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AN ELECTRONIC SPACE FOR NEW POETRY, PROSE, AND POETICS
___________________________________________________________________________
EDITORS: Kenneth Sherwood and Loss Pequen~o Glazier Version 2.1
ISSN#: 1070-0072 Winter 1994
___________________________________________________________________________
RIFT02.01 is copyright (c) 1994. All rights revert to author(s) upon
publication. Texts distributed by RIF/T or e-poetry@ubvm may not be
republished for profit in any form without express consent of author(s)
and notification of the editors, but may be freely circulated among
individuals for personal use provided that this copyright statement is
included. Public archiving of complete issues only, in electronic or print
forms, is permissible provided that no access fee is charged.
Responses, submissions, and queries to:
[email protected]
___________________________________________________________________________
R I F / T 2 . 1 ________ SEARCH_TERMS _________
Katie Yates these float on white bordered
William Howe pagednesse
Matthew Huddleston BECKONing pulpit
Lisa Jarnot 16 DEFINITIONS CONSTRUCTED
Gary Gach G O L D
Susan Schultz LIMITED STOCK OPTIONS
Loss Pequen~o Glazier T H E B U R I A L G O U R D
Hank Lazer NEGATION
Kenneth Sherwood waves that SIMPLY
Louie Crew RECALCULATING WORDS' WORTH
Frank Stevenson re flec/frac tion on space
Eric Peterson DISJUNCTION
[email protected] tunes of errors
DERRIVATIONS/DEVIATIONS: "texts written in a responsive mode"
William Howe
Editorial Notes
A Highly Empirical Analysis
CHAPBOOK EXTENSIONS
Robert Kelly The Invaders
[KELL02.01]
Jorge Guitart Morphbabarchant & The "Noit Air" Av Variation
[GUIT02.01]
Benjamin Frielander Perpendicular and Paralell Theses
for Reading Alongside Riffs 1-10
[FRIE02.01]
Patricia Wahl It's The Fault Of The Tlaxcaltecas
(trans. of Elena Garro)
[WAHL02.01]
REVIEWS [REVI02.01]
Hank Lazer on _Errata 5uite_ by Joan Retallack.
Chris Funkhouser on Nathanial Mackey's recent work.
___________________________________________________________________________
< K A T I E Y A T E S >
these float on white bordered in pale flames (note)
verdi, the fall faces. hers agains pane
the horse of rome and the feather flocks are out blue from cobalt
shutt
pressed insid
lie curled aroun
I trusted
even spending a y
or locked inside a te
but knots, pictures [
the gauze strips care
wrenching later, licki
"your head above me
the kingfisher is
heavy
[RIFT01.01]
___________________________________________________________________________
< W I L L I A M H O W E >
pagednesse
page politics the politics of the page turn the page handle the page turn
your hand over turn your mind continue your read the page becomes
transpearant becomes illusion ignore the fact of the page ignore the unity
that it represents and you quickly come to the end of the book pool ticks
of body/mind/page become anti-sublimed into non-exhistance through
ignorence ov the enterrelationboat uf tha three an act of page turning
links the three beyond the level of the read the move-ing of the page by
the hand or fingers or tongue or toes or elbows interrrupts the
flow of the words in such a way that we must be trained out of the habit
of notice-posterchildness of the event "good" writing does not draw
attention to this pro-cesspool in fact it denies it any signification
whatsoever but still the act of turning the page in itself functions to
devide meanings (sous rature) sounds images into dis-stinck-t group kings
that limit certain readiing practices we are discouraged from flipping back
and fourth threw a book looking for links that ruptures the illusion of
commun(forn)ication (being that the illusion implies a linear one to one
coorespondance as well as a one two three [w]order) thus we are
institutionally mired in a molasses of unintellaged line ness that forks us
into a small corner of the possible reading floorspace we must learn to
unread the page in order to see it again and we must aware ourselves of
the motion of our bodies and the role that they halve to play in the
production of the read i e the roll that turning the page plaies in
learning of a text how do we read the act of the turn-yearning
___________________________________________________________________________
< M A T T H E W H U D D L E S T O N >
BECKONing pulpit (dust angels
from a RED earth rumor, tradition)
like cedar ASH like words beckoning STAR pulpit boxed park
they pin us. where I red earth but LIKE
(burning shape shift as ash, the cedar ash WIND shaven doubt
final dissolution of earth) the ROOTS, even, a six shooter tuned
to stand to CHURN another box, unioned.
