NEW! David Baptiste Chirot At The Continental Review

Though The Continental Review is currently metamorphosing, and its new associate editors busily working in some temporary shadows, preparing what to me is a staggeringly exciting range of projects, this in no way means that we are on hiatus.

Au contraire! Which is why I'm delighted to be featuring our first ever (micro) documentary, in the form of a portrait of artist and poet David Baptiste Chirot.

David will already be known to many of you via the form of his various creative capacities and avatars: his visual and text-based work has been featured in numerous galleries and exhibitions, his poetry published in a vast array of journals (beautiful work notably in Mark Young's OTOLITHS), and there have been chapbooks and collections - notably ZERO POEM (Traverse), HUNG ER (neotrope), and found rubBEings (Xerolage32).

For those less familiar, or more curious, a solid starting place would be Eileen Tabios' excellent profile of David's work in the third installement of Galatea Resurrects, where Eileen, in a sentiment echoing my own, refers to David's "rubBEings" as being "among the most moving, evocative and conceptually-sound art works I've witnessed /experienced". Also highly recommended is Geof Huth's interview-article on David, to be found also in OTOLITHS.

This video was available before, in an altered state, and was shown on public television if I understand correctly, but The Continental Review thinks it necessary to be giving it another, and perhaps wider, airing. The wonderful thing about the piece, and the reason that Gwen Wojcik, Benjamin Clark, Matthew Miller and Kelly Poindexter have done such a wonderful job, is that we see nearly all aspects of David's creative life presented as a more or less harmonious ensemble. There is no erected barrier here between the making of rubbings or clay-prints and the reading of poems or stories; no false cloistration of quiet composing from the outside wanderings in search of meaningful debris.

And very special thanks to Ben Clark for all his work in getting this video out to Paris.

So, the basic pitch? "Come discover a great American artist in one nine minute installment."

And stay tuned for our next video: a reading by the wondrous and inimitable Pierre Joris.

The Continental Review

Chrysalis

Those of you wondering the reasons for the current brief repose and attentive existential silence at The Continental Review . . . Patience! The site redesign is in process, the new editors are on board, and new videos are in the making. We'll be seeing you. Soon.

Text More Important Than Poems

Apology To The Stolen Generations

February 12th, 2008

Below is the wording of the Australian Federal Parliament's full apology to the Stolen Generations:

"Today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia."

Qu'est-ce que le bonheur?

"Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government" - Aristotle

"[Nicolas Sarkozy] showing up at Disneyland with Carla Bruni is a way of saying to the French: 'You see, I have emotions, I too have my moments of happiness" - French Press

Er, yeah . . .

Le Carrefour Conceptuel

« Nicholas, you are either a Platonist or an Aristotelian. And now is the time to choose. »

The Daily Ezra Pound Quotes

Subscribe to the Ezra Pound Daily Quote Mailing List: from social credit to obscure troubadour syntactic anomalies, it's all here. I lie, of course: there is no mailing list ; perhaps there should be a radio broadcast. Anyway I'm reading the Pound/Zukofsky correspondence for the PhD, and thought I'd share some choice quotes.

(And whatever you think about social credit or following the musical phrase or anti-semitic lunacies, you have to admit : that is a pretty amazing hat).

Pound to Zukofsky, August 12, 1928, Rapallo

"Group is very useful, for gathering information, etc. both enlightenment and stimulus to action. Always 60% of group duds, but it don’t matter."

Pound to Zukofsky, March 5, 1928, Rapallo

"Gertie and Jimmie both hunting for new langwitch, but hunting, I think, in wrong ash-pile. Jah, art iss long."

En effet . . .

Dawn enters with little feet . . .