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2 August 2004 • Letter From M • Versal Reviewed on NewPages • New Mailinglist Features • August Literary Picks 
Letter from M Two performance artists are currently touring the USA with a robot that generates poetry from the words it absorbs through encounters with people on the street. The creators of E.L.I., the bard/robot, say they're exploring the "mobility of electronics", but if you've been reading The Boston Comment by Joan Houlihan, you might think, as I do, that they're tapping into an ever-growing contemporary debate about poetry and what we're doing with it these days. Debates about poetry are interesting not for the definitions they construct but for the significance of those definitions when viewed within certain contexts. For example, Houlihan's criticism of contemporary North American poetry focuses its attention on work coming out of the Iowa School and being published by popular journals such as FENCE and Skanky Possum. The poetry to which she refers in her most recent installment reads like instructions cut out of a dozen manuals and spliced together in a rush across train tracks. Smart, sometimes intellectually mysterious lines randomized between seemingly insignificant, often colloquial, conclusions. When you consider E.L.I.'s success at generating somewhat comprehensible stanzas built out of the stuff which is currently spoken in the USA, and you set E.L.I.'s poetry side-by-side with work found in FENCE, the resemblance is, at best, disturbing. This is to say nothing, of course, of the merits of this kind of poetry - only to point out that robots can do it too.
Join us in the Soapbox on the wordsinhereFORUM to add your own questions and thoughts. NEWS For those who haven't gotten ahold of Versal Two, you are officially missing out. That's according to NewPages.com reviewer Weston Cutter, who's review of Versal is not the kind of review you read everyday. We're honored that not only did he like it, but that he reacted to it, and so honestly: Find this journal and buy it or read it or send it to friends or put it under your pillow and pull it out when you wake up from some strange dream: this is where you'll be able to cross-reference it. Become a part of the worldwide reaction! Buy a Versal today! CALLS FOR WRITERS AUGUST EVENTS WE'RE GOING TO ATTEND Parade 2004 July & August Various Locations in the Netherlands One of the best festivals of the year, with an offering of so much artistry to see that you'd better just go to their website and check it out: www.deparade.nl. Festival deBeschaving 2004 Saturday 14 August, 12pm Leidse Rijn - Vleuterweide, Utrecht Festival deBeschaving is an 11 hour spectacle with more than 50 performances in Leidsche Rijn. Music, theater, cabaret, workshops, literature, slam, art, film, dance, and more. More info: www.debeschaving.nl. Het Woord in Ruigoord Sunday 15 August, 4pm Ruigoord, Amsterdam 'The Word in Ruigoord': a literary 'happening' with known and new poetic talent from the Netherlands and abroad. With musical and dance performances. Includes a meal as well. Entrance: 3 euros. More info: ruigoord@xs4all.nl.
Events listed with a • are known to be accessible to an English-language audience. If you visit a show which does not have a • on our list but does include multi-lingual performances, please let us know. For the full list of August Events and for a listing of regular shows, click here.
ABOUT THIS LIST AND ADDRESS REMOVAL To update your preferences visit [PREFERENCES] Copyright © wordsinhere 2004. No part may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the specific written permission of wordsinhere first hand and obtained. wordsinhere is a registered association through the Kamer van Koophandel, Netherlands. Number 34181684. |
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