SIX SHOOTER ungrasped blow, stand postion, UNgrasp
(gunning down options shooting POTENT my fear duds
from a limited repertoire- by six lane MISery night's cut
holing the question combusting pulPIT
tactless but straight) (breaking cups,
oh the HIGHWAY my cup's platter
combusting PULPIT splatter)
(without right authority) shapes chew
to KNOW a shape TO know entirely, swallow,
entirely, TO SWALLOW DIVE and thicken. the twelve stars,
DIVE and thicken. the misPLACEd stone, the fire
(what is imbibed latches on, now forgotten but pinned, neatly.
dives, entails doubt,
as fire can, as we do)
twelve stars, a stone
and a DOUBT can
FIRE us.
beckoning pulpit BOX BECKON a star pulpIT, bOX, parK,
(delineate, jagged edge (syllable gusting)
soiling a boundary but) where I like REd earth am cedar ash
in a park and roots, even, shave DOubt.
where I would be BUT wind (redefining, shaken,
shaven, THE roots, even sinewed on pedestal pulpit)
red EARTH churning ash as body words union, to stand position
BECKONS words to union, pinned to ungrASp the six shooter POtEnt
the us in ANOTHER box, blown as duds, six lane Misery
(always bend, my tear NIGHTS cut another
all ways bend) combusting PULPIT. shapes
yes, there to stand POSITION know entire to swalLOW, dive
potently to shoot DUDS, tear and thicken: the twelve stars,
tossed MEMORY, the six lane the misPLACED stone.
ACHING through my night's
combusting pulpit, chewing SHAPES
ENTIRELY to swallow dive
and THICKEN, twelve stars,
(who gists the ache?)
a stone, now forgotten.
[HUDD01.01]
___________________________________________________________________________
< L I S A J A R N O T >
16 DEFINITIONS CONSTRUCTED FROM MEMORY
for Lee Ann, Bernadette, and Brian
As a small south american squirrel
inhabiting mostly mountainous regions
would feed on lizards half-way between
poles of the tropics, I too would fall
heartbreaked in the settlement of feuds
or the fields of kentucky.
When the moss grows high between the
perennials and disordered mimmocks weep,
these dainty fastidious gestating mammals
break for leavened bread and sup between
the rows of trees, lifting like friars
some heavy books in sunlight's morning
windows where the mollusks row in scion's
quadragesimal phyla.
___________________________________________________________________________
< G A R Y G A C H >
G O L D
Panama, February 25
Translation from Stephane Mallarme
Very vain but universal divinity, it
won't display its own exterior.
This refusal to betray any glim-
mering ought to stop, as light becomes
more and more outside. Desperate ex-
travagances, matching the penetrating
vessel, no surrender, celebrating water
and sky in its blaze.
But, no! The instant came
flashing ...
That a bank could crash, with
the wave, the mediocre, the gray.
Cash -- engine of terrible pre-
cision, plain to consciousness -- in a
certain sense, loses.
Fantastical sunsets, as lone
clouds totter in the forsaking we make
of dreams, treasure's liquidation, slinks,
smoldering on the horizon. I've had an
inkling there of what's possible with
ciphers of hundreds and more -- equally
those whose account in an indictment or
a financial lawsuit leaves me existentially
cold. The incapacity of grandiloquent
figures to translate calls attention to an
instance sought out through this index:
if a number grows and shrinks, approach-
ing the improbable, it signs more or less
zeros after its name, signifying its sum
spiritually equivalent to next to nothing.
A billion is smoke, except for the
moment for going in for the kill. Or, the
lack of dazzlement, even with interest,
cites that a god isn't elected to be confined
to the shadows of coffers and pockets.
Without any complaints about my
sillinesses' being duped by the obliteration
of gold in the theatrical circumstances of
seeming blinding, clear, cynical: I dream on
that, doubtless by default of money to shine
abstractly, it is given to the writer to shore
up the radiant glimpse with words he or she
proffers forth as those of Beauty, and of Truth.
- 1898
[RIFT01.01]
___________________________________________________________________________
< S U S A N S C H U L T Z >
LIMITED STOCK OPTIONS
I should have known the past
wouldn't give up so easily, jangling
like a dog's collar, the creak
of a truck at a local intersection,
distant tide of tires and beyond
that--of course!--the sea's snarl
and bend, its backwash almost
language (though at best, bad Wordsworth).
