“Dans la poésie c’est toujours la guerre.”
– Osip Mandelstam
“A poet is not a cable car.”
– Jack Spicer
“Entrapment is this society’s / Sole activity, I whispered / and Only laughter / can blow it to rags….”
—Edward Dorn
The Barrett Watten / Nathaniel Mackey Encounter
The first part of this extended Dispatches feature is an excerpt from a long exchange that took place on Barrett Watten’s Facebook page, May 8-11, 2018. It was initiated when Watten posted a link to his blog where he had published a critique of Grant Jenkins’ review of Watten’s recent book, Questions of Poetics: Language Writing and Consequences. Watten then posted further comments on Facebook, engaging with several interlocutors. Some of his comments came under challenge, and he later deleted the entire Facebook thread. What remains and is reproduced here was captured in screen shots by a witness before the thread was erased. The comments have been edited by us to remove tangential discussions. The Facebook conversation then moved to an email exchange between Nathaniel Mackey and Watten, which is reproduced here in its entirety. Dispatches suggests special attention to the bracing clarity of Mackey’s ripostes.
Dispatches is reproducing this exchange because we feel it engages questions that are crucial to the current state of poetry in North America. The animus to Robert Duncan and his work evident on the part of Watten is in one sense personal and related to the apparent trauma Watten claims to have suffered at Duncan’s hand in 1978. The real issue, however, is poetics and the ongoing, last-ditch attempts by Watten and members of his cohort to dismiss the work and current relevance of the New American Poetry (dismissively characterized by the old LangPo-garde as “mythic”), in favor of a shallow—and quasi-sectarian—materialism.
—Dispatches
The Barrett Watten / Nathaniel Mackey Encounter
News
Dispatches welcome Linh Dinh
Dispatches is extremely pleased to announce that Linh Dinh, poet and photographer extraordinaire, has joined our Contributing Editors. We are delighted and look forward to a long and productive relationship
The Barrett Watten / Nathaniel Mackey Encounter
The first part of this extended Dispatches feature is an excerpt from a long exchange that took place on Barrett Watten’s Facebook page, May 8-11, 2018. It was initiated when Watten posted a link to his blog where he had published a critique of Grant Jenkins' review...
A review of Francis Levy’s Tombstone — Not A Western, by Evan Harris (link)
"Mr. Levy’s project is an earnest and driven seeking. All those jokes are mined as fuel to keep the inquiry moving forward. Those who are there — facing down “arrangements” or starting to take a sidelong look at mortality — will enjoy the company of Mr. Levy’s wacky,...
Ben Niespodziany interviews Linh Dinh [as published at Neon Pajamas]
From 1998 to 2010, Vietnamese American author Linh Dinh released six books of poetry, one translation, two collections of short stories, and a novel. It was a prolific twelve year span for the author, who has continued to type like a madman with an endless gallon of...
Tokyo Dreaming, by Linh Dinh (link)
"We landed in darkness. The last time I was in Narita was 18 years earlier. With a six-hour layover, I inexplicably didn’t leave the airport. “Can I possibly die without at least a glimpse of Japan?” I’d ask myself, cringing. Finally, I was there. My first impressions...
Gerrit Lansing Memorial Reading, 25 February 2018
https://youtu.be/1X4erKKKYMo
Dispatches Welcomes Rasula and Poirier as Contributing Editors
Dispatches s pleased to announce that Jed Rasula and Julien Poirier have signed on to Dispatches as Contributing Editors. Jed Rasula is a poet and author of a number of legendary critical studies, including the American Poetry Wax Museum. Julien Poirier is a poet and...
Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Beat Poet and Author, Dies at 87 (link)
“When Bob and I were first together, he had three things he would say,” Ms Hawkins said. “One of them was ‘I’ll never live in a house with a woman who writes.’ One of them was ‘Everybody’s wife wants to be a writer.’ And one of them was ‘If you had been going to be a...
Emergency Dispatch on Zionist Violence, by Ammiel Alcalay
This statement was sent to me by Khaled Furani, professor of Anthropology at Tel Aviv University, a dear friend of mine and of the late Benjamin Hollander. Khaled is the author of the utterly brilliant Silencing the Sea: Secular Rhythms in Palestinian Poetry (Stanford...
Finally . . . what took you so long, PoFo?
Dispatches from the Poetry Wars, which was the first and only poetry venue to come to the insistent defense of the martyr Liu Xiaobo, and of his spouse, Liu Xia, applauds these important efforts by international intellectuals in defense of their persecuted fellows in...
Dispatches welcomes Byrd, DuPlessis, and Kalamaras to its editorial crew
Dispatches is extremely pleased to announce that Don Byrd, Rachel DuPlessis, and George Kalamaras have signed on as Dispatches Contributing Editors. They join Anne Waldman, Nathaniel Tarn, Keith Tuma, Mike Basinski, MTC Cronin, and Norman Finkelstein all of whom...
The poet Joseph Massey’s disturbing history of abuse (link)
Some weeks ago, Dispatches was the first poetry venue to come to the defense of various women writers who suffered abuse and intimidation from prominent U.S. poet, Joseph Massey. The article linked to below has just appeared in the widely read, The Outline. Shame on...
