—“life on Turtle Peninsula” (hilaritas sublime)

In 2017, George Quasha and I began recording the series of his poems known as preverbs—a partial history of which is told in an essay titled “Listening as Learning: Documenting Preverbs”. To date, we have recorded, and have put into circulation, over 57 hours of preverbs material. Last week, we recorded 34 more poems, from the series hilaritas sublime. I have recorded many poets, but none as much as George.

However, unless something unexpectedly changes, you will not be seeing any preverbs albums released on Sandy Rock Poetry, nor will any of the several books we have recorded during this period be posted to Audible or elsewhere. Why? Because, from the start, the recorded material has all been made available via PennSound, where I’ve served as a Contributing Editor for many years. Many documentary recordings I made are available there, as well as previous large-scale poetry recording projects with Peter Lamborn Wilson and Charles Stein.

In “Listening as Learning”, I comment on our work as an “odd and unusual activity”, and then recently, during the hilaritas sublime session, between two poems, George uttered, “it’s a crazy thing that we do”. So it’s clear that both of us see our recording predicament as being somewhat atypical.

I did not expect to become so enthralled with the preverbs, but I did, and continue to be so. Where else can I sit down and hear constantly provocative and curious lines, such as these, from hilaritas submlime (preverbs taken from different poems in the series):

Language is not a safe path for being right.

Seeing into being needs seeing past beings.

I take it personally that this space is uncomfortable.

Take a good look at what has no outside.

Due to morphic resonance my species is finding it easier to stop making sense.

I feel like I loaded the toad code and hit the road sideways.

Just as the logologic of race makes racism inevitable so too art fakery.

Silence violence.

Value in a crawl comes out in a scrawl.

It’s wyrder out there than our filters allow.

In the thinking in the building now occurring sin is never original.

In another recent session (5/20/26), where we recorded the land beyond belief (which I prefer to think of as the belief beyond land) I heard these phantastic preverbs (again, these preverbs are from different poems):

A thing doesn’t have to be dead to not know what it is.

Language secretly pushes you away to get a better look.

Being is unauthorized.

It happens exactly as unexpected.

No metaphor unless everything is.

It’s a lookout if it’s looking out and you can see it.

There’s never no mirror.

Reading changes the poem for the further.

If it’s up in the air it’s because the juggling is good here.

I marvel at, and am challenged by, the Wavering non-laser beams in the projection-refraction of lines in George’s preverbs. Many years ago I’d read his engaging work (e.g., Somapoetics), knew of his sound poetry collaborations with Chuck Stein, and much admired Station Hill Press, as well as anthologies he’d helped prepare. None of this had prepared me for the expansive encounter with preverbs, which I didn’t know about until re-connecting with the Hudson Valley—and George—in 2014.

I am compelled to add to dimensions explored in the previous essay, where I did not say enough about George’s word play (or phrase-play) and literary punning, which are ever-present, sometimes at once (e.g., “Unknot focus cannot abolish stance”). I have also noticed an increase in repetition of the same word (or a form of the same word) three or four times in a single line, such as in these preverbs from the land beyond belief,

May it not make me make it make sense the way it feels making me feel.

You can sense when it’s a new knowing you’ve always known without knowing it.

The rules are rulings, so why do they rule us?

In “Listening as Learning” I say next-to-nothing about the fact that George makes video documentation of all of our sessions. In addition to my audio recording gear, Susan Quasha or/and Linda Cassidy set up a video camera (MiniDV), a lighting fixture, and a reading stand where the book or manuscript will be propped up while George reads while sitting in a chair.

George Quasha, hilaritas sublime recording session, Barrytown, NY, 7/1/26

The camera, a few feet in front of him, frames his face at center, with enough room on either side to observe small (and sometimes large) movements and gesticulations he makes while presenting the work. Since George has used a video camera to interview more than one-thousand writers and artists working in various other forms, I never put much thought into this dimension of our sessions. He is compelled to document his own work, can learn something from reviewing the tapes (though I don’t know how much he actually does that), and I sense that the camera raises George’s performance level. Further, in my view, though perhaps not in his, he treats the camera as if it is an audience. He performs for it, gestures to the camera with pointed finger, &c.

