Welcome (back) to the now

Ok, I've been totally lame and not updated since September. I could say I was busy, which is true. But lazy is probably more accurate.

I just finished my final project for my City in Ruins course, which was a 60 page chapbook of poems, lyric essays, and photographs about ruins. The photos where taken by Linda and me (and one by my dad) of ruins in Louisiana both flood related and not. The poems were sort of persona/erotic/ruin poems, which can be said about all my work, probably.

This does not mean that I'll quit rambling about ruination. But I can probably throw a few non-academic things around, occasionally.

Semester starts this week and will be taking Erotics of Visuality, which is about portrayals of desire and sex in film, I guess. Workshop and poetry reading. Etc.

Because I've been such an asshole, I leave you with a photo from my project:

This was taken in Dulac, Louisiana. It is an abandoned boat filled with marsh grass.

Talking Statuary

In Medieval Italy, there was a fragment of a statue the Romans dubbed Il Pasquino. It was the head and torso of a male, badly damaged with basically a missing face, arms, legs, next to another even more fragmentary masculine torso. The Romans, for whatever reasons motivate a Roman, began scribbling bits of verse and attaching them to Il Pasquino--often irreverent satire aimed at the clergy and the politicians. What happens is that though fragmentary and though unnerving (especially because of the eerie non face), Il Pasquino began to be reconstructed, not through a physical refurbishing of the statue, but through a textual reconfiguration of both the statue and the Roman people. In essence, they saw ruin, but rather than becoming paralyzed by the morbidness of the mutilated human body, they elevated it and themselves and created something entirely new.

It is a common trope, especially for the Romans whose culture we inherit: the resurrection of the gods of the mystery cults (Mithras, Osiris, Dionysus, Jesus, etc), the myth of the phoenix, even the cliché of the reverdie during spring. But it is a trope that is nevertheless and unflaggingly interesting to us as humans. We are obsessed with our own mortality, right?

But as an artist, this age-old narrative becomes not only an easy fallback when creativity lacks, but also and especially an ars poetica. To create something out of the ruins. To never repair what is broken, but to reconstitute and rearrange. And also to revise.

For me, I go under a constant revision--not necessarily in my work, but in my life. There are memories that have caused me to recreate my past in my mind, first effacing both the good and the bad. One must work with a blank medium, so I thought. But now I am revising my methods, or at least acknowledging what I've been doing all along: pulling the voice out of the ruined face of my past. And now, I am rejuvenated in my work, having been inspired.

Il Pasquino is not as famous as other, more silent, ruins, such as the Belvedere Torso or the Venus de Milo. But he functions more as the bawdy and entertaining emblem of the community, rather than the classical and polished icon of a society. He uses foul language (did you know that shithouse is cacatorium in Latin?) and references sodomy, pederasty, and genitalia with wanton abandon. He even uses clever grammatical construction to attack grammar. But he is also the voice of the city and the patron saint of writers (this quote is taken from Barkin's Unearthing the Past):

pastore,
avendo per armento ogni scrittore [119, year 1516]

a shepherd,
who has every writer as a member of his flock.


In any case, this is all to say that ruins, even of your emotional history, are good, especially when you have the chance to reconstruct them and change them into something new.

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Also and Attention: I will make an appearance, poem in hand, at a concert of Bárbara Ohana, on the 27th. And she will be performing a song that she made of one of my poems. She is also performing on the 24th and in Washington, D.C. this weekend. Details will be forthcoming. Email me if you want more information.

City in Ruin Value

It has been a busy and long week as you may have guessed. I began coursework at Cornell two Fridays ago. And my home town and parish were ravaged by Hurricane Gustavo (my family and theirs are more or less fine, minor roof damage chez mes parents, no utilities until God knows when, the standard). But to avoid getting too personal, at least at this moment (although I do want to extend sympathy and prayers (of whatever sort) to those who've had to experience these such storms), I want to talk about a possible shift in topic for this blog based upon a seminar I'm taking.

