Alan Davies (5) (1951–)

Alright, here's my 2nd attempt to review an Alan Davies bk. I think this review will fail even worse than the 1st one (of "Active 24 Hours"). At least I can comment on a few things ephemeral to the text: I looked in the database for "Name" & found "Name/This" - listed as published by Sun & Moon Press in 1987. Now, that's an Amazon listing & I've noticed before that their listings are sometimes inaccurate - I've seen them list the distributor as the publisher. Oddly, in their listing, there's an ISBN number - there's none on my copy of this bk. Sun & Moon is a poetry press but I don't associate them w/ Alan's writing. As such, it seems that the Amazon listing is incorrect but where did the ISBN number come from?

I remember THIS PRESS as being an archetypcal early "language writing" press. THIS & ROOF both - 2 of the presses that've published Alan. Both press names are, obviously, one word, one syllable - evocative for me of solidity. & I think of much "language writing" as having an intensified object presence. I think of Gertrude Stein & the way her words are like bricks to me - you can throw them around but they're still bricks, you can throw them thru a window but they're still bricks. The words have a particular type of presence.

I've given both of the bks by Alan that I've attempted to write about 3 star ratings. This isn't meant to say they don't deserve better. I feel like I walk on these bks, I walk on the middle star of the ratings, as if the writing's a wall & I cd fall off to the unchecked stars on the right or onto the checked stars on the left. But I don't fall, I balance on the language while I read it. It's that word-as-object solidity again.

Alan's "NAME" is very THIS. It's a small bk, it has a sparseness to it, it's very focused. Now I don't generally like attempts to overliteralize things - I don't necessarily like interpreting dreams or describing an abstract painting in terms of figuration. It seems that when I read Alan's writing I shd be commenting on it in terms of a higher purpose: Why does he use language the way he does? What does this opaqueness accomplish that transparency can't? I was thinking of Alan's writing (& the writing of some other "language writers") as monolithic - monolithic in the sense of the object in "2001" - a large mysterious object w/ no obvious purpose that one feels confronted by, a presence.

Oddly, though, when I read "NAME", I find it informed by business & sexual relations. Maybe that's too obvious. As I recall, Alan might've been an air-conditioning salesman for many yrs. Maybe he was when he wrote this. Maybe he never was. Nevertheless, I find this bk to be a sortof filtration of business & sex & intellect - all turned into a monolith. Alan's world processed thru his brain & reproduced as a bk object, as something that stands on its own to mystify the reader. We process the world, we make something of it, we recycle it & turn it into.. what? What has Alan turned his world into?

I can't resist: maybe Alan's shitting bricks. Usually, the expression "shitting bricks" means to be upset by something. But here the process seems more stoical. Don't misunderstand me, I'm sure that people who like poetry more than I do, other poets, will find my reading of this ridiculous & dense - I'M BEING THE BRICK, I'M BEING THE DENSE OBJECT. Alan writes on page 89:

Now Name there isn't
this much name for speech.
Name, there isn't this much
time, to've take, or spoke.
Now Name, there is no reason
and soon, no person
with the will to speech.… (plus d'informations)

Ok, I've just witnessed the documentary about John Sinclair: "20 to Life - the Life & Times of John Sinclair", I've drunk 5 beers, I've been working on my samples for the upcoming Braxton concert, I'm listening to my latest record, "Mechanically Repetitive / ReRecorded Records RECORD" skip, & what do I decide to do?! I decide that it's time to start reading Alan Davies's "Book 2" (& to listen to a tape of Tod Dockstader's music) - even though I'm reading 3 other bks right now. It begins w/:

"Let words
rise off the page
Float
in the air
as sound

I hear you breathing"

But I don't hear you breathing, do I?

Ok, finished this last nite. It seems to have a type of flow that earlier Davies bks don't have. Partially alliterative:

"Madly racing over hurdles
Recalcitrant
Tetrograde
Rigged
Not rigid
rigged"

The title, "Book 2", 'makes' me think of Alesiter Crowley's "BOOK 4" - even though I assume that Alan's bk has nothing to do w/ that. At any rate, a numbered bk implies, to me, a sequence, a continuity - & there is a "Book 3" & a "Book 5" but what about "Book 1" & "Book 4"? Cd the crowley bk be the missing 4 in Alan's series? Maybe this Davies series is an alliterative cliff-hanger. After all, it ends w/ ""They've" - wch doesn't seem to lead into "Book 3"'s 1st sentence: "Those dunder headed doggerels".… (plus d'informations)

For starters, the book cover for this is sandpaper - 150 grit, to be exact. This evokes, for me, a continuity that Alan may be unaware of: 1st: (S)crap 6 (magazine - the death and dismemberment issue - published by Chris Winkler, 1988): painted-on sandpaper cover (220 grit); 2nd: "Piece of Wood" - The Jim Sharpe Project (7" vinyl, Plastikville Records, date of release unknown to me - probably early 1990s): sandpaper w/ grit (120) facing inward in sleeve so that "Piece of Wood" gets sanded. In all 3 instances filing away the objects risks abrasion either to the publication itself ("Piece of Wood") or to adjacent objects (the other 2 examples). Interestingly, all of the grits are fine. No highly coarse 32 grit here!

My friend Brainpang told me an email today: "do you remember the SF hardcore punk band the Feederz sandpaper LP cover? Do you ever feel like killing your boss? That being the title of said album." So there's another example.

On the back credit page of this is written:

"26 copies
26Aug03
52 years

20 more copies
26Aug07
as the war rages on"

Perhaps the "Bad Dad" of the title is the United States as the world's policeman. Cruise Missiles & Dollars per death put in their appearance.

"Why don't they kill the dead people
for a change.
Let the dead kill the dead."

"Little Abbas
no longer has arms.
He was badly burned.
His parents were killed.
Nine other family members as well.
A nurse wipes away his tears.
He wants to die.
An accident
of a smart bomb."… (plus d'informations)

I was fortunate enuf to visit Alan in NYC recently where he was so generous as to give me what might every remaining bk of his that I don't already have 2 or so from other people. I'll probably read them in chronological order - this being the earliest of them.

Alan was probably in his mid-to-late twenties when he wrote this. I think of it as being somewhat in the throes of so-called language-centered writing birthing its middle age - or, perhaps, its adolescence. The title is, presumably, the author's name, Alan Davies, w/o capitalization & w/ the "l", the "D", & the "i" removed & replaced w/ spaces. A scan thru the poem reveals that these 3 letters are absent throughout.

This absence, however, is not thru removal, as it is in the title, but simply thru the vocabulary used not having these letters. What this signifies, if anything, I don't know & won't speculate about.

Each right-hand page has 3 widely separated stanzas. Each stanza has 3 lines w/ 4 to 7 words. There's no punctuation or capitalization. Here's a sample:

amen worm earns ear roam
avows essence scorn ace arms numen
vase urn raves no rose arse craven

I really don't know what to make of this. It may be no more (or less) than a simple formal arrangement of words that Alan likes that don't have the above-mentioned 3 letters. At any rate, once again, rating it seems absurd. It is what it is.… (plus d'informations)