June 23, 2013 Round Table #5- Meaning

On June 23rd, the three of us tackled MEANING in writing. We come from a generation of polysemantics, or writing that has multiple meaning. We started off with a Edwin Denby quote provided by past guest, Tinker Greene: the holding of the poem renders meaning. Can we say that something has meaning when it has coherence? Another level of meaning is contained in the conversation about a piece of art, even when we might be questioning the piece's efficacy. We talked about how writing constraints play with the possibility of meaning.
Art is always a form of communication, a social object. When we make art, we may have an audience in mind. Readers bring their own stuff to the poem that informs the meaning they derive from it. But even if we are not invested in the meaning our audience gets from our writing, how do we react if a reader derives meaning that runs contrary to our core values? Through this conversation, we grappled with the 'death of the author.' Once a poem is released into the world, in a sense it no longer belongs to the writer, because the audience will imbue it with meaning.
Towards the end, we talked about how journalling fits into our ideas about meaning, and how writing that is never shared with others functions within our writing practice.
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June 9, 2013 Rodney Koeneke Part 2

After tackling some technically difficulties, it was our pleasure to play the second half of our interview with poet Rodney Koeneke. He shared how he constructed his upcoming book Etruria (Wave Books, 2014), and the diverse array of source material that finds its way into his work. Rodney thinks of his poems as 'complete thoughts/songs;' he works in singularity as opposed to series. In discussing his editing process, he talked about how the bulk of his poem is a way of investigating or 'puzzle over the why' of how he came to find something interesting. At the top of the hour, in the studio, we wondered how much collage plays a part in Rodney's work, and even where writing from a place of possessing diverse and expansive knowledge that just finds its way into the work ends and collage begins. Rodney's poems have 'time signatures,' that is, references to technology and contemporary phenomena. Poetry that includes these references is new to us in both reading and writing. We considered how Flarf strays from the lyrical tradition. How liberating! When we returned to Rodney's interview, he talked about how he took part in the Bay Area writing community. He read some newer work that will be published in a chapbook by Hook Press. We ended by talking about Rodney's online presence; check him out on Goodreads! After the interview, Jay read a Amazon review by Bay Area's own Kevin Killian.
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June 2, 2013 Rodney Koeneke

This Sunday, we played part 1 of our April interview with Rodney Koeneke. Rodney, who, while living in the Bay Area, had been involved with the Flarf Collective, now lives in Portland, where he works as a history professor. His expertise in history is evident in his work, which is chock-full of literary, historical and social references; we follow him as he leaps from obscure factoid to pop-culture gem throughout the poem. Rodney was generous enough to share his forthcoming Etruria (Wave Books, 2014) with us and we hear quite a bit of it during our interview. Just as Napoleon created the territory Etruria, poets create a world within their writing. His work is both complex and conversational.  Rodney is the first poet to discuss Flarf poetry on our show and it was great to hear the social context of this movement. He introduced Urdu writing through reading his 'ghazal.' In closing today, we touched on meaning within poetry and what types of content we allow into our work to communicate meaning.
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May 19, 2013 Carla Harryman live!!!!

On Sunday May 19th, Carla Harryman did us the honor of joining us live in the studio. The show opens (and closes) with a recording of a performance of Carla's translation of a Theodor Adorno lecture. The lecture addresses how 'New Music' is 'bracketed away' from 'music as a totality' and how this new music strives to address social concerns. In this lecture, Adorno questions the term of 'New Music' while focusing mainly on Arnold Schoenberg. Carla talked about the possible connections between New Music and social critique. We discussed Carla's own relationship to music as well as how her poetry works on the page but also in performance. A little later in the interview, we transitioned to talking about her book of essays and poetry, Adorno's Noise (Essay Press 2008), and listened to examples of how the pieces within allow slippage between these two forms. Carla discusses her 'poetics of negation,' which grapples with the problem of language, it having become a doubtful mode of public communication and discourse (as similarly critiqued by Language poets.) We luckily did not end without hearing some work from this wonderful and complex book.
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May 5, 2013 Tinker Greene Live!

On May 5th poet, and awesome chapbook-maker, Tinker Greene joined us in the studio. We started off the interview talking about how Tinker began making chapbooks of his poetry. Tinker makes his chaps at home, incorporating photographs and art, and passes them out to those who want them. We discussed the tendency towards seriality. Tinker dates most of his poems; this fact led us to discuss time and writing, how time informs process and construction. We had the pleasure of hearing quite a few of his poems read in the studio. As a photographer, Tinker's poetic attention to the visual strongly conveys emotional content without sentimentality. Due to this interplay of the visual and written, his poems end up being inter-media pieces. He trusts that the images that come to him should be gathered in the poem. Tinker gives away his chaps to those who want them so if you can email us or comment on this post, and we can connect you with him. He is creating a new chap so expects to be doing readings soon. Keep your eyes open for announcements!!!!
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April 28, 2013 Round Table Discussion 4: Writing as Revolution

On April 28th, we sat down to chat amongst ourselves about writing as a revolutionary act. We hope that hearing our discussion will spur our listeners to join the conversation. First we tossed around the idea of 'revolution' itself and the different ways that writing can affect change. Through this conversation, we briefly returned to the subject of audience and how might writing and poetry reach enough people to create societal change. Also, who owns language and where does the poem come from? When we put words on paper, from where do those words originate? How do we strive to be political in our own writing. What attracts us to writing and talking about writing? And lastly, what kind of revolution are we looking for in the world?
This coming Sunday we'll have our first live interview in some weeks, but for now, we hope this round table talk encourages further consideration of poetry and social transformation.
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April 7, 2013 Round Table Discussion 3: Audience

On April 7th, the three of us sat down to talk about poetic audience. Who reads our writing and what agency does the poetry have in the larger world? We discussed 'difficult' poetry and whether this type of work is only read by other poets. We hope this work has a broader reach than just other experimental or Bay Area writers, but in this case, how do we share our work with those who might not otherwise feel drawn to it? We talked about how poetry and literature are taught in schools and how we may have come to be attracted to experimental work. As poets, we may or may not consider who we are writing to or about when we write the poem. We started to tackle issues of words and ownership (which we we delve further into in our next round table). Towards the end, we discussed the editing process and how community effects our writing.
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