I sent the group, or its message board, an
invitation to have, without cost, a copy of Waking the Poet. Don't
know about the board itself, but the digest, which is all I and many others
see, is in plain-text non-html. This is the Digest. Mail programs that do
not handle html are very likely still in use . Reading html text as plain
text (take any .html file into a text editor) is not difficult once you
acquire the habit of reading html tags (<...>) as punctuation
marks, only a little "bigger" than commas and semi-colons, to allow
embedded semantic or "meta" data, raw html text reads easily. Yet, many
will lose the text in glyphs and think they are attempting to read
something out of ancient Egypt. This will explain message below being
in a narrow column with > at the beginning of each wrapped line.
That's because what we have here is a "Forwarded" copy.
My "notice of a free book" is actually
an essay written to "prep" a potential listening reader. I'm putting
it, and a few other messages to the group and letters to Stephen, in this
section of the archive to allow others the same "step up" into Waking.
When I send a copy of the book to somebody who requests it, I enclose an
old brochure (from when I was selling the book) and this, too, is because
some mini-essays and pictures of marked up pages are good previews.
What plain-text means here is that I
use quotes for titles, not bold or italic print, and a pair of asterisks
to surround text that absolutely must be in italicized print.
Forget all this and read on. This is
just one poet talking to other poets, though some of what's overheard
may sound a little weird...
----- Page thumber:
Message offering the free book: a "kickoff" essay.
Message asking for responses, rewrite of the first essay....
Response to another message on "defining poetry" (relevant)...
Email to Stephen with his message ("Book") that I "answer" outside group messages.
Email to Stephen, part 2 of my "answer", weaving Waking into my poems.
Email to Stephen, part 3 of my "answer".
Phonemic instrument - a ship in a bottle? An "exploratory" essay...
Endpiece
Waking
section on Archive page.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 2:25
PM
Subject: Yup, it really is
free....
> April of the ret. @ddress is my wife...
>
> ...and this
is husband Gene Fowler rescuing (maybe) the last 150 or so
> copies of the
1000 printed in 1980 or 81 not so much from our closet as
> from (later)
the Berkeley landfill. Or maybe, in this new century, from
> the recycle
(paper, not books) bin....
>
> The book is titled "Waking the Poet"
and I'll get to what and why in a
> moment. Somebody, possibly a reviewer,
though I know of only the title he
> or she gave, retitled the book: "Walking the poet".
I'm sure it was intended
> as a put-down. But I like it....
>
> It's a poet musing about poetics ("the makings") up by a blackboard,
so
> it's presumably a lecture series and the book falls into "hours"
rather
> than "chapters". The blackboard is used. And it's all a how-to,
sort of,
> for poets.... How do you get one? Email me a mule-mail address
I can
> send it to. Yup, it's free. Not even postage and handling. I'm
not
> collecting addresses. I'll address the envelope for it and burn
the
> address. I'm doing nothing but scattering books. I'll enclose a
brochure
> about the book that was for selling it, but I include it now
because
> it's got some mini-essays that will help you into the book,
stairs up to
> the porch-so to speak. If somebody sends the old cover
price, I'll drop
> it into the envelopes-and-stamps basket, but there's
enough in there.
>
> I'll talk about how it's a how-to in a minute.
First, here's the Table
> of Contents...
>
> FOREWORD
>
The Nature of the "Deeper Crafts"
>
> FIRST
SESSION
> Introduction to the Course
>
> FIRST
HOUR
> Waking the Poet: What it Means
>
> SECOND
HOUR
> Tale of the Experience-Maker
>
> SECOND
SESSION
> MELOPOEIA or melody making
>
> THIRD
HOUR
> The Eye Assists the Ear: reading music
>
> FOURTH HOUR
> A Poet's Third Lyre: The Phonemic
Instrument
>
> THIRD SESSION
> PHANOPOEIA or
Sense-Making
>
> FIFTH HOUR
> The Art of
Sense-Making
>
> SIXTH HOUR
> A Poet's Fourth
Lyre: The Sensemic Instrument
>
> FOURTH SESSION
>
LOGOPOEIA or Revelation-Making
>
> SEVENTH
HOUR
> The Tapestry of Words
>
> EIGHTH
HOUR
> A Poet's Fifth Lyre: The Revelemic Instrument
>
> FIFTH SESSION
> ONOMATOPOEIA or Gname-Making
>
> NINTH HOUR
> The Art of Phrasing
>
>
TENTH HOUR
> A Poet's Sixth Lyre: The Rhythmemic
Instrument
>
> AFTERWORD
> The Mastery of the
Deeper Crafts
>
> From the early sixties, my favorite how-to book
(from my taken-on poet's
> viewpoint) was Kimon Nicolaides "The Natural
Way to Draw". This was
> partly because all the best sources I was finding
and digging live mind
> out of tended not to be from poets. Nicoleides,
Sergei Eisenstein, a
> scatter of people who, essentially, went deeper
than their own craft....