When Smoke Broke Up with Mirrors, by Julien Poirier
Call it the onset of some kind of craziness, but I actually feel personally responsible for the Israeli military’s murder of Palestinian protesters in Gaza today. As of tonight the death toll is high, the injuries twenty times higher, and it’s all bound to go up....
Dispatches Welcomes Five New Contributing Editors
We announced a few days ago that poetry legends Anne Waldman and Nathaniel Tarn have joined as Contributing Editors to Dispatches from the Poetry Wars. Yesterday, four more widely known figures added their names to our editorial roster: Michael Basinski, visual poet...
Pobiz Stock Index Update, 15 May, 2018 – Battle Prep Rattles Po Markets
News of war preparations by an (un)Named Mexican Cartel (the linguistic white noise machine formerly known as Herb Yeeps) in collaboration with Avant-Po, NA, left Poetry markets shaken. Recent provocations included a major assault on revolutionary poet and activist,...
Nathaniel Tarn joins Dispatches
Dispatches from the Poetry Wars is pleased to announce that Nathaniel Tarn has joined its ranks as a Contributing Editor. Welcome, Nathaniel.
Lost & Found
Rain Taxi
Chicago Review
Lana Turner Journal
Index – 1 April 2018 Update
Click a box below to view the full upload list for that category.
Dear Emily Post-Avant: Advice for Poets
Emily Post-Avant invites people to submit letters to her column and will be happy to answer them.
Emily Post-Avant, 30 April 2018 (Re: Jennifer Moxley, etc.)
Emily Post-Avant – 12 April 2018
Emily Post-Avant – 11 April 2018
Emily Post-Avant, 30 March 2018 (Pablo Neruda and the Paris Review)
Emily Post-Avant – 20 March 2018 (On the firing of AWP Executive Director David Fenza)
Emily Post-Avant – 12 March 2018 (to the drunk MFA students of U. of Texas)
Emily Post-Avant – 19 February 2018 (on Anthony Madrid)
From Emily Post-Avant: A Question for the Honorable Donald Trump
Emily Post-Avant – 5 January 2018
Emily Post-Avant – 3 January 2018
Emily Post-Avant – 22 December 2017
Emily Post-Avant – 19 December 2017
Emily Post-Avant – 12 December 2017
Emily Post-Avant – 25 September 2017
Emily Post-Avant – 19 September 2017
Emily Post-Avant – 13 September 2017
Dispatches
Project Transcreation, an announcement from Ms. Runa Bandyopadhyay
David Levi Straus—Special Rojava Dispatch – The News from Rojava
Dispatch #32—Negativity and the Book Review
Dispatch #33: from Anonymous—A Troubling Update of Abuse in the Poetry Field
Breyner Huertas – Serie: Exclamacao – Rio de Janeiro (falsas marquesinas)
Andrés Ajens – Ménage à Trois: Chile, Bolivia y el mar (Perú) (link)
Jonathan Mulcahy – Unstructions for lingerpith (a Hinge Application) (w/a note by Heller Levinson)
David Baptiste Chirot – 8 rubBEings
Diane Stevenson – OBU Manifesto [Trump time is circular]
Documents
Stickers
Dispatches Editions
PoBiz Stock Index Updates
PoBiz Stock Index Update, 21 April 2018
PoBiz Stock Index Update, 18 January 2018
Pobix Stock Index Update, 18 September 2017
PoBiz Stock index update, 31 October 2016
Pobiz Stock Index Update, 20 July 2016
Pobiz stock index update – 15 June 2016
Pobiz Stock Index Update, 5 June 2016
PoBiz Stock Index Update, 21 April 2016
Pobiz Stock Index Update, 15 April 2016
PoBiz Stock Index Update, 12 April 2016
PoBiz Stock Index Update, 4 April 2016
Pobiz Stock Index Update, 9 April 2016: BREAKING NEWS! CREELEY CANONIZED! POETIX STOCK SURGES!
Commentary
Runa Bandyopadhyay – A Silent and Eternal Homeland of Swadesh
Ammiel Alcalay – Getting Out of the Western Box: Dennis Tedlock’s The Olson Codex (link)
Peter Anastas – Ezra Pound in the Bughouse
Oliver Cusimano –The Matter of Words (with two epigraphs) [a quotron]
Steven Manuel – Interviewed by Jeff Davis
Justice Poeticus – Microreviews Vol. 5
Peter Quartermain – from Growing Dumb: My English Education
Susan Schultz – OBU Loves Words (an OBU Manifesto)
Poetry
Omar Al-Nakib (Kuwait) – Three Quatrains after Dark
Sacha Archer – Sites of Contemporary Meat
Roberto Harrison—copal floods my destinies
Breyner Huertas (Colombia) – El Papel del Trabajo
Steve Manuel – Myth Is the Knot
Michael McAloran – = of Vibration Tones
Mary Newell – In the pith of hover
Xi Penn – At Tan Yuan Ming’s Hut, near Frontier with DPRK
Pete Smith – Stretch, An Inquiry
m.g. stephens – City / Unsheltered
Ed Taylor – Shakespeare Subversions & One Other Thing at the End
Andres Felipe Uribe Cardenas (Colombia) – Cuatro Poems Sobre el Borde del Mundo