Doings

Jackson Mac Low. Finished Doings today but wasn't that jazzed by the book, as it's mainly performance pieces-- and therefore, lots of performance instructions-- but I really enjoyed the "Nuclei for Simone Forti" and the various Vocabularies and visual (often almost asemic) poems. He seems to be extremely concerned with pacing, simultaneity, and order-- interesting, as these pieces are derived from so many "chance procedures". (Interesting that he takes great pains to control the way they're performed.) At the heart of his work, though, seems to be play-- serious play, but play nonetheless-- which is a similar impression I got from Bernadette Mayer's Midwinter Day (and reminds me too, for some reason, of Notley's 165 Meeting House Lane sonnets)-- though his methods are pretty different. Maybe it's the interest in rhythms that connects these three in my head? Mac Low, however, scores his poems-- literally-- sometimes with accompanying notes, sometimes just with instructions for speaking-- which again, is interesting-- esp. because many of his pieces, such as some of the Vocabularies or the Crossword Gathas give little indication of which way they "should" be read.

Quickly, a bit from "Nuclei for Simone Forti"*

*these are written on cards, and so their form will be mostly lost in this medium. But a transcription, nonetheless:

words--

request, adjustment, record, apparatus,

history, theory, short, space, reaction,

lip.

ACTIONS:

SEEMING TO COME BY WING

GIVING FALSELY

words--

if, finger.

ACTIONS:

POINTING TO A FACT THAT SEEMS TO BE AN

ERROR AND SHOWING IT TO BE OTHER THAN IT

SEEMS,

MAPPING,

PAINING BY GOING OR HAVING WAVES.

words--

frame, line, glass, request, fact.

ACTIONS:

LETTING POTATOES GET BAD,

SEEING SOMETHING THAT SEEMS TO BE WAX,

PUTTING SOCIETY AT ODDS WITH FAMILY,

HAVING A BABY OR SEEMING TO HAVE ONE.

words--

slip, ail, plant, or.

ACTIONS:

BOILING DELICATE THINGS,

HAVING JEWELS,

MAKING THUNDERTHROUGH TAKING PIGS SOME-

WHERE,

SAYING SOMETHING AFTER A MINUTE.

These kind of remind me of Thalia Field's Point and Line, but with more room, perhaps, for improv-- and though these are performance prompts/pieces, I think it would be fun to use these somehow as writing prompts. Or to create something like these as prompts to write.

I am interested in Mac Low's use of found material, his setting up of constraints (less visible, maybe, in this book than in Representative Works, which I got out of the library today, along with Twenties and The Virginia Woolf Poems to browse around what else he's been up to-- specifically, more page-oriented poems), and his play with the sounds/bits/phonemes of words.

To end, for now-- I'll add more later after reading the other 3 books--

A VOCABULARY FOR JACKSON MAC LOW

jowl know jackal mas wack lawn loan jam sock sham clown walk can calm clam clan mock jock won no son claw on jacks con mack lack jaw wan clack clock sack am mojo know now coma woks calk joan camo slaw cow mow nocks mason loca locks