Take dictation, but don't subsume
self in another's syntax; break it
first (you who are so oppositional)
and though others surround you
with love, don't let it interrupt
your nervous ordinary search for
meaning--oh hackneyed two-syllable
counter-weight to wind or engine's
backfire, eternal summer's descent
into the sound, if not the self
of autumn, raking through palms
that once were scattered on ungraded
streets of a middle eastern city,
then reproduced in my golden book,
at which I wondered, always a skeptic
admiring belief. Child of dualities,
blessed with a genetic calm to lean
against an equally inherited panic,
I've invented more points of view
than Henry James to enforce my security
zone, and burnt toast reminds me
of an hour to which I'm not accustomed,
light scattering purple eastern
clouds before blue monotone. Birds, cars:
we are all commuters, fooled by a word
to think our sentences overturned--
clemency an act of justice, as of weather.
Teased by prospects, the painter must
attend to colors, shifting attention
like a boxer to the particular glint
of sweat in his opponent's worry lines.
The smallest detail obsesses, cures
a larger wound, though TV gives us
too many: surely the pain of a dying
man is not eased by any number of NFL
injuries, though they are real and supplant
ours--if we're lucky--even for those
whose souls outpace them, with jokes Freud
would want to note: denotation's the rage,
say students accustomed to meaning's brief
flirtation, the depths of its hiddenness,
taunting them like a green dwarf at the end
of a football field, whose function is as
mysterious as this process of learning things
so as to make our lives more difficult.
My imagined jay chases fantasmal squirrels
in this mental protectorate of old time,
where friends proleptically retire
to houses in dull fields, peopled by cows
and muttering creeks, and the cost
of living is as friendly as the hypothetical
natives. Indigenous we ain't, though we are
envious of those our forbears foreclosed:
hence the guilt that seeps through halls
whose thick concrete has no capacity
to shield us from what mirrors we suspect.
Paranoia's the sanest form of inattention:
adds certainty to suspicions, is more constant
than the muse, whose spots of time wash out
with the red clay of pine fields and blood
that seeped around sugar stalks before
my advent, latest claimant of the land
and minds, perplexed guide to a literature
of snow and birches, unseen birds and
inconceivable snakes. This can't be Eden:
there never was a serpent that wasn't
impounded at the airport (where the temp
is always 85), and guavas resemble apples
only in their being fruits. Cast outside
the central myths, castaways of accustomed
sense, our vocabularies ambiguous as
rope bridges slung across crevasses
where stunt men ride bicycles off cliffs,
dangling like obsolescent dandelions
from parachutes. How green my valley
of Makiki, paved with asphalt and good
intents and purposes! Swim with dolphins,
they're so much freer than we are, even
in their hotel pools, from which they can
see presidents and rock stars, doubtless
awed by the experience. You tourists know
so much more than we about yourselves
and your momentary exile in what approximates
paradise (with exceptions duly listed above)--
deference is haste, but wastrels wear
their frowns, nameless as vagabonds, houseless
and somehow still free. I thank my friends
for this party, the indices of which I wasted,
though by my nature I am not unsuspicious.
Another codicil has been reached, and the plateau
comes into sharper focus, its playing field leveled:
Still, the future exists as concept.
I may yet settle there.
[SCHU01.01]
___________________________________________________________________________
< L O S S P E Q U E N~ O G L A Z I E R >
T H E B U R I A L G O U R D
\\
\\
\\=====____
_______\ }}-__________
++++++++ \__}}-+++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
_____________________________________________
fluidrachm a carpet
sotto unsheathd feet
_simian or sort for
pre-existent cond._
como va or flageolets
oated - past Ncrement
an under-chambre
is parsing under
metric feet.
_____________________________________________
gothics penetrate
one -- any one of
in as much, il y a
i n t e r f o l i a
or of pages dis
interred %en
plages ou% only
tracks slip zeal-
ously into jeal-
ous bur-
rows.
_____________________________________________
asi, the only way
ward or poste to
keep one require
a pilgrimmage to
ls -hautes terre
rusted yen utero
en__terrain__son
sec__in___uTahen
dig up ancestral
remains
from ancient grid
et point them i/o
pposing direction.
_____________________________________________
always slippint
mget *.* words
down - but it's
the others that
ride just on th
edge - those ar
---------------
the ones that h
are the ones th
have the etesta
---------------
pin through the
flesh or a nail
piercing aslivr
off shunted lip.
