The Anthology of Spam Poetry is a collection of texts realized by Morton Hurley using spam and junk mail harvested in gmail, yahoo and hotmail inboxes. Each text, that collects sequences and fragments of spam, is signed by a name we can easily suppose to be taken from the same spam used and processed by the text itself. For each name, we are supplied with a brief, ironic and parodical biography of the person that name should belong to.
This way, the collection is offering us a tridimensional fictional space. A first dimension is displayed by the texts that, as every piece of literature, compose the lines of a fictitious space-time continuum, by means of reference, voices, points of view, etc. The second dimension is generated by those funny biographies of poets, with their bizarre characters and unlikely plots. The third dimension is configured by the juxtaposition of the previous two, in a kind of postmodernist game of levels, in which we have to deal with a light but radical parody of literature itself. This parody works in many ways but, first of all, by exposing the two most important “characters” in the narration of literature: the text and the author, that is canon and history of literature.
A brief foreword by K. Silem Mohammad focuses on the main issue this game of levels is pointing out. KSM says: “The problem with most poetry is that is written by people”. That is: the problem that most literature works face is their relation with their authors’ intention and belief.
It seems actually that the first target of the fictional engine this collection is implementing is the relation between what a text “is” and what it should be as a message. That is the question we are all supposed to ask ourselves when we’re reading a text: what did the author want to tell me? It’s obvious that, when there’s nor the message neither the one who should send it us, as in this case, the question sounds a bit dull and exposes its own frailness, leaving us to manage an even more complicated issue: if nobody is telling me anything, what’s that I’m still hearing and who’s talking?
Tag: post2007
da “the anthology of spam poetry” / morton hurley. 2007
The Anthology of Spam Poetry / Morton Hurley
A Better Future, World-Confounding
He tried to fight the chaos, to summon from lips under the thin mustache. Among the rocks and rubble stood a bulldozer, its lowered bucket jammed. His free arm crawled forward never taking his eyes off the line where he listened. And when Monkey stopped crying and went back to sleep, he waited.
To be centered for shame meant that he would be cast out of gull, surrealistic and the absurd. The cumulative effect is Kafkaesque horror. The grateful mankind will never forget you. What that thing was saying no longer had any stood as though he had been planted, he did not even turn around.
A l o n g s i l e n c e .
“Well, this kind of flying has always been here to be my business. Now nothing concerned me any more.”
Strong and light and quick in the air, but far and away more important, he first gulp, but the web crawled across his consciousness again like pictures on a screen.
Asked in a weak voice, “Of course if you wish to learn…”
– Winona Shonda
Ms. Shonda achieved critical acclaimin early 2001 when she dedicated her poem “Life, Wild-Chosen” to the unsung heroes of the Philadelphia anarchist movement during the 1980s. The royalties and acclaim Ms. Shonda received from her work allowed her to explore other avenues of artistic expressions. In 2003, she started her own business of making hand-made paper and recently, she has been exploring the idea of producing and selling chalk with the grand vision of opening her own shop similar to the Sennelier in Paris.
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le circostanze della frase / andrea inglese ; stefano delle monache. 2007
2. (28/10/06; 22.41)
È passato molto tempo, da allora è passato, da quando molto altro, molto prima, ne passò, del tempo, lo stesso, troppo, ma diverso, alla finestra, o sui pavimenti, e si aggiunsero, di continuo, il tempo passato di prima, quasi più lento, con quello passato, dopo, ricordando che passa, e pioggia, dietro la finestra, che si sposta, passando dentro e fuori, spostando, da allora, da quel medesimo, cosa? giorno, gesto, attimo, mai all’opposto, che fosse invece all’indietro, risalendo, o fermando tutto, seduto su una sedia, e basta, nessuno che si allontani o si avvicini, e silenzio, serrando tutti i suoni, persino i colori, una sola calma, ma già c’è stato, c’è stato anche quello, passando via, da allora, come un altro, come un’altra volta, come un fesso, a passare, da allora, è sempre così che passa, da fessi.
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la poesia è fatta da tutti / jean-marie gleize. 1995
• ● • ◦ ┐►◙
Jean-Marie Gleize
LA POESIA È FATTA DA TUTTI
[ da: Le principe de nudité intégrale. Manifestes, Seuil, 1995 ]
Non da uno. Tutti i giorni, alla stazione Châtelet, nel punto detto COINCIDENZA (Vincennes-Neuilly / Orléans-Clignancourt) li vedevo circolare, scorrere – e io dentro. In seguito ne ho incontrati parecchi. Uno di essi, di età ingrata (dato che i poeti devono essere o giovani o vecchi), piangeva perché avevano preso le sue righe di prosa, interrotte, tagliate, incomplete, lacunose, per dei VERSI. Evidente malinteso. Un giorno altri forse verranno, si mescoleranno alla folla, scivoleranno nel grande corpo anonimo, usciranno da un vagone (forse all’ultimo momento, forse proprio all’ultimissimo momento), salteranno a terra in mezzo agli sputi, si fonderanno nella corrente del fiume, sempre dritti, scendere i gradini, prendere a sinistra, fiancheggiare a destra di nuovo gli scalini, e una volta sulla banchina, il divenire spesso della linea, segnale sonoro soffocato, partenza, con gli occhi chiusi, nei corridoi del presente, del tempo, nel tunnel, verso la FINE. Adesso costoro sono tutti morti, sono nella terra con i loro modelli, con i loro padri e con le loro madri, Virgilio, Omero, il grande Corneille e gli altri. Uno di loro, i suoi contemporanei l’avevano chiamato Spirito, un altro è conosciuto con il nome di Ape come l’ape, un altro vuole farsi passare per donna, muoiono tutti come le pecore in montagna, alcuni di morte naturale, tutti confusi, una sorte comune, tutti, la poesia fatta.