As intoned above, we do have small human audiences for our sessions. In recent years, the steady presence of Susan, George’s wife, and Linda, an artist and major supporter of George’s work who lives nearby, has certainly contributed to our fruitful atmosphere. I also wish to acknowledge the camera’s steady-presence as an audience member as well, for George’s bodily animation as he reads is always—and only—directed at the camera. Besides the text itself—his primary focal point—the camera is the only object in the room that he makes eye contact with. While I am sitting only a few feet beside the camera, he never casts a look over at me, unless we have to speak about an issue that arises during a session (and even then, it’s not guaranteed). Embodying this spirited body of poems, sometimes his motions are quite lively and seemingly intended, in the moment, for a seemingly singular audience (the camera), even though others may be present. I have never been bothered by the camera, and if this mechanical audience brings some type of extra energy to George in the moment, then all the better. I have wondered if having the camera on is a component necessary to the process, and would be very surprised to find it absent in Barrytown when we record.

Who knows what will become of the video documentation. I suspect that few people, aside from someone who is extremely devoted to George’s work, will ever watch these tapes. If someone does, the experience would likely be interesting, although not as fluid in terms of reception as listening to the highly edited audio counterparts that are posted on PennSound. The videotapes capture all of the misread, or inaccurately read, lines that require repetition, and other commentary. It seems unlikely they will ever be edited.

It was only somewhat recently I began to fully realize the role the camera’s presence as part of our “co-performance”. Co-performance is George’s concept, used to describe art practices of the sort we have been working on, in which multiple people focus on the same principled task that would not be possible unless each participant contributes their own unique input, and which becomes informed by the mutual experience each co-performer brings to the endeavor. As a co-performer, I do my part, though very subtly, and it’s not at all performance in a conventional sense. The role I play is largely straightforward and monotonous in comparison to George’s, whose scripts and vocal interpretations of each line perpetually vary. My component, closely reading the printed text while listening intently for speaking errors and monitoring the overall sonic condition of the recordings, requires a considerable amount of attention in the moment. I focus on the task, not allowing room for distraction, as errors on my part may potentially lead to having to do more work, unnecessarily, down the production line.

Our preverbs sessions are not at all similar to making documentary recordings of a public poetry event, where I receive an author’s presentation without much textual or technical preoccupation. Recording with George, close attention to the text is necessary to register the (often minor) mistakes that occur during his spontaneous interpretations of the lines. Accidental shifts in articles, prepositions, or the omission of words occur in the moment. I am often required to make judgement calls about whether a line should be re-recorded, making split-second decisions about whether or not it is worth interrupting George’s highly processual reading style because he omits a two or three letter word. Sometimes the shifts are seemingly inconsequential, so I let them pass through, even if what is said is not faithful to the manuscript. A close listener/reader will notice occasional disparities between what is printed and captured in the recordings.

I notate these instances as they occur, and reviewing my annotated script of our “crossroads angelics” session (12/30/23), provides varied examples where this type of decision making happens. In the poem “inner explosive view of world”, when the phrase “stones on water” is read, “stones on the water”, does not seem important enough to change. Minor flaws are seemingly inconsequential, particularly since metrical accuracy is not something integral to preverbs. I let small errors pass through because they are not important enough to disrupt George’s performative flow. In these instances, I detect inconsequential changes in meaning. In the poem “cut now poetics”, does shifting the word endless into adverbial form in the line, “The line pushes up endless in reversals” make much of a difference? A more potentially debatable moment in this session, where I decide not to question or interrupt, occurs when the written line, “Multiplicity is only one of the forms of rebound” is spoken as, “Multiplicity is one of the forms of rebound”. Leaving “only” in there could be seen as being more expansive, but does not alter the overall sensibility of what George says.

