tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30701548727702189542012-01-28T19:26:50.996-07:00poetry : poetics : pedagogyMichelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.comBlogger791100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-14065315983977637892012-01-28T19:26:00.000-07:002012-01-28T19:26:24.184-07:00

Now available for pre-order! Here: CFBRed.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-4985101573593196922012-01-26T00:20:00.003-07:002012-01-28T19:26:51.005-07:00

JKS in the Year of the Dragon--so many exciting events! Check 'em out: http://jackkerouacschool.wordpress.com/upcoming-events/

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-27215442705482734392011-11-27T10:48:00.003-07:002011-11-27T10:50:58.179-07:00

On first try, I wrote Symptom of Colore...and quite liked it...but decided to fix the typo anyway because that's what happens. Clearly, I am not Italian, do not speak Italian, though I studied it for about a month before I ventured to Italy in 1996: during which I remember eating arancini (an Italian cheesy rice ball) in a train station somewhere between Patras and Rome. Golden Fried and

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-81267353977961699332011-11-12T12:00:00.002-07:002011-11-12T17:42:40.760-07:00

I'm not a novelist. I'm a hybrid mutt cross-genre poet administrator bricoleur mess. I'm a thief. Only I have forgotten how to write a sentence, a fragment, a single word. Forgotten how to steal. My language has no trajectory. That is, I do not know the direction. Depression/pedagogy/WWII war bride: how do they converge. Plus, the frame has not been built. The frame is a pile of sticks on a table

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-7277867720801155802011-11-11T08:31:00.003-07:002011-11-11T08:32:51.753-07:00

JKS presents Pulitzer Prize winner Gary Snyder: Gary Snyder will be at Naropa as the Lenz Foundation Distinguished Lecturer in Buddhist Studies and American Culture and Values: LECTURE: Wednesday, November 16, 12:00–1:30 PM at Nalanda Events Center, Nalanda Campus. READING: Thursday, November 17, 7:30 PM in Performing Arts Center, Arapahoe Campus. LIMITED SEATING: please arrive early.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-42318971335788635852011-11-02T07:24:00.001-06:002011-11-02T07:33:49.460-06:00

Coming soon... Continuous Frieze Bordering Red documents the migratory patterns of an Other, as she travels between countries, languages, seasons, and shifting identities. A narrative on hybridity, the text explores [dis]location as a cultural swerve while it interrogates Rothko's red: his bricked-in, water-damaged windows [floating borders], which reflect unstable cultural borders to the hybrid

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-49098894463572374732011-10-17T21:28:00.008-06:002011-10-18T07:30:11.533-06:00

I was asked to explain what I meant by "conceptual writing" and WTF I was doing to/with Bhanu Kapil's Schizophrene and Laura Goldstein's Facts of Life.Note 1. Vanessa Place visited Naropa this summer. Her homework assignments for her one-week workshop: Bring in five typed pages. Copy a text verbatim. No editing. This assignment was given out four times. This is “pure conceptualism.” That week,

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-72468761633765156472011-10-16T00:52:00.003-06:002011-10-18T07:21:12.926-06:00

A Conceptual Writing Experiment on Laura Goldstein's Facts of Light I hold you like a new planet during conversation. A quality in your voice one may play in overture. Characterized by peripheral mourning, this place is not a mistake, though isolated rings indicate the instrument is imperfect. Syndrome. Resonant flight. In criteria of operatic construction: there is hallucination. There is

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-63110320977830269422011-10-15T04:01:00.008-06:002012-01-28T19:17:04.817-07:00

A Conceptual Writing Experiment on Bhanu Kapil's Schizophrene: All my life, I've been trying to adhere to the surface of your city, to the person with an articulate gender. But to write this narrative is not to split yourself, erasing distinctions between what is outside before it's shattered. Deconstructed in air. That red afternoon into evening. A light tent over the text. Arriving like a

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-65675683554742811462011-10-14T20:19:00.002-06:002011-10-18T07:20:07.866-06:00

