sw00243aih-poets.humans.dna

3      As It Happens


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Yesterday evening I let myself get pulled into reading 
Part I of Seth Abramson's "The Sociology of Poetry"
which was posted at his place in the noosphere: The
Suburban Ecstasies in 2005.  That choice led me
to Reginald Shepherd, Slicker Chumway, Ron Silliman,
and to sending an email to Seth.  I didn't raise myself
into bed until after midnight.  This morning I continued
my journey, and have so far been to Josh Corey's place
after having gone back to the comments on Silliman's
Blog pertaining to Seth's "rant".  I may insert a part or
all of my email to Seth as that constitutes my short
response to what he wrote.  Here:
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Blessings Seth,
 
Your rant is amazing, but I think your background in
Sociology and Law seriously, and in many ways valuably,
provided you the wherewithal to construct that rant 
as you did.  I would not have thought to ask 1/5 of the
questions you did, and certainly not the way you did.
I recently turned 66.  I presently have a web log at 
AOL, most of which I--as certain other poets are--am
using to post poems I have written.  Some of them are
in books.  There is so much I want to say here, but I
am saying all that in my online space.  I know few even
know I am online, though I've been online since early
April of 2000.  Do I want to be read?  Of course.  Do I
want those who read what I write to be somehow
changed for the better?  Yes.  Yet, though I've been
the MFA route, and though, and though, I have long
been more a hermit poet than an aggressive poet.  I 
am an INFP who may be slowly becoming an ENFP, and
I am quite eclectic.  I read Ron Silliman's Blog because
there is so much information there.  There are others I
read, and soon there will be more; but if I spent all my
time reading the writings of others I would be forced
to stop doing any writing of my own.  Why do I bother
anyway?  I do what I do because I must, and because
I enjoy it, even when I may be dissatisfied with a
sentence I've penciled, penned, or typed years later,
and even when a re-visionI make is worse than the
vision I first or earlier had.  Ashbery said in an interview
that we (meaning human beings) do not "know"  any-
thing.  I once wrote a poem to him.  Itis in my online
Postures 2007 book.  I'm sure he does not know about
it.  As to posterity, who really knows if there is even
going to be such.  This whole wondrous planet could
suddenly blow apart at any moment.
 
Thank you.  I expect to be reading more at your place
in the noosphere.
Brian A. J. Salchert
 
*
 
Due to blogspot's first 6 Profile questions, I have put
similar information at the bottom of my "All About Me"
sidebar space.  Their request for Zodiac Year infor-
mation seemed a bit odd to me, though I recently did
take the time to read a history of the Chinese Zodiac
Calendar.  However, I did not at that time attempt 
to ascertain what Zodiac Year I was born in.  So, I
was initially shocked when I learned today that I was
born in the Year of the Dragon, and the metal Dragon
at that.  The last time I was weighed, which was 3
days ago, I was a massive 101 lbs., and my height
that day was an amazing 4'11.75"; and I am a what?
Back in the late 1970's I decided to start a press,
and I named it: Thinking Lizard.  It still exists and I
have been using it online.  I once had a book I gave
to someone else, but for a long time have wished I
hadn't.  It is no longer in print, but its title is:
Maps of the Mind.  There is one mind-map in that
book which illustrates the reptile/mammal/new-brain
structure of the human brain.  It was the catalyst
for my Thinking Lizard idea.  It now seems uncanny,
in light of the Zodiac Year revelation, how well my
Thinking Lizard decision fits me.  Beyond all that, I
long ago read Pere Teilhard de Chardin's seminal book:
The Phenomenon of Man, and have ever since been
a disciple of his, especially of his prophetic envisioning
of our Earth wrapped in what he called a noosphere
(a sphere of knowledge), the very manifestation the
WWW/Internet--to me--is.  If some disaster, either
natural or man-made, does not end it and/or end us, I 
believe it will come to be seen as an evolutionary
advance, a fourth fold of thehuman brain, if you will.
There is one person whose name I'm no longer able to 
recall who has predicted that by the year 2040 we will
be many thousands of times more intelligent than we 
presently are.  It brings phaneronoemikon to mind, that
mysterious occasional visitor to Silliman's Blog.  I have
not yet visited
 
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/hires/dna.jpg
 
but I am going to try to.
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4:49 PM:  I just did, and I read, and I saw, but I am not
going to tell you what my response was.   
 
*
 
Almost fell into a laughing jag last night when the
following sprung into my above-ground (a-g) brain:
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Look!
 
that wench
is waving
 
a white flag!
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Why that struck me as funny I cannot say.
It does not now.  Maybe it had to do with
the suddenness of its appearance and the
thought of a "street walker" waving a white
flag.  Should I blame it on my epilepsy?  I
should blame it on my unwillingness to
keep it to myself.
 
 
*  



Brian A. J. Salchert