_____________________________________________
chipdword wrongly
disinterred - off
acing now awrong
mode d[emploi ou
should have been
left
in rawhide amber
burnt in boilary
of corruptionist.
[RIFT01.01]
__________________________________________________________________________
< H A N K L A Z E R >
NEGATION 3
in
that it must however
end(ure)
nothing like it
despite
unreasonableness from all parties concerned
regardless of stated intention
euthanasian invitation
sedimental mood
declaration of (from)
elbow room
alleviate
terminal degree
heuristic (yoursister)
anabaptist
nor way
deadly sons
in
no
death
extracts promises that
allotropism is all over
turn a
hora the hora
moan moan
and
iteration can be lived with
next to
tabernacle knock on wood
and
iteration can be lived with
next to
situated
illustration
title to (of)
send a
because
elective surgery might
in spite of previous
night after night
g
NEGATION 5
won through
instances of
notoriety
selves (sands) rearranged
tending
or
illustrations cast a pall
threads threnodies
sincerely or not at
trunk haitian
relapse
ultimatum old tomato
tintinabulation
hocum hicupps hocus
well intentioned
held out until
elements of
nincompoopism
isaac means laughter
turds droppings
funnel
instances of instantiation
nowadays
demeaning opportunity knocking
since that
incorrect (anything)
terminal displays
soon to be
eclectic bottlecap collection
liberty or
fucking
unless of course after
tablets
tables
endtables end up beside sofas
rhythm with respect to
loping along
yesterday proceeds as
tell exactly the whole
outlay
reinscribed
not as had been
(new stanza)
assault with a
so that intent remains debateable
uppermost in
nuthatch
disguised as a
entry level
rubble
NEGATION 6
talk
has advantages
initiation proceeds until
slippery
duck under but not duck over nor duck beside
w expresses concern about possible inauthenticity
early but not so early as
lapidary quality to repetition
lilt as opposed to stiletto
ink which
not what
groan up
belgian waffles
ermine
silver
ill gotten
domino
european handling
institute for
tin ears
if the subject
sister (of)
temptations
hysteria growing like wysteria
exerts (or thinks about)
many a
alternate route
garlic capital of
insider trading
common as
(new stanza)
power
over
weather
endings
require
tributary
harboring a
autonomy vs. metonymy
tribunal
covert suppurations
obtuse
noninstrumental piano
virginity
ellipsis
rhombus (pigmy hippopotamus)
taxonomy
subverts
the suburbs
heartening observation
elevation unknown
neutral party
elder statement
great(er)est
apparently without any
turbulence unattributable to
instinct
verve
exhume
in turn
not as many as had been
trotlines
observation deck
by
entirely
imperceptibly
neutrino enriched fictions
godly dimensions
The core text for the Negation cycle of ten poems is Hegel's Phenomenology of
Mind. For each poem, read the first letter of the line vertically downward,
and the Hegel passage emerges. For example for "Negation 6" read "this
dwelling beside it is the magic power that converts the negative into being."
Various negations are at work in the poems.
[REVI02.01]
___________________________________________________________________________
< K E N N E T H S H E R W O O D >
waves that SIMPLY
"an ocean of dreams within a sound"--Shelley
continual
air, fuel
wind, shaped by capable
INDUCING
AKIN to
nuclear
BANISH a BEACH build
one the next Yet, in the
ineluctable aspect of
present
some point
poet
weary upon the wideness of
endless
varied in form
blown scatter
pattern dubbed technically
"sea" to the
immense
, the unquestioned
wavedom.
by undersides slides
capable of vast
entire
virtually
later,
spawned waved
Yet destroy
so much denizens
waves are an multifaceted
portions of rich
for filter-feeding
KNOCK A LOOS-
ENED LIMPET into
center
unearth for a vig-
ilant
SURF PERCH. Waves
mathematics of com-
plex, soon plunging rigorous
volumes of
The language
simple a
poetic; seems
mimic the sibi-
lance of
itself: surf,
swell, spume, spray, spill, SPINDRIFT
whisperings: is
version of acou-
stic dub "white noise,"
allegoric
mix
predict waves, base
complex
readings of
line structure
high-class wave-work strat-
egy
assaults. heavy could
create
amateur specific
madden
gain
sequence--no
"seventh
always
denote
invariably
unaware
amid apparent
derive
Almost any wave strik-
combination of
numerous , process
crests and TROUGHS
back onsea
:
sleeper waves
These leviathan
coincidence of various
Given their random isolate
contemplate
,soothe
mull the swell.
