DaDaLust

PROTEAN NotUnTitled: The Philosophical Cantos / Canto I / WaitHereEyeSolAtes Cantos (III) . . . Nota Bene: This book is my Inferno. [not about or inspired by the Dadaist movement]

© 2007 Carol Maric - Being: The Obsession, Continued . . . A Raging Epidemic !

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - Do not reproduce without the author's permission--Links OK.

Reviews

[Fabian G. Franklin]

This is more than art. This is pure fun. This is what covering your jean backed notebook is all about, it's like the inventor of the peace sign using the semaphore letters N and D for nuclear disarmament then inverting it and drawing a circle around it. Pure fun and it makes people scratch their heads because they are wondering what fun is. lol

[S. (johnny) Thonn]

DaDaism in art, now in words. it's like watching Gertrude Stein's writing, teaching Hemingway and all the Ex-Patriots or reading Joyce's Flannagan's Wake. It's a very interesting piece, brilliant to say the least.

[Joseph Kosiewska]

Hi. I've been poking around in the stuff you've posted on this website, and instead of offering a specific review of this piece or that one I'd like to make a few general comments. I hope you find them useful. Clearly you have talent, and intelligence, and clearly you've read a great deal (though the scope of your reading strikes me as rather narrow and one-dimensional: most writers and poets don't cite literary critics and linguistic philosphers as primary influences; they cite OTHER writers and poets). That your life's goal is literary immortality strikes me as admirable; the problem, though, is that none of us has any real control over what posterity is going to decide is worth re-reading. We always think we can control it, however, and usually it comes down to asking the same question over and over: are we going to write our stuff in Greek or Latin (or, in other words, in the language of the currently fashionable cultural elite) or are we going to write it in the vernacular? Are we going to be exclusive or inclusive? Are we going to plan a small intimate Henry Jamesian dinner party or stage an Animal House-like food fight where EVERYONE is invited?

This has always been the only ESSENTIAL question when it comes to being a writer. And nine times out of ten, not counting the small matter of talent, it is usually the guy who looks past the constipated circle of high-brow self-congratulation who gets to be remembered. In Chaucer's time the only way to be taken seriously as a writer was to compose your stuff in either Greek or Latin (and of course to also be dead for at least a thousand years). In Shakespeare's time the one thing any self-respecting poet did NOT do was write for the popular theater (why bother with groundlings, after all?). In the nineteenth century, the quintessential stylist was a guy named Walter Pater, who wrote prose so symetrically balanced and selfconsciously prissy it makes you sea-sick trying to read it; Mark Twain, in the meantime, was merely a pulpy and popular story teller whose work should never have sullied the pages of the Atlantic Monthly (thank God, it's editor was the perceptive and wise William Dean Howells). And today, of course, we get people like your hero Harry Bloom throwing a hissy fit over the fact that The National Book people wanted to give Stephen King a lifetime achievement award. Do you honestly think Bloom has actually read anything by King with any kind of attention? He's really just pissed off that the elite want to honor a guy who has the courage and the generosity of spirit to write in the vernacular, to invite EVERYONE to the party. That Bloom happens to be an 'expert' on Shakespeare and the Bible, two triumphs of the vernacular, strikes me as beautifully ironic.

Now I'm not asking you to "sell" out here -- I mean, writers write what they write, and no matter what I say you're going to end up doing whatever you're destined to do -- but I AM asking you to expand your perspective a little. There are a lot of fine writers today working in the 21st Century's version of Greek and Latin -- Pynchon, Barth, David Foster Wallace, etc -- and a few of these guys are actually pretty good, but if that's the kind of immortality you're looking for, to be the subject of some geeky grad student's dissertation, then you've got to crank up the originality machine. The one thing that struck me about your work, aside from the obvious fact of the talent and committment of its author, was how old-fashioned it seemed. When the novelist Raymond Federman (someone whose work I think you'd like) was doing these kinds of typographical experments back in the 70's it was already old hat. When you do it today . . . well, let's just say that current literary taste is fickle, unforgiving, and more often than not idiotically misguided.

I think you have enormous talent; I also thinking you are boxing yourself into an unfortunate corner. I hope you will consider broadening your literary horizon, if just to see what's out there. And I also hope you will decide to be more generous in your choice of audience: preaching to the choir is, quite frankly, too easy for someone of your talents. Engaging and challenging the uninterested, the 'average joe' reader, on the other hand, strikes me as the much greater exercise: in the end, it's what all the truly great writers do.

[Maggie Mae Clay]

Adding to my Favs

[Maggie Mae Clay]

Amazing, different, ground-breaking.

[May Lee]

This piece struck me as a beat poem as well. Very unique...and daunting...but very cool.

[Garrett Marcus Copeland]

Would have to agree with Lyttleton in that you seem rather interesting, and I can get some of the pictures and some of the words, but incorporating them both at once is tying my thoughts into little bitty knots... wish I could help but my head doesn't work this way :(

PS: not fair to either of us if I rate this

[Lyttleton]

And this is your accessible piece.

Hah, well, likely not. Honestly, I don't know if this is above or below my head. Maybe a little of column A, a little of column B.
Aesthetically (a word I hate to spell) this one has a lot going for it, it's very visual, exciting in that sense.
My personal opinion, and I suppose I could be wrong, is that this has more going for it visually than literally. I've read through a lot of your poems, and I can't tell you that I've ever understood what message or even vague idea that you are trying to get across.

I mean, there are smaller ideas that come through, line to line, picture to picture, but how they all tie together, what it all means... well... frankly, there are just too many gaps of things I don't get between what I do get for me to know.

You're a pretty fascinating person, I do believe, and that shines through in your poetry, if not precisely any specific idea. I would love a Carol to English dictionary to get your words, cos I really want to know what you are saying.

I'm not so nice that I would not say, "You're talkin' gibberish," but I really don't think you are and I would be fascinated to know what you are talkin'.

[Jesse Dunstan]

i think andre breton would be proud!
its beautiful and enigmatic. i give you 5 stars for keeping breath within the lungs of modern art!

[Anthony Ackerley]

This one is going to give me nightmares. In a good way. I can see someone (probably me) spending years deciphering this and trying to get a meaning out of it without asking you directly, and being completely and utterly wrong, and I just love that.

I agree with the comment below that this would be good on canvas. Completely beyond my scope, but it interests me enough for me to stare at it for extensive lengths of time trying to make sense out of bits and pieces, like one would do a piece of art.

"I think therefore I go Insane" is probably going to become my new mantra. Always been my philosophy, just never had it put in words so perfectly before. Love it :o)

[Diánna Martin (b..]

I agree that the opening "I am my own LSD" is wonderful because it sets us up for a journey into the unexplainable.

I can't sit here and say that I understand all or even hardly any of this; I CAN say that the journey was quite enjoyable, and can be seen in a variety of ways, depending on whom reads it - very much an LSD trip, actually.

This is my favorite poem of yours yet. You are always putting yourself out there and taking chances - making strong choices in your work...and that is a wonderful thing.