Split This Rock to get a sneak peak at the National Gallery of Art’s new Bochner exhibition, In the Tower: Mel Bochner. Briefly, the work on display is primarily from a body of work based on words from a thesaurus and from what appears to be “found” language that Bochner presents in a painterly and minimalist style. More specifically though this body of work is centered around language; and the idea of presenting language as symbol and that language and words can simply be “objects” or that “a word can be material for artistic creation – like a dollop of paint or a lump of clay” , even when other literary and structural devices are at work such as phrase fragments, line breaks, enjambment or punctuation.

Although many critics have noted that Bochner’s “interest in text was removed from poetics and literary narratives”. It is clear in looking at this work that Bochner is using a type of “poetic design thinking” to build a visual poetics that not only makes use of text in the same manner that a writer would approach the page, but also handles the text and characters as objects that require the same care to craft as a landscape or “portrait”. Bochner here is painting, drawing and sketching “with a poet’s eye” or conversely writing poems with “with a painters hand”.

It is quite hard to ignore the literary company his “Portraits” series is keeping. In particular I am thinking of Gertrude Stein’s “word portraits” and the Bochner’s further exploration of this idea of a “portrait” made of words. Bochner furthers Stein’s exploration of the idea of a the word portrait by employing what curator James Meyer called “shape poetry”, which is known as concrete poetry in literary circles.

The possible Stein lineage in these works seems particularly plausible because of her relationship with Guillaume Apollinaire (Stein did a word portrait of Apollinaire in 1913) and Apollinaire’s relationship to Charles Boultenhouse (Boultenhouse translated Apollinaire’s Calliagrammes), whose essay “Poems in the Shape of Things” is noted as being a significant influence on Bochner’s thinking. I think that Bochner was able to execute in a painterly manner what Stein was referring to when she talked about “a word as material for artistic creation – like a dollop of paint or a lump of clay”.

One of the works that resonated with me one a few different levels was the “portrait” ,Wrap,(1966) that Bochner did of Eva Hesse and the “revisit” of that same piece some years later in 2001. Lovers of vinyl records will immediately notice the form and presentation of the text in both pieces. Both of these pieces can be read in the same manner that a 33 1/3 album spins as connects with stylus to make music. While curator James Meyers used the term “revisit” , it is my thought that lovers of hip-hop (or lovers of Lawrence Lessig or DJ Spooky) would say that Bochner “remixed” his portrait of Eva Hesse.

In a “close reading” of the 2001 remix of Wrap, Bochner, using charcoal on paper (instead paper and pen as in the 1966 piece), has created layers of words that have been erased and written over. In hiphop DJ terms, if we treat Wrap as a piece of vinyl, this erasure, obscuring or blending effect, is akin to the DJ technique of the backspin or cross-fade. This blending or backspin, if you will, has created a space where the old Wrap of 1966 is now in another kind of conversation with the remix of Wrap that occurs in 2001, both in content, form and execution.

Additionally, the suggestion of movement and motion that Bochner gives us in 2001 Wrap are almost flirting with 3 dimensional space in sharp contrast to the clearly flatland perspective of 1966 Wrap.

Again, if we treat both “portraits” as two pieces of vinyl to be played on our visual turntables, poet Saul Williams in his incantatory manifesto poem Coded Language, captures perfectly the dynamic conversation between the two versions of Wrap. Saul proclaims:

“Whereas, the velocity of spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards, and re-released at the same given moment of recorded history, yet at a different moment in time’s continuum, has allowed history to catch up with the present.”

Although created and remixed in two very “different moments in time’s continuum” the “velocity of spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards and re-released” and examined at the same moment in visual history, has allowed the these two portraits to catch up with one another in our time, In the Tower.

As I moved further through the exhibition, I was persistently struck by all the literary references in Bochner’s work not just because language was the center piece to highlight his painterly and philosophical intentions, but also because the form and structure that Bochner chooses to express these intentions.

