So we're talking about Michael Magee, and we have two poems we're looking at. Actually, one poem sequence called Pledge, and the other is a couple of instances from his book-length project, My Angie Dickinson. Let's talk about Pledge, first of all. Hey, Max, do you know the Pledge of Allegiance? >> Yeah, I do. >> You do, why do you know that? >> because we said it everyday in school for 12 years. [LAUGH] >> Did everybody say it everyday? >> No. >> Mm-hm. >> Emily, you went to a Quaker school. >> I sure did. >> And they don't do the Pledge of Allegiance. I did the Pledge of Allegiance during the Cold War, it was a serious matter, but I never did find out what it meant. Do you know what it means? I didn't figure out what it meant until I had to learn it in French, oddly enough. [LAUGH] >> That's a very interesting experience. >> You renew your allegiance to your country and God. >> And what's the grammar? Can anyone scan that sentence, how does that work? It's a pretty complicated sentence. All right, we're going to do it together. >> It's got lots of- >> Some of the people who taking our course don't know the Pledge of Allegiance, because people who are in the United States typically do, and people who are not don't. They find it, actually, probably pretty strange. So let's do it together, except for Emily who's a Quaker, who shall remain silent. >> [LAUGH] >> Ready? I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Max, tell me about those last lines, the last pieces of it, under God, with liberty and justice, one Nation, indivisible. >> There are all these qualifiers that are just qualifying the Republic. >> It's a series of comma clauses. >> Yeah. >> It's a very strange sentence, but it is our sentence, right? A little like the Declaration of Independence, which is a wonderful periodic 18th century sentence. Okay, so Mike McGee's pledge, what does he do to the pledge? >> He makes a homophonic translation of it. >> A homophonic translation, what is that? >> It means that he uses all the same sounds, but creates new words out of them. So I pledge allegiance becomes I plug elegance. >> Okay, so he follows sound but not sense. Homophonic translation, what does the word translation mean in this? This is a postmodern favorite homophonic translation. What does translation mean? >> Well, usually translation preserves the semantic meaning, but here he chose a different element to preserve, which is the- >> Usually the point of translation is like Google translation. You're going to Spain and you're going to encounter a sentence, and you type it in, and it comes out in semantic English. So the difference between please, may I go to the bathroom, and please, may I pay for two tickets on this bus. They're different, and they serve different utilities. There's no utility here, is there a utility to the Pledge of Allegiance? Whatever it is, we may have forgotten it. Most people have forgotten it because they've turned it into a poem, a poem of the sort that nobody remembers. So I'll read the first one. I plug elegance to thief rag off-Dionysius tastes of America. In tune theory public for widget's hands, one day's shun on dirge odd, ring the busy bell, with lip hurting and just this for all. To hype ledge a lesion to deaf egg, oft die you nightly stains of a miracle. And too deep repugnant, for withered spans, wan etching, unnerved dog, inapplicable, with liver tea and justice for all. What's liver tea? I have no idea. >> [LAUGH] >> There must be something, I don't know what it is. My friend Steven, tofutti bag, gosh, what a phrase. Tofutti bag, over mitt lighted stinks of a measuring cup, and tutoring Bobby, for 50 clams, 50 claims, I think it's actually supposed to be clams, as in dollars. For 50 clams, one eggplant, undercooked and uneatable- >> [LAUGH] >> With liverwurst and justice for all. Emily's having fun. >> [LAUGH] >> I planned a neat myth, today's rags, ugly unified fates never heard of you. >> [LAUGH] >> And 10 and 3-cap colonies, that would be the 13 colonies in the United States, or 50 nifty states coronation, underground, indemythical, palabricity and justice for all. Emily, why are you laughing? What pleasure, what pleasure? >> It's just a sort of sly and, I think, innocuous way to mock something which has this sort of stale incrustation of sort of symbolic. >> Innocuous, it's not unpatriotic, it's not really political because- >> Yeah, but having fun is unpatriotic. >> Really, one could say that it's super patriotic, how so? >> It's still invoking the Pledge of Allegiance, and it's granting it the importance that any act of sort of artistic creation grants something. >> It also kind