Points where we do re-record lines are abundant. With this “crossroads angelic”, I noted more than sixty lines that needed to be read again (sometimes more than once). I never view these instances as prohibitive mistakes, nor does George, who—when the errors are significant enough to redo multiple times—sometimes pauses to consider the idea that perhaps the inaccurate version is what the poem really wants to say. Discussing one issue I perceived in his reading of the poem, “sharpening reading attention span tension bridging”, he decided to keep the erroneous word. The first line of the poem “true verse no master”, in manuscript form, is, “How not thrive victorious?”. The recording initially had it as, “How not to thrive victorious?”, but after initially letting it slide, I asked George to re-record that line once he had completed reading the rest of the poem. Perhaps that was not necessary, though it is better for me to play it safe, rather than be sorry later. While it is nice to be precise, we are not aiming for a perfect 1:1 correspondence between the written and spoken iterations of preverbs.

The processes George and I have developed in our co-performance over the years are much more refined than of those I have used previous extensive single-author recording projects. I am bewildered to recall recording six-hundred poems with Peter Wilson without having the poems in hand while doing so (though I did get a copy of his manuscript while I was editing the audio). As far as audio production and editing is concerned, having the poet’s manuscript in hand while recording benefits the experience and efficiency of production. Audio files can be edited much more easily if necessary cuts, such as mistakes, lengthy pauses, interruptions, and other types of interference transpire are notated.

George dedicates the “crossroads angelics” series of preverbs, “for Chris Funkhouser/who knows: hearing a series through/is a full contact sport”. Our preverbs project has been going at a steady, if not entirely consistent, rate for nine years. Although we only met twice in 2019, once in 2021, and not at all in 2020 (due to pandemic restrictions), according to the record at PennSound, he and I have gathered for recording sessions on more than forty different occasions since we began. I have heard and documented him read numerous series’ of preverbs, which by necessity has involved direct contact in collaboration. This is not only contact in the sense of physical presence, but also in terms of artistic intent, and social communication. Every meeting involves a certain amount of planning, as well as preparation on both sides. Familiarities and rituals develop over time with projects such as ours, and even though each of these occasions are somewhat similar in essence, each differs as well. Not only are the manuscripts different, the recording environment changes due to weather, light, and personal circumstances. Working on the project, listening to him read for many hours, has put me in touch with George and his work in ways that would not have been possible if I were simply reading his books.

The experience has been beneficial for George as well, as reflected in these comments he made following a January 2024 session:

This process that we have together, making the recordings, has been very profound for me because I’ve had all of these sessions on my own first, where I really get to the essence in my own reading. It’s like making contact with it, and it’s really pretty powerful.

And I know my own understanding of the possibility of reading has enormously evolved and developed because of the frequency and the continuity of this work together. This is what I call co-performative creativity. Chuck and I have talked a lot about the co-performativity because we’ve written books together, we’ve performed together, we’ve done all levels of kinds of things together, and thought the greatest thoughts together for fifty years.

We consider that to be co-performative life. That’s what this poetry is about too, you know, but you are part of it. I just want to make sure you understand. I think it’s part of your book idea, I’d love for you to write about it.

The sense of co-performativity, that’s the word I wish to contribute to your process. This is also what I call co-proprioception or eco-proprioception because part of how you know what you’re doing in the work, in your own work, becomes a shared evolutionary consciousness situation.

It works with another person, and it works within a very clear register so that it can be itself very strongly. This is a particular kind of discourse, doesn’t happen anywhere else. It’s unique to itself. It has its own ontological status.

People who interview other people many times for a big project probably have some similar kind of thing. To some extent, my project with art is, with over a thousand people in eleven countries, had that element, you know? Which is probably why I am up for doing it. Working with the idea to record all the preverbs is already profound. Discovering that kind of commitment!

