A Heterogenous Update

A few scattered things here to supplement the update to the mOnocle-Lash blog that I"ll be doing later today:

• I plan to get the hell out of Jersey, and the nacreous spillage of New York in general, for good at the end of May. Roanoke, Virginia: brace yourselves...

• On April 16, I'll be participating (along with the rest of NJ PNA) in a Flux-Festival held half inside Printed Matter Bookshop in New York city, half outside on the sidewalk in front. This is organized by Keith Buchholz and promises great fun. There are a gaggle of other Fluxus and Network gatherings and events throughout the weekend, including another Fluxus/avant history tour of New Brunswick like the Anti-Tour we hosted several years ago. I'll be making as many of these events as I can, everything considered. I'll post Keith's announcement on everything later. For the moment there's this:

• And here's a work in progress, largely inspired by the Bouzingo quasi-translation/versification, which has my blood pumping metrically of late; posted primarily with a view toward the translation of Bouzingo work being done by various people right now, as an example of what the construction of such texts look like.

The theme is a favourite Decadent/Symbolist one touching on the logothetic practices dealt with in The Ecstatic Nerve, that of the incubus. I've devised a variation of a ballad form, allowing me to frame the poem as a cautionary tale sung from mother to daughter and attempt to de-mysogify, if not un-complicate, the traditional treatment of the theme.

The same '-ying' B rhyme (a double-rhyme, including slants) recurs throughout the poem, while other A sets dodge around them from stanza to stanza. I've not yet decided on the C rhyme, which will scan across the poem as a whole, one in each stanza:

Song of Caution for the Virtuous Incubus

[alternating iambic tetrameter & trimeter w/bastard syllable, w/terminal pure trimeter]

[5 stanzas: ABABC, C to rhyme across the poem]

{stanza: didactic summery of argument}

A Pay heed, young XXX in XXXXXX[hurt/ girt

B lest into XXX you XXX

A For what XXXXXX turns back to dirt

B XXX rot XXXXXXXXXXXX

C [trimeter]

********************

A For once a XXX some XXXXXXXXX

B with men of meat go[es] lying;

A and though she tremble intoXXX

B she ends XXXXXX repining

C [trimeter]

*************

A XXXXXXXXXXXX with XXX of flesh,

B In XXXXXXXXX reclining

A XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX enmeshed

B are soon enmeshed with dying

C [trimeter]

**********

A A dying XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX {dying not death...}

B XXX lamia XXXXXXXXX

A XXXXXXXXX she replies that there

B are many forms of writhing,

C and

************

{stanza: echo & subtly subvert 1st stanza}

A For flesh grows old, and cold, and dies;

B And XXXXXXXXXXXX crying

A Despite she who, XXXXXX, replies:

B XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX signing

C