The course is called City in Ruins, and the ultra-sexy course description includes readings from Mesopotamian and Hebraic lamentations of cities (think Ur, Babylon, and Jerusalem), paintings by Piranesi and others, poetry by Byron and Spencer, urban redevelopment by Haussman, urban warfare in London and Paris during WWII, speculative texts by Benjamin and Derrida, and a host of things that I cannot remember probably because I haven't actually heard of them until the syllabus was whisked into my hand. Basically, the course is to explore the aesthetization of ruin.

And as trite and removed as it possibly can be with posturing doctoral candidates and over emotional MFA students and a sharp emeritus professor from Johns Hopkins, this class is right up my ally and right up this blog's ally. So don't be surprised if I use this space for a sounding board of ideas and reflections on my readings and on my semester work, whether that be creative or critical. Such things as how in the destruction of Jerusalem, "even her lovers have deserted her" (Lamentations), or that each city lamentation ends with a regenerated hope and a transfer of grief onto the next city, who's about to get hers. Or how about how according to Jacques Ellul, whackjob theologico-philosopher and anarchist, all cities are necessarily doomed because the concept is a priori cursed and not of God regardless of the individual acts of the citizens and that in fact, doing anything to help the needy or improve life within cities is cute, but always futile and ridiculous.

As you can see, this will be fruitful and ire-inducing and a great horror class.

The End of Culture? Pop edition.

For a long time, I've been dubious about culture. You know that. But now I mean what most media (think television and blogs) define as culture: pop culture.

That's right. It started at the beginning of the twentieth century with such external artifacts as jingles and jazz and comic books. It essentially meant what normal people were interested in if they weren't academics, the rich, or criminals--although there is some looseness to those rules. Later, specifically after World War II and most strongly in the mid fifties, pop culture began to take on the qualities that we know and love today.

The dialectic of counterculture. First there was rock and roll which was overtaken by late sixties psychadelia, then punk came and was thought to be the end of established culture. Then there was glam, post punk, and heavy metal. Then hip hop. Then grunge. Then hipsters. Could this be an example of ruin value in culture, becoming more beautiful as it becomes more fragmented?

Nope. And I would like to link to a few things and then continue my point. The first is an article about hipsters calling it the end of western civilization, undoubtedly ironically. The second is not a rebuttal so much as an eloquent "Who cares?" by my friend Catherine Lacey. And what CL says is true: Hipsterism, especially that group defined by fashion and obscure music, is insignificant. But to stretch this further, so were all of the other "movements."

Hear me out on this. I know you are thinking, but punk, those people were really trying to do something. Or you can't say the children of the sixties were insignificant, look at the protests, etc. And I'll even concede that some of those movements did have more of the traits of a culture than the movements do now.

But curiously, none of these subcultures have really passed on to the second generation. They only exist within the context of their times. Whereas culture, in terms of external signs of the qualities of a specific group of people, such as Black New Orleans or Cajun or whatever, tend to last. These cultures are taught to children who then embody those traits or suppress them and still embody them subconsciously.

This can be explained away fairly easily when you look at what these counterculture movements really are: they are just the placeholders for an archetype that must be repeated each cycle of years. They can be an agent of change, but for the most part, only change in a superficial sense--that of pop media. There will always be decisions made by established authority that must be rebelled against. Punks, hippie protesters, grungy people in the nineties were all protesting specific acts either by the government or society. Their music and fashion were contingent upon those attitudes. Did their behaviors rock society to its foundations by overturning established norms? Not a chance. Prod society into greasing its huge clogs in order to move inevitably in the direction it moves? Perhaps. But the importance we place upon these cultural events is mostly a product of a consumer society. Which is to say, they are not very important at all, at least in terms of lasting cultural significance in and of themselves.

We seem to forget also that this behavior is not a product of post WWII attitudes. Consider the Dolcinians of the 14th century who were a counterculture within the church which advocated the abolition of private property and protested by burning down church property. They undoubtedly had a certain style, certain artforms to entertain themselvees--but it would be weird to consider the followers of Fra Dolcino a culture. Incidentally, they were all killed as heretics, so I can't say as to whether their "culture" could have survived a generation or not.