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-11496112751669381912011-10-14T11:51:00.008-06:002011-10-18T07:18:34.514-06:00

Last night, JKS hosted a stunning reading: the annual 4x4. There were no monster trucks, but a 75-head count in PAC. The PAC crew removed some elements from The Tempest set--no more theatre in the round, but the backdrop hung from the ceiling, like some black wind-clouds. CSU, DU, and CU reps were there. Be on the lookout for Gabrielle Fuentes' work (from CU). She read a kaleidoscopic "essay"

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-28813634319739820192011-09-05T16:51:00.004-06:002011-10-18T07:17:59.153-06:00

Check it out: http://nerdsinbabeland.com/archives/3783

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-42032033974382458832011-07-06T23:52:00.001-06:002011-10-18T07:16:32.222-06:00

She, A Blueprint (with art by Sue Hammond West) is now available from BlazeVOX books.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-45640958992301348002011-05-23T16:04:00.001-06:002011-10-18T07:15:47.342-06:00

My book, Continuous Frieze Bordering [Red], has been awarded the 2010-2011 Poets Out Loud Editor's Prize, selected by Elizabeth Frost. It will be published by Fordham University Press in early 2012. www.fordham.edu/pol

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-51639118747374118612011-03-27T15:55:00.004-06:002011-03-28T08:56:52.121-06:00

Check out Bill Allegrezza's review of Symptom of Color: http://allegrezza.blogspot.com/2011/03/daily-glance-kollectiv-series-michelle.html

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-5764878192570973312011-03-20T01:25:00.000-06:002011-03-20T01:25:48.233-06:00

Poems in a crisis...

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-5582463047297650572011-03-18T23:34:00.000-06:002011-03-18T23:34:23.801-06:00

Dear friends of Japan

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-10550262874696907082011-03-18T22:22:00.000-06:002011-03-18T22:22:48.159-06:00

Poet Jane Hirshfield: How Japan Affects Us All

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-77426059219771687572011-03-15T22:13:00.002-06:002011-03-15T22:13:48.170-06:00

Please consider making a donation: AMERICAN RED CROSS: U.S. mobile phone users can text REDCROSS to 90999 to add $10 automatically to your phone bill. Call 1-800-RED-CROSS or visit: http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_src=RSG000000000&s_subsrc=RCO_FrontPagePanel Thank you for your generosity.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-61282565643054795922011-03-09T08:16:00.016-07:002011-10-17T21:37:59.312-06:00

Chris Pusateri Molecularity (Dusie, 2011) Available for free download The world in which you were corporeal is moderately slow. Starting live fire into full stop. Something in the chill of a new origin: a virgin circuit. This falling, which begs the spigot atop. I said, new derivation. Unstable legs. I said, impossible profit. Molecular reminders assign syntax. Oft the mainframe. Pry

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-20825103890168690102011-02-25T09:40:00.005-07:002011-03-09T16:40:58.196-07:00

"night becomes you so said little angels dressed in red on the way home ... smoke goes easily into passageways between dreams & regret ... the sorrow the grief stands in line to be recognized" from the she said dialogues: flesh memory http://poetryproject.org/project-blog/akilah-oliver-1961-2011.html

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-91403577550362211292010-07-07T23:59:00.010-06:002011-03-10T07:41:23.408-07:00

Naropa's SWP is coming to an end. Three days left. Then manuscripts will be turned in and commented on and people will graduate and leave Boulder or get a job or vacation in Florida. We will disperse, then some of us will resume again in August. Week 1 began with an opening panel called "Personal Ethos: Coteries, Infrastructure, and Gossip." And then the SWP began to unfold, like a glove-box map

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-46004353872377097722010-07-07T23:58:00.001-06:002010-07-08T02:06:50.791-06:00

Day's End Splitting A W-Hole House: Rooftop Atrium

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-70545122804825976462010-06-19T15:15:00.006-06:002011-03-10T07:53:51.397-07:00