of, I feel like, makes you maybe even more conscious of what the original language was. >> Exactly, it's reminding you of what it means by creating that translative difference. It's sort of like you in, what country were you in, France? >> I was here, but I was learning it in French. >> You were learning it in French, and it made you realize what the English meant. We have naturalized language. And this is a pre-Flarf postmodern attempt, a homophonic translation, to try to get us to understand the pledge. Or maybe it's a mock of the fact that a lot of American citizens run around saying this thing that they don't understand. And that would probably be true of the Star Spangled Banner, one of the weirdest little poems, long poems put into music that there is. I don't even know the words, probably. So now, let's turn to My Angie Dickinson. This is a Flarf project, this is a project that occurs after the creation of Flarf, this is very self consciously flarfy. Anybody can define Flarf? >> It's a searchable poem. >> What's that? >> It's a poem made from Google searching something. >> That's one of the strategies for Flarf, but Flarf more generally- >> It kind of came out of the desire to write the worst poem possible. >> Mm-hm, it did. >> So it was Gary Sullivan, right? >> Gary Sullivan, mm-hm. >> Who went to submit a poem to Poetry.com and basically tried to make the worst poem that he could possibly make. Because the idea was that Poetry.com would basically respond to you and say, we love your poem, we'll definitely publish it for this ridiculous amount of dollars. >> Right. >> So he was trying to maybe make the statement that there's no way that they would publish the worst poem ever. And they did. [LAUGH] >> So a group of people who wanted to take this particular postmodern stand, which is not a language poetry stand and not a conceptualist stand, although it's somewhat related to conceptualism. Really, a kind of deliberate kittschiness, a quality of intentional or unintentional flarfiness, a kind of corrosive, cute, or clawing awfulness, wrong, or un-PC, out of control, not okay. So My Angie Dickinson, can you describe how he's worked this out, how does it work, Ameris? >> Well, first of all, he took the name Angie Dickinson and plugged that into Google. >> Who's Angie Dickinson? >> She was an actress, I believe, who came out in a number of very well-known pieces. >> Pieces is a very fancy word for Angie Dickinson. >> [LAUGH] >> Angie Dickinson, when I came of age and knew who Angie Dickinson, she'd become a kind of blonde bombshell, who kind of did fine as she aged. Just one of these really powerful B-film, B-TV show actresses. She was a friend of the rat pack. Any rat packers, who's in the rat pack? >> Sammy Davis Jr. >> Frank Sinatra. >> Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and so forth. She was one of the women that hung around with them, she was in the original film, Oceans Eleven, you get the picture. She's a kind of zelig, kitsch-zelig in American popular culture of the 60s and 70s. She was a police woman in the 1970s TV show. Sergeant Suzanne Pepper was her name, yeah. Anyways, so he takes Angie Dickinson, and does what with it? >> Amarisse, I cut you off, so? >> And then he takes like traces from Emily Dickinson poems, adding that to the Google keyword search, and then the results he then organizes in [INAUDIBLE]. >> He's using Google to create a poem, to help create a poem, why? >> It adds a sort of arbitrariness to it, but also Google in renowned for coming up with the most popular and the flarfiest results. >> Right, so popular, middle brow, kitschy, but also that's somehow fits with Angie Dickinson, so it's kind of like >> [LAUGH] kind of like a redundancy, typing Angie Dickenson into Google is like get Google. You know, Google sort of lives to reproduce bits of Angie Dickenson. >> [LAUGH] >> So anyway and he took pieces of Emily Dickinson. So, what's the relationship between Emily Dickinson and Angie Dickinson Max? I'm sorry, Emily, Max? >> [LAUGH] Well aside from the pun on the name, that's a convenient sort of homophonic pun for him there. >> The differences between Emily Dickinson and Angie Dickinson, among them are? >> Polar cultural opposites of incredibly sort of tacky public persona and sort of sublimely private, introverted artist. >> Okay. >> But at the same time, they're both strong, intelligent women. >> Who do what that's the same? Who do what that's the same? This is tough because, you know, you have to know your Angie Dickinson, but what could possibly be. I mean, we have to respect the fact that Emily is ultimately right about this. But, what could