All my recent attempts

to make oatmeal in the microwave have ended with the oatmeal exploded all over the inside of the microwave. Perhaps I'll have to go back to making it on the stove. Doubtless you find this fascinating.

What came in the mail:

On Friday: Neocrosis (2004) & Neutrality (2005) , both by Keston Sutherland from Barque Press and also a letter. Am particularly fond of "FOR CATEGORY\ "A"\WINN" in Neocosis for its list of fireworks and for other reasons. I actually haven't read Keston's work extensively. Here's my tossed off thoughts after 20 minutes of reading: There's often a density of language that feels like an assult--these poems aren't about creating headspace (which is fine, much as I like headspace). He can have a good ear and plays around with that when it suits the poems. They're often discursive, which in general irks me, although I feel like I've heard people say "that poem is too discursive" when what they really mean is that it brings up politics and the syntax isn't quite right. That is not what I mean by "discursive." Instead, I think I mean that the poem is telling me what to do, and it feels like someone else told the poem what to say. Which is true of all poems, I guess. Does anyone know what I'm trying to get at here? At their best these poems have an awareness of actual subjects and bodies getting fucked up by or being responsible for or working through the theoretical/political language. Here's something from "Roger Alies," that interests me, in the same chapbook:

--from here you can get out by satirising disorientation
yes the flirting with getting out can be negative and not a forte
yes the disorientation is not political when it comes to it.
It's a disorientation of language. The nostalgia

for pastoral streches freely to material
and signifier, rhymed with
week-day.
The anguish of that.
The angoisse (For Mallarme).

You will never be the same again after your hair is going.

(I can't make blogger format that right. The line spacing is wrong).

On Saturday: Two very lovely copies of the 3rd edition of Jessica Smith's bird-book, which I love for various obvious and inobvious reasons. Have a look at outside voices. I shall write my thoughts of them during my first tutoring break.