For Rosmarie on Her Eightieth
Friends and Admirers of Rosmarie Waldrop
August 2015
POETRY IS ALL TALK
Rosmarie Waldrop says poetry does have to be this way because it is a chance wander in a forest, a banquet and not a school, and so late all of the masterpieces have gone to bed. Over wine early into the next morning the talk is still going on of the wrestle with histories and the collision of tongues with the archives and philosophy that are in the room above the letterpress printer, the unforgiving hybrids, the translators, the Francophiles, the road is everywhere, the white-page minimalists, the children of the “negation of tradition.”
—Mark McMorris
Is life anything like this / copy as to one original [ ... ]
Susan Howe
“I don’t even have thoughts, I have methods that make language think, take over and me by the hand. Into sense or offense, syntax stretched across rules, relations of force, fluid the dip of the plumb line, the pull of eyes…”
—Rosmarie Waldrop
Rosmarie Waldrop has composed, published and translated some of the most compelling and innovative writing of the last half-century. This pamphlet marks the occasion of her 80th birthday. Along with poems, fragments, and notes from a sampling of her friends and admirers, it includes a bibliography—hopefully already outdated—of her important work.
Compiled and designed by Ben Lerner and Anna Moschovakis and produced with love by UDP. Special thanks to Carl Schlachte and Emma Wipperman.
About the Author
The love and admiration felt for Rosmarie by so many (too many, by far, to name!) is honored in this pamphlet by contributions of up to eighty words by:
Beth Anderson, Paul Auster, Jocelyn Camp, Charles Bernstein, Laynie Browne, Mei-Mei Berssengrugge, Alison Bundy and Sam Daoud, Marcos Canteli, Steve Clay, Norma Cole, Cyrus Console, Jeremy M. Davies, Patricia Dienstfrey, Nikolai Duffy, Elke Erb, Catherine Imbroglio, Thalia Field, Forrest Gander, Mark McMorris, Susan Gevirtz, Peter Gizzi, Jaimy Gordon, Lyn Hejinian, Susan Howe, Damon Krukowski, Lisa Jarnot, Aaron Kunin, Ann Lauterbach, Jennifer Moxley, Gale Nelson, Michael Palmer, Anne Portugal, Ray Ragosta, Pam Rehm, Ulf Stolterfoht, Cole Swensen, Claude Royet-Journoud, Anne Waldman, Craig Watson, Marjorie Welish, Rusty Morrison, C.D. Wright, Elizabeth Willis, Lisa Pearson and Richard Kraft, Robert Coover, Lee Ann Brown, Jena Osman, Sarah Riggs, Danielle Dutton and Marty Riker, Sawako Nakayasu, Naomi Yang, Keith Waldrop.
Publication Details
Special Edition
Saddle-Stitched. 32 pp, 5 x 8 in
Publication Date: August 24 2015
Distribution: Direct Only