RODRIGO TOSCANO
read by Suzanne Stein
Rodrigo Toscano’s newest Collapsible Poetics Theater piece is “Feel Your Media – Bitch”. He works in Manhattan at the Labor Institute, and runs middle and long distance races for the North Brooklyn Runners.
Suzanne Stein is a poet, publisher, and the community producer at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Doings and Sayings of the Ancient-Future Poets
The problem with academy-based poetry conferences and the valuation structures they contribute in creating, is that they aid in further tightening already-existing interlocking national poetic bureaucracies. When such bureaucracies become more tightly tethered to each other, they can exacerbate class privilege and power in the domain of culture.
The two main poetic “bureaucracies” that tend to interlock are – 1, the largely symbolic capital of what can be called “aesthetic volunteerism”, i.e., the by and large “stable” poetry reading circuits such as the Bowery Poetry Club, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Beyond Baroque, Small Press Traffic; and 2, the more potentially direct-economic “academic poetry” circuit, which includes on-campus reading series, poetry teaching posts, and university publishing prospects.
The first, “aesthetic volunteerism” is, of course, in a misnomer in cases where paid positions are part of the structure (i.e. St. Mark’s Poetry Project, the Poet’s House in Philadelphia, Small Press Traffic, Woodland Pattern), but for the most part, “volunteerism” accurately describes a stream of poetic activity that bubbles up from a baseline of poetic community participation. The main elements of this kind of scene can range from the nearly anonymous audience member to the ever-hungry scenester on the prowl. Functions can range from food and drink venders to audio-visual helpers, all the way up to samizdat journals registering the activity. These scenes can generally be entered via a public avenue without much entre, let alone registration dues and fees. The level of commitment required of the participants, varies widely from week to week.
The second, “academic poetry circuit” carries with it, potentially huge stakes (it should be noted, stakes for an increasingly proletarianized / exploited stratum of teaching “professionals”) that is, “J” “O” B’s”, “J” “O” “B’s” that have the potential to produce life structures, that in turn, might produce more ample conditions for yet more “productivity”. And since these stakes exist in conditions of extreme scarcity (i.e. the never-ending tenure track recession, or rather, depression, for thousands of knowledge workers), the tendency for this stratum of workers to engage in commercial behavior—is increased. One common example is the teacher-student sponsor system. Mutual critical-aesthetic valorization can remain—just that, bi-directional feeder systems that go on unexamined and unchecked, to the detriment of those not hooked into that “informal” (formal) system.
Another example of potential-to-real “power” accrual is profile building by the creation and chairing of academic poetry panels. Besides the bump the organizer gets by recruiting “peers”, the overall impact that panels have on the mapping of aesthetic discourse can be long lasting. Of course, not everything can be reduced to nomenklatura making and “gifting”, but the dynamics of this “academicized” terrain of poetic activity has features that are qualitatively different than those of the aforementioned “mainly symbolic” “voluntaristic” scene.
Two other minor “arms” (or “poetic streams of activity”) that have the capability of feeding into interlocking national poetic bureaucracies, but from more distant locations, are - 1, the somewhat irregular, but highly proliferative coffeehouse and bar reading series in thousands of medium-to-small cities around the country (though these can also exist in major urban centers), and 2, what are called “house readings.” As to how these two streams of poetic activity relate to “interlocked bureaucracies” can be hard to trace.
The coffeehouse/bar phenomenon can act on (as they say) “its own” “for its own”, or it can potentially act as a feeder stream to a larger, more institutional scene (or both). The local coffeehouse/bar scene can be a very active testing ground for diverse reading styles where writers steadily develop an acute sense of the performative potentials of public spaces. A groundswell of exploration occurs at this not-yet-national terrain that is often rewritten at the national level by either direct (un-cited) appropriation of its development, or straight up erasure.
The “house reading”, in turn, can also act as a feeder or adjunct to other poetic spaces, or can act on its own. In places where few public places exist (perhaps in extremely remote rural areas) the house reading might be something of a necessity, but for the most part it is not a necessity. On the upside, the house reading can be a place of healthy, small community self-nourishing activity; on the downside, it requires some sort of (private) entre, even of a minimal sort (to someone’s abode, no less), and so it risks having the potential to become a preferred members-only club (in the worst case, for those nostalgic for an illuminati-mode of disseminating poetic wizardry).
