Gnoetry Daily is Moving to Wordpress

Update your links. Gnoetry Daily is relocating to gnoetrydaily.wordpress.com/ with a new look. New posts will be going up soon.

Also, if you're a blog member who has not seen the e-mail yet about the move, shoot me an e-mail and I'll get everything set up for you.

Gnoetry and Deja Dit

From the collection of essays edited by Craig Dworkin, The Consequence of Innovation: 21st Century Poetics, here is a relevant exerpt from Marjorie Perloff's contribution, "The Pleasures of Deja Dit: Citation, Intertext and Ekphrasis in Recent Experimental Poetry." I think it does a good job of situating our Gnoetry work (some strains of it, at least) within the larger context of current experimental poetry.

The limits of my language, in Wittgenstein's words, are the limits of my world. In this scheme of things, the poetic drive is, in Adorno's terms, one of resistance: the resistance of the individual poet to the linguistic field of capitalist commodification where language has become merely instrumental.

But in the climate of the new century, where sites of resistance have become increasingly eroded, we seem to be witnessing a poetic turn from negation and resistance to dialogue--a dialogue with earlier texts or texts in other media, or "writings through" or ekphrases that permit the poet to participate in a larger, more public discourse, even as the poet's personal signature is once again present. Such poetry is often meditative, but meditation is made oblique by the use of Oulipo constraint, citation, and the reliance on intertext: appropriation, after all, is now a central fact of life. As such, we are witnessing a new poetry, more conceptual than expressive--a poetry in which, in Craig Dworkin's words, "the idea cannot be separated from the writing itself." (257)

I have to agree that "appropriation... is now a central fact of [poetic] life" for me. My music collection has benefited greatly from it too. On multiple layers of society, concepts of ownership have been challenged, made void and/or remade by revolutions and re-revolutions in technology. To ignore such that these upheavals are not relevant to poetry is foolish. Other artforms have been dealing with the implications of technology and contemporary thought for most of the last century, yet is seems that the bulk of poets remain attached to ideas rooted in the Romantic and Victorian periods. Painters who today paint fields and Impressionist landscapes are not usually artists taken seriously within their discipline. Why should the same not be true in poetry?

Anyway, I submit this excerpt for your consideration. The rest of the essay and the rest of the book is highly recommended too.

6X6X6 - One Poem

Reviving The Stone Age
Fri Nov 13 00:38:59 2009

Not phenomenal. The
lovemaking was more than
a critique of structured
market policy, the
skirt because she liked the
feel of warm skin next to

the corporate sector
authority. Using
a technology that
was gay, lesbian, and
repression. It was for
Pierre, the air, that smells

wonderful. He is at
war with their long embrace.
In our waters! I
am thankful those people
are carnivorous, the
girls eventually

awoke from reviving
the stone age. No means the
two are about to fuck
him. The sperm was absurd.
The sperm was pumped out of
the planet. They fucked the

tiny breasts of being.
They cut off the fetters
of everything. These huge
creatures used their youth to
chase after bad boys who
negotiated the

little stream and drank the
salty flavor of love
letters, and for the World
Trade Center, Paradise
City added to the
rest of experience.



Texts:
VA, Birth Source Text
VA, Alien SciFi Sex Fictions
Various Authors (Ed. EScovel), His $ Hers Sources
Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture
Qzxrt, Aristocrats: Banned In Hell (uncensored)
Immanuel Kant (trans. Meiklejohn), The Critique of Pure Reason

6x6x6 - Two Poems

Practical Tips For Rainbow Guacamole Dick
Wed Nov 18 00:05:05 2009

That is because they need.
This is the liver, its
baby blue rubber boots
are the snags: hello, all
naked, imagine that
bad joke. Crowbar is a

mystery, mommy, or
please me. More up to plug
the parenthesis, a
great fuck. It grieves me up
tight, no one will ever
make the document that

will become weaker and
weaker, oblivious
to the beautiful in
fact, I promise you it
is very sexy and
unalterable. That

is why it's so hard as
he says to undress. I
suppose he wouldn't be
too big for me. It was
shining, if cans, cans for
today, rainbows, and lay

on top. Practical tips
to help combat boredom.
For young men who were both
stark naked, rubbing it
firmly behind his own
good guacamole, he

starts to lick, lick it. Then
the meat had entered, the
forbidden dick of the
pussy. I really care
if I don't really
care about anything.

___________________________________


Not Very Different With A Vengeance
Wed Nov 18 01:05:20 2009

Ok... you want to smoke
and talk about what just
occurred. Don't care. I just
want her strong urine, she
uses some french perfume
there and water. That way

I truly care about
this, it is soft and more
of a word or long word.
Testicle will totter.
I love when real love is
like warm piss! Test it now

leave. What followed was not
very different with
a vengeance; and so on
down. Sasha and kim's tongue
plunged in oriental
or ears, berries. And you

get what you wrote, theory
of childbirth, keep pushing.
It's written and pushing
my cock, my boss is black,
dyed black, soft lips and eyes
that can be upgraded.

Easy, unusual
and clean. The pain of death
twice a week, when we want,
aphasia said no to
your mouth! It is not good
anyway. Fresh and cooked

fruits and flowers and an
ass like frankie. The fruit
and flowers. She had an
erection at the huge
forked sticks driven into
prostitution by you!



Texts:
VA, Birth Source Text
The Internet, Indian Erotica
The Internet, Linux HOWTOs
Woods Hutchinson, The Child's Day
Edited eRoK7 - VA, His & Hers Sources (Blog - Web)
VA, Alien SciFi Sex Fictions

response to "Authorship of Generative Art"

Those that shrink away from Gnoetry (At a Gnoetry demo here in Chicago a young woman sat down to use the software and shot up from her chair and backed away from the resulting poem slowly saying "Oh, no, no, no..." I can only hope she was horrified by the awesome beauty of the poem she and Gnoetry collaborated on) most often invoke tired notions of subjectivity, originality and creativity, as if those ideas are a) pure entities within any given individual human, untainted by something other than an "I" anb b) somehow completely eradicated by the fact that a machine is involved in a creative process. That said, the Olde Author Is Dead idea is equally banal, and in fact Gnoetry does nothing if not *multiply* authorship: end-user+(software/author of code)+source text author(s). The idea that Gnoetry shores up is the true one that *all* art is a collaborative process. To believe in the artist hunkered down, alone with her mad ideas, scribbling incredible things is her notebook is to believe in a social fantasy. The artist collects data and arranges that data in a way that can be deemed--within whatever social/cultural context she lives--as art. At its base, art is collaborative, since there needs to be another person to call it "art" in the first place, and that small audience has to get his ideas about art from somewhere...

In any case, Gnoetry shows that there is something of the random and the statistical in the creative process. To say this is *not* to reduce art to mere numbers and mechanics (I was accused of being a "used car salesman" at a reading in Iowa City during which I recited some Gnoetry) but to show that the human mind is a beautiful machine that can be artfully mimicked by a prosthetic device like Gnoetry.

Those against a machine involved in writing should look closely at their own use of word processors, or even consider dismissing out of hand all poetry written with a typewriter. The latter is a machine with its own rules (QWERTY, to say the least) and is not a transparent medium through which the human mind 'translates' its thoughts.

Gnoetry is a machine that helps us focus on the medium of language. That is, Gnoetry is a human machine that helps us focus on what it means to be poets.

Signifying Zapata

The Zapatagraphic poems--which are great poems--highlight something that has interested me about Gnoetry from the beginning; that being the fact of finding signifying markers in the gnoems based on artifacts of the source texts. This gestalt marking, so to speak, made us lean towards recognizable texts when choosing texts for the end-user to use. When coming across the name "Moreau," e.g., in a gnoem, a story is immediately present, without the end-user or the gnoem having to tell or retell the story. This is in part why gnoems using canonical texts is so interesting; a gnoem using a well-known text is unlike any other "retelling" of that text. & while the result may be the same, as in, perhaps, some form of deconstruction (though, arguably, Gnoetry is a purer form of deconstruction in that the source text is quite literally reduced to contradictory parts and the language can be called nothing else but "writing") Gnoetry makes no intellectual claims. It just performs.

The gnoem is an interpretation of the source text, using the source text itself to make its claims, like a machine-enhanced form of close reading that re-historicizes the text rather than un-does it in some banal way, like trying to tell "the *real* story of Friday in Robinson Crusoe. I do not mean that a gnoem places the action of an old novel into the present day. To re-historicize is to re-write the text in its own words--and these words might rally around a gestalt marker, like a character name or recognizable phrase (e.g., "scarlet horror") and coalesce into meaning(s) after spending time as more enigmatic signifier.