possibly be able to >> Performance, artistry. Kind, like- >> Well, they're women and they're tough. Yeah they're women and so a feminist reading of Andrew Dickenson for a flarf guy to be doing is a very interesting project and this project was much much praised. I mean Ron Silliman praised this to the skies, and as a language poetry guy although very open minded was not expected to be praising Google search poems. So let's look at a couple of poems, one very briefly and one a little more closely from my Angie Dickinson. So let's get the parts right. We've got Emily Dickinson's prosody and form. We've got Angie Dickinson pop cult content, and we've got Google searching as a means of getting content. And doing what with it in the prosody? What's the process, what's happening? Ron Sullivan says, McGees poems replicate the start stop stutter step movement central to Dickinson's prosody, but through this sonic veil we get glimpses of a world that is sharply etched, celebrity ridden, but also more than a little dangerous. What's the sonic veil? How would you describe that? Ally what's the sonic veil here? >> Well it's kind of the mold of the demeanor and the form. >> But veil, it's good, but veils is a different metaphor, right, than mold? Max? >> Well, a veil covers something, right, but it's what we encounter first. So when we see these with all the dashes and when we read through them, we sort of get immediately this Dickenson style that we're already familiar with. >> Disruptive fragmented prosody in mode grammatically, and otherwise done with Angie Dickenson content via Google. I mean it is the most unlikely, it's a conceptual project in that sense >> And it produces results that Ron Silliman and others have said, is a way of getting back to the original radicalism and disruptiveness of Emily Dickenson at a time when what had happened? What had happened to Dickenson according to Mike McGee? >> Well, kind of generations of literary critics that sort of smoothed her out. And kind of taken away. >> Made her somewhat pious. Brought out the ballad quality in her, the sing-songy quality. >> Which, I guess, then Susan Howe attempted with her My Emily Dickinson. She pushed back against that. And then I feel like this takes it another step further. >> So, Susan Howe, and we talked about earlier in the course, Chapter 9.1 >> Takes the Dickensonian legacy and returns it to its coarseness, its disruptiveness, its radicalism, and its power in a book called My Emily Dickinson. And here is Mike Magee calling his book My Angie Dickinson. Which is not a repudiation of what Howe has done, but a way of honoring Howe in his own flarfy way. >> Okay, so this is a pretty cool project I think so lets look at one poem quickly and then another poem more closely and then we'll wrap up. So number 25 in the sequence. Why the numbers? >> That's how Edward numbered his poems. >> Right how he numbered the poems and he used, I'm doomed, I'm doomed. I mean this is something that Dickenson did for several of her sexy poems. Yes, yes. Emily Dickenson. We didn't look at her sexy poems, maybe we should have. Dream maker a fateful and fatal, sexual encounter. Bored feme Godzilla that is not a line you get in a Emily why? It's a pop culture reference. >> Godzilla certainly is, yes. After Emily's time I'm sure. >> Bored fem Godzilla, an unbilled dash bit dash done with no dialogue. Done with his. It's almost like Angie thinking about filming. I looked at myself, capital M, and thought, capital T, geeze not bad. A nun with a big heart, witch, hat, plaid, okay. I don't know how you're going to close read this so don't. >> [LAUGH] >> But say something. Say something, Molly, say something. What's the feeling it gives you? >> It's very strange, it's very sort of, it ends sort of casually, and a little more personally than Dickenson ever got. >> Well I don't know, I think Dickenson, we just didn't read those poems. Mike McGee likes the poems, nobody reads the poems of Dickenson, nobody reads both. >> Right. >> Yeah, she will often just give you a quoted phrase at the end, not witch had plaid, but >> What's she doing, Max, in the mirror there that's different, that's maybe not Dickinsonian? >> She's judging herself based on how she thinks that she would be judged. So, I look at myself and think yeah, it's not so bad. People will like me, you know. I can go out there. >> Well I think Angie Dickenson is saying a whole lot more than that, you know. Not only am I not bad but I'm wow, look at me. >> Jeez, not bad. >> Jeeze not bad. Let's look at 21 and do a slightly closer reading of it. This is really difficult but it is so Dickensonian. Stars from