So, the initial proposition as to how academy-based poetry conferences have the capacity to contribute to politically regressive valuation structures, can now be restated as a question: In what way do the various modes of poetic activity (majoritarian “bureaucratic” and minoritarian “independent”) function at an academy-based poetry conference? How does that event summon for itself and metabolize already-organized forms of aesthetic (quote) “power” that leads to an “exacerbation of class privilege?”
The three coeval concepts of “location”, “activity”, and “transposition” might help to shed light on the political-aesthetic “self-representation” of the four main streams of poetic activity (“aesthetic volunteeristic”, “academic”, “coffeehouse / bar” and “house”). That is to say, that each of these four streams – apart from what their respective “temporal” elements might think of them (i.e. “me “and “you”), each stream has a “think” all of its own making.
“aesthetic volunteerism” - tends to think of itself as a guardian of location (even if the physical location of the reading series changes) and thus it acts as a regulator of that location’s reception parameters, sometimes called “tradition”. Individual poets’ activities—what they might portend to the world-at-large—in the main, gets muted; the transposition potential for each performance is low indeed, and unless that potential gets addressed head on, performances become (in a matter speaking) mainly “additions” to the “series”. Another way to put it is that “aesthetic volunteerism” tends to think of itself and thus act as some kind of tender of a poetic after-life crypt, where “useful” objects for the poetic after-life are haphazardly, but ritualistically arranged, one upon the another. Some might call this “outrider tradition”, but it is crypt tending. The best part of this “scene” is the making of masks and masked balls. And you know, when you wear a mask, you do some helluva shit, eh?
“academic” – again, outside of people’s thinking within it, dreams of itself as being at the center of the governance of aesthetic transpositions where material-cultural “location” – whatever it was – back when – has since (conveniently) perished. Thus, poetic “activity” is un-moored from many an embarrassing determinative field and is “free” to do labor for transpository governance itself. In other words, “academic” tends to think of itself as fatigue-heroic. Fatigue-heroic is pulling a book off a shelf and every time being amazed that the book wasn’t glued to two other books on either side of it. Fatigue-heroic won’t be seen in public clipping poetic coupons. Fatigue-heroic is Connecticut in Puerto Rico talking Freiburg. The corpse, the coupons, and triplicate books are gathered up by “academic’s” two last remaining friends, “pay” and “check”.
“coffeehouse / bar” – thinks of “activity” as the one and only. Its pietistic attitude towards “activity” is as fervent as “academic’s’” reverence towards “transposition” and as venerating as “aesthetic volunteerism’s” is towards “location”, a fetish, in other words. Here there is no cultural-material after-life to pine for, and its transposition potential is kept in check by barrelfuls of subter-locational “keepin’ it reals”. This is a way of saying that “coffeehouse / bar” tends toward four-inch thick tempered steel public toilet encasements, These self-cleansing “scenes” cost only 25 cents, but use two dollars and fifty cents worth of cultural power per disbursement. Loose nuts on the encasement eventually lead to a compromise in the encasement’s structural integrity, and thus, “coffee-house / bar’s” unwelcomed “exit to the outer world”. When not in operation, “coffeehouse / bar” is an annoyance to even think about, yet, “coffeehouse / bar” thinks of itself as a positive step towards resolving the indignities Starbuck’s Anthology of Conceptual Poetry.
“House” – its dreamwork, entails a suspension of “location”, “activity”, and “transposition”, a slip sliding into a sort of “hole”, where its growing suspicions of itself are dissolved by psychosexually extruded antagonisms that end up as the improbable half-dressed “ethical” equivalences of democratic yesteryears. But more than that, “House”, tends to think of itself as a Chateau de Putain Brillante in the middle of a Costco parking lot. “House”—is a sub-political bedbug distribution center for “in-rider” types, “tipos” – “esos tipos” “ese tipo – va leer? otra vez!?”. Chateau de Putain Brillante is Indiana in Ohio talking Iowa. “House” tends toward the tragic-energetic in pastoral-elegiac mode. The shopping carts are coming home to roost?
