RECEIVED: Erni Baer Beats Me from Britain! (Hamburg, Germany via Coventry, England)

[De Villo Sloan]

Beat Scene zine (published in Britain) from IUOMA member Erni Baer (Hamburg, Germany)

 

August 22, 2011 - Is it mail-art? I don't care. I cannot possibly thank Erni Baer (aka Haptic Werewolf aka Hipster of Hamburg)  enough for sending me a hot-off-the-press copy of Beat Scene magazine with a stunning shot on the cover of Jack Kerouac in his prime (New York, 1957), looking across time and space into our eyes. I bet he'd approve that he found his way back to the United States via the mail-art network. What can I send Erni? Maybe a Tom Clark book would be appropriate ;))) And Beat Scene is not just for pictures, the articles are great:

 

 

The excerpt from "More Notes of a Dirty Old Man" by Charles Bukowski is a big score for the issue. Of course, the article I shall read over and over is:

 

We have discussed Black Mountain College often at the IUOMA. In October 2010, John Held, Jr. curated a mail-art show in North Carolina where the former Black Mountain College has been converted to an archive, research center, and art gallery. Many of us had work in the show. Ray Johnson was among the many artists and writers who attended Black Mountain, so this part of 20th century cultural history is intimately connected to the mail-art movement. Also included in the envelope from Britain was this piece of cardboard. I think it was just meant to provide support for Beat Scene as it traveled through the mail system. To us, of course, it is found art:

 

 

Again Erni, a heartfelt thank you to my favorite Hamburg hipster. Erni hosted a blog post where a group of us taxed our memories to construct a cultural history that covers some of the territory in Beat Scene:

http://iuoma-network.ning.com/profiles/blogs/billy-the-kid-wanted-in

[De Villo Sloan]

Erni, sincerely - it breaks my heart to read the comment about how you feel weak. Lord, there could be no American culture - such as it is - without Germany. And your knowledge is vast, VAST! I'm just tuned into the Beat Generation and your art ALWAYS gets me started! I do apologize for any unintended appearance of cultural imperialism. 

 

Cheryl, ok, South African culture in the global community. That's a little tougher than Germany. But we'll get there.

[cheryl penn]

isibongo - type of poetry, Breyten Breytenbach, Charl Cilliers, Mzwakhe Mbuli - OK I give up - you know more than me - BUT we're NEW!!! :-))) X

[cheryl penn]

Erni - dont feel alone in the not being American :-))) - I could write about Nicolaas Petrus van Wyk Louw, Herman Charles Bosman, C.J. Langenhoven, Louis Leipoldt etc and everyone would go WWWHHHAAATTTT :-) X

[Bifidus Jones]

:-)))!! how he does howl!!!

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Just have to post this here ;-)

[cheryl penn]

Tangible artifacts? Things to touch, to smell, to see - running fingers over paint marks, breathing the smell of old and new ink, the rustle of turning pages, the sigh of an opened envelope?  I'm with Bifdus and you there DVS - the book due for deletion? (Transgressing the Pages?) That will have pages touched by 30 more people than if it lies in a museum for a PERCHANCE visitor.  External blog sites/websites? I have them - they're laborious and difficult to maintain - I'd rather be using the time to write or create - bearing in mind nobody visits my blogs for weeks on end except me :-) - and mail art?  It's touched from the time it leaves the artists hands until it finds a new home - its a WONDERFUL medium.  Great comments :-) X

[De Villo Sloan]

Thoughtful and illuminating as always Bifidus. You are lucky to have some very fine small presses in Minnesota. Your statement about being able to use senses other than visual to experience art seems vital. Otherwise, you're looking at the death of the majority of our senses. I think your haptic poetry work is SO important for this reason. Mail-art "on the ground" is vital. I think the intermedia concept works well. People are moving ahead with digital art, which is a frontier that needs exploration by creative people. Yet others, some of the same people working digitally also, continue to move art forward making new kinds of books, creating performance pieces (like your cheese piece with Erni) and - maybe the most important - creating communities out of the mainstream - what might be authentic cultures as opposed to accepted cultural reality, which is increasingly fake, manipulative, and not reflective of the people to whom it is force-fed. These alternatives might be the most viable places to find what was once called an audience. I think you would agree, mail-artists enjoy large audiences compared to an artist who sets up a lonely website and hopes for visitors. And your mail-art networks quickly become communities where people are making something together. Anyway, fantastic ideas you present, IMHO.

[Bifidus Jones]

It's hard to comment on the last 25 years, isn't it. And the next 25 years? I don't think there will ever be a lack of poets, regardless of form, label, ism, or otherwise. Poets and artists can't help it, we have that need to create and every once in awhile some terrific new stuff happens. Hopefully. Here in MN the small presses--Coffee House, Milkweed, Graywolf, etc are concerned about whether or not an audience exists for our poets. They've come up with the idea of a literary punch card. Every time a person attends a literary event, they get a punch on the card. Five punches equals a gift certificate at a local bookstore.  I think it was Cheryl who made the point that anything longer than sigh takes too long to read/look at and people are on to the next twitter. some people don't know what it's like to hold a book in their hands. and i've come across some online forums where people say there's no need to buy art, you can just look at it all on a computer screen. I for one, will go to the grave using my five senses and in the meantime, remain hopeful. As Berrigan said: "baffling combustions are everywhere."

[De Villo Sloan]

Oh, but I don't mean the last 25 years in terms of vispo, asemic, haptic etc! Great work in that area!

[De Villo Sloan]

Bifidus, you can probably guess I'm a huge Ted Berrigan fan. One of the many things I admire is the way he perfected the one-line poem, a kind of minimalism. I suppose the books would suggest Berrigan is a part of the later generation New York School along with Ron Padgett and at least some of Tom Clark's work and many others - there's almost an 18th century echo of irony and wit you can find. I'm always thinking Frank O'Hara had to have influenced that. But, as I'm sure you are aware, these imperfect labels are things we apply later to make sense of a cultural stew of "Beats," Black Mt." "NY School," Confessional" etc. etc. that represents a truly remarkable place in US poetry. Like today - are you haptic? Am I asemic? I think in truth we're altogether. Do you remember that anthology that tried to organize poets by "cooked" and "uncooked" verse? Diane Keys gives that new meaning because she puts her asemic writing in the oven. Should we have Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, James Wright, John Berryman etc. days at IUOMA to give fair coverage of "the other side"? The last 25 years in US poetry? Frankly, I personally would like to forget it happened?