two vastly different spheres. Orb master creates orbs. Feathers saves the day. She rides from fire balls to PB&J. Down a flight, in quotes, of stairs. Immobile sperm raids down, soft muted spheres pressed into ideology saxophones. Go Ann-Maurice, say something. >> I think multiple things are happening here. So first of all, I think he's making fun of the architectural vocabulary that we noted in Emily Dickenson. And then secondly commenting on her writing processes. This woman with incredible powers of composition, she is the orb master in this poem. Mixing the genius of thinking about all these heavy concepts with consciousness with the ideology saxophones at the end. Maybe it was the musical quality of language, but it has this sort of mocking, domestic quality to it with the PB&J. >> Wow, that's pretty good! >> I love the fireballs, PB&J juxtaposition. >> Yeah. >> That makes me really happy. >> And from what to what, from fireballs to PB&J. >> Fireballs, like this cosmic cosmos. >> Power, energy, cosmology to- >> Yeah, and then snack. >> Snack- >> [LAUGH] >> From sublime to ridiculous. >> It's never ridiculous, there's nothing ridiculous about PB&J. >> From primordially creative energy to quick, calorie-packed lowbrow snack, 20th century snack, good. What about these ideology saxophones, we'll finish there, what about them? Anybody see immobile sperm? How does immobile sperm, that's kind of an awful image, raining down. >> [LAUGH] >> It's terrible. >> Yeah, it's so Angie Dickinsonian. >> [LAUGH] >> Down a flight of stairs immobile sperm rains down soft, muted spears. Suddenly the cosmology has become soft and maybe milky, this is a celestial milk. >> [LAUGH] >> Pressed into ideology saxophones. Does anybody see how ideology saxophones might function? >> I see this on the PB&J as a consumer snack food, and then we get to ideology saxophones. Ideology almost sounds like propaganda through megaphones, through saxophones. >> A certain kind of rat pack B-movie jazziness, yeah. But I also see, and I'm going to be the disgusting, the kitschy one here, but when you take sperm raining down and you press it, What does a saxophone look like? I'm the only one who thinks like this. >> [LAUGH] I'm not sure we follow you. >> Well, I think I'll leave it to the imagination. Let's say something general and wrap up. Okay, you're still shaking your head at the pressed sperm into saxophones? >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, yeah. >> [LAUGH] >> Okay, it's that Quaker school, you just don't have the same imagination, okay? >> [LAUGH] >> You got me, yeah. >> Yeah, you had the advantage of not having to say the Pledge of Allegiance, but there's a lot of disadvantages. You have to have Amaris with you to read My Angie Dickinson, literally, as a guide, as a guide. Okay, say something about what Mike Magee's doing and possibly about the relationship between this project, this flarfy project, and the larger conceptual movement we've been talking about this week. So Max, say something wise. >> Well, as Anna said earlier, he's really taking Susan Howell's project to the next level. And he's showing how this verse form Dickinson's style is actually utterly modern and how appropriate it is for issues, even today. For talking about, not just as Dickinson talked about things from her time or really her own situations, domestic situations, but he's talking about big cultural problems and issues. And using the same sort of stuttering, fragmented verse and it's working well. >> Nice, nice, Ali? >> There's also something about an interesting contrast or maybe even similarity between pop culture and then the kind of pop culture of poetry. And Emily Dickinson, she's definitely in the core, she's definitely a mainstream poet at this time. >> She's become mainstream, yeah. >> Yeah, and so it's kind of just an interesting comment on the difference between pop culture and how it resonates within a smaller sphere. >> Thank you, I really like the way that this piece in the last section of our last chapter brings us back to Emily Dickinson so that we can remember the Dickinson who was wild and radical. And I'll just conclude by quoting Michael Magee who says that his intention here was to evoke in his own readership the combination of shock, bewilderment, excitement, pleasure. A process of disorientation and reorientation that I, Mike McGee, imagine Dickinson's earliest readers must have felt when reading her work. So in a way, he's attempting with his conceptualist mode to reawaken that surprise and shock that we have really forgotten when we look at Dickinson. So this is a restoration of early pre-modern radicalism.