In looking at the thesaurus-based pieces AMAZING!, Master of the Universe, Oh Well, and Babble, Bochner creates a crown of visual sonnets. Each sonnet’s form is structured in the 14 line format that is common with sonnets as the occur on the page. Bochner, however, instead of ending with a couplet he splits it so that each “line” becomes the repeating lines that carry the crown. On the canvas these are the white lines that appear at the top and bottom of each of these four works.

Although, there does not appear to be any metrical devices at work, controlling each line, the dimensions of the canvas themselves act as frames to give the visual appearance of uniformity that sonnets are known for.

Again, whether intentional or not, the literary (and painterly) qualities of these works cannot be ignored. The fact that these works exhibit such synergy with literary sensibilities and technique, give life to the Gertrude Stein aphorism “A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears”. In this body of work Bochner seems to have met the challenge of this aphorism with his materials and continues to work all the angles of language aural, oral and visual.

The post Mel Bochner: In the Tower…or in the mix? first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.

I have to admit…I have not given undun a close listen yet (although, i definitely will) nor have i purchased it (again, I will be purchasing it)…I did, however, listen to undun on NPR’s First Listen Program.

In looking at their discography it clear that language and including a literary sensibilty is important to the music that they are making, undun is no different. This title turns on an axis of meaning, leaving us as reader-listeners what narrative to build. the Free Dictionary defines undone as 1.undone – not done, 2.undone – doomed to extinction, 3.undone – not fastened or closed or tied or secured, 4. undone – thrown into a state of disorganization or incoherence.

In considering all of these definitions, acted as confirmation as to what might be behind the the curious case of Redford Stephens. As a poet, I am always consider how a thing feels  in the mouth and sounds to the ear as i consider Redford Stephens it had a very familiar syllabic structure (syllabically similar to the song Rapper’s Delight on which was released on Sugar Hill Records which was founded in1974) , this too acted as another confirmation that my suspicion might be getting warmer. The I re-considered the dates (1974- 1999)…could it possible that Redford Stephens is an extended metaphor for Hip-Hop…I know…I know some people are going to claim that I am being to shortsighted by “closing the canon”  of Hip-Hop at 1999, but there are many people who claim the come of the millennium marked the beginning of the end for Hip-Hop as we knew it..that something had indeed become undone or rather undun.

Additionally, as many extended metaphors do,  this metaphor of Redford Stephens comes out of the art itself and is making a commentary about what is happening in out in the world. As Questlove admits interview in SPIN that the reality is that Redford Stephens is a composite of many young African American men, men that are close and dear to the hearts of The Roots (Black Thought in particular).

So that is my guess on who Redford Stephens might be I am sure someone else out there is thinking the same thing, but not wanting to put it out there becauseokay it marks the beginning of the end for Hip-Hop as we knew it..that something had indeed become undone…Additionally, Okayplayers can be kind of brutal, if they sense any cliche, undeveloped conspiracy theories or empty rhetoric…I have seen some epic internet beatdown on the “the Boards” back in the day ( i have not been on the Boards for at least 11 or 12 years).

Anyway, i can’t wait to hear The Roots talk a little more extensively about the album and the any more possible symbolism in the name Redford Stephens…

undone– not done; “the work could be done or undone and nobody cared” unfinished – not brought to an end or conclusion; “unfinished business”; “the building is still unfinished”
	2.	undone– doomed to extinction sunk, washed-up, done for, ruined unsuccessful – not successful; having failed or having an unfavorable outcome
	3.	undone– not fastened or tied or secured; “her blouse had come undone at the neck”; “his shoelaces were undone” unfastened – not closed or secured; “the car door was unfastened”; “unfastened seatbelts”
	4.	undone– thrown into a state of disorganization or incoherence; “price programs became unstuck because little grain was available” unstuck disorganised, disorganized – lacking order or methodical arrangement or function; “a disorganized enterprise”; “a thousand pages of muddy and disorganized prose”; “she was too disorganized to be an agreeable roommate”

The post Who is Redford Stephens? a wild speculative riff on my first listen of The Roots “undun” first appeared on Fred L. Joiner.