press run

photo is of my print run yesterday. letterpressed poem from juliana spahr's "blood sonnets"...so far, the printing on the uni 1 has been relatively smooth.

update on _intricate systems_:

juliana's chapbook is about halfway done. printing is slow going tho. i tend to get a late start (not really truly up and going until usually after 11am) and i also prefer printing late at night. got into the habit of being in the studio back in tuscaloosa until 2am or so. not possible here (altho one heart press has been more than generous in giving me free press time), and the trip to and back one heart press is about an hour. so, not really worth while unless im actually going in to do work for chad and val, or to print. tomorrow, early start. i am really hoping to get at least 2 runs in.

after the printing, i trekked to berkeley and met up w/ friend and fellow poet, sara ( http://www.myspace.com/prettypanicks) at moe's last nite, for a stephen ratcliff/laura moriarity reading...it was nice to see her. i am wishing for a comrade (and fellow female poet) like her back in tuscaloosa. she'll be writing in brooklyn next year, doing awesome things.

readings:::

in general, im not a huge fan of readings, altho i like both stephen's and laura's work. (laura moriarty's _self-destruction_ is haunting).

favorite reading:::

back in tuscaloosa this spring, lisa jarnot.

she has a quiet sense of her work, which is expressed in her odd(ly delighful) and idiosyncratic way of reading. plus she'd just sort of go with the flow of her environment (a quietly improvisational reading), like when one embarrassed student walked in late, she just looked up and said "hey". those moments were interwoven into her writing (the wonderful part was the total un-stiffness to the reading, being aware of the relationship between context and text).

and her work is gorgeous; the repetition marches forward, where repetition is used as a method of change and destabilization.

vocalizing poetry, the performative aspect:::

the expectation that poets should be aware of how they read, how to extricate their words as sound, how to read _well_. ive noticed from the readings ive attended, many poets just look...uncomfortable. in the back of my mind, i often say things like 'pronunciate!'; 'slower damn it, slower!'

but on the other hand, it's good to go to readings to support fellow writers, check out the general scene, and talk to other writers.

reading poetry:::

the strong resonance of the word on the page, how the visual aspect of the word - it's tangibility - allows the work to change in a way that is impossible during readings. the spoken word is so transient, and in a sense, doesn't seem to do a good poem or poet justice, unless the poet is willing to stylize the reading, emphasize the spoken element (which seems separate and distinct from the life of the poem on the page) so that element allows the poem to come alive thru the performance. or else, the poem as a _spoken_ entity flops, fails, is forgotten.

today:

slow goin'. i figured i had the time to go yerba buena to dampen paper, but am in the studio reading an anthology.

ezra pound's _ABC of Reading_ is up next to be tackled.

weather: sunny but windy. deceivingly chilly.