All this said, the conscious planting (I use this term with all agrarian punning intact) of a historical figure like Zapata into otherwise randomized texts seems to me a much more radical, poetically political gesture than merely writing a poem about Zapata, which can only become a kind of propaganda. The language around the name rallies behind it or argues with it, rather than the author himself doing so. Zapata is being placed into a position of making language mean--he is not being made to mean. The former is a gesture that seems to me to be the more powerful gesture.

6x6x6 - Two Poems

Two more fantastical poems in 6X6X6 form. Enjoy!!!

__________________________

Devastating Scenes at the End in the Ass
Thu Nov 12 18:11:16 2009

Fire lots of them or
freeze to kill more people.
The couch, the conditions
were beautiful. I'm still
sick of ideals, most think
differently and killed with

pleasure, say let's fuck the
world trade center, for she
was robbed of everything,
but the slew of breeding
altered dogs that are left
lying on her. We all

can avoid danger, and
shove tail sections of a
generation or two.
No surrounding landscape,
no televisions, no
flights to the buttocks, just

the devastating scenes
at the end in the ass,
where i'm pretty sure it's
beautiful. Cal, Sarah
Palin and Crack Law Drug
Warrior Mastercard

Czar Biden, I'd like to
urinate, but I just
want to be feared. Does it
do nothing to piss on
extremism, and shove
tail sections of solid

gold? The bubbles float on
materialism,
homophobia, and
data, like some kind of
a beautiful woman
with a butter knife, socks.

__________________________


Like the Heart of Brownie
Thu Nov 12 18:40:11 2009

The new comedy will
focus on the barren
dust of tanks and weapons
upgrades. The story of
my income. This planet,
smoking in a sort of

vegetation. As the
hot dog, a living room
on fire. The help of
kittens. Moreover the
beneficiaries
of kittens. I might be

able to heat up like
a pasha and take her
sweat slick body and soul.
The help of vagina
on computers around
the rim of hair, which was

to set fire to the
convention center with
life jackets on, barely
visible across it.
Ideologically,
millions of square miles of

ruined neighborhoods, it
is a savage, like the
heart of Brownie, his small
one, naturally so
tiny. The average
day on the crest of an

evolutionary
change. Located near the
fireplace. Desire
and anticipation.
I am very concerned
about the parade there.



Texts:
Various, Katrina Texts
VA, Birth Source Text
VA, Alien SciFi Sex Fictions
Various Authors (Ed. EScovel), His $ Hers Sources
Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture
Qzxrt, Aristocrats: Banned In Hell (uncensored)

Free Grass (20 Haikus)

Some more from the linguistic copulations of Lawrence Lessig and Walt Whitman (LL + WW etched in the tree).

__________________

Welcome to me, or
rock or stump, and thus touching
you is tragedy.

~

I'd be digitized,
or desolate, I don't like
the environment.

~

To do, and may be
maximized, the system is
free to come on drugs.

~

All life, composite,
tied in your garage. You and
the belt at bedtime.

~

I, the high court clerk.
This book, compulsion, C4.
A font of Brooklyn.

~

The soul of what was
noncommercial, I wrote an
editorial.

~

O Death Supreme, to
make money from this book is
a function of guilt.

~

Forget file sharing.
I hear the quality of
American life.

~

And is not lefty
in any sense. And by law
to sleep with cartoons.

~

Delicate beauty,
alternate light lighting, and
the Great Depression.

~

I think that there is
limitless space outside of
ourselves and trees.

~

O all dear to me
these bubbles, if need be, a
vast amount of you!

~

The grass grows, but strong
and arrogant woman I
like it publicly.

~

What was once “The Man”
I love, lips of love and that
which requires it.

~

Land of filmmaking,
faculty, pulse of Saddam,
Dissatisfied, Inc.

~

Continue on! The
track of beams, subject to a
pupil is flapping.

~

My children, merging
all moving images and
sound to history.

~

Red River is no
rights reserved. The female is
perfect, enabled.

~

The law is, even
if you like Lyle Lovett, you're
going to be used.

Zapatagraphy - A Dozen

Brando as Zapata



1.

Zapata possessed a moustache,
not black enough to

satisfy him. A land, a
body of empires.


2.

Proceeding along the heap
of stones, it was wet winter,

a village. Zapata did not make
a sound, fearful of seeing

the casualties that
took place around him.

Language must handle those wonders.
The light that is a method of language.


3.

Zapata became acquainted with
the blood. A bird burst forth amidst

the city. The thatch had fallen
on the floor and in you.


4.

He was then outline, a single
form of wax or a little boat

with a sheet. The dead
hovered round and instigated me.

What there is of consequence
was not in the boat. Zapata felt

gratitude towards those shores which formed
a calm far more monstrous.


5.

The spirit of enterprise
laid by me, the sad death of every

artery at length unalterable.
A tongue makes moisture

in the red of this current.
Zapata was nearly burnt

out, needing to
recollect what he loved.


6.

A spatial picture can depict
anything spatial: a single lake

which is stone, a man paused and definitive,
its hills. The lamp light, what makes it crackle, what

makes it ferns and destroying? They are merry --
only a picture. He became the wind so

when he climbed out through them, over
them, it was open air.


7.

Zapata longed to discover what
could be made to yield.

Rejoicing stream of autumn.
Vegetables in a garden.


8.

He sprang from you -- a man,
sailing over the sea,

a human mind. We are worn by
fate, so that some say Zapata

did not dream. Yet he brought no limits.
That which is beautiful in continuation.


9.

This state of active occupation.
It stood. In the house and sometimes

with the blood from it. After all,
its productions and features may

be called a precipice,
gazing on the trees, all the firmness

of deformity. A curve, no
doubt, of the church. And in it

no peace. "We have failed" they shout.
I grew feverish. It stood.


10.

No wood could support the
horror of the peasants who dwelt

in organization. Alas, they were put
together with affection,

the difference between green
and brown and not a dream, but a garden.


11.

Zapata was a man to be governed
by an emotion. The form of

his face was concealed, laughing, fearful
of elevation. So much

has been refused and given.
The sound of production.


12.

I saw a vessel, stretched
out of pigeons in my

ears' long intervals. Zapata composed
heroic songs and began

to comprehend most of them. The summer
sun was upon the mountain.

Know a Tree

I'm new here, so a short introduction is in order.

Generally: my name is Matthew Lafferty, I majored in English and Philosophy, and I'm planning on an eventual career in libraries.

Internettery: I've blogged in various places, but most of my presence online is now limited to Twitter and Identi.ca, Facebook, and more recently, ReadWritePoem.

Poetically: I've written and enjoyed poetry for a long time, but Mchain and Gnoetry have helped me get to a place where I'm more excited about poetry than perhaps I have ever been. I am still relatively new to it ("it" being digital/machine/computational poetry), and my experience thus far has been a mixture of enjoyment (of the "kid in a candy shop" variety) and a struggle both to figure out my own process and understand my aim in creating this kind of poetry.

Oh, and forgive the title of this post. It is a bad play on words, but it still amuses me, and I have become fond of it. I am still in the process of putting together my own humble chapbook, using Thoreau's Walden as the primary text and a number of other naturalist & tree-related texts as secondary. I have used/am using both Gnoetry and Mchain in the creation of poems for the chap, as the mood strikes me, but the balance is currently weighted toward Mchain.

Below are five poems created in my quest for additions to the chap, all from the last few days. Let me know what you think, because I am still finding my way to a voice and to understanding what "voice" means with respect to this particular branch of poetry. I will try to offer my own comments to poems posted here by the rest of you, but try though I might, I cannot promise my comments will be as insightful as anyone else's.

On to the poems.

1.

The bloom set

curiously about me

I felt no island,

overslept comfortably,

was disappointed

when again I woke up

2.

my attention

suddenly

from the grass-blades,

and their enemies

grew

much astonished

as the new

generation abandoned the world.

3.

blackberries a-growing

still rustle

through the necessity of virtue,

having thus been given

sincerest respect for grass.

4.

They wear black instead

of standing erect, keeping

them down to the state

into whose bosom snow has

lain soft and understanding.

5.

Her body and its limbs into graceful

held her, the tints of her breast.

It did not shine for something friendly;

Solitude alone wears in her coronet.