*
But it is what each of these four different modes of poetic activity think that the other four might think that they are—unto themselves, and, what those other four might actually be trying to “do”—to the four others, that makes for a monsterology of positioning. “Theory” of “poetry community formation”, is a mild tale compared to a monsterology of positioning. And it is within this 16 dimensional identity-forming schema where questions about the class political valences of academic poetry conferences can be explored. The exacerbation of class privilege and power in the domain of culture as facilitated by academic poetry conferences can be abbreviated thusly:
To “coffeehouse / bar” – “academic” is a giant floating space station in the middle of deep space, shaped like a top, pointed at both ends, rotating and with a million windows—no one at the windows; the landing bays are semi-active, however.
To “house” (usually too drunk to discern anything up close in any detail, nevertheless) – “academic”, appears as a 5 foot 11 inch purple velveteen rabbit to deal with—tomorrow morning.
To “aesthetic-volunteerism” – “academic” – is a two-headed, four-mouthed, titanium-toothed ghoul who wants to know how the lighting can be best adjusted to minimize the fangs’ glare. Tonight.
But it is what “academic" “thinks” of these four modes of poetic activity that determines the class dimension (again, not what individual “people” might think, but the mode of poetic activity itself; such are the ghostly movements of historical-materialist mysteries – ye not know what ye thought ye knew, sucka).
“Academic Poetry Conference” – thinks of “coffeehouse/bar”, as well, lower class shit. So, that doesn’t go too far in class stratified (and policed) society, does it?
“Academic Conference’s” – view on “House”, on the other hand, varies by a just a twitch. But a twitch can become a spastic embolism of the poetic nard in the night sky when told to your face that your poetry sucks (by compliment).
“Academic Conference’s” dealie towards “aesthetic-volunteerism” – is a dealie more complex indeed. In this relationship, the almost-truth of the unity of “location”, “activity” and “transposition” asserts itself like this:
Poetic “activity” makes poetic “location”, location; while “location” on the other hand (and at the same time), determines “activity”, but “transposition” remains the sole provenance of – transposition itself!
You all know the pyramid of Giza, right? In the ancient world, at the time of its construction, it was the largest structure built to that time (and for 3, 800 years thereafter)…a marvel, still today.
—Question: what…was bigger than the pyramid of Giza?
…
… The ramp.
It took as long and as much effort “at the time” of its construction – to build -
Long-since lopped away, this ramp…what of it? (what of it?)
Not much, really.
But we can say that, even now, right?
“The Ramp of Giza”
And that changes the way we think of things.
Rodrigo Toscano’s newest Collapsible Poetics Theater piece is “Feel Your Media – Bitch”. He works in Manhattan at the Labor Institute, and runs middle and long distance races for the North Brooklyn Runners.
Suzanne Stein is a poet, publisher, and the community producer at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Doings and Sayings of the Ancient-Future Poets
The problem with academy-based poetry conferences and the valuation structures they contribute in creating, is that they aid in further tightening already-existing interlocking national poetic bureaucracies. When such bureaucracies become more tightly tethered to each other, they can exacerbate class privilege and power in the domain of culture.
The two main poetic “bureaucracies” that tend to interlock are – 1, the largely symbolic capital of what can be called “aesthetic volunteerism”, i.e., the by and large “stable” poetry reading circuits such as the Bowery Poetry Club, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Beyond Baroque, Small Press Traffic; and 2, the more potentially direct-economic “academic poetry” circuit, which includes on-campus reading series, poetry teaching posts, and university publishing prospects.
The first, “aesthetic volunteerism” is, of course, in a misnomer in cases where paid positions are part of the structure (i.e. St. Mark’s Poetry Project, the Poet’s House in Philadelphia, Small Press Traffic, Woodland Pattern), but for the most part, “volunteerism” accurately describes a stream of poetic activity that bubbles up from a baseline of poetic community participation. The main elements of this kind of scene can range from the nearly anonymous audience member to the ever-hungry scenester on the prowl. Functions can range from food and drink venders to audio-visual helpers, all the way up to samizdat journals registering the activity. These scenes can generally be entered via a public avenue without much entre, let alone registration dues and fees. The level of commitment required of the participants, varies widely from week to week.
The second, “academic poetry circuit” carries with it, potentially huge stakes (it should be noted, stakes for an increasingly proletarianized / exploited stratum of teaching “professionals”) that is, “J” “O” B’s”, “J” “O” “B’s” that have the potential to produce life structures, that in turn, might produce more ample conditions for yet more “productivity”. And since these stakes exist in conditions of extreme scarcity (i.e. the never-ending tenure track recession, or rather, depression, for thousands of knowledge workers), the tendency for this stratum of workers to engage in commercial behavior—is increased. One common example is the teacher-student sponsor system. Mutual critical-aesthetic valorization can remain—just that, bi-directional feeder systems that go on unexamined and unchecked, to the detriment of those not hooked into that “informal” (formal) system.