Steve Evans' spontaneous documentary: Bhanu Kapil, Jen Scappettone, and Michelle Naka Pierce impostor: in the form of the "Voice Memo" function on Evans' iPhone. June 14th, circa 6:30 pm. Thirdfactory  Me: no comment.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-5364822675602526572010-06-15T08:16:00.002-06:002011-03-10T08:06:00.759-07:00

Anne Waldman begins the opening panel with Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. Steve Evans divides sound from its source (on recording). Later that evening, he records dinner chatter. Bhanu puts the iPhone up to my mouth, as I take a bite of curry chicken. Disposable communication: Discuss. Or toss. What is the infrastructure of poetry: Jen Scappettone. Brian Kitely: Language always an

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-55918931801668398612010-05-10T08:27:00.002-06:002011-03-10T08:06:31.690-07:00

Very exciting list at Jessica Smith's website. Check it out!

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-84852213228261963682010-04-12T07:34:00.004-06:002011-03-10T08:08:05.089-07:00

Discuss amongst yourselves...

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-42282717478364495382010-04-10T07:58:00.011-06:002011-03-10T08:09:22.955-07:00

This morning under a cloudy sky, I collage. Create a fabric, a texture. Lattice work between Bhanu Kapil's Schizophrene and my own Continuous Frieze Bordering Red. She, perhaps, this morning (after what I imagine is a list of household chores like feeding T and walking the dog) writes a frame. Then perhaps burns it. This evening, in a city near here, there will be a collaboration between us.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-62242730210010820672010-04-06T22:33:00.005-06:002011-03-10T07:54:17.525-07:00

Naropa/Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Reading  Location: Mercury Café: 2199 California Street, Denver Time: 7 pm Readers include Anne Waldman, Lisa Birman, Reed Bye, Amy Catanzano, J’Lyn Chapman, Jack Collom, Danielle Dutton, HR Hegnauer, Laird Hunt, Bhanu Kapil, Julie Kazimer, Maureen Owen, Michelle Naka Pierce, Elizabeth Robinson, Andrew Schelling, Eleni Sikelianos, Daniel

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-80407813168178292852010-03-28T17:30:00.002-06:002011-03-10T07:43:12.989-07:00

Ai means Love in Japanese.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-91656464412619807302010-03-25T19:39:00.003-06:002011-03-10T08:02:24.585-07:00

Spent the weekend in Chicago. Ate at Frontera Grill: ahi tuna ceviche with jicama and duck carnitas with mole. Devine. Sat next to an older gentleman at the bar. When my food arrived, he asked what I had ordered. I looked at him, paused, then said “You look like Rick Bayless.” It was not RB, but an insurance guy from Macon, Georgia. We talked about Gone with the Wind. A bible of sorts, apparently

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-89756276104512101222010-03-23T09:01:00.001-06:002011-03-10T08:09:53.061-07:00

I'm eating, drinking, and sleeping THE MANUSCRIPT. All day. Everyday. Until it's done!

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-85073891205248086082010-03-19T07:24:00.000-06:002011-03-10T08:25:35.095-07:00

I've been on a three-day writing binge, which now feels like I'm emerging from a coma. In a good way. The time was intense, and the new manuscript is finally turning a corner. But I wanted to write some quick notes about Kass Fleisher's Skype in my Hybrid Utterance workshop. Jordan, Lina, and Renee (three grad students) organized the interview and asked Fleisher about her book: The Adventurous.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-45325223000517753592010-03-12T20:34:00.005-07:002011-03-10T07:27:58.123-07:00

Yesterday, in Hybrid Utterance, we acknowledged a fissure and began to restitch a seam.  We followed an ancillary piece of information in Jenny Boully's The Body, until it was no longer ancillary.  That is, in the absence of a body, that on the periphery, the outlying [outlined] fragment, becomes a body: "a trace in the strict sense disturbs the order of the world" (49). Subversion.  These

