|
|
 |
|
|
-with-form
(That Which Fasteneth Us)
pillar to pillar the great dance arch itself through all that
is or was or will be, 3/4 time. This will be a glade
at the head of one stream
by Ronald Johnson)
to the poetry of Ronald Johnson (1935-1998).
Welcome to The Transcendental Friend. The second entry into our Critical Dictionary is an article on "Vocation" by the remarkable Henry Gould.
This month The Bestiary, edited by Laird Hunt, features work by Anselm Berrigan, Jordan Davis, and an extraordinary lyric by an anonymous Middle English poet.
While the Dialectic takes a much needed vacation this month, we are pleased to introduce three new sections with this issue: Report, Mote and Review.
Translation, excavation, research, reportage, Report from Afield will present works from some distance of space or time (being oriented at the moment to present-day New York). Our first Report brings back an interpretation of a text of Antonin Artaud by Jonathan Skinner.
Inspired in part by the Spanish form of response-in-verse, mote or glosa [occasionally villancico or letra, says the Princeton book], and in part by the visible stratification of Talmudic form in which time is flattened and the argument exposed on one plane, Mote takes an existing text as a ground for layers of response by subsequent authors. The current primary text, an excerpt from The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk, will accrete four layers of commentary over the course of the next four issues. The first layer is by Leonard Schwartz. (Mote is edited by Heather Ramsdell.)
Review will present critical works that aspire to their own form--a condensation of writerly thought in response to a work, perhaps including the time-honored traditions of praise and/or blame, etc., but not necessarily. This month's Review, by Daniel Machlin, encounters the work of Richard Tuttle.
This issue's Project is by Garrett Kalleberg and features texts from Ronald Johnson's Ark, published in 1996 by Living Batch Press Albuquerque (available from Small Press Distribution and amazon.com).
The first issue of the Friend is available from the Files page. (With our third issue, some archival & other materials will also be made available from this page.)
For general and contact information turn to the Contact page. And if you haven't done so already, please take a moment to Subscribe to the Friend (it's free).
Garrett Kalleberg, Editor