shortcuts / detours

The notion of the shortcut, in this submission, as well as for one of my forthcoming books (Prefab Eulogies), is just that: something that is long that is cut, reduced, statistically fonded until what is left are sort of schematics for poems instead of the poems themselves (I do this here, in places, by writing in Python script a statistical weighting Markov Chain algorithm, inputing a huge amount of text, then shaping the small, reduced output - hence, the short and the cutting). The shortcut is also employed by various other means - through playing with "reading instructions" which are not in fact the normative "reading instruction;" with (in my other book, Occultations / forthcoming at Black Radish Books) text & image as "shortcut" for what would be text OR image, i.e., playing with overexposing the poetical idea; and also, finally, playing with what I'm constantly calling to friends (indeed this is the title of one Prefab Eulogy's sections) "Power Point Poetics," playing with the overvaluation of the anti-lyrical mode seen quite often in experimental poetries over the past several years, the entrenchment that often comes with powerful poetic movements that settle into a kind of stasis prior to new experiments opening up, in this case work that has been influenced by the (extremely important to me) New York School. An over-correction, as it were, I think, for the sap that had called itself lyrical poetry for at least a generation, I guess, is what I think I'm playing with.

About Black Radish Books: you'll find the website says "under construction." Unlike most sites that say this, it's actually true! Black Radish just got the banking in order (non profit status etc), and are now about ready to start publishing the first titles, among which my book is one. So, all comprised vetran publishers and editors of other presses who have combined for this large-distribution indie press, Black Radish Books.

Thanks for asking about these things.

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back to the story of anderson cooper

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words: David Wolach (Experiments in Text)
image: Steve Wing, Florida (about & more)