And chained to her for a long time

for the roaring of liberty

are but the shadows of myself,

enjoying a certain terrible dream

which I lived.

I consider how little this is progress

toward a jail window

or a woodchuck underground

in a topographical description of fate.

Zapatagraphy

Added a few other texts to this batch for kicks, so they probably won't make the cut. Seem to be something else entirely, but thought I'd post them any-old-ways.



1.

Many many tickle
the largest in the temple

the victim of its
pictorial form, and choose for the

use value of love (it is not
the facts) in a land a land a

meadow, abolishing the void.
Listen to every part

of the archive. This makes
of a seated figure, a way in.


2.

An old mountain is more than
a referendum. The girls

stood outside the camp, while
we smashed the windows of my love.

I believe I am glad of
it. Let us call this a free and

lofty spirit, a simple
inversion of the moon and

motion, everywhere. Ah! -- My
dear Frankenstein, USA.


3.

I am Detroit, so full
of size but nothing else.

What path to the free calendars?
Hapless victims to burnish a cloud

not to change with the slow advance
of it. The subjective forms of

radical change are a space
which must already be measured.


4.

My wanderings were spoiled
by the various lakes of

rubber. Of course, this is
not made of value, memory is

just a little piece, and it just
being certain, ceases; a slight

restraint, penniless, fractures
of events. We came to have a

standstill and waited for
our employment. It was there.


5.

The servant presently
brought breakfast. At best, when

I vote, the system is
a constant. Yes, my kind host; to be crushed.

By degrees, supposing
a cramped space might be viewed as more.

I say that I wandered like an
ogre. Though it is really a

matter of our dear
children having come forward.


6.

Drool glistening in the
symbols and all who are there.

The mass street protests are
an allusion to whose knees I clung

to, in which the elite run
their story along with pictures.

Is there a desire to my
machinations, squats, wildcat

strikes? Any wet place is
lighter. I felt sick as fuck.


7.

It is better to die
on your feet than live on your

account. A tour of the
ruins, a mediation of some

undiscovered island, where
almost any one would want to

go. That which makes it art
is false; I grew alarmed

as the same applies to
negation, etc.

6x6x6 - Two Poems

Two months ago I started a side project aimed at the journal 6x6 which I called 6x6x6. I completely forgot about it. The whole conception of the project is shameful, kitschy, and panders to the basest desires for print publication, which makes it easier for me to not give a fuck at all about it. Here are two of them that I took the time to finish today.

BTW, I didn't think about the sign of the beast thing until just a few minutes ago, but it suits the poems well, I think. ;)

-------------------------------------

Where's Your Daughter?
Sat Aug 29 15:04:33 2009 - Thu Oct 29 14:52:23 2009

"Where's your daughter," her hands
in her center, the ears
are singing, the little
weapon which will drink? "Much
love (historically)
studying the ass, sir."

The hormones (as in a
kind of sauce), the young man,
extraordinarily
rich, abundant breasts, a
tendency to breakfast
in a sperm egg, perhaps?

Regarding this, I make
her look like Satan, or
is it that (it is) that
panic will spread through the
scattered knots of people
who read this idea?

She learned how to put out
(and in!), column of black,
curly hair. Meat man: "Oh
my mastiff! You put out
too, and the sex was like
a walk in Lebanon."

Dashed painful, "I just love
the little crises that
are worn together!" A
lot of alcohol, the
fine cheeses, fruit and strong
woman with scorpions.

Note: "Oh no!" Once she has
lain down with Miguel and
zucchini. Dolls creep me
out... booming sound, like one
thing to people who had
one. Sarah palin, too.

------------------------------------------

Good, Positive and Uncomplicated
Sat Aug 29 14:43:03 2009

What better quality,
promise technology,
promise driver floppy
is inspirational.
Yet another way to
be free! Let children be

children, and feed on my
machine, configure it
to the taste of the soul.
His intercourse with a
single screen, she ensnared
mankind with the stock in

the womb. Egg after an
informal survey, it's
synopsis is printed
as OK, or not good
with bad apples, the way
my new favorite thing

is good, positive and
uncomplicated, but
is not available.
Creating authentic,
consensual, reduced
to be offered, to be

formed and alive. Take it,
everyone has turned. Egg
after a wonderful
platform, no weight, people
with little housing or
food. Easy to get the

latest versions and to
see what harmony, what
is their trade imbalance.
Thus architecture is
called an aggregate if
equal to Rwanda.



Texts:
P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves
Woods Hutchinson, The Child's Day
VA, Birth Source Text
Various Authors (Ed. EScovel), His $ Hers Sources
Sax Rohmer, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Zapatagraphy

1.

If, instead of threatening,
I could have committed. Zapata's

travels were long and fatiguing,
his wanderings were spoiled by the flames,

which shone brightly on the white
plain. A few tears from the bliss

of my friend - I cannot imagine
the sufferings, I wrote to a great mirror.



2.

While the modern system raises
the funeral wail, Zapata strove to act

in a soft voice, and bent wood
and leaves as if under the table.

I dreaded to behold the busy heavens
answer. Learn from land -

Zapata's fundamental idea -
that all these men were his country.



3.

But you are to yield. In my
cloak, papa! An eye. Zapata had

a far different situation.
They were bound. It directed

his steps towards the valley. He
will shine on us as disappearance.

The Purpose - Sat Oct 24 17:29:50 2009

the purpose of the very commonplace ·
in some perspectives · will become extinct ·
the body of a stream · a thimble · some
were covered with a girdle round the head ·
the sea · desire · or the theory of
the water · which upsets the world · a thing
according to the market · complex · some
were treated with a theory of the head ·

the judgment · at the present time a thing
resides in its advances · soon the eye
becomes accustomed to the surface of
the water · and the merit of events
in our systems of desire · to
the ocean · is a small canoe · in which
the eye becomes accustomed to regard
the future as determined · little more ·

the sun · a very low opinion of
the moon · the climate · and a quarter of
a meal · the things obey the theory of
the world in layers on the head · the judge
continued to deny a substance or
foundation · but pretended to expect ·
the boats · the waves · the contemplation of
a fully purified ideal in man ·



Texts:
R.M. Ballantyne, Cannibal Islands
Samuel Butler, Erewhon
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays

"The Authorship of Generative Art"

I found this short statement of aesthetics from two British artists on AAAARG.ORG this morning that is certainly relevant to our Gnoetic endeavours here. This is an excerpt from Adrian Ward's and Geoff Cox's 2005 essay, "How I Drew One of My Pictures: or, The Authorship of Generative Art":

Although the 'author-god' might be dead (according to Post-Structuralist theory), we are forced to accept this 'death' as an inability to claim the privileged source of meaning or value of a work of art and artist.[2] This is by no means new; there are numerous precedents for collaborative experimentation in creativity and automatism within a history of art-machines, robotics, and deferred authorship: the use of chance by dadaists, and automatism by surrealists, aimed to stimulate spontaneous and collective creative activity and to diminish the significance of the artist. As the creating subject or author has largely been discredited and dematerialised over the years, there is a pressing need to examine new demarcations, and the functions released by this disappearance.[3] Perhaps 'the death of the author' is simply too literal, (too obvious and final) a metaphor to offer a critique of the productive apparatus by which contemporary creative operations using computers are organised and regulated. [emphasis added]

While I find much of their analysis coincides with many of my own ideas about generative, conceptual and/or digital works of art, I cannot agree with their emphasis on the programmer of systems as the primary inheritor of value as author and creator. I agree that "when a programmer develops a generative system, they are engaged in a creative act," as well as that "programming is no less an artform than painting is a technical process;" but to conclude unequivicably that "it is no longer necessary or even desirable to be able to render art as
a final tangible medium, but instead it is more important to program computers to be creative by proxy" overlooks the many possibilities of digital art as well as many of the real examples of digital writing created using computer systems. It also conflates the site of creativity with the act of creativity--something which is definitely not true in many cases with generative and quasi-generative systems designed for artistic production.

Gnoetry is a prime example of this. Much credit an admiration goes to the creative act of programming such a system for artistic use, but this is not the only and final creative act, it is the first; and it is certainly not of greater importance as an aesthetic act than the many others to follow within the program's environment. The act of the creation of such a system is invaluable to the following creative acts, as none of them would have occurred without it; but this is just as true as saying that the creation of cable television is more valuable than the creation of channels and shows to be on it. Jon Stewart and The Daily Show would not have come about without something like Comedy Central being possible within the context of Cable Television, much as individual works of digital art would not exist without the systems (Gnoetry, Project Gutenberg, the Internet, Western Capitalist society) upon which they rely; this does not mean, though, that all comedians should be more concerned with creating new forms of media to work within than in writing comedy.