Another example of potential-to-real “power” accrual is profile building by the creation and chairing of academic poetry panels. Besides the bump the organizer gets by recruiting “peers”, the overall impact that panels have on the mapping of aesthetic discourse can be long lasting. Of course, not everything can be reduced to nomenklatura making and “gifting”, but the dynamics of this “academicized” terrain of poetic activity has features that are qualitatively different than those of the aforementioned “mainly symbolic” “voluntaristic” scene.
Two other minor “arms” (or “poetic streams of activity”) that have the capability of feeding into interlocking national poetic bureaucracies, but from more distant locations, are - 1, the somewhat irregular, but highly proliferative coffeehouse and bar reading series in thousands of medium-to-small cities around the country (though these can also exist in major urban centers), and 2, what are called “house readings.” As to how these two streams of poetic activity relate to “interlocked bureaucracies” can be hard to trace.
The coffeehouse/bar phenomenon can act on (as they say) “its own” “for its own”, or it can potentially act as a feeder stream to a larger, more institutional scene (or both). The local coffeehouse/bar scene can be a very active testing ground for diverse reading styles where writers steadily develop an acute sense of the performative potentials of public spaces. A groundswell of exploration occurs at this not-yet-national terrain that is often rewritten at the national level by either direct (un-cited) appropriation of its development, or straight up erasure.
The “house reading”, in turn, can also act as a feeder or adjunct to other poetic spaces, or can act on its own. In places where few public places exist (perhaps in extremely remote rural areas) the house reading might be something of a necessity, but for the most part it is not a necessity. On the upside, the house reading can be a place of healthy, small community self-nourishing activity; on the downside, it requires some sort of (private) entre, even of a minimal sort (to someone’s abode, no less), and so it risks having the potential to become a preferred members-only club (in the worst case, for those nostalgic for an illuminati-mode of disseminating poetic wizardry).
So, the initial proposition as to how academy-based poetry conferences have the capacity to contribute to politically regressive valuation structures, can now be restated as a question: In what way do the various modes of poetic activity (majoritarian “bureaucratic” and minoritarian “independent”) function at an academy-based poetry conference? How does that event summon for itself and metabolize already-organized forms of aesthetic (quote) “power” that leads to an “exacerbation of class privilege?”
The three coeval concepts of “location”, “activity”, and “transposition” might help to shed light on the political-aesthetic “self-representation” of the four main streams of poetic activity (“aesthetic volunteeristic”, “academic”, “coffeehouse / bar” and “house”). That is to say, that each of these four streams – apart from what their respective “temporal” elements might think of them (i.e. “me “and “you”), each stream has a “think” all of its own making.
“aesthetic volunteerism” - tends to think of itself as a guardian of location (even if the physical location of the reading series changes) and thus it acts as a regulator of that location’s reception parameters, sometimes called “tradition”. Individual poets’ activities—what they might portend to the world-at-large—in the main, gets muted; the transposition potential for each performance is low indeed, and unless that potential gets addressed head on, performances become (in a matter speaking) mainly “additions” to the “series”. Another way to put it is that “aesthetic volunteerism” tends to think of itself and thus act as some kind of tender of a poetic after-life crypt, where “useful” objects for the poetic after-life are haphazardly, but ritualistically arranged, one upon the another. Some might call this “outrider tradition”, but it is crypt tending. The best part of this “scene” is the making of masks and masked balls. And you know, when you wear a mask, you do some helluva shit, eh?
“academic” – again, outside of people’s thinking within it, dreams of itself as being at the center of the governance of aesthetic transpositions where material-cultural “location” – whatever it was – back when – has since (conveniently) perished. Thus, poetic “activity” is un-moored from many an embarrassing determinative field and is “free” to do labor for transpository governance itself. In other words, “academic” tends to think of itself as fatigue-heroic. Fatigue-heroic is pulling a book off a shelf and every time being amazed that the book wasn’t glued to two other books on either side of it. Fatigue-heroic won’t be seen in public clipping poetic coupons. Fatigue-heroic is Connecticut in Puerto Rico talking Freiburg. The corpse, the coupons, and triplicate books are gathered up by “academic’s” two last remaining friends, “pay” and “check”.