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-13763778076065346452010-03-12T08:04:00.006-07:002011-03-10T07:43:39.459-07:00

I recently heard that my reading at the Openned Reading Series in London last May will soon be digitally archived by the British Library, as part of their UK Web Archive. More on Openned More on UK Web Archive

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-41345836941584740112010-03-09T22:16:00.009-07:002011-03-10T07:28:22.003-07:00

An encounter. An utterance. Neither/nor: both. A doubling. An envelope. An other. The foreclosure on purity. A jagged history: estrangement. A critique of exclusion. A split text. Or the fissures in structure. Is camouflaged. Ephemeral. A counter narrative. Is what’s underneath the mask. To be hybrid is unsettling. The process of mutation. A trace. Slippage. A verb: Ruptures. Subverts. Reverses.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-24292231520754165552010-03-08T20:50:00.005-07:002011-03-10T08:10:56.832-07:00

RE: your phone call and question: On this day one year ago, CP and I met up with Andrew in Richmond: super posh. I recall it was lush and green and didn't feel like "the city" at all. We were told that Richmond is the only borough to straddle both sides of the River Thames. And it occurs to me: I, too, straddle both sides of a river. We stopped to have lunch at a pub on the river; little did we

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-22229936137737580652010-02-15T07:55:00.011-07:002011-03-10T07:24:27.403-07:00

This holiday is not one we celebrate with any kind of regularity because of its hallmark undertones, but yesterday, we just happened to have an outing, which consisted of brunch at our favorite little place in Louisville: eggs Benedict with hollandaise on the side (I dislike how a skin continues to develop atop the ramekin of yellow viscosity). Then an afternoon at the cinema, which was an odd

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-57619061633956068342010-02-13T20:32:00.012-07:002011-03-10T08:03:54.115-07:00

Today I spent the morning looking at photos I took while in Barcelona, St. Ives, and London. A mixture of sadness and joy, simultaneously, emerged. I am reading CP's new manuscript The Liberties (again) this evening: writing notes about repetition and British idioms and truncated rhythms (in a good way). I'm noticing how much I focus on little things, like where the period goes in relation to the

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-89368740645114694822010-01-26T13:25:00.002-07:002011-03-10T07:55:32.365-07:00

Check this out: http://tsky-news.blogspot.com/2010/01/tsky-investigates-foursquare-editions.html

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-71503759251007418062009-12-15T00:49:00.006-07:002011-05-20T23:02:40.591-06:00

I wish I had more energy for writing in this blog. I currently have insomnia, after reading about seven essays in a row about Stein and Mullen and Queneau and Bok. There are brilliant little gems in there, hoping to be cracked open into something else, like a poem or a cross-genre project or a Christmas cookie. This always happens... reading at night, actually grading at night, stimulates my

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-83853074856934752172009-12-13T00:00:00.004-07:002011-09-05T16:53:49.242-06:00

An excerpt from She, A Blueprint for InterSurface is forthcoming in Upstairs at Duroc (Paris, France), an international literary and arts journal, edited by Barbara Beck. Issue # 11 will be in print in January 2010 and features work from the following writers and artists: Alice K. Boatwright, Timothy Bradford, Beverley Bie Brahic, Randall Brown, Kim Chinquee, Jon Cone, Carrie Crow, Jay

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-91886567586559595512009-10-28T10:29:00.007-06:002011-03-10T07:35:57.285-07:00

Detail: minor, insignificant, trivial. Detail: in art, a thumbnail sketch; in architecture, a feature of a building. As it relates to Barthes: fragments of discourse (figures). As it relates to memory: bits and pieces of data. Is it possible to “retain an absent identity"? And is this done though the use of detail? The narrative documents what it can at any given moment. But documentation is

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-77511465980634850142009-10-25T17:05:00.014-06:002011-03-10T07:47:36.002-07:00