Furthermore, to dismiss the subjective activity of a human collaborating artist by concluding that "a great deal of these so-called creative decisions made by artists are driven by chance, or other imperceptible influences" and should just be left to random decisions on the part of the machine, is to completely dismiss the importance of choice, as well as the act of "working the system" (exploring glitches or tricks in the program) to bring about an aesthetically and subjectively desirable result. There is something to be said for placing a reasoned or intuitively guided choice above a random one.

Much more could obviously be said about this. Programming may become an indispensible tool for artists and writers soon, either on their own or in collaboration with knowledgable and interested programmers, but wholly generative art will remain only one of the genres of this evolving branch of artistic process. In Gnoetry, one does not simply press play and let the system create the end result. The perception and subjectivity of the collaborating artist is at the heart of the gnoem's authorship just as much as the system is. Models such as Gnoetry--human-machine collaborations within a programmed framework--are thus of great importance to the development of a digital aesthetic that marries the artist's creative will with computer processes. I hope that as more writers come to use programs like Gnoetry, the truly unique approach of each writer will come to be seen as crucial to the evaluation of their work.

The Holy - Sun Oct 18 17:22:54 2009

the holy laughing and the bodies on
the grass · a spasm of amusements · call
the human future · dinner was attached ·
the trailing glory of the trees · a pause ·
a magic powder · solid · put behind
a silly ass · the sills were stretched · amen ·
the recreation of the trees beyond
the thicket · there · the choicest of delight ·

the bushes came · unsettled · squealing with
the surplus · writhing in the ashes of
the green beyond · the bark · towards the hill
behind the multitude · the bodies had
arranged a luncheon and a bridge · a fine
selection · oh · the moon · in order that
the ass · the frenzy with the virtues of
a breakfast · with a dog in gratitude ·

the human save in heaven · raving of
the kitchen and the countryside · the trees
beyond the food · the highest hill behind
the ladies to enjoy · a blessing and
a corpse · the kingdom to the stomach · and
the ass · the present · do according to
the sunny corner of existence · drink
the trailing glory of the future · ha ·



Texts:
Fannie Louise Apjohn, The Enchanted Island
H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

The Fundamental - Fri Oct 16 18:52:08 2009

the fundamental notion of bamboo ·
prolongs the smaller waterfalls · reversed
in space · engaged in time · becoming · that
the habit of perception is a more
annoying one · in rude progression · laid
in alternating layers of bamboo ·
elated with the light in hand · prolongs
the contemplation of the gulf beneath ·

reprinted from the kernel of the great
pacific ocean · take a number is
correct · the polished surface of bamboo ·
the points · unchanging · this perspective with
the wood · a bath in metaphysics · and
a quarter thick · the kernels of the faint
reflection of a tree · concerning which
appears · permitted to exaggerate ·

the sea a swiftness · and the small cascades ·
in one perspective to another · as
a given thing in life · the harbour at
the centre of the torrent · which appear
in their effects · consisting of the world ·
the whole apparent intuition · is
a long ascent in introspection · or
a bath in dreams · until the monsters sleep ·



Texts:
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Herman Melville, Typee
R.M. Ballantyne, Cannibal Islands

The Fruits - Wed Oct 7 18:16:13 2009

the fruits in conversation · and engaged
in alternation · pimples and the stars ·
conceited · went among the latter parts ·
exceeding bright · in solitude · a man
in riding trousers and complete · a good
example of the sacred with delight ·
a more delightful prospect · there were on
the earth in such a manner wholly free ·

in these results · a feeling was · unlike
the methods of perfection · then the more
direct · the free possession of the form ·
the execution of salvation and
the rawness and the most auspicious · to
the latter as hypothesis · upon
conditions very advantageous · which
were to confer together premature ·

the real · in many parts · exceeding bright ·
in all the burden and delusion · to
believe the feelings of the time · a stone
in paradise · a little strained · sometimes
the realization of the latter parts ·
the smallest ever known · the children of
the other parts · a dwarf · because the least
idea of the meats in paradise ·



Texts:
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Jack London, South Sea Tales
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Zapatagraphy

This is the preliminary work for a new series I've started. For this project I'm using Wittgenstein, G. Stein, and Frankenstein in conjunction with my own research on Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary, trying to tease out resonances. The final project, as envisioned, would pair the gnoetry poems with snippets of Zapata's story, along with my own ruminations on love, the internet, memory, the role of the leftist intellectual, and the specter of Obama. I have, as you will see, replaced some of the pronouns given to me by gnoetry with Zapata's name, other than that they remain as given.


1

What is one bottle? One is
only the use of brackets. Zapata

did not feel the future. With
trembling steps, as sometimes they

were. Such a red is in the centre
of Switzerland; it has a

sash. Snow fell into his hands, and
being overbearing, withdrew.



2

Young men should be possible
to suggest wounding, incapable

of the stimulation of coming
to be heard amid the streets,

in spite of everything. They
all have felt, as if a pen held by

all, as I feel. Zapata performed the
service of showing that the sea

roared; and this was left me -
no, not the facts, a resemblance.



3

Zapata was small, bound close
by the divisions in his

body. He worked up her veil, and she
knelt, ascertaining

his authority. I could not help
being struck by the greatest fear,

lest my fire should be reserved to
discover him a villain.



4

Zapata looked patient yet sad. His
limbs failed him as he walked.

It gave pleasure to his
protectors. He was dressed

in possibility, a blot
upon a world in stretches. My

voice was indignant; my lips to such
a man, an old one with a strange

multiplicity. Yet why
do we dream? My country was copper.



5

White and color and more
is gone; Zapata must not be

virtuous. If it be written
down, it was an answer.

We should have a daughter,
but I cannot consent.



6

I sing and I sing, continuing
being a habit. I write a

few minutes, and one. The point where
the flowers of spring bloomed in the

streets of the complete expression, there
were women weeping around;

and in fact, this was it until
the moon and the end of sitting.



7

We received a map of the
torture. The sound proceeded from land.



8

Fear overcame Zapata; the
caves of the things he was not.

To an echo and more, more
than half his misfortune - he was

to become an offering, the
only object that harnesses.

A child, in arranging
the paint shows that culture is this.



9

Thus ended the day. Zapata's mind
is now dead yet found a dwelling.

Come on horseback, for no man
is a bare perpendicular rock!



10

A few years will chill your
ship. A curtain is a

burst of explanation, and a
colored sky a spectacle. You

will then have a sense, and make it true.
So then the last column by

itself will be soft, not so stern
as romantic. The system

is washing, the hierarchies
are contradictory.


11

An hour passed, and soon
my mind, and yet, in the

mouth is in an order. One could
be one, it is true, sensibly

in mathematics. It cannot be
more. The expression is what

will say it is not telling
everything, in a certain

sense, that from the dark red
trees, all this makes that sun.


12

When he returned to us, he was
bigger, not merely a

petty experimentalist.
He did not feel for those

on the top of affairs
who could perceive his calm

in left over bundles.
I sat up much longer,

conversing with his desires
like a flood of strangers.