> I guess the book I obtained was the 1941,
though there was a 1969 one
> I know about. The 1975 paperback I came across
in 1979, about the time
> I was dreaming up what I'd say to *listening*
poets, if asked, had on the
> cover, from the Whole Earth Catalog, "...not
only the best how-to book
> on drawing, it is the best how-to book we've
seen on any subject.".
> Amen.
>
> What made this my
top-of-the-list, and what likely influenced first me
> and then "Waking"
(or "Walking"), was this sort of thing, said again and
> again throughout
the book. "Learning how to draw is really a matter of
> learning to see -
to see correctly - and that means a good deal more
> than merely looking
with the eye. The sort of 'seeing' I mean is an
> observation that
utilizes as many of the five senses as can reach
> through the eye at one
time." He goes on into a paragraph with fragments
> like "...you know
sandpaper by the way it feels when you touch it..."
> and, so, on into the
how-to that seems to have blow away more minds than
> mine.
>
> So, maybe, in paraphrase, I can say, "learning to write poetry is
really
> a matter of learning to hear...". And, of course, we don't close
it down
> to the five "extracted" senses, or six or eight, taking the
proprietary
> senses into that model. We deal with the complex
intertwining senses,
> such as the sense of time and the companion sense
of timing, the dozen
> or more senses for handling spatial goings-on. But
the point to be made
> is the same. I wrote in that brochure, "The
subtlety of these crafts is
> apparent if you think about how poets even
became aware of them. Take
> melopoeia, or melody-making. A master poet,
one of the naturals, doesn't
> just jury-rig a rhyme scheme, but controls
the whole texture of sound in
> a passage that is, indeed, poetry. And the
human ear responds to this
> control and the impacts it causes. We can
hear it in operation. Poets
> heard it and looked for a term to apply to
the poet who produced it. And
> the poets recognized that the craft wasn't
in the master's voice, wasn't
> something originating in the poet's
speech, but was from farther back,
> originating in the poet's hearing ...
so they said of this fortunate
> poet that he or she 'has a good ear.'
It's a craft of hearing that,
> then, reappears in the poet's speaking or
singing."
>
> You don't have to wait for the book to arrive to read
it. I have it in a
> hyperperfect-bound edition in my archive. You can
read it there or
> download a copy. You can print a copy, of course, since
it exists in
> your browser, for carrying around. But, the paper copy has
"look and
> feel" qualities that matter. I restrained myself from changing
anything
> twenty-three years later. Maybe someday I will revisit, but
that
> youthful fellow had a breadth of grasp I (now) don't, though I've
a
> deeper experience. Here's the link.
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~acorioso/Waking_TOC.htm
>
> Oh, in that brochure I have pictures of a couple
pages I've marked up as
> somebody with a copy for his or her personal
reading might. In these two
> instances the marking up is pretty much to
pull out and label
> mini-essays within the flow of speech....
>
> I do write in books, mark them up, overlay whole systems of
highlighting
> in multiple readings. And I've worked on being able to do
that with the
> hyperperfect-bound books (the binding is a system of
links, with no glue
> and wraparound of the perfect-bound paper books). On
the table in my
> archive with my hyperperfect-bound books of poems, I
have a sample page
> with these markings. Above the page I explain what's
going on. Below it,
> I have a how-to "getting started" essay. The page is
fun. Highlighting,
> underlining, pop-up marginalia. To see the "naked"
page, hit "previous
> page" (or "next page") then on that page hit "next
page" (or "previous
> page"). Then two clicks of [Back] and you're at the
marked up one. If
> you download "Waking the Poet" , you can mark it up,
insert your notes
> or links.... Coffee stains, you can't do. Or you could
insert an image,
> of course ...of a coffee stain?
>
>
http://home.earthlink.net/~acorioso/persLibSample.htm
>
> Well, that's the whole pitch, or two
pitches.
>
> Gene
>
> Gene Fowler
> acorioso@earthlink.net
> Poetry,
Archives:
> http://home.earthlink.net/~acorioso/fires.htm
> 21st century e-typewriter (homemade):
> http://home.earthlink.net/~acorioso/ew_main.htm
>
>