I invite you to post questions in the comment section or email them, and I will try to respond. Plus, questions for you: 1. Are you a hybrid in prose body? A poem in a footnote? What is the body in relation to your writing? 2. Do you sleep at night or do you write poetic manifestos? Share your best line... 3. Hans Robert Jauss: What is the "horizon of expectation" as it relates to your work? 4

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-29109450631700525452009-10-06T09:03:00.010-06:002009-10-07T07:47:57.386-06:00

AdFemPo Links: Bhanu Kapil here and here. Rachel Levitsky on how it was organized. Tonya Foster about Day 1. Nada Gordon's Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. John Keene here. Laura Hinton: In Honor of Adfempo, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Eileen Myles: Yoga for Losers and Part II. Flicker. If you know of any other reports, responses, conversations, please send me the link!

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-10809205184142747972009-09-30T21:31:00.012-06:002011-03-10T08:12:26.088-07:00

Returning from NY and the Adfempo conference, I found myself practicing wrist compression. I have motion sickness. The site of losing temporal understanding (bearings) while shifting positions [x-ing borders]. Monday I am stranded. Stalled. The car in breakdown mode. Is this a reflection of the new manuscript? Stranded, but not in the bad sense. In the way you pull over to the side of the road,

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-62607246946505386822009-09-11T09:27:00.010-06:002011-03-10T07:54:43.188-07:00

Saturday, September 12, at 8 PMPerforming Arts Center, Naropa University Organized by Christine Lark Fox. Proceeds supporting Bombay Gin and Safe Harbor. This year’s readers include: Theresa Stefaniak, Susan Manchester, Minjung Oho, Michelle Naka Pierce, Dominique Vargas, Eleni Sikelianos, Megan DiBello, Anne Waldman, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Suzanne Dulany, J’Lyn Chapman, Kelly Alsup, Elizabeth

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-81524285291875702002009-09-06T18:01:00.010-06:002011-03-10T07:26:00.283-07:00

The other morning I saw a xylophone projected on the wall of my bedroom. Each morning when I wake, I think: I need to pay attention to what time the sun falls in so I can see it again. Maybe take a picture. Capture light. But then I get distracted with checking email and revising my new manuscript. The next thing I know, it is full on morning, and the xylophone is now some elongated triangle,

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-72069991964616474402009-09-03T06:33:00.020-06:002011-03-10T07:15:30.791-07:00

This morning I woke with the strange sensation of Barcelona. The taste of cod fritters from Taller de Tapas circling my memory. And a pregnant woman moving from Santa Fe to here, only I didn't know where here was. But Jared was there, and he was making tiny chapbooks of forgotten poets: women writers who need historical recovery. The covers were burnt red and the binding Japanese. There were

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-83100227150960785802009-06-16T07:15:00.006-06:002011-03-10T08:16:56.271-07:00

I'm turning a year older on June 21, the summer solstice. To celebrate, I'm traveling west to see Stonehenge, eating at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, and making a book wish list. In no particular order: 1. Talking out of School by Kass Fleisher2. Censory Impulse by Erica Kaufman3. A Toast in the House of Friends by Akilah Oliver 4. A Reading 18-20 by Beverly Dahlen5. Public Domain by Monica de la

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-33406475262861945162009-05-17T23:18:00.013-06:002011-03-10T07:27:17.230-07:00

I find myself in beautiful Barcelona this morning, where the weather is mild and the Mediterranean air moisturizes my NM skin. My hotel sits on La Rambla, a famous street in the center of town. Last night, it was animated with locals, tourists, mimes (dressed as trees and monkeys who check their watch), and men who walk up and down the pedestrian mall selling beer by the can. BTW, I saw where

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-37424905655411988392009-05-14T03:45:00.015-06:002011-09-05T16:53:59.897-06:00

An excerpt of my new manuscript She, A Blueprint for InterSurface, with collage art by Sue Hammond West, is available in American Letters & Commentary, edited by David Ray Vance and Catherine Kasper. Also in this issue: Cristiana Baik • Elaine Bleakney • Karina Borowicz • Ian Brand • Joseph Campana • Patty Crane • Jordan Davis • Joe Francis Doerr • Tyler Flynn Dorholt • Haines Eason •