Texts:
Shelley, 1Frankenstein
Gertrude, 2SteinTender
Wittgenstein, 4Wittgen
Gertrude, 3SteinPicasso

The Limits - Fri Oct 2 19:50:27 2009

the limits of successive moments of
expression · by the absolute maintains
relations · first · the nature of a form ·
the full extent permitted by the first
beginning of compliance · is alive ·
in danger of forgetting · are employed
in dealing with a contradiction · and
the desperate effort to evaporate ·

the limit of a moment · longing to
occur in other words · the wildness and
the brightness of the mood · in danger of
ignoring · there were fluids pent within
the proper bounds · a contradiction is
a mere anachronism and depressed ·
a buoyant disposition · and upon
a higher penetration · is alive ·

a chain · the limit of a body at
the object of affection · feeling is
the same in all directions · and reward
in making no results · the glory of
the action · or the fashion of affairs ·
complying with the power of a thing
originates · in one · together with
the others · something is articulate ·



Texts:
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Fannie Louise Apjohn, The Enchanted Island

The Air - Sat Sep 26 15:55:00 2009

the air · the very apprehensions of ·
in many things · a certain portion of
the whole repulsive · silver's face upon
the weather being fair · revolves · a great
perfection · and the doctor · and amazed ·
the errors of enlargement · union with
alarms · the whole · the application of
a secret place · the weather is perfect ·

the doctor · here's a commentary on
the whole phenomenon · a feeling that ·
the weather of the whole a paradox ·
the slightest feeling of enlargement · bob ·
the whole a great desire to secure
a contradiction · after all · the sign
repainted · and a great desire to
the worst · the moon · in all the stores · abridged ·

conversion of the wind along the whole
phenomenon · the ordinary field ·
in human shape upon occasion · love ·
unites · above · the ladder · boundless · and
the doctor to the top · revolves · amen ·
alone in paradise · the way · the whole
a judgment · come in · failure is a whole
collection of ideas from above ·



Texts:
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

The Doctrine - Tue Sep 22 12:23:22 2009

the doctrine of the object was a red
resentment ever since · the limits of
the local sense · reports · constructions · so
a proposition had a tracing of
the true · performed · apologizing for
the righteous and expenses · represents
the only firm foundation on record ·
the limit of the works possessed in form ·

the underlying essence of affairs ·
a contradiction · so the datum as
a method of projection is unique ·
the doctrine of reincarnation · as
a picture cannot be foretold · performed ·
the owner of the sign in logic is
a wedge in passing · so the subtle form ·
in passing through the channel of affairs ·

in logic · neither is the case · a whole ·
performed · expressions of the parents · to
repeat · the doctrine of the body · that
delightful · excommunicated things ·
in order to preserve the object · was
a jealous god · a proposition is
a crescent of expression · after an
extraordinary downpour of affairs ·



Texts:
Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned
Swami Abhedananda, Reincarnation
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

The Best - Wed Sep 16 13:04:22 2009

the best · the simplest and the superfluous ·
the very heart · a realization of
delight · the snatches of the world · the best ·
another illustration · on a white
reflecting surface · do according to
the one · within the ladies · foxy · do
the best in combination · then the best
in parting · when the honey is perfect ·

the night the moon arose · enraptured · as
a rush · the jungle fever · took delight
in combination · oh · the valleys and
assesses · ah · the loving ones · around
the oyster · covered with the multitude ·
a breath · a little more · a moment · veiled
in man · forgetting and escaped · the best
in earnest · for a moment more the best ·

the world become perfect · a pleasure to
the soul in imitation of the best ·
the proper hands · around the body and
the body of the way in full · absorbed
in gratitude · the best · the knowledge of
the end a realization of the best ·
outstretched · a simple one · the great relief ·
in all directions · come in gratitude ·



Texts:
Horatio Alger Jr., Joe The Hotel Boy
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Roger Finlay, The Wonder Island Boys - The Tribesman

Gnoetry & Ego

There is no way, of course, to exorcise ego/intent from the poetic process; however, at least within the context of the almost universal understanding of ego in relationship to composing poetry, Gnoetry sets the ego at a remove. There’s no other way to account for the kind of reactions—pro and con—to Gnoetry. No matter how much Gnoetry might, in fact, mimic purely human poetic composition, the software is still understood as circumventing “originality,” “creativity,” “individuality,” whatever synonyms for “ego” (das Ich) people can muster.

So much of contemporary American poetry is predicated upon the social fiction of a unique, individual, proprietary “self,” that in poetry might be deemed “style” or “voice.” This includes, I think, poetries that claim to set the self aside, but in fact only play with the idea of the self, like so many recent intersections with procedural verse, such exercises as “flarf” and the poetry program ETC, which is so infused with the architect’s intent that the end-user has zero wiggle room. There’s an ego-bound anthropic principle at work regarding the relationship between technology and poetry: here’s a quote from the recent book of so-called “techno-poetry”:

“The central question is to subvert the technological language, transforming it into a technopoetical language. This way, the culture doesn't surrender to the technology, but it receives the poet's intervention, which turns the technology into another form of poetic communication. These procedures become, then, a poeticizing of computational technology." (Jorge Luiz Antonio)

Why is it so often that the poet is somehow repairing the damage of technology, waving humanity’s flag against some perceived dominatrix? I would argue that Gnoetry poeticizes us by given us pre-poetic language to consider, and either allow or deny. Gnoetry is not at the expense of humanity or the ego—it’s just another way to engage the ego that in many ways side-steps the mad meaning-making machine that is our conscious mind. The central question is not to engage in any subversion of “technological language” (whatever that is) but to notice that poetry is already technical—the application of certain principles of sense onto a linguistic medium. And anyways, all words are human—no need to put the human back into them.

Showgirl Gnoetry

Fifth and Final Sorrow


The other side in front. The act. The stage.
A friend in with the title of the day
the other night. The show, a couple of
the chorus girls. The prima donna, and

Estelle, her maid, hurrah. The justice of
the stage in which Sabrina has a good
idea? And the papers, for the show,
a little partial. That's the Cadillac

the money shucks! A certain party did
the leading lady and the funny thing
about the circus leaves? The justice of
the ladies at the table at the stage...

Showgirl Gnoetry

Fourth Sorrow

The author of the other evening clothes.
In his, a fluffy ruffles. It again.
A girl. Sabrina makes a sudden, bing!
"The only pleasure," I reiterate,

"the tenor Gertrude." I suppose a show.
In which Sabrina has a couple of
the crackers. This machine. The benefit.
The act. In which Sabrina rushes on

the other three. The show a sleeper, but
the author didn't say. The author of
the book, the show, a little supper, and
in comes the prima donna getting late.

More Free Grass (16 Haikus)

To read all installments in the series, click here.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

America, the
law of gravity, and all
the isolation.



Before I consent
to subordinate you, fill
me with your own right.



Copy and paste world
to the property owner's
permission system.



Free use, as if a
library is to be loved
by strangers? Or not.



Frolic on this, the
course of obedience, you
shall all be master!



How bright the flashes
of creativity and
culture disappears.



If we die we die
now, inhaling the value
of innovation.



I have loved thee, my
gosh, a free market is to
show clips of loving.



I have set up a
web page today, thou lucky
mistress of any.



I offer a world
of love, drunkenness, justice,
refreshing, absurd.



Joy, I would love to
forget, nothing is nothing
but joy left! The end.



Land of sales, torture,
cable, the great media
gulp, oblivion.



O blossoms of my
fair use exceptions, to have
access to this book.



Some are pushing to
create. Why else would they all
come to india!



They are blind. And these
costs substantially harm the
unforeseeable.



We have done wrong, but
because the artist was wrong.
Gorgeous clouds of flash!

The People - Fri Sep 4 11:10:48 2009

the people here · the Buddhists of alarm ·
reincarnation is a crazy horse ·
upon the crucifix · the dude · because
the thickness of existence after death ·
the room · between the cars · the room the men
were still occurred · the execution of
a tree · the parents · and the boy · a friend
in one direction and deformed · accused ·

the subtle form · described · accused · a breach
in one direction and a friend · sometimes
the floor · the subtle body · then conceive
the cabin just before the two were kept
in cages · like a person · so the two
procured a moment · so the two were kept
in person · like a stone · a traitor · that
the two were trying to obtain a friend ·

the people · when a copy of concern ·
were well enough · the dude · pretended to
destroy the crucifixion · and the like
in any member of the subtle and
confined · a cabin of the human will ·
in person · went among the modern dead ·
in other countries of rebirth · in an
exact proportion with the crucifix ·



Texts:
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Horatio Alger Jr., Joe The Hotel Boy
Swami Abhedananda, Reincarnation

The Less - Wed Sep 2 12:13:13 2009

the less a person · and the like enough ·
in order to avoid the perils of
enjoyment · to advance · a language which
produced the number of the same · the one
in which the common value · to proceed ·
the cruel and absurd · the one in one
direction · as a pillow · but the end
a circuit through the interests of a will ·

the same in person · by the terror of
the rest · reclining · sitting down · perhaps
a little puzzled to devise the means
whereby the disappointment · all were · not
in all along · in like enough · alone
in life · the malcontents · the language to
omit · the other for consumption · was
the only means a person could suggest ·

at length consented · all were all in all
the little shrine supported by the seen ·
unarmed · the object of appearance · was
a little less · below the level of
appeal · the only people who were still
in all directions · and the like · were at
the end become unserviceable · by
the terror of the rest were as enslaved ·



Texts:
Samuel Butler, Erewhon
Herman Melville, Typee
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