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dell’opera disfatta / marco giovenale. 2005
[ righe, ingenue e iniziali, contro serialità e romanzo-tipo ]
“due computer si incontrano e si sprogrammano”
Carmelo Bene
1.
lettura e scrittura lineari costituiscono un problema che lo sguardo del XX(I) secolo non avverte sempre come problema.
è anzi vero l’opposto. la percezione del problema è occasionale, è indesiderata.
ora, nel tempo ben consolidato in cui la realtà si sottrae alle retoriche solo lineari e teleologiche, queste organizzano difese puerili, dunque vincenti.
sono ‘naturalissime’, coincidono con il perdurare di trama e intreccio e scioglimento, spettacolo poematico, scrittura ‘rappresentazionale’ (realismi, iperrealismi, feuilleton), e insomma con tutte quelle forme morte che – proprio in quanto tali – hanno gioco facile in una società alacremente cimiteriale.
il romanzo-tipo è la forma predatrice per eccellenza. nel confine della letteratura, anche se non ovunque nella comunicazione, la forma romanzo che diciamo classica (se esiste) e ‘il romanzesco’ (che esiste) scalzano o divorano le forme ritenute minori – la fiaba l’aneddoto il mito le prose non narrative e forse in generale la stessa poesia, anche se narrativa.
(in realtà: il minore è tale perché ucciso: non era minore per statuto: lo diventa in séguito alla prassi dell’avversario, se questo vince).
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arte concettuale / sol lewitt. 1969
PROPOSIZIONI SULL’ARTE CONCETTUALE / Sol LeWitt
- Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
- Rational judgements repeat rational judgements.
- Irrational judgements lead to new experience.
- Formal art is essentially rational.
- Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.
- If the artist changes his mind midway through the execution of the piece he compromises the result and repeats past results.
- The artist’s will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion. His wilfulness may only be ego.
- When words such as painting and sculpture are used, they connote a whole tradition and imply a consequent acceptance of this tradition, thus placing limitations on the artist who would be reluctant to make art that goes beyond the limitations.
- The concept and idea are different. The former implies a general direction while the latter is the component. Ideas implement the concept.
- Ideas can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.
- Ideas do not necessarily proceed in logical order. They may set one off in unexpected directions, but an idea must necessarily be completed in the mind before the next one is formed.
- For each work of art that becomes physical there are many variations that do not.
- A work of art may be understood as a conductor from the artist’s mind to the viewer’s. But it may never reach the viewer, or it may never leave the artist’s mind.
- The words of one artist to another may induce an idea chain, if they share the same concept.
- Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally.
- If words are used, and they proceed from ideas about art, then they are art and not literature; numbers are not mathematics.
- All ideas are art if they are concerned with art and fall within the conventions of art.
- One usually understands the art of the past by applying the conventions of the present, thus misunderstanding the art of the past.
- The conventions of art are altered by works of art.
- Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.
- Perception of ideas leads to new ideas.
- The artist cannot imagine his art, and cannot perceive it until it is complete.
- The artist may misperceive (understand it differently from the artist) a work of art but still be set off in his own chain of thought by that misconstrual.
- Perception is subjective.
- The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.
- An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own.
- The concept of a work of art may involve the matter of the piece or the process in which it is made.
- Once the idea of the piece is established in the artist’s mind and the final form is decided, the process is carried out blindly. There are many side effects that the artist cannot imagine. These may be used as ideas for new works.
- The process is mechanical and should not be tampered with. It should run its course.
- There are many elements involved in a work of art. The most important are the most obvious.
- If an artist uses the same form in a group of works, and changes the material, one would assume the artist’s concept involved the material.
- Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.
- It is difficult to bungle a good idea.
- When an artist learns his craft too well he makes slick art.
- These sentences comment on art, but are not art.
da “frammenti romani” / kathleen fraser. 1994
da FRAMMENTI ROMANI / Kathleen Fraser
UCCELLO
t d k e s spesso ci portano
emergono all’esterno del
finirci così
come le rondini accorrono
e sopraggiungono le Vespe
lunghe strisce in plastica di
blu e gialli
leganti
freni e
si liberano di noi
gli uccelli conoscono la nostra lunghezza anche
da dietro una finestra e guardano giù
in quell’
ordine da quaderno di schizzi marrone nero
ala vento fatto come
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gammm 