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-82264395113981725942009-05-06T03:21:00.010-06:002011-03-10T07:44:09.868-07:00

I'll be reading at Openned on Wednesday, May 27th, at 7:30 pm.  Readers include Rebecca Cremin, Johanna Linsley, Ryan Ormonde, Michelle Naka Pierce, Chris Pusateri, and Catherine Wagner.  If you're in London, please come out. The readings at The Foundry put on by Alex Davies and Steve Willey are lively! And free. Hope to see you there!

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-85081764023337385112009-04-28T07:52:00.006-06:002011-03-10T07:51:23.882-07:00

An excerpt of BELOVED INTEGER has been translated into Spanish by Sirama Bajo and published in Derivas. Check it out.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-57134841002110789172009-04-08T05:06:00.016-06:002011-03-10T07:36:49.123-07:00

How does the quotidian figure in your work? Chris Pusateri and I were asked this question while being interviewed/filmed for The Continental Review while in Paris. Chris and I were at Jennifer K. Dick's house, along with Lisa Pasold, George Vance, and Nick Manning, partaking in a kind of salon that included discussing poetry, drinking wine, and eating baguette, goat cheese, pâté, and George's

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-53137071653040321312009-04-03T14:00:00.010-06:002011-03-10T07:59:25.991-07:00

In honor of National Poetry Month, I'm redoubling my efforts as a poet. For the last couple of months, I've been playing around with a new manuscript, which at this point is just a document, 18 pages in length, full of poems, scribbles, notes, boxes (some empty, some not), detritus, room measurements (8.75 x 13.5), the color red, depression, maroon and black, quotes, some research, a postcard

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-77326898346991855702009-04-01T09:55:00.006-06:002011-03-10T07:44:40.619-07:00

The other day I blogged about the poetry reading that I attended at the Foundry. If you are interested in becoming familiar with any of these UK poets, you can check out the videos on the Openned site. See Sean Bonney's. It's fantastic.

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-90685096635336236262009-03-30T15:00:00.011-06:002011-03-10T07:18:57.331-07:00

I know this is a blog about poetry/poetics, but I have to complain about the finale of Battlestar Galatica. Didn't you think the final hour (on earth) sucked? I was a big fan of the initial mini series and the first two seasons. Occasionally, there were slips into sentimental dialogue (see the Adama father/son moments), but there was an interesting tempo to the narrative, and I'm not even a big

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-65041854890756040392009-03-26T17:24:00.012-06:002011-03-10T07:45:08.806-07:00

Last night, I went to the Openned poetry reading, a series curated by Alex Davies and Steve Willey, held at The Foundry in central London. I thought the reading was fantastic and unpretentious. Perhaps because we were in the basement of a bar, perhaps because there was butcher paper on the walls and folks were writing poems and scribbling on them, perhaps because at any given moment a heckler

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-15323449951778018622009-03-17T18:00:00.005-06:002011-03-10T08:17:25.981-07:00

The chapbook and pamphlet are underrated forms, but should be celebrated. Here are 10 lovely chaps: Gabrielle Civil's Glint Drew Kunz's Tether Jared Hayes's RecollecTed and CaGed Jared Hayes and Joseph S. Cooper's Structural Blue in Circuits The Blood Can be Used: Insuring the Wicker Man Shadow Created Delusion Jennifer K. Dick and Kate Van Houten's Retina/Rétine Laura Goldstein's Day of

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-46110995927333307222009-03-17T08:00:00.007-06:002011-03-10T08:17:49.285-07:00

I decided to do a list of books by people I know... Chris Pusateri's Berserker Alphabetics (challenging, ambitious, and FREE) Bhanu Kapil's Incubation (helped me to think about borders, the hybrid, and identity) Thalia Field's Point and Line Juliana Spahr's Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You Kass Fleisher's The Adventurous (brilliant) Kristin Prevallet's I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time (incredibly