Our preverbs engagement has been enormously informative, in large part due to George’s artistic energy and generosity of spirit. I have come into contact with few individuals that possess the depth, range, and dedication to creative and spiritual practices as does he. That he claims to benefit from the engagement, and that our drive to document preverbs has had surprising effects on the poetry itself, is gratifying. That we manage to sustain the endeavor seems only beneficial—not only to he and I, but to anyone who is interested in Quasha’s work in axial or healing poetics. As a result of its duration, this project has fed into itself in certain regards, and the longer it continues, the more we are compelled to make more recordings. The human contact and company, which we happen to enjoy, is not at all remote or static, but rather direct and active. It is an intense sport of sorts, and though there is no competition, dedication to the activity persists, and—as described above—the process does involve some refereeing on my part in terms of establishing correct correspondences between what is written and what George reads aloud. Hypothetically, there is a finish line we will be able to cross once we reach the goal of recording all of the preverbs. At first, I found humor in the “crossroads angelics” dedication because of his correlation between listening and technical production, and athletic activity. As an athlete, I know the comparison is somewhat imprecise. We are sedentary while we record, so the physical component is less demanding than most sporting activities. Bodily contact is not a requisite part of what we do. As in sports, however, there are goals we are working towards (i.e., successfully documenting every series of preverbs), and we must put a significant amount—and varied types—of effort into the pursuit in order to reach the objective of recording the entirety of this important body of work.

Recording preverbs has held benefit for engineer and artist alike, and camaraderie exists between the two parties involved. I am fortunate to be working with an author who is extremely engaged with, values, and benefits from, the process. His feedback on the project is always encouraging and illuminating, as seen in this May 2022 email:

It’s just great that you’re still doing this because what I’m finding is that there’s an inner momentum in my commitment to reading the poems that’s enormously enhanced by our project. It’s creating a kind of natural innovation, which is the kind I’m always trying to discipline myself in my work to do, not something that my mind conceives and then I try to perform, but something that emerges within it. So when I’m preparing for these things like last night on the train and so on, but especially last night, late at night, the final preparation, is where really almost get a trance relationship to the work. Where the work starts revealing to me new ways in which it can be read, and that’s such a profound experience for me because I didn’t even come close to thinking about these riches that were there, and I’m discovering them through the reading process. So it’s a whole new dimension to the work. I re-read my work on a regular basis, because it enhances the total feel [field?] so it’s like a living body, and I try not to neglect past work. I keep it alive while composing new work. This is the third dimension, see that was the second dimension, this is the 3rd dimension, which is the vocal feedback. Now for the first time in my entire life enjoying listening to recordings of myself. For instance I gave this reading the other night, in Kingston, and they did a fantastic video really beautiful, I just enjoyed the kind of innovative reading. I’ll never read the poems the way I read them there, that was a unique event of reading them, and had to do with who I was reading with. So the process of reading that I read with you is this kind of intimate thing that we have constructed thru our work together, and that’s a whole new phenomenon for me.

Our sessions as co-performers using technology and human connection plausibly begin to bridge an imaginary gap speaker/receiver relationship. Surely enough, George writes the preverbs we record, but in his view the fact that we are recording them makes an impact on how the writing is presented and amplified. Additionally, recent volumes of preverbs, such as Hearing Other (Chax, 2026), include QR codes (potentially) linking the book’s readers directly to our recordings, should they be interested in listening to the work.

I wish to recall two other experiences through which further understandings of George’s work have developed subsequent to “Listening as Learning”. In December 2024, I was fortunate to attend a performance in Rhinebeck, NY, where George created several “Axial Dakini Drawings” on stage. As an audience, we could watch his mental, as well as physical preparations with the brushes, the paints, the blank sheet of paper on the wall before him. It was fascinating to watch his unrushed approach to “the canvas” and, with one measured, spontaneous gesture, render an image onto it. I could see how the processes of George’s axial paintings correlate closely with the language of preverbs. As with the writing, with brushes and paint he determines an approach, or way in, to a line (in composition), and then morphs it at least once, typically more, just as he moves through the line. The axial paintings are a visual, painter’s version, or manifestation of being, “a one-line intentional act of language that invites configurative reading as a singular event of meaning”, which is how he defined preverbs in Things Done for Themselves.

George Quasha, Axial drawing, 2024

In March 2025, George and I were invited to produce a series of preverbs in Wexler Studio, at University of Pennsylvania’s Kelly Writers House, where PennSound is located. During our stay, he and I recorded an episode of the PennSound podcast with Al Filreis, an episode of PoemTalk on preverbs, with Anthony Elms and Al Filreis, and the preverbs series surface retention. With Zach Carduner engineering in an adjacent soundbooth, and no videocamera present, it was just George and I doing what we do, just a couple hundred miles away from where we’ve always done it. There was no videocamera setup in the room, just the two of us—and you can see in the photo below how George’s eyes meet mine, seemingly for the first time in a recording scenario, when the camera is not there (as we happen to be seated). We spent a couple of nights in Philadelphia, enjoying good meals, conversation with locals as well as during the train ride back and forth.