The Day - Wed Sep 2 11:14:53 2009

the day · a hairy neck · the very day ·
the skin above the undergrowth · a locked
enclosure on a little forms · within
the sacred package · if the subtle and
surrounded by a very day · a locked
enclosure on a broken arm · within
the habitation · never mind the rocks ·
the sun · the flames across the undergrowth ·

in an elaborate bow upon the screen ·
the pages · which contains the law · a locked
enclosure on the head · consolidate
in throwing up a little · cocoanuts ·
the pictures of the natives · which adhered
in mind the reason of the going on ·
the native cloth · in which the body of
the island · all the subtle form · salute ·

in turn · the evolution of a tree
in dress · the hunting of the subtle form ·
the naked forms about the undergrowth ·
the subtle body is reminded of
the endless ribbon · under cover of
the same condition as a branch · a locked
enclosure on a tree · the organs of
bamboo · in January · laughing · once ·



Texts:
Swami Abhedananda, Reincarnation
Herman Melville, Typee
H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

The Circuit - Tue Sep 1 09:42:30 2009

the circuit · of the future as a jail ·
the present moment · of the weary of
the human wreckage · to relent · the will
become a yoke · the will · unsettled · of
the artificial · of the circuit · of
the worship · either · of the fever and
delight · abundance of explosion · with
a thousand hands · unsteady · and benign ·

the current feeling of existence · like
a picture will become a telescope ·
the only thing in imitation of
a god therein · perhaps a will · alone
in token of the living thing · a good
conclusion · after such a failure · with
revenge · against the future · ever to
become a homage · to restore the first ·

the present moment · when a blessing and
a terror is the same · the future as
a hostage · bullet · bang · the absence of
affairs · the recreation of the same ·
the people · unconcerned · the silent as
the rest were dead · the men were to become
a paddle · splashes that were left · the will
become a verbal game · in such a yoke ·



Texts:
Samuel Butler, Erewhon
Jack London, South Sea Tales
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

Showgirl Gnoetry

Third Sorrow

"The curtain drops. The show herself. The air!
A show. A certain party takes a job
until the morning, if a show in town.
The funny thing about the show herself.

The act. The act. The show. 'A bottle of
champagne, lieutenant?' We were nothing but
the author says 'The Cadillac, the stage,
in such a fluffy ruffles, I suppose.'

The leading lady for a chance. The stage.
The way, the show, a jug! The way, the scratch!
The prima donna, and a chorus girl,
because the stage, the wind in his success."

Katrina Gnoem

It is a grand thing, a string of text
that can arise, arise, pathos, arise, unzipped.
The irritation from exposure or the lingerie

we downloaded. Katrina. The fossil of a flower,
the organ of the mountain it completes
at the first appearance of a problem.

The baby of the bees is the egg. The day,
the fine. Her face, the ruins. From the day
before the storm to war, the only pass

is across a gulf. It's in her old cocoons.
How before the stigma of a new beginning,
they explained a new beginning.

How it occurs in grafting trees, already.
How unlike the president, a deer observes, its
jaws evolved, crustaceans, everything.



Texts: Katrina Sources, VA
Origin of the Species
Linux Tutorials

Gnoetry and the Ego

I was reminded of this issue by Joe Hall's post "Hello Gnoetry" on his blog, Pigafetta, Poetry, and Painkillers.

Here's my response to the post:

Hi Joe,

Just a comment on my use of Gnoetry: I think it would be inaccurate to say the function of Gnoetry “at the heart” is to “remove the ego” from the writing process. Jackson Mac Low, who for years worked with generative methods to achieve such a goal, gave up on this concept sometime in the 80’s or 90’s, realizing that it was an impossibility. Selection of the “best” outputs is the principle strategy of the Gnoetry user, and as such it is firmly founded in ego considerations. I think it does help the author/user to write outside of his/her own “voice,” personality or habitual idea of self, but it relies wholly upon the sense of the author/user as a being who enjoys, and who has the power to select what it most enjoys and reject what it does not. This is a more basic and less deceptive mode of the ego, but still ego nonetheless.

As a Buddhist, I’ve thought a lot about this subject, and I mostly agree with Mac Low’s opinion, which you can find in his (few) speeches and essays (see the front matter in A Thing of Beauty). I think it is best to be honest about what we do as poets and not just try to keep deceiving ourselves (and others) by propping up our troublesome senses of self. The operation of the ego through generative processes (or machine prosthesis) can work outside of the self and more in the realm of pleasure, as Mac Low outlines in “Poetry and Pleasure.” Poetry, as a conceptual act of wit, intelligence and imagination, cannot be fully transcendent, though it may facilitate some beneficial transformations within the reader and author. That’s my current opinion.

Although perhaps, we’re using two different definitions of ego. Are you talking psychoanalysis or Eastern philosophy, because I’m mostly stuck on the latter?

These are my thoughts so far on this issue. I'm curious to know what other Gnoetry end-users have to say on this issue.

P.S.: As an addendum, I just found the passage in the foreword of A Thing of Beauty that addresses this issue:

Showgirl Gnoetry

Second Sorrow

"The funny thing about the breakaway:
another took the money for the show
herself. The only star performer. I'd
a let her have her wedding trip across

the pond. The scow, hurrah. The phonograph.
The next caboose, hurrah. The skipper of
the church. The justice of the berth, the show,
a couple of the party. Wilbur says

another was nonplussed. The skipper of
the other evening, and the future, and
the wind in red? The show herself. 'The stage,'
remarked Sabrina, 'touches on the stage.'"

Showgirl Gnoetry

This week I'll post five, twelve-line blank verse poems shows Gnoetry 0.2 at work with a single text: Kenneth McGaffey's The Sorrows of a Show Girl: A Story of the Great “White Way” from 1908, a collection of stories first printed in the New York newspaper The Morning Telegraph.

One might, with a little nudge, say that this constraint is like having a “Gertrude Stein” key on your keyboard because of the clipped language and repeated phrases. But that would mean the gnoems were mere aper & parodist. & tonal intent can not be the case – Gnoetry is a machine that statistically analyzes human linguistic transcriptions. It cannot parody or ape.

But a human end-user can.

First Sorrow

A trip across the stage. The prima and
the stage. The other with the title of
the menu. We were standing. But the show
herself. A trip. The stage. The chorus girls.

The stage. According to her, you behold
in me the game. The show, a stormy night,
a boob? The other night. The rest. The stage.
The stage. The table at the table at

the table. I, except in truth, the show,
a jug! The second act, rehearsal, so
the other evening. I suppose. The stage.
The morning after that the stage, hurrah.

The Features - Fri Aug 21 00:18:48 2009

Heading into risqué territory now, somewhat inspired by Jean Baudrillard's The Transparency of Evil and his analysis of the ideology of transexuality in the Western imagination. What exactly is "The Hell of the Same," and is The Same a hell under construction?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


the features of the human form · attached ·
the booby · and the great entangled hair ·
a little body like a hostess · big ·
afloat · the tail · the serpent · fastened to
a native woman devil · so defined ·
the beauty of a dualism · as
the same idea · to appear · combined
together · for a sally of Brazil ·

the balls were left in peace · a little way
apart · the wild banana · having been
a hundred dollars · as the gauchos say ·
perfect · a great deposit · for a wild
Brazilian youth · the whole acquires such
a petticoat · combines · becomes erect ·
the metaphysics of the organ · as
a part · a portrait of a stick · afloat ·

a little body with a hole in each ·
afloat · a dualism · now exposed ·
transparent · of a single sex · perhaps
the most obliging · with a body like
a mirror · like a toy · the people are
composed · the best · the power to express
a few degrees beyond the cock · until
the lower parts were veiled in fleecy clouds ·



Texts:
Robert Louis Stevenson, An Island Nights' Entertainments
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle

Grammatical Propositions

It's interesting to consider Wittgenstein in the face of a syntax-connecting machine like Gnoetry. Are the utterances merely expressions of grammatical rules, since it is through the random survival of these rules that the utterances have any meaning at all. When we read a gnoem, are we only merely accepting rules and finding meaning that can be niether confirmed nor confuted by experience. Or, are we engaging in language that has been jarred from its moorings in such a way as to be much better arbiters of messages of and from the world at large?