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-19798130461194428062009-03-17T04:00:00.011-06:002011-03-10T08:18:16.921-07:00

I'm not saying these are THE top ten books or even my top ten favorites, but books that have shaped my thinking/writing.Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons (expected, no?) Rosmarie Waldrop's Lawn of Excluded Middle (OOP, but can be found in Curves to the Apple) Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (okay, not poetry, but you have to give me this one) Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems Lyn Hejinian's My Life

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-4796257254202034132009-02-20T01:13:00.004-07:002011-03-10T07:50:29.939-07:00

OBJECTS: Stones lay on top of stones lay on top of stone, an offering. Flowers. One or two. A rose is a rose is a dried rose is a dead rose. Upon a bed that leads to the slab. Lettering: G & S and A, B & T. Here there is a V as a U as a U is a V. Lettering that is light. Back to back. And side by side. Or one atop of one. No spectacle and nothing strange a single color in an arrangement. All

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-87522839449507223092009-02-15T11:50:00.006-07:002011-09-05T16:54:13.257-06:00

I have just returned from Paris, and while part of me is glad that I am in my London flat, I already miss the city. Last Monday (February 9th), we woke in Paris to rain, the sound of French coming from the hall, and an omelette with fromage and crusty baguette. That evening we headed off to Le Next, a bar at the Étienne Marcel Metro stop, where the Ivy Writers Paris reading series is held (

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-86520503075817854752009-02-06T08:00:00.008-07:002011-03-10T07:38:30.564-07:00

I want to tell you about my trip to the British Library the other day, the gallery in particular, where they keep all their treasures. I want to tell you about listening to Virginia Woolf read on the BBC: "English words are full of echoes… Words belong to each other." I want to tell you about seeing an 11th C. Beowulf manuscript that had been damaged in 1731. The edges of words destroyed in the

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-20152422884698586632009-02-06T07:59:00.001-07:002009-02-06T07:59:40.852-07:00

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-13191774247432137992009-02-04T15:55:00.014-07:002011-10-17T21:38:24.391-06:00

A Conversation with a Day of Answers (Tir Aux Pigeons, 2009)by Laura Goldstein “[W]hat’s filled in to be expected,” yet I find myself in the unexpected. The way the language here creates a lovely “missed step,” one that moves along the musicality of time, wraps itself up, then releases. “[O]ne part of a sentence after another” is a paratactical delight. I roam these fissures and clefts with

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-22859454482736278922009-02-02T02:05:00.000-07:002009-02-02T07:03:44.002-07:00

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-30259082899668733492009-01-31T16:48:00.008-07:002011-05-20T23:06:44.054-06:00

In the comment section of my inaugural post, "act so that there is no use in a centre," Oliver Hogue writes: "Even though I am weary of imposing interpretation, it is also interesting how one can look at the Stein quote in a socio-cultural and epistemological way. The center of meaning, in the referent say, having been hollowed by post-modernity and a seeming loss of the cultural omphalos that

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-44227702889103588962009-01-28T10:45:00.017-07:002011-05-20T23:07:09.328-06:00

Spring: You can always write at a museum--14 and half pages in my brand new unlined notebook (red cover with the Chinese symbol for "dancing ink") while in the Rothko exhibit at the Tate Modern. See, purple ink! --> As I enter the room, I read: "to give this space." And I think... Are their limitations even within that? Summer: We hover by the entryway or back up against the wall in this small

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-50174779794030161032009-01-25T17:01:00.016-07:002011-10-17T21:38:48.730-06:00

Dear Sirama Bajo (formerly known as PM), This is an open letter to you about your lovely DIY chap: “S” as in Fisherman. What is the letter S, a gesture? An articulation of breath through the teeth? But why novelty? Has the letter not earned its right to be more? Or novelty as in innovation? Yes. On this particular day, I want to “move toward the thing” to find the gesticulation, the sign that