George Quasha, Wexler Studio, Kelly Writers House, March 2025

I’m not certain how many preverbs are still left to document with our recording equipment. To PennSound, we have added twenty-four series’ of thirty-four poems since “Listening and Learning” was written. We proceed, and will continue to produce more series of preverbs in audio for as long as we can I imagine. We did not set out on the preverbs recording project with any grand ambitions, but enjoy working with each other, and new discoveries continue to emerge as the work on Quasha’s PennSound page ensues.

In any event, there’s no George Quasha album forthcoming from Sandy Rock Poetry, but you can hear two-and-a-half-days worth of material—George’s preverbs—via https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Quasha.php

—Chris Funkhouser / 2026

Starting in Fall 2017, and over many meetings since, I have recorded George Quasha reading his body of poems known as preverbs, forming the intention to chronicle the entirety of them up to the present point in time. The following reflections concern the extraordinary experience of instructively collaborating with Quasha as we document his poetry using sound recording equipment.<1>

Upon first encountering and reading Quasha’s series of poems known as preverbs—which, without premeditation, became the focus of our ongoing project together—I had little sense of what these poems actually were or what they represented in terms of poetics. However, listening to an abundance of this work as it was spoken, and again during the editing of my recordings, has given me an opportunity to learn what preverbs are. Initially, I presumed connections between preverbs and proverbs, not realizing what lines of his work consist of, how they are made or should be approached. I did not think to recognize a bond between preverbs and Quasha’s axial principles that are reflected throughout his work as an artist—which he has clearly, if sometimes reluctantly, theorized.

The preverbs’ basic principles connect with Blake’s perception of language as being self-regulating, “a precarious self-balancing of dynamic contraries,” and with forces such as axiality, as explained in commentaries by Quasha included in some of his volumes such as Verbal Paradise (2011) and Things Done for Themselves (2015).<2> As a scholar, I had read his explanations, but did not begin to fully understand various principles at play—until I began recording and editing his work.

A year earlier (Summer 2016), I participated in the Robert Kelly Study Group’s community reading of preverbs. Event performers received advance instructions for “unpreparing” for the reading, composed by Charles Stein; yet my presentation from Quasha’s poems was done improperly. (I read an excerpt from Things Done for Themselves.) Ignoring Stein’s observation that preverbs “cannot in principle be rehearsed” and that “we not try too hard to prepare ourselves to read these pieces,” I rehearsed, essentially using a basic approach—that is, delivering lines in a single breath, using punctuation marks as breathing points—which is not the most principled way to read these lines. Stein also had mentioned—quite rightly, though I had not grasped its implications at the time—how “what distinguishes this work is that it depends in a remarkable way on the concrete events/acts of reading them, in the very moment that these occur.”<3> Conversing during one of our early recording sessions, as I began grasping certain nuances within the preverbs, Quasha strikingly declared, “each line has its own poetics.”

One of the facts about his performance in reading preverbs is that he treats every line as if seeing it for the first time. The language itself remains fixed via the page, yet a line’s vocal rendering is spontaneous and variable, depending on how it is perceived in the moment of reading. At first, I felt that Quasha, in cultivating this characteristic of the work, was making the process of reading more difficult than necessary—particularly as such a method of verbal registration leads to dozens of lines that require re-recording in a documentary setting. Yet learning of, and observing, his on-the-fly recitation practices, as we pursued our collaborative recording project, has helped me to appreciate and understand Quasha’s poetics much more than I would have done otherwise.

At the group preverbs reading, I wished I had had a more refined approach to forming the delivery of lines, divining meaning by voice in the moment, taking on the challenge of such a chore much as the author does. I would never again read preverbs aloud as I did on that occasion. A singular “correct” processual approach to reading or reciting these poems is never imposed by Quasha, however, so my being aware of this type of inside knowledge may not be crucial to engaging with the work. Nonetheless, to listen to Quasha read, one must be aware that he starts each line from scratch. Although he revisits the work before recording sessions—familiarizing himself with the lines—he conceives his delivery of them on the spot.