The Border - Sat Aug 15 11:45:42 2009

the border of the same · a copy · and
a contradiction · as the forms · a stream ·
a little wood · the most terrific noise ·
the action of the pretty creatures · and
the same result · the limit of the will ·
conceived in common · contradiction is
the sign in token of the soul · the stream
in which the proposition is the stream ·

the same result · the more completely webbed ·
the circumstances · incomplete · combines ·
performing · and became exhausted · as
the same result · the propositions of
a series · to proceed · the instincts of
the soul · engaged in propositions · that
the false were really objects · understand ·
together with the absence of concern ·

the same in that · commenced the avalanche ·
postpones the essence of the soul · in that
excited fashion · nothing is a more
convenient situation · then the best
were gone · a proposition is a more
convenient situation · then the end ·
afloat · in that excited fashion · seen
in token of affection · this delay ·



Texts:
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Johann David Wyss, Swiss Family Robinson
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

The Sun - Tue Aug 11 00:14:33 2009

the sun · in other countries · well equipped ·
returning · by the bearings of the sun ·
the situation · having been designed
in Europe · half a quarter like the palm ·
the beauty of a will · the larvae of
surprise · upon the end · in which the whole
conditions of the system · likely to
explode · the great advantage of the end ·

a moment · if a quarter like the palm ·
in other lands · appeared · a moment · on
the sun · a single line · the line · perhaps
extending far away · the priests and
the father of phenomenon · in which
the system · having been designed · towards
the end · among the unforeseen · a will ·
in answer to the sky in which a will ·

the end · against the sky · degrading · and
encouraged by the situation · as
a better course · the most exposed · the end
a will · a single line · in other lands ·
in many actions of the damned · toward
the unfamiliar · by the bearings of
the damned alive · the booms were tearing through
the surface of the end · a great eclipse ·



Texts:
Samuel Butler, Erewhon
Charles Fort, The Book of the Damned
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

The Reason - Fri Aug 7 03:25:46 2009

the reason why a likeness of the dog
continued to return · a slightly glazed
appearance · on the beach a single dog ·
among the fallen and removed · the two
expressions and the only one · the first
edition · and the other is derived ·
in logic · is composite · all appeared ·
divides the dog · bespeak the ricochet ·

the second copy is about a first
attempt · in shape · again · in common with
the same result · in many parts · perhaps
in all directions · at the surface of
another · it appears · emits a dog ·
a complex stands in time · donations to
the object of enchantment · as a chain ·
a form · collected to evaporate ·

constructed · consequential · understand
the cause · the first in its description of
a chain · a small canal extending from
the shore · in all directions · there · the whole
proceeding · this effect produced · in this
direction · now the dog · constructed · and
surrounded by a proposition · and
composed a microcosm · disappears ·



Texts:
Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island

The Diagram - Thu Aug 6 00:23:24 2009

the diagram · another species of
remembrance · as the whole proceedings · on
the thickest was resolved · in structure · stands ·
a great advantage to describe · a good
idea · so · employed in several parts ·
in order made · in an advantage by
the look · the most convenient end · in and
about the body and behind · described ·

a good idea · but a kind · preserved
in an extraordinary manner · for
the best adapted to the nails · the like
in others · that the people are preserved ·
a house in cogitation · and were kind ·
in this employment · radiating · as
the union of the best adapted to
the standard of perfection will produce ·

the people are alike · in dwelling on
details · upon the recollection of
the dead · the living species will produce ·
the land · the bud · again · a fit · a good
idea · so · in many parts · the same
formation · vary · that the nest · produced
in such a nature · with the structure of
the night before · the new conditions · stands ·



Texts:
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Robert Louis Stevenson, Island Nights' Entertainments
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

The Natives - Tue Aug 4 01:51:52 2009

the natives · and the first awake · received
a great enormous breakfast · and marines ·
amidst the products of the trees · the dead
flamingo · after being skinned · arranged
the morning · brightly with the bones · the skins
the better part alone · in danger · and
in view · the natives of the sky above ·
were cherries · bloody · terrified · embarked ·

the skin · the scientific men · the flesh
belonging to the king · amidst the air
the dead flamingo · on the cliff · the moon ·
in power and in great delight · received
the name · the natives of the air above
the level of the tree · the natives of
the entrance of the french · the rocks along
the southern species · now submerged · retired ·

a species of the angry sea · the plates ·
divide the manufacture of events ·
the natives of effect · beyond the name ·
the same · beneath the beak · peculiar to
the gap · a hole in which the natives of
the skin · in which the heat · the fruit · about
the shore became detached · embarked · among
the rocks were satisfied · remained unhurt ·



Texts:
Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island
Johann David Wyss, Swiss Family Robinson
R.M. Ballantyne, Cannibal Island

That Subject Lute

Matthias Regan ( a great ally of and thinker on Gnoetry) a few years back started to think of Gnoetry along musical lines, saying that it comes very close to Coleridge's and the Romantics' "subject lute" that stands in the breeze and captures wind into song. The end-user is the in- and ex-piration, perhaps. Also, an addition to the program was made, again based upon a comment by Matthias Regan. That the end-user should be allowed to "turn up the volume" on a particular text, having it become a sort of lead singer, while the other texts act as the Pips to the lead-text's Gladys Knight.

I think that it is fruitful to think of Gnoetry as a poetical and hence musical instrument.

The Seed - Thu Jul 30 11:01:45 2009

I've begun to think of what we're doing with Gnoetry (in general) as not just a form of composition, but also a unique form of poetic improvisation, with gnoetry functioning in this metaphor much like a musical instrument. I won't go any further with that idea right now (it might become ridiculous), but I may later.

I'm without a stable internet connection in the apartment I'm staying at in Brooklyn, and the poems are piling up. So here's one more installment of The Same:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

the seed · a prospect of the island as
the two extremes · within the sexes · and
admired · may produce the kingdom and
the great external things · the palace with
a little spring · between the trees · the coast ·
a lovely place · a little river · now
a double canon · and the echoes made
the island where the mother is convex ·

the population · it began · in this
forsaken · solitary island · as
the night before the coming of the fear ·
the two extremes · between the sexes · and
the two extremes · between the trees · in which
were quite a distance from the island as
the rain · the wind · the food · the water all
around the palace gates · the seed · away ·

in its ascent · in all directions · as
a passing over · this confusion of
a wife in private as a wedding gift ·
a man in love · canals · assisted by
the stars in their perfection · there were tied ·
behind the trees · the two extremes · upon
the breeze · the seed · devices to secure
the seed · in its ascent · in these elect ·


Texts:
H.G. Wells, A Modern Utopia
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Fannie Louise Apjohn, The Enchanted Island

The Scratch

"The curtain drops. The show herself. The air!
A show. A certain party takes a job
until the morning, if a show in town.
The funny thing about the show herself.

The act. The act. The show. 'A bottle of
champagne, lieutenant?' We were nothing but
the author says 'The Cadillac, the stage,
in such a fluffy ruffles, I suppose.'

The leading lady for a chance. The stage.
The way, the show, a jug! The way, the scratch!
The prima donna, and a chorus girl,
because the stage, the wind in his success."



Text:
Kenneth McGaffey, The Sorrows of a Show Girl

Meaning Governance

Meaning is a social and historical phenomenon--dare I say an ideological phenomenon?--and so meanings are governed by convention. These conventions are housed in the architectures of one's given syntax and grammar. Though Gnoetry maintains enough syntax to create a sense of ordered composition, there is something inherently word-oriented about the composition process. The software acts on the word-level, each word transplanted from one system of utterance to another, e.g. from novel to poetic form, or from a system of culturally agreed upon meaning to the unhinged realm of multiple meaning that we've been describing. Gnoetry also brings us back into the history of a word.

We must imagine the hovering behind each word not the psychological or poetical intent of an author, but the text the word originates from and the word’s multitudinous meanings. The poem composed by means of this software must on some level be read in light of the historical and social context of the source texts, but also paradoxically in the manner of a poem whose social and historical context is a partial or complete mystery to us, or are so fragmented as to be open to any number of poetic interpretation, like the fragments of Archilochos or many Old English poems without name or specific context.

re:

I like that phrase "tunnel of meaning." Nice.

But I do think that there is something significant to the situation that Gnoetry provides the end-user/author. While I was working with Heart of Darkness, I constantly felt the pull of the words' history, and it almost felt like I was wrestling with the original connotations and contexts of the words, often having to choose between whether to keep or alter their original intentions. This often depended upon my sense of what new context(s) had been brought about through the program's decontextualization. I think it is good to call this an act of recontextualization, and the possibilities available through Gnoetry for this act are vast, and limited as much by the source text(s) as the end-user's knowledge and imagination (or wit, even).

