Cahiers de Corey

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The Zukofsky chapter—or at least a first draft of it—is complete! Phew! Ronald Johnson is next and last. I'm three-fourths of a PhD!

Think I'll take the rest of the week off and read poems or something.

5 comments:

Jonathan said...: That's got to be the hardest chapter to write, I would imagine. Great news.; 11:01 PM
Zeke Hunkaburning said...: wow oh wow! It must be tough up there in your ivory tower.

I'm no McCarthy, and I'm on no witch hunt, Josh.

And I'm sorry that I don't have all day to blog back and forth.

I'm not even out to make your life difficult or to hurt your feelings.

I'm not blog stalking you, either, just trying to make sense of this poetry scene and the politics that seem to inform it from your end.

What does this mean, I asked:

. . . while taxing 100% of the earnings exceeding $100,000 of any American.

What rate would that be?

Didn't Merle Haggard sing something like "if you don't love it leave it . .. "?

I would not ask that of you, because you have every right to live here and to critisize the unfairness of our system, as you see it, but have you considered living somewhere else, like Sweden or Canada, if you dislike this country and our system of government so much?

Have you ever lived under socialism? Have you listened and understood the complaints of people who live under those systems?

Do you understand the poor quality of care received under socialized medicine?

My parents were mean and cruel to me growing up, in my view, so I left home as soon as possible and kept them at arms length from then on. That seemed like a simple, equitable solution to me. They did not see it that way, but saw their behavoir as being in my best interest. We agreed to disagree. But I did not remain in their house fighting with them and telling them they were wrong and that everything they believed was wrong.

I left.

I'd bet good money that you recieve some kind of public money from the government in the form of grants or scholarships or whatever.

That is what you love about this country, isn't it, it's generosity.

That and your ambition.; 2:19 AM
Jessica Smith said...: josh, congrats on having come so far on your thesis. who are you working with there who can advise on zuk and johnson?; 4:37 PM
Anonymous said...: Seems that someone is confusing economics with government, oh wait, that's the government . . .sorry this chump is hassling you, he's not even a funny hassler, michael sikkema; 12:27 AM
Unknown said...: Jessica, my committee members are Roger Gilbert, Jonathan Monroe, and Douglas Mao. None of them are Zukofskyans by trade, but Roger did I believe serve on Mark Scroggins' committee back in the day, and as everybody knows Mark's middle name is or ought to be Zukofsky. Of the three, Jonathan has the most experience with Language poetry and its predecessors, while Doug is a Modernism scholar and has written extensively on Pound. As far as I know none of them has read much Johnson, but then who in the academy has? That's part of the fun for me.; 8:38 AM

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“Joshua Corey has reinvented the good old-fashioned American avant-garde epic poem (Whitman, Stein, Crane, O’Hara) and thrust it, kicking if not screaming, into the early 21st century, ‘rescued / by what survives the will to survive.’ The result is thrilling, and unlike any poetry I know.”

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Joshua's bookshelf: currently-reading

Swann's Way

by Marcel Proust

Slowly, slowly sinking into the astonishingly sensual memory-world of Proust. At forty, I think I'm finally old enough to appreciate it. Reading the Moncrief but I'd like to check out the Lydia Davis translation as well.

tagged: currently-reading