Point

A.L. Nielsen on Jerome Rothenberg and Christine A Meilicke's Jerome Rothenberg’s Experimental Poetry and Jewish Tradition.

Here's an early Rothenberg poem I've always liked ("always" meaning since 1994 when I first came across the piece in Clayton Eshelman's great little intro for poets volume Novices):

A LITTLE BOY LOST
by Jerome Rothenberg

They took me from the white sun and they
left me in the black sun, left
me to sleep among long rows of overcoats:
I was a city boy lost in the country, a
wound in my hand was all I knew about willows
Can you understand, do you hear the wide
sound of the wind against the cow's
side, and the crickets that run down my
sleeve, crickets full of the night, with
bodies like little black suns? try as I will
there is only this cry in my heart, this cry:
They took me from the white sun, and they
left me in the black sun, and I
have no way of turning now, no door

Combo: The White Issue

Did I say I'm normally not a big fan of interviews? Funny. Because I have added Here Comes Everybody to the blog roll, and HCE (hickey, I guess) is all about interviews. And not just that: There's an interesting interview with Jerome "(and Diana)" Rothenberg in the recently released Combo 13, which I'm sure will come to be known more popularly as "the white issue" because of its pure white, nearly logoless cover. Among the topics Rothenberg discusses are how he came to his groundbreaking Technicians of the Sacred anthology and anti-war poetry in the time of Vietnam. Many of Rothenberg's anthologies are mentioned, but not Revolution of the Word (reprinted a few years ago by Exact Change), which disappointed me a bit, because it was the most important one personally, as it was really my introduction to Modern poetry. It was probably a year before I realized why I generally received a blank look when I asked someone, a bookseller say, about Eugene Jolas or Harry Crosby, and that they were not as "important" (as poets, at least: Jolas the publisher does qualify as one of the unheralded literary heroes of the twentieth century) as, for instance, Louis Zukofsky. Anyway, Combo, which is more aggressively experimental (in so far as that has come to designate more signifier-oriented work) than the other magazines I've mentioned in previous posts, has been focused on presenting younger writers alongside two or three of their most-established immediate forerunners for about seven years now. With content that rarely ceases to upend expectations and the most original cover designs going (one issue actually featured a silly-menacing photo of "The Rock"), Combo focuses serious attention on the politics of verse even while it has its own good fun (in the tradition of carnivalesque subversion). Other highlights in the white issue: a long poem by Ray DiPalma, a prose poem by Stephanie Young, a piece by Kristin Gallagher which demands returning to ("1842 / 'I have done it . . .' / dart darting / endless chain of buckets / emerging 'ugly monster' // 1891 / anonymous / 'They break up the skyline, / like huge / chunks of darkness . . . // nightmare buildings'"), and a series of poems by David Hadbawnik which riff off lines from other poets but shift into their own forms:

        but will I be        pure light or breath
        or just a hand on somebody's wallet
        will I be     (am I already)
        the gist of someone's dream
        the cc of a circular email
        crash of door        wind chimes
                        piece of mail
        will I be    I want to know
        what happens                            will I be

Let me add that if you're going to make one lifetime subscription to a literary magazine any time in the foreseeable future, commit to Combo. It has the best deal going. The many subscription options have been posted at Lime Tree.