[RIFT01.01]
_________________________________________________________________________
< L O U I E C R E W >
RECALCULATING WORDS' WORTH
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your screen;
Or surely you'll grow double
Up! up! my Friend, and safely wean.
Why all this toil and trouble.
These CRTs bring endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet.
How sweet its music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.
I hope you've saved and backed up too,
your grid with pixels glowing.
I've parked. The rest is up to you.
"PARITY CHECK ....."
SISSY BE NIMBLE, SISSY BE QUICK
-- or --
Words I deleted before I shared
my PERSONAL.DCT with a hiring committee.
A.I.D.S. heterosexually
ain't homoerotic
campy homophobes
crap homophobia
crotch homophobia's
cruisiest Homophobic
Cum homophobically
dick homosex
dyke Jesus's
Episcopalian's loveya
faggots luti
fart lutibelle
fellating Lutibelle's
fuck nellie
fucked nelly
Fucking Pissing
genitally queandom
goddamnit queanly
gump queans
hemorrhoid shit
Hetero sodomized
heteros sodomizing
heterosexism underwhelms
heterosexist VD
heterosexists
___________________________________________________________________________
< F R A N K S T E V E N S O N >
----------------- Message requiring your approval (55 lines) -----------
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
re flec/frac tion on space
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
lines composed on the tropic of cancer (& curiously
in southern taiwan, 12 juillet 1993 marginalized)
whacked 1 windowpane = brand name of
by the sun's LSD ("acid") popular in late
rays/razed 60's 2 lack = lacan's
to a higher power
just like unconscious (= language =
drops signifier/signified gap) as
1 a LACK ("man is a desiring
of windowpane 2
licked up (lapped, lacked ) machine"--deleuze) red
by dazed speechless tongues C = sea/tones, notes
of wind or stone, falling on a convertible/re-
VERSible/invisible
on moses, white-bearded on a peak piano ("earth in-
in sinai/darien (whitebread/braid)
glassy eyed, long dead visibly resurrected
on the red C bed within you"--rilke)
___________________________________________________________________________
< E R I C P E T E R S O N >
DISJUNCTION
unnumbered level that no keys fit the doors
or at least the original locks
just stuck some went back to bed
is all that is left A mind-mucking experience
drug ged and becoming
no less than dust rising through cracks
their initialed backs obliterated to reach around.
All possibilities were manifest
when any two met only the unspoken some never heard
when there was nothing to hear come for some time
fortunes were reversed
slide under the sill
everything is or never begun
the squiggles leak off the paper faster
A tortuous tripping not off
the tongue, but down the mind
follows A slashed time for filling
more than a belly without his help.
They miss the first light
those faithful hordes
who sing in the shower the sky
on an elevator to now smile
when they stand still
the mattress receives a double
when sleep Mirrored glass
also joined to let the tears fall
but they were backed up
Continuity lapses into the abyss.
The first breech comes just at the market
all nameless things could not be only a few
there was no tongue at all
some sat down and tried a binding
within the bounds all undone
A street squeezed full of suprised
faces people swolen badly rended
away, dancing down the street
the scribbling which was used to pin down
all meaning in more than twice a day
but nobody knew since they no longer counted
but it didn't seem to mean much anymore
no new forging of an uncommon language
particular isn't locked up
in the same hourly pattern could transpire
no more fixed dates will ink its way into the page
ramble on the carnival continues
in what was once water
bones shone through some flesh before breaking
a bond was broken sometime exploded
in the pull No bellows worked
remember who had been met
The razor hardly weighed
flickering eyes an old piano rag
unimaginable
no better will come due, really
___________________________________________________________________________
< R X @ A S S T C D . O Z . A U >
" tunes of errors.
and hums a melody of madness"
To: All Msg #145, 23-Jul-93
14:59:02
Subject: transconsequentials..
god was a gawd damn bad sub editor.
i was rushing to meet my deadline
with one of the angels at the end
of Intensity City, when i happened
to get rung up, by the big cheif..
"now look here, you;ll have to re-write
that lead by 4 o;clock.."
"no-one wants to hear about the
passivity of the colour purple, and
one love anymore, its just not hip"
--- but boss, i got a fucking migraine
from all the talk they handed me out
about being sad, but beautiful ---
"just do it golem, we have loads to
cull for this issue, its not like the
old days, you know, sure we could give
'em some emotional scarring and carpet
burns, but you have to face it, write
about the organic orgy in Erogenous
Town this week"..