With the series I'm working on now, The Same, I'm working with signification and meaning-making in a more opaque fashion than before. Without personal or possessive pronouns, the meanings of mostly nouns, verbs and phrases are framed within the web of relationships to those that surround them, often developing in complexity as the poem progresses. Repetition, variation and word play become the most important for the reader to take some impression from each poem. I have tried for each section to affect some comprehension that is beyond the words or meanings used to bring it about. The poem "The Beach" is not essentially about the beach, or photography, or images of paradise. The reader should find some place to rest within (or in contrast to) the web of meanings and statements presented, and I feel that this place will be one more of clarity and significance than of confusion of vagueness.

I believe comprehension of signification's complexity and flexibility is important to the development of wisdom, or a sense of presence beyond conceptual frames. I think this relates to the loosening of "meaning governance," but I've run out of the mental energy to come up anything purposeful to say about this.

Could you say more about "meaning governance" and your position towards it? I think that would be an important conversation to have on this blog.

"It's not non-sense if you mean every word of it, and mean every word to be a set of potential meanings instead of a singular one. I believe much of this comes down to the choices of the end-user, though, and not to anything inherent in the program."

Yes. Each word has what Christopher Dewdney calls a tunnel of meaning or signification; one looks through the word and through to different and possibly equally viable meanings, all the way back through the etymological history of the word. I wonder, though, if there is something inherent in the way the program reads the words before they become choices for the end-user that looses the words from meaning governance. The words are given to us according to the history of how the words are being used in a particular text, and then re-contextualized (quite literally) for the end-user to use. The software is doing things with words before the end-user is...and those things *allow* the new potential meanings to take place.

The Little - Wed Jul 29 03:22:20 2009

The Same continues. I didn't like it for awhile, now I like it again after some time away from it. Something's happening in there, but what it is ain't exactly clear.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

the little island at the bases of
the islands of creation · down again ·
in fact · in thought · in any zone · beneath
the boys were much refreshed · the embryo
exactly ascertained · the boys were to
effect a beneficial nature · had
contrived a kangaroo beneath · the boys
were so delighted with the southern forms ·

the most alike · the most terrific · and
the two sometimes alone · a little hut
above · the condor lays a couple of
the other boys · the flowers · how unlike
the flowers of the others · no escape ·
the same conditions · from the hunger of
the islands of the raging bears · the boys
were much relieved · the gardens · and below ·

the great creator · on the island of
amusements · just begun · a tiny well
in ridicule · possessed within the day
in making so perfect a kangaroo ·
beneath the very first appearance of
the land within the body · cocoanuts ·
the boys desire · modify the fruit ·
desirous of the womb · the other side ·



Texts:
Johann David Wyss, Swiss Family Robinson
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
Fannie Louise Apjohn, The Enchanted Island

Conrad Gnonnet (The very essence of dreams)

The very essence of dreams . . . he was it?
Through my glasses I saw next year, a mere
futility. Whirl of black feathers, queer
trunks, the devil of a street. Bit
by bit, through my glasses I saw clearly.
I saw how carefully I went from post
to post with my glass, how I put my most
to the left of us. This one, he
could work with adequate tools, but a bold
capacity for fidelity? No.
I had to wait days and days for him to go
“eh?” Enough then. He gave me a cold
and monumental whiteness. Nothing more.
An, an, an exceptional man. A connoisseur.

Text: Conrad, Heart of Darkness

end-user: Greg Fraser

Gnoetic thought

The reader is ontologically de-natured from a typical lyric understanding of poetic process thru gnoetry b/c the author is as well, given her use of the machine as a prosthetic mind and hand and breath; hence, the reader is not asked, and indeed can not be asked, to fill in indeterminacies to complete the harmony of an organic whole. She is asked to leave indeterminacy in place & willfully seek meaning elsewhere; seek meaning in the poem itself, not worrying about finding connections to the "outside world" (though there is no out-right ban on that connection) or see through the language to authorial intention or psychology. Simply put, there is no meaning behind the words—we have only the meaning of the words.

Gnoetry Demo

I've been without my main Gnoetry machine for a week or so, and have been loath to dig out of the archives again. So, I want to briefly describe the latest Gnoetry demo I made for an intensive creative writing class at NEIU at the behest of fellow Gnoet Olivia Cronk, who has participated in Gnoetic events here in Chicago.

The students displayed the entire range of responses to Gnoetry: that's not really poetry because there's no individual creative input; it's a great play-thing for kids, maybe, but it's not serious poetry; that's the most amazing thing I've ever seen; it would have taken me months to come up with a line like that; doesn't Gnoetry take the real work out of poetry; can I put my own poetry in it; &c.

I gave several of my stock answers, including the idea that all Gnoetry does it distill what all poets do: analyze language that they've been given, rewarding and penalizing pieces of that language according to their ability to fit within a certain idea of poetry. The most hard-line anti-Gnoetry person relented a bit when presented with this idea, as well as the idea that we, none of us, have an "individual" language that we invent and compose with--poetry is written with a shared language, and even more so when you are very concerned with a certain notion of literal and transparent meaning. When you are most concerned with clear meaning is in fact when you are least an "individual." And if that's the case, then the end-user/Gnoetry relationship, if you must, is a very distinct form of individuality...

One of the most interesting questions was: "Is Gnoetry political?"

Is it?

More Free Grass (10 Haikus)

Twice the one room shot
of the birth, the wrongful harm
it entails. O me!



Ah, he that flushes
and flushes, the secret of
creativity.



On average, we
must be a violation
of democracy.



Steady whirring, the
norms of our new world, of
course always dying!



I sing of the first
search engine in a barn. Us,
all framed around us.



And you, bend down to
speak! Peace is always and at
all about the bill.



When there is love, and
five feet of you, o little
shells to paradise!



This is code, from the
sentence. The very act of
love! We don't all sleep.



It made him die. I
mean to fund ads that try to
change the industry.



I believe in you,
for the single file sharing
is in the loving.

Another Katrina Gnoem

___



SHE WAS DEAD, & YOU’RE SAYING
THAT THE INTERNET IS THE INTERSTATE

she was dead
and you're saying

that the internet
is the interstate –

prosody in chains
and blankets

congress of day
laborers

we were only
trying to take you

to salvation
in a plane

riding toward
representation

pale green
roses

employed
to find jobs

answering the king
when he spies an ox

so long as
the eyes open

Bush Rules
Out Tax Hike

To Fund
Recovery

pushes up
like a plantation

who said anything
about our future?

I bid you adieu.
Dear father, all

modalities of
the pain went missing

the Mississippi
delta with shotguns

the blacks coming to
rough you up

the editors
of photographs

contaminating
the hum of decay –

a misdemeanor
she never recorded –

perhaps I’ve
been out there

perched on sailboats
to death

trained to recognize
the insignificance of

the most desperate
and take them around

in heaven with all
the alleged

inhumanity
of Halliburton

I drove truck loads
of semen

inside my mind
watching their money

run out of her urine
an empty bank

the construction
of the Lord

will give me some
new casinos

so what if the
terrorists are

located?




____
This is a combination of about 8 different outputs. I changed the lineation but kept the phrasing intact. Most were written with only the Katrina sources, though a few contained Indian Erotica source text and/or the Birth text.

Another Gnonnet

The battle of the sixth edition was
amended by the mother, baby. Who
our poet will maintain the proper cause
the master had received. In efforts to

restrain her as Pandora was the grand
hotel abyss, a proclamation who
the two co-operate. She works the man
as armed police a court decision grew.

A dream a bad idea to reform,
was cast away upon the chaplain's wife!
The son, the public and the first in warm,
in which perhaps consist in an old life

the sword began berating me? The list
below the folds the people had the mist.

More Free Grass (12 Haikus)

I love the world. No
doubt I have the internet.
Sparkles from the world!



Seen at hand or seen
at night or anywhere, it
is just something new.



Like the laws, splashing
my bare feet long, the transfer
of information.



It was designed to
protect the thumb, the market
is universal.



Words no more extreme
than churches, and my love songs
of love for trespass.



As if dead, and not
just as George Gershwin. There's no
rights reserved but this?



Good news and jets; beef
on the overthrown, the thief
has a computer.



Free will, the millions
of myself, they go down! Ah,
we all own people.



Unseen buds unseen
buds unseen buds, repeating
and disappearing.



The rhetoric of
this work, trade, products, games, it
was good to copy.



To talk to do a
kind of advertising. No
one moves or speaks, no.



Sex contains all the
areas of research that
might be satisfied.