"You will notice a certain political excess in this issue. The Corpse mirrors the nation. It also mirrors several other nations, including the Editor's own native Romania where a fascist nearly took over the Presidency. Happily, a neo-communist did instead, while in the U.S., the Shrub got away with it. We are not unhappy with the ascension of Dubbaya, because we do great when we have big visible targets painted brightly on the tarmac of satire. We like also the fact that along with Dubbaya a whole slew of right-wing dinosaurs are bound to flash their scales for our Bazooka gum wads. All in all, it's a pretty low-chakra administration: Bush, Dick, Colon. . . . "
Thus begins Andrei's introduction to his latest edition of the Exquisite Corpse, this ish featuring San Francisco's Poet Laureate Lawrence Ferlinghetti:
" . . . and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder"
. . . actually, that was from Lawrence Ferlinghetti's I am waiting . . . via the United States of Poetry.
Here is Ferlinghetti's Poet Laureate of San Francisco Inaugural Speech.
Now, here is a Lawrence Ferlinghetti quote from the current issue of Exquisite Corpse:
"Now the choice of the laureate can be a pure choice between the traditional 'have a nice day' poets and committed activist poets such as June Jordan, who's been presenting a 'poets of the people' series at San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts. We have hardly had a major bard since Walt Whitman, who aspired to speak for the people en masse, except perhaps Carl Sandburg and certain agitprop Marxists. Nor will we find such populist poetry in Stanley Kunitz's books, any more than we found it in his predecessor, Pinsky.
"'Who will speak for the simple and dumb?' asked Eugene Ruggles in an early poem. Perhaps some time soon a great young voice of the people will emerge. And perhaps some new U.S. laureate will seize the day 'to burst the petty bonds of art' (as Whitman put it) and become an activist poetic voice in the nation's capital, a true conscience of the people, an uncompromised and uncompromising critic of life in these States--to rock the ship of state when it really needs rocking. Which is now."
. . . you do know about Lawrence Ferlinghetti, don't you?
"Arthur Rimbaud, part of the mural in Kerouac Alley."
The above, of course, being from City Lights . . . who published:
The Stiffest of the corpse: an Exquisite corpse reader by Andrei Codrescu.
. . . you do know about the Corpse, don't you?
"Exquisite Corpse is so famous Andrei Codrescu named his journal of new writing after it . . . "
See also: Tom Melly's Java Exquisite Corpse Generator.
THUS SPAKE THE CORPSE EXQUISITE CORPSE
Powells notes: "Andrei Codrescu's literary magazine, Exquisite Corpse, existed in print for 15 years before going wholly online. This anthology selects essays, letters, and poems from across the career of the print journal, and includes 30 pages of the infamous 'Body Bag' section in which the magazine's editors let loose on the poems they'd rejected for that issue."
Thus Spake the Corpse - An Exquisite Corpse Reader, 1988-1998 Vol. 1: Poetry & Essays
Powells notes: "Before suspending publication earlier this year, Andrei Codrescu's controversial and notorious anti-literary literary magazine Exquisite Corpse had become a primary site of engaged dialogue among the non, brain-dead everywhere. Founded in the 1980s on the belief that 'American literature, poetry in particular, is sick from lack of public debate, ' Codrescu's Corpse took its title from cadavre exquis, a form of collaboration once much practiced in Paris surrealist circles. Rebellion, passion and black humo became the journal's trademarks. Anti-conformist polemic, poetics of assault, high-tone bohemianism, muckraking speculation, seditious attitudinizing and wandering reports from the front lines and back alleys of the culture jammed each issue, framed by elegant columns of top-flight new poetry."
You do know about Codrescu, don't you?
Andrei: NPR Demi-God?
"The evaporation of 4 million [people] who believe in this crap [the Christian 'rapture of the saints'] would leave the world a better place."
-- Andrei Codrescu, on All Things Considered, Dec. 19, 1995
Andrei Codrescu: Positive Atheist?
Andrei Codrescu: Romanian Celebrity
Andrei Codrescu: Movie Star
Andrei C.: Making Up America
Andrei @ the Seattle Airport!
Codrescu on Romanian Folk Art
Andrei @ GettingIt: "Melissa's Hobo Army"
Andrei: Secret Sci-Fi Demi-Mod?
Andrei Codrescu: Media Fund Manager for the WTO?
Tha's Dr. Codrescu to you, bub--Professor @ LSU.
Andrei C.: Luminary of Timbuktu
Andrei C. introduces R.U. Sirius.
Andrei C. Presented By The New Orleans School for the Imagination
Andrei Codrescu: Bi?
Andrei: Featured Resident of Naughty New Orleans
Andrei Codrescu on the Signs of Walker Evans.
What Is Enlightenment?: Interview with Andrei Codrescu
97 "Cyberspace Chat!"
These have been some of the Many Faces of Andrei Codrescu . . .
But WAIT, there's ONE MORE! . . .
Andrei Codrescu: MY BENEFACTOR!!!
Also currently showing in the newest edition of the Corpse:
The Mayor of Windows: A Fable for the New Millennium
By Dr. Menlo
See also: Dr. Menlo's other Exquisite Corpse Links.
www.drmenlo.com
I'm your man.