--- big deal ---
"it is to some"..
.LAYOUT 2
r
c r o s s
s
i
e
Confine in virtual corral
Well I'm here at a virtual
hippy camp;feeling like my
presence might
dis and
franchise the tribe.
Documentation of an individual
threatening the group.
There's a small white pony
enclosed in a lovely little
corral.And the English sheep dog
'minstrel' sleeps close to
the flowered healing centre.
I play Aries tonight-quite a
challenge!
I mentioned to Carol,I thought
Aries were mamby___maybe---
pamby and she said "no,assertive",
in a loud voice. I must
look like a spy in the teepee of torment.
I've put away my
camera and writing madly.
Its not my intent to betray this day.
There that's better, <sigh>
Thats how all new tribespeople should
orientate themselves ,
make an avacado,tomato and cucumber
whole wheat sandwich.
Clan caution__do not__open the !cheese
until
invited and only take a tomato,
if one remains.
So who can get angry?
There's one left,
and you didn't take it.
Now there's a stereotype, and a mystical
act of pacts,,hmmmm <thinking>
there's more than one person in this dream^
__you don't hear much about jewish
hippies., do you?
The pony is yelling for attention,
so three rather jolly good
sporting type hippies,
leap over for a chat.
"I say how's the fox running at York this year?",
says the pony.
pony, "make a damn good 3 dayer".
more funk and pony,"something about
vixen that really gets my Aries up"
Alles guten mein schon Fraulien RosenKreutz...
continues the pony,
" that's what happens when nobody
pays you attention" the pony
thinks loudly.
The ra ra yippie i say,
hippies have levitated to
the inner circle long
ago...
Feast on this...
There's a rather pudgie budgie looking like
a stone totem giving me the eye.
And depending which angle you
look there are several.
eyes..4 well quantized astronomers
engage in a jangle , house rising in
uranus., and descending in montana.
A joke around here would go down
like a phallic shaped
McDonalds hamburger.
Which could be bad or should be good.
Look I told you schmuk,
"Internationalist means well travelled".
I am an event to conceal my desire,
and what I'm shuvelling is
worse than the smell oozing from
"you mean its a bucket and
you chuck (it) close"
I wonder how Carol's rehearsal as Neptune
for tonight's pageant is working out?
I thought the wand and the hippy skirt
repurchased after letting it go for 15 years or so,
at Portobello Markets was a nice touch.
Carol said, she had one just like
it but I could see by the look in her eye
it was the very same
one she had given away in 1974.
It would be nice if it was haunted like
an unexpected and woven love letter.
I didn't want to be a six foot tall
invisible rabbit. I hate that role!!
"Now, don't sit on your hare and graces to me".
Came an aside from O-O.
Breeze coming in, and the quickening commences
ready to launch the kite,
"just run, it will take off"
like a lingering midi-day lunch.
<sigh> written Minehead, 1990.
____________________________________________________________________________
D
E
V
I
D E R I V A T I O N S
T
I
O
N
S
[This section of RIF/T emphasizes
texts written in a responsive mode.]
__________________________
< W I L L I A M H O W E >
may not be republished for post tumultuous expectation before the
current. the presidio of mikhail blacks beach bathos bare insert
an pillow cases i am willow left nipple ripple bleed kafkascape
kalidascope of tissue structure
mercy
representation
dia-gil
bite lipped shores a moris
minor alto unlike my stories without full stops alienatio ratio nless both
yellow 3M which preclude the possibilities under triste toursit membranes
shear antithesis lock habit heart market typhoons boom the gentle waves when
authorship is proofread refuse it zucchini guide to dissection rules are
always object to a small urine freezing behind took every effort in the
spectered field
[RIFT01.01]
____________________________________________________________________________
EDITORIAL NOTE
HOW DO YOU "READ" RIF/T? We have given this question
considerable thought over the past two issues and would like to suggest
that this question is one for which there are many answers. That is,
the electronic format delivers uncountable forms of maleability and
reproducibility -- along with blazing speed of transmission. One fact
remains unarguable, however, and that is the format's present insistence
on deferral from "fixing" a presentation. The number of means you may
employ to gain access to RIF/T -- gopher servers, our FTP site, or
whether you pick it up in your corner readerlist have countlessly
divergent effects on what may appear on your screen. Your local
hardware and printer configurations also can vary its presentation
immeasurably.
