I mentioned Spineless Books once before at least. It’s got some interesting things like this: Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter “E” by Ernest Vincent Wright, written in 1939. It’s a classic Lipgram.
Getting into the story proper:

Old Bill Simpkins was loud in his antagonism to what was a “crazy plan to dip into our town funds just to allow boys to saw up good wood, and girls to burn up good flour, trying to cook biscuits.” Kids, according to him, should go to work in Branton Hills’ shopping district, and profit by it.
“Bah! Why not start a class to show goldfish how to waltz! I didn’t go to any such school; and what am I now? A Councilman! I can’t saw a board straight, nor fry a potato chip; but I can show you folks how to hang onto your town funds.”
Old Bill was a notorious grouch; but our Organization occasionally did find a totally varying mood. Old Lady Flanagan, with four boys in school, and a husband many days too drunk to work, was loud in approval.
“Whoops! Thot’s phwat I calls a grand thing! Worra, worra! I wish Old Man Flanagan had had sich an opporchunity. But thot ignorant old clod don’t know nuthin’ but boozin’, tobacca shmokin’ and ditch-diggin’.

And as we enter chapter 2 of 43,

By now, Branton Hills was so proud of not only its “smarting up,” but also of its startling growth, on that account, that an application was put forth for its incorporation as a city; a small city, naturally, but full of that condition of Youth, known as “growing pains.” So its shabby old “Town Hall” sign was thrown away, and a black and gold onyx slab, with “CITY HALL” blazing forth in vivid colors, put up, amidst band music, flag waving, parading and oratory. In only a month from that glorious day, Gadsby found folks “primping up”; girls putting on bright ribbons, boys finding that suits could stand a good ironing; and rich widows and portly matrons almost outdoing any rainbow in brilliancy. An occasional shop along Broadway, which had a rattly door or shaky windows was put into first class condition, to fit Branton Hills’ status as a city. Old Bill Simpkins was strutting around, as pompous as a drum-major; for, now, that old Town Council would function as a city council; his council! His own stamping ground! According to him, from it, at no far day, “Bill Simpkins, City Councilman,” would show an anxiously waiting world how to run a city; though probably, I think, how not to run it.

Blows my mind.
I wonder if I read it all and memorized it, if by that absorption, what it would take further to skew my thinking enough to start to avoid the E, automatic aversion?

The reading I mentioned earlier was a full house. Each successive cluster of people coming up the stairs said, oh, it’s full!. And rollicking amid the verbal frolicking. People all seemed to throroughly enjoy each of the readers.

Sandra Ridley read first 2 sets of poems, (quiet poems especially in comparison to the volume of the ceiling fan). A stylistic sample here.

Hugh Thomas read next. A few of his poems I’d read on the page but the inflection of voice and character that came thru as well as the whole live and lively atmosphere made them much funnier in person. He’s doing really interesting things with constraints.

Max Middle who wasn’t reading in the middle of the set delighted his fans with his infectious fun and enthusiasm.

It was organized, hosted and bantered by rob mclennan

More on the event:

• Amanda talks about performance, relates poem content, and links to the books
• Max talks about Hugh Thomas’ set and the latest book
• rob gives an excerpt of Sandra Ridley and Hugh Thomas’ poem My Glass Father that sent a ooh thru the room at the reading.
• Charles‘ has a photo of Hugh Thomas that looks like him, unlike mine. 🙂

The current Ringing of the Bards is now live at Ansari’s. I’ll call out shakir hasnain‘s in particular because I can’t leave a comment there at his interesting koanic sort of piece.

How it works: The composite poem for the poetry carnival there will link you to the full poem submitted for each the participating poets this round. Take a trip around! High participation this time. Remember next time, it’ll be fab Wm‘s turn to host.

I finally got down to a long sit with Days into Flatspin which is the title of that first attracted me when Marcus read a piece from it at Poetic Desserts how long ago?

It has a different tone than the work I read a month ago. Much denser, in a good way. More reporting less moralist.

His take on personification of the 7-11 changing commerce over decades has judgement in it, but crotchetyness and humor. He plays a lot with personification, of turtles and mother nature herself. It is more towards a sort of refinement for entertainment in places but within poem and from poem to poem the tone (from serious to intense to calm and to comic), pace, distance from reader and subject as well as style of linearness: asides and enjambments keeps shifting so it never becomes predictable.

What repeats is a pivot of hinge from idea to idea turning. The word hinge itself repeats 5 times as a favorite concept running as a thread through the pieces. But the balance between expected and not is what rings. Pairing of comparisons are as usual as minnows as sperm but the ovum a floating bread crust tweaks things bright. It’s a continual sort of ping of ideas.

Even a verb choice makes a sharpness that isn’t expected and acts as a clapper to switch alert. In The Off Chance “We’ve watched/ you captain the tail//of a housecat, saying the compulsion to move/to displace even a fraction/ of the sea of what it is” he gets to the end of the unity underlying and tying all things through an unusual route that isn’t solely a list but the soundscape that resonates with the meaning.

Right from the book’s beginning and the hull of her ribs, anvil head (of cow and her comical and accurately described badly tuned tuba) and ants worried to the punky/ tops of knotted fence posts, there’s an intensity of sensory attention to detail and a freshness that fits the newborn carried through the pasture “a drooling lump/of living in the verdant riddle” .I love the pov of him feeling outside the moment yet he’s the only one who will retain it with cow and infant not being able to remember ever having met or been surprised by each other or observing each other. There’s an accuracy of capture there. As there is in a different way in Morning with the sentiment “If anything like mercy had the controls/the sun would switch off. Shakes/ in the marrow in the bodhran heart. I’m//done.”

“I don’t know that we really think any thoughts; we think connections between thoughts. That’s where the mind moves, that’s what’s new.” Anne Carson talks to Emma Brockes atThe Guardian [via http://www.thepage.name/]

[T]his is a woman who will happily devote 50 pages to discussing 14th-century French mysticism and round it off with a joke about Kant – her publisher, Knopf, leaves her pretty much alone. “Lucky,” she says, and giggles.

Much of the rest is similarly quirky. Sounds like someone I have to find a book by. She’s Canadian so naturally I would hear about her thru a British newspaper.

And voila, easily enough done. I’m #2 in the library queue for The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos. (I love the internet.)