I would think that culture is the set of signs and attitudes that allows one to live comfortably with ample entertainment within his or her group of people. If we use that definition, then these countercultures are merely signs within the real culture of American society. That is to say, the culture of America includes being obsessed with media entertainment and the unfolding of the pop culture dialectic. The difference between pop culture one hundred years ago to now is that cultural artifacts are now demassified and so pop culture is more defined by the ability to find a niche in fashion or entertainment than any unifying piece of art or media. This is our culture: finding something to consume.

Prodigal Blog

I haven't posted anything since the end of my tenure as a Fulbright in Moncton, but I guess it is time to refigure my blog to accommodate that change. Here is the relevant personal information:

On June 20th I married my lover, Linda Rigamer, in New Orleans. Three days later we drove across the country to our new home in Ithaca, New York. We've been here since.

Now I am living through summer with new interests and old projects. I am working on translating some Acadian poetry for The New Orleans Review. I am working on revising Evangeline. Considering writing the third part. "Studying" professional wrestling as a cultural and significant art/entertainment spectacular. Considering how I can integrate that in poetry and/or everyday life. Considering watching The Dark Knight again. Every night this week. Until it closes. Cooking often. Figuring out what to do with a dearth of closets. Being either with my wife or alone.

Busy enough. Orientation for Cornell will start on the 25th of August, so as much as I want/need a job, options for a month long job are limited at best in tiny Ithaca.

So what of my blog? I had a reasonable idea with the cultures of Acadie and Cajana in their present form as a demonstration of Ruin Value. Although I am sure I didn't express that except cursorily. That's saved for my poetry and life. But of course, ruin can be applied to anything. The evolution of revolutionary democracy to today's circus of politics. Poetry as demassified and worthless cultural relic. The shift from long, boring scientific wrestling bouts to the high-flying sports entertainment/totem worship ceremony of today.

These things and more, friends and citizens.

Frye Jam

As promised, here are some videos from Saturday night's reading.


This first one is of me performing "Offshore."


This second video is two poems: "Canto Incorruptible" (performed in French) and "New Orleans" (which is the final show-stopper, in English, and begins at about 2:19).

Both videos were shot by Lee Thompson.

Moncton Finale

My Fulbright stay in Moncton has formally ended. And the Frye Festival was the perfect way to do it.

From Wednesday to Friday, I entered the anglophone highschools on the Moncton area and essentially read poems to teenagers. You would be surprised how much poetry still can affect people. The kids were engaged and shocked and were thoroughly moved, I think, which was energizing and validating and anything you need as a writer. I couldn't have asked for a better audience in many cases. Also, I received cool highschool schwag, such as a leather portfolio (from Moncton High), a cookbook (from Caledonia High), and a t-shirt and mug (from Harrison Trimble).

Wednesday night I saw the Zachary Richard concert, where I met the artist. We were just two Cajun anglophones talking to one another in French in Acadie.

Linda came Thursday night just in time for the last poem of my reading, "New Orleans [kudzu king]."

On Friday I conducted my first radio interview, with Radio Canada, and totally in French.

The final event of the Frye Festival (for me at least) was the Frye Jam on Saturday Night, which features readings by authors with musical accompaniment from the band, Les Païens. This was the highlight of the festival. I "performed" four poems quite theatrically while the band played amazing and genre bending music from and industrial rendition of "Offshore" to the Saint James Infirmary behind "New Orleans [final]." It was surprising how well I fell in to adapted the rhythm of my speech to the pulse and melody of the songs. For the first time in my life, I felt like a rock-star.

Incidentally, I feel like I want to cut an album of my poems now.

I didn't stay long after my performance because Linda and I had to drive to Rhode Island, which Linda bravely led--I was burned out after the week of visits and packings and endless endless goodbyes.