“coffeehouse / bar” – thinks of “activity” as the one and only. Its pietistic attitude towards “activity” is as fervent as “academic’s’” reverence towards “transposition” and as venerating as “aesthetic volunteerism’s” is towards “location”, a fetish, in other words. Here there is no cultural-material after-life to pine for, and its transposition potential is kept in check by barrelfuls of subter-locational “keepin’ it reals”. This is a way of saying that “coffeehouse / bar” tends toward four-inch thick tempered steel public toilet encasements, These self-cleansing “scenes” cost only 25 cents, but use two dollars and fifty cents worth of cultural power per disbursement. Loose nuts on the encasement eventually lead to a compromise in the encasement’s structural integrity, and thus, “coffee-house / bar’s” unwelcomed “exit to the outer world”. When not in operation, “coffeehouse / bar” is an annoyance to even think about, yet, “coffeehouse / bar” thinks of itself as a positive step towards resolving the indignities Starbuck’s Anthology of Conceptual Poetry.
“House” – its dreamwork, entails a suspension of “location”, “activity”, and “transposition”, a slip sliding into a sort of “hole”, where its growing suspicions of itself are dissolved by psychosexually extruded antagonisms that end up as the improbable half-dressed “ethical” equivalences of democratic yesteryears. But more than that, “House”, tends to think of itself as a Chateau de Putain Brillante in the middle of a Costco parking lot. “House”—is a sub-political bedbug distribution center for “in-rider” types, “tipos” – “esos tipos” “ese tipo – va leer? otra vez!?”. Chateau de Putain Brillante is Indiana in Ohio talking Iowa. “House” tends toward the tragic-energetic in pastoral-elegiac mode. The shopping carts are coming home to roost?
*
But it is what each of these four different modes of poetic activity think that the other four might think that they are—unto themselves, and, what those other four might actually be trying to “do”—to the four others, that makes for a monsterology of positioning. “Theory” of “poetry community formation”, is a mild tale compared to a monsterology of positioning. And it is within this 16 dimensional identity-forming schema where questions about the class political valences of academic poetry conferences can be explored. The exacerbation of class privilege and power in the domain of culture as facilitated by academic poetry conferences can be abbreviated thusly:
To “coffeehouse / bar” – “academic” is a giant floating space station in the middle of deep space, shaped like a top, pointed at both ends, rotating and with a million windows—no one at the windows; the landing bays are semi-active, however.
To “house” (usually too drunk to discern anything up close in any detail, nevertheless) – “academic”, appears as a 5 foot 11 inch purple velveteen rabbit to deal with—tomorrow morning.
To “aesthetic-volunteerism” – “academic” – is a two-headed, four-mouthed, titanium-toothed ghoul who wants to know how the lighting can be best adjusted to minimize the fangs’ glare. Tonight.
But it is what “academic" “thinks” of these four modes of poetic activity that determines the class dimension (again, not what individual “people” might think, but the mode of poetic activity itself; such are the ghostly movements of historical-materialist mysteries – ye not know what ye thought ye knew, sucka).
“Academic Poetry Conference” – thinks of “coffeehouse/bar”, as well, lower class shit. So, that doesn’t go too far in class stratified (and policed) society, does it?
“Academic Conference’s” – view on “House”, on the other hand, varies by a just a twitch. But a twitch can become a spastic embolism of the poetic nard in the night sky when told to your face that your poetry sucks (by compliment).
“Academic Conference’s” dealie towards “aesthetic-volunteerism” – is a dealie more complex indeed. In this relationship, the almost-truth of the unity of “location”, “activity” and “transposition” asserts itself like this:
Poetic “activity” makes poetic “location”, location; while “location” on the other hand (and at the same time), determines “activity”, but “transposition” remains the sole provenance of – transposition itself!
You all know the pyramid of Giza, right? In the ancient world, at the time of its construction, it was the largest structure built to that time (and for 3, 800 years thereafter)…a marvel, still today.
—Question: what…was bigger than the pyramid of Giza?
…
… The ramp.
It took as long and as much effort “at the time” of its construction – to build -
Long-since lopped away, this ramp…what of it? (what of it?)
Not much, really.
But we can say that, even now, right?
“The Ramp of Giza”
And that changes the way we think of things.
No comments