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-22165435628432030412009-01-25T07:23:00.019-07:002011-03-10T07:50:06.435-07:00

This morning I woke at 3 am with terrible insomnia. Couldn't get back to sleep until way after 6. What you may not know about London is that £932 will get you a small, one-room studio flat. When I say small, I mean space for a "love seat" that rolls out into a double bed, a two-burner stove with miniature Easy-Bake oven, a dorm-sized fridge, and a toilet/shower disguised as a closet. On the other

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-1603816135508137172009-01-22T14:56:00.009-07:002011-03-10T07:38:01.800-07:00

IVY WRITERS (Série de lectures par des poètes internationaux) PRÉSENTE une lecture-rencontre (READING) en Français & in English avec les auteurs Marie-Louise Chapelle, Michelle Naka Pierce et Chris Pusateri Lundi le 9 février 2009 à 19h30 Gratuit! Free! AT : Le Next 17 rue Tiquetonne 75002 Paris M° Etienne Marcel / RER Les Halles http://ivywritersparis.blogspot.com

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-20916321215195661092009-01-17T01:32:00.009-07:002011-03-10T07:32:44.914-07:00

I was busy packing up my belongings these last several days, and as result, I procrastinated putting an abstract together for the Belladonna/CUNY conference: Advancing Feminist Poetics and Activism. But having arrived in London with jet lag, I was able to write a proposal at 3 am local time and make the deadline. I sat on the floor near the door of the hotel room, trying not to wake CP. The light

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-54662954787099275022009-01-10T08:35:00.019-07:002011-09-05T16:54:22.720-06:00

I stopped by my office the other day to take care of some last minute business and found a wonderful package in my mailbox... Foursquare 3.1: An homage to Virginia Woolf, featuring new work by Jessea Perry, Diana Hamilton, and Ana Božičević-Bowling. There's also an excerpt from my new manuscript She, A Blueprint for InterSurface with collage art by Sue Hammond West. If you are unfamiliar

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-17418065007235590222009-01-09T23:21:00.018-07:002011-03-10T07:21:58.747-07:00

for danielle Now for a key lost in architectural structure. The shapes determine the view. This has already been written by someone other than the one writing. Now the afterimage fades a bit. Lids are thinner than one thinks, a lizard could see through. Negligee. God period five period. The means do not outweigh the notch; the latch lost in sand from cherry drops. Now the weather has picked up

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-55492005755211653132009-01-07T07:31:00.011-07:002011-09-05T16:54:42.835-06:00

An excerpt of She, A Blueprint for InterSurface can be found here: 2ssue of Sous Rature edited by Cara Benson In chro(no)logical order Bernadette Mayer Nico Vassilakis Brooklyn Copeland Maria Williams-Russell Peter Ciccariello William Allegrezza David-Baptiste Chirot Rodrigo Toscano Christophe Casamassima James Sanders Barry Schwabsky Michelle Naka Pierce w/ Sue Hammond West Alexander

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-26405683167134265382009-01-06T21:10:00.031-07:002011-10-17T21:39:11.967-06:00

Begin with May: A Series of Moments by Jill DarlingFinishing Line Press, 2008 “[T]he moment gathers speed,” then “rests.” Which is to say, these moments have movement, at times, similar to a continuum, which according to the New Oxford American is "a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not perceptibly different from each other.” There's a feeling of imperceptible difference when

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3070154872770218954.post-57906935655216222542008-12-26T08:57:00.037-07:002011-03-10T07:42:19.960-07:00

—Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons Initially, I thought this would be a brilliant way to begin, but as I sit here with laptop literally atop my lap, I find myself stuck. This is a letter. A letter to you. What I want to say is that if I were able to act without use of a center, I might find positions that revolve. Or better, I would find something that hovers, like a Ouija board from my youth,

Michelle Naka Piercehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07430806603586246221noreply@blogger.com4