Click here to view more information on the e-chapbook.
Update: First Response, First Reply
Good friend and previous audio-visual supervisor at Roger Williams University Joe Dwyer emailed me an initial response to TXT MSSG II, which I am grateful for. I have provided it and my reply, both items of which are critical and hopefully provocative, following.
in the 12 minutes i had to just fly through that pdf file, here are some
thoughts: good idea. mark and i had a conversation recently about txts,
and not necessarily their poetics, for one, but the URGENCY involved in
them. so your book is timely. synchronous. brennan. that guy... i tell
ya... why no conversations btwn you and me?? well maybe it is b/c i am
an infrequent text-backer. i'll try harder. i still see that rabia aound
campus here and there. a fascinating person, she is. i'll look through
this all less hurriedly some time and get back to you.
Dear Joe:
Thanks for the response. They mean more than you know.
Urgency is always an issue. Lightning speed technology demands lightning speed communication, or something of the sort. Listen: think about this and maybe mention it to Mark too--I'd like to include a critical essay or two in the next chapbook of TXT MSSG and would love it if you and / or Mark and / or anyone else cared to contribute. I tend to go overboard on my own writings (the last chapbook's essay, featured at the end, was as you can guess by me--and I'd like to change this centrism) where my self-publications are concerned. Which brings me to the question on conversations between us, or rather poetry communication or just text messaging in general . . . I've noticed a trend in my own text messaging habits, and that involves frequency and . . . a sort of demand that gains reciprical demand from myself. Thus the huge exchange between Jeffrey and I. Jeff, I think, is on the same page, though he rarely mentions any of his other text messaging habits to me, though I often fantasize in a strange, fraternal or maybe almost symbiotically homosexual way that he communicates to a lot of other people just as much as I do, which often gets me begging to get his attention the more through increased messaging (a figment of jealousy, perhaps?), and to push the digital envelope a bit further, perhaps, I think my time living with him in three different locations solidified a brotherhoodish kind of respect and dependability in talking with him that isn't nearly as fragmented--as if we are treading in the same pool of water, perhaps. Though that is starting to break more and more with this geographical change, the fact that we relate on just that level (geographical change for both of us, new environments to be lived in, et cetera), gives us common bonds in how we view the world and our lives in the world, and so that might be even more cohesion for texting. God I feel like I'm on speed right now with all these ideas flying, but the more I stay away from speed, and resultantly or not, alcohol, the more the ideas come quick and to the point. Also, the urban environment certainly helps "light some fires."
As you may or may not have noticed, though I expect not as you only briefly glanced through II, I also text other people randomly too, and while these texts are not so random and thus not so represented in this chapbook (I only took the best bits and pieces instead of throwing in the whole nine yards like I did with the first chapbook), I think that they do exist because I like to experiment with texting random individuals who I have faith in--I have faith that they will text me back in equally poetic terms (which results in a lot of minor disappointments, as they usually just tell me I'm crazy or poetic or what have you, particularly silence is a common response), or I have faith that I will be able to relate to other people via the text message. Now, I think that I texted you a lot more frequently when I was living up in Rhode Island, so I think that people living on the peripherary of where I live, what I live, et cetera, have a higher chance of receiving a random text message. Makes sense, as humans are drawn up into relatable communities, depsite how disconnected we are in the 21st century and even pre-21st. The goal, I suppose, if I'm trying to analyze my own habits, and ultimately change them, is to attempt to extend a hand or message out to some, such as yourself, where I more obviously ask for return texts that are artistic, poignant, and critical--in the form of questions, or personal addressals, et cetera. So consider this a personal invitation to send me as many text messages, even randomly, and also consider this a personal acknowledgment that I now am a little more aware that I should be texting you more frequently--and don't be surprised if I do.
On a side note, that is of extreme relevance, I think that there have been rules, silent rules but rules nonetheless, positied into this whole text message romp, particularly where the straight-up text message as micro poem is concerned--and particularly between Jeff and I merely because it's almost like a game or challenge. The rules are left to be pulled up and delved into on a straight-forward level. I don't want to jeapordize the creativity of he nor I nor anyone else, such as yourself, that might decide to send a description of the street they are walking on to someone else some day. Regardless, I think that there are indeed patterns to be noticed between the textings, and there are tones associated (though of great disparity and varying vibrancy) with the digi-writ that happen because they work. It's a groove, so to speak, and it's fun and it gets easier to stay on that same path or wavelength over time. Enough said, however, as again I don't want to fuck with something that so far has provided a very convenient outpour of, what I consider to be at least, creativity.
In any case, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. Not necessarily conveyed through a cellular phone's messaging system, and not necessarily conveyed through an email (as it seems you do not have much time in front of a computer, at least when working A/V, though I could be wrong), but let me know. And let me know about putting prominent, formulated thoughts, of yours or of Marks (perhaps a transcribed dialogue? you must have access to recording technology!), or even something more experimental, more new, into a future project.
Best,
Greg
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