As/Is







10.30.2019


New Argotist Online E-Book: The Great Recession


The new Adam Fieled Argotist Online e-book is The Great Recession. Many thanks to Jeffrey Side.

"“The Great Recession” focuses on several specific issues in poetry: the first, and most salient, is an attempt to rid the text of first person singular influences, and deliver a series of vignettes or miniaturized dramatic monologues, narrated by characters attempting to cope with the harsh, desolate landscape, the abrasions and depreciations, of the last decade to pass in the United States. This era the U. S. press often calls The Great Recession. The text should thus demonstrate a kind of cleanliness, apart from the ego concerns and obsessions of the poet at hand. The second issue is ancillary to the first: once characters are established within poems, how to make them interesting, and how to make the incidents and situations they are forced to confront emotionally and intellectually resonant on a wide basis. The third is what kind of language specifically this textual ambition calls for."

Full list of Argotist Online E-Books.








10.25.2019


Living Together


Of the approximately eight months I spent in West Philly in the Aughts, approximately four of them were spent here, in a flat at 42nd and Baltimore which Mary and Abby moved into in January 2003. Which means, in the economy of things, that I did spend four months living with Abby in the Aughts. Chez Mary & Abs was not maintained chaotically; it was kept relatively tidy; but Abby liked to throw parties, and Mary & I would have to help her clean up. Mary's windows faced 42nd Street, and she would sketch in her room, but serious painting had to be done elsewhere. Abs more or less had the same situation. Mary's room was also the big hang-out space for the three of us in the flat, where we could lounge, get high, watch movies, or do other meanwhiles.








10.13.2019


Minecraft: Solipsist: Beams (Emma Gambade, 2010)









10.10.2019


Eight Months in West Philly


Over the course of the Aughts, especially in the concentrated periods of 2002-2003 and 2007, and through my relationship with Mary Harju, I probably spent about eight months living in West Philadelphia. Mary probably spent about a year living in Logan Square right back. I have a sense of pride about this now: more territory for both of us to take, and conquer. Logan Square and West Philly are also an interesting contrast: the rustic (West Philly) against the newfangled, ruggedness versus sleekness, weathered wood & green yards balanced by a perfect view of an exquisite skyline. Even as our dramas unfolded both within and between the two neighborhoods, too.

P.S. Also worth noting: I spent the fall 2012 semester teaching two sections of first-year writing at the University of the Sciences in West Philly. I made the Green Line Cafe at 43rd and Baltimore my office!








10.02.2019


Harrisburg


The sky yawned streaks of clouds; I
settled with my modest luggage on the curb.
Bus-engines growled. I spotted her;
she followed behind me as I went to buy
pretzels. Well, Stephanie, I thought, here
we go again. You’re here, in Harrisburg,
by accident, right? I would’ve noticed by
now if you were going to Penn State. What
is it you’re looking for; an apology? Is it
that hard to accept that I escaped you,
the Cheltenham creeps? An emissary from
Hades; that’s how you appear to me—
domed forehead, deliberate dourness.
You’re not for me to address. Next—


"as if, Adam; as if I had any idea how to handle
you, or us, or what Cheltenham had turned into
by then. You: always special, always different,
always such a fierce disruption against our lives.
Remember I never liked you much anyway.
There's no room for special people where I
come from. What's special is the order of
who gets placed where when, & why. So, as I
followed you out that stupid door, it's with
no special anything. Philosophy? Where I
come from, its this: where you come from is
who you are, whether you like it or not. You
were lower than us, lower, & still are, you little shit
& that luggage you had was pretty cheap, wasn't it?"