Chuck's Extra Credit.

"In _Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History_" John Egerton narrates a tour of over 200 restaurants throughout the South. . Using a fairly strict set of criteria, he eats at and writes about small restaurants, diners, cafes, etc., that represent what Southern food is. He does not tackle the question of differences between Southern and soul food but the subject comes up often in interviews and ."

"The cooks and owners he interviews seem to be at least concerned with the distinction between Southern and soul food. One restaurant he characterizes as a soul-food diner make the similarity explicit. The owner, Lucille Cole, says, 'Soul food, Southen food, call it what you want... It's all the same: beans and greens, yams and chicken -- it's what a mother cooks at home for her family.'"

Page the first, for HIS 400S, Dr. Simon, 2.2.97

Infinite Jest...

it isn't about Hal any more or less than Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is about Oskar Schell. It's of course about becoming yourself...again.

Augmented Vortices: Objectivism & Imagism, Oppen & H.D.

Discrete Series (1934): In the preface, Pound opened by preempting the charge of obscurity, then acknowledging a cry for originality and a call for reform, and closed with a "salute" to a "serious craftsman." Though vague, this preface intuits a likely response to Oppen's collection: an uncertainty of both the coherence of the 'series' and the sensibility of the 'craft.' The crux of the volume, though, reiterates mathematical and logical exercises of incompleteness, begging the reader to anticipate obliqueness in knowledge as necessary and valid. That is, rather than enforcing a stringent dedication to image as the thing, Oppen's brand of Objectivism (which differed from Zukofsky's) relied upon the value of incompleteness and omission as crucially resonant operators in the poetic object. So as Oppen delivers a poetic experience that emphasizes sincerity and linguistic commitment, he also enacts the vertiginous conundrums of Wittgenstein and Godel. In verifying the gaps and voicing the silences, Oppen allows his poems to be both conversational and muted, obscure and evocative. The open structure of the book, in which some poems are titled, some numbered, others unlabeled, creates a poetic experience that feels experimental and productive: it begins with an inclusion of multiple poetic voices, develops among images and actions, and concludes in a veritable force field of uncertainty, with "Happenings" and "(the telephone)"

Though Oppen and H.D. can easily be contrasted, most obviously using their -ISM definitions, distinctions, and associations, the poems of the 1930s share the exploration of a multivocal poetics that invites ephemeral experience and growth in radiation. Poems like "Magician," "Calypso," and "The Poet" deliver vigorous testaments to H.D.'s ability to marry the animal, visceral voices with those enchanted and melodious, compacting a volatile harmony of friction and fantasy. She dissolves distinctions between subject and object, action and story: all contribute to the sorcery of Song. In the mythic and particular, the collection of solos, these later poems, like Oppen's, offer experiences in series, and they do so by enlivening defiance and argumentation as constructive forces. Louder than Oppen's, it seems, these poems by H.D. showcase the roaring rush of the poetic vortex in which soundtrack accompanies the Imagist's eye.

Older School.

from an earlier love "letter"

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chuck ramsey [himynameischuck@yahoo.com]
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Tuesday, December 23, 2003 1:19 AM
To:
M
Caroline Ruth daniel Ramsey
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Apparently you've already forgotten about me.
My name is Chuck. I live in Athens, GA with my two
dogs, Bella and Soap, and the occasional visit from my
gilfriend, Caroline. It's not the nicest house in the
world, but it's comfortable. I went to school at UGA,
but realized toward the end of my scholarly career
that academics were not for me, thus I chose a life in
the kitchen. Sweat, burns, cuts and hard labor were
in store for me. The pay is not great but the work I
love. I thought I had it all figured out until my
intelligent, beautiful, wonderful girlfriend left for
St. Lucia and fell in love with a wealthy, debonair
European man ten years older than her. Then it all
fell apart. The drinking, the cigarettes, the crying.
Wave upon wave of sorrow. Just to hear her voice one
more time saying, "I love you." All in vain, the
trial and struggles and triumphs and defeats. Such is
life, no sunshine and no roses, only a pale grey sky
muting the fading colors summer. And now I sleep,
only to awaken to a world of sorrow and anguish, from
which puppies and eight-hour car trips cannot save me.
To my lost love, I say, "What did I do? Where did I
go wrong?"
Caroline, I love you, of this you can be sure.
Chuck.