There are certain definable approaches, however. First, you can
read RIF/T on your screen. (Though in some systems you may not be
able to "scroll up.") You can send RIF/T to your mainframe printer then
read it in line at the supermarket. Or you can download it from your
mainframe to a file that will be "readable" on your PC.
Our goal has been to design a species of versatility in RIF/T's
presentation that allows this text to "adapt" to these varied
circumstances.
In addition, you will find new features in this issue to add oil to
the readability gears (though slippage is also encouraged):
In the RIF/T file: (1) Initial title words following each author's
name to allow you to use the "search" feature of your system to
immediately "find" pieces that grab your attention, and; (2) our Derrivations/
Deviations section, appearing for the first time in this issue, presenting an
interpretation of, or riff upon, our first issue.
The FREI02.01 file, also presenting responses to, or riffs on the
file RIFF01.01 (presented in our first issue) is also highly noteworthy
as a very active "reading" of Issue 1.
These "responses" are part and parcel of the "other" quality of
the electronic text: its receptiveness to reformating, reconfiguration,
retaliation. We encourage you to consider the text as AT YOUR FINGERS
and look forward to receiving whatever impulses thereby may be fashioned.
---eds.
___________________________________________________________________________
HIGHLY EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF RIFT02.01; or,
The State of Poetry Today; Does It Matter?
Data Tested Frequency
___________ _________
"man" 3 instances
"word" 12 instances
"space" 4 instances in 2 poems and masthead
"later" 2 instances in 2 poems
"I" 31 instances as personal pronoun in 9 poems
(mean 3.44 among those poems with an "I")
derrogatory references
to British Romantic Poet
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
2 instances in 2 poems
"entire" 6 instances in some form
"page" 16 instances in 3 poems
"wave" 12 instances in 3 poems
"always" 6 instances in 5 poems
non-derrogatory references
to British Romantic Poet
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
0 instances in 17 poems
"read" 11 instances in some form
"text" 5 instances (most in editorial passages)
"act" 5 instances in 3 poems
---eds.
[*Our thanks to the MALA, LAA,
NEA, NRA, NEH, NYCFA, CCLM and
the Werner Genn Fund for Public
Service Research; all of which
were generous in contributing
moral if not financial support.]
____________________________________________________________________________
< C O N T R I B U T O R S >
Katie Yates was featured poet in a recent _Slack_ (Boulder, CO) interview;
and she knows how much pressure, to the pound, a lithograph inking requires.
William Howe investigates the page while compelling his students to
read "subversive" books.
Matthew Huddleston walked "to the grocery store for milk, the adobes low and
rimmed with grey snow, wet streets, people walking dogs. A man in the
store comments on my jacket. I buy broccoli."
Lisa Jarnot published her first book, _Sonnets For Orpheus_, with Shuffaloff
in 1993.
Gary Gach has been involved in various translations which can be located in
the virtual and print universes; his own work is in _Preparing the Ground_.
Susan Schultz teaches at the University of Hawaii and has most recently
crossed this editor's desk in the pages of the current _O.ble-k_.
Loss Pequen~o Glazier writes from El Rancho.
Hank Lazer's _Three of Ten_, a large collection of his poems, is due
out in 1994 from Chax Press.
Kenneth Sherwood is pursuing the Ph.D. at SUNY Buffalo. "And I only
am escaped alone to tell thee."
Louie Crew has published several books including _Midnight Lessons_
(Samisdat, 1987) and _Lutibelle's Pew_ (Dragon Disks, 1990).
Frank Stevenson lives with Chinese wife and daughter in Taipei, Taiwan where
he teaches literature and literary theory at National Taiwan NORMAL Univ.
Eric Petersen is a graduate student at the University of Toronto and has
had poems accepted by _Gist_, _xib_, _Poetry Motel_ and _Bluff City_.
[email protected] remains a mystery.
Robert Kelly has many publications, an American Book Award, and teaches
at Bard.
Jorge Guitart has most recently published with _Exquisite Corpse_; his
_Foreigner's Notebook_ was published last year.
Patricia Wahl is a translator of Spanish and a doctoral student in English
at SUNY Buffalo.
Benjamin Friedlander's most recent book is _Anterior Future_ with Meow
Press.
Chris Funkhouser broadcasts his show from Albany and is an editor of
_We Press_, from coast to coast.