The process I experience in watching and recording Quasha indeed reflects a comment that appears in The Daimon of the Moment (2015): “I could say,” he writes, that a “preverb appears as one-line utterance projecting a particular state of language in the act of finding itself here and now” (134)<4>. In an email following our earliest sessions, he writes:

While a principle of preverbs is that there can be any number of ‘right’ readings of a line/poem, there is an issue for me of getting the voice to not just perform well but what I call self-truly. This becomes performative in the [J.L.] Austin sense of performativity. When I was doing the reading, I experienced most of the reading to be in fact self-true, so I’m happy from that perspective.<5>

Having previewed The Daimon of the Moment, and other books in which he offers explanations of preverbs, I should have had more of a preconception of what producing recordings of these poems with Quasha might entail. He considers his writing of preverbs, in Daimon of the Moment, “a precarious language act, an event at an edge that remains on edge in the reading,” which includes “excitable language showing up as one-liner and intentionally inviting configurative reading” (134-35). In Things Done for Themselves, Quasha describes the preverb as “a one-line intentional act of language that invites configurative reading as a singular event of meaning” (177). Though I had familiarized myself with this contextual framework in advance, I did not realize the full implications of how Quasha’s “axial principle in language” made meaning out of “an intense and present act of choice or perhaps spontaneous insight, with the awareness that any construction thereof is impermanent” (Daimon 134). Thus the lines Quasha reads will sometimes topple over themselves along the way. When this occurs, we pause and the line is reread, until errors, as it were, are absent. As I have indicated, our first sessions together struck me by the manner in which they divulged how Quasha’s axial delivery process leads to many mistakes when he reads (which are not difficult to correct). I confided my view that his process made reading poems more difficult than necessary and then learned why.

For my own convenience in editing audio files for public presentation, I carefully notate in margins of a text every time Quasha makes such a mistake in delivery, so that I may more easily remove the errors using software (which, for this part of the production, has been Adobe Audition). My copies of Glossodelia Attract <6> and The Daimon of the Moment show more than one hundred twenty edits that were needed to be made to the files for the two books. Working with the books as production scripts, as well as artifacts, is useful for many reasons, not the least of which is that they are a convenient way to register my responses to hearing the poems.

Marginalia in my copies of these volumes include passages highlighted with stars, underlines, exclamation points, smiley faces, and other notations that may have, for example, indicated where a printed word was unintentionally replaced by another. A digital scan of a poem from The Daimon of the Moment (shown below) illustrates some of these annotations; these are my immediate responses to hearing the poems, and they track where edits were needed to be made in the audio files. The book itself becomes an object capturing my experience and engagement with hearing Quasha read, all of which makes me wonder how many readers read along with books, as they listen to recordings—a practice I find valuable not only because I hear the voice, but also because I consider an author’s speed of delivery (including dramatic pauses), gaining a better understanding of my practices as a reader.

George Quasha, The Daimon of the Moment (28) with CF notes.

At the left margin (above), a marked line indicates where Quasha needed to repeat, and therefore where I also needed to cut from the session’s audio file. A bracketed “<cough>” notation pinpoints where another edit should be made in the final version of the sound document. Some personal notes to myself appear, one mentioning that I read “faster (sometimes much) than he voices the lines,” a detail which may not be significant, inasmuch as it may be fair to presume most people read faster than they experience language when they listen to it. At the bottom of the page, I am drawing comparison between proverbs and preverbs, noting the latter features “variable spoken presentation, which can shift meaning—alternatives to itself.” Reflected here is how I am directly absorbing a significant distinction between proverb and preverb. Many pages of books and manuscripts we have recorded contain such production information, as well as received understandings regarding Quasha’s poetics. Whether or not they are useful to anyone else, registering the direct connection between voice, text, and listening experience, helps me embrace what transpires during our sessions. These notes help me remember what seemed important in the moment.

Beginning to make recordings of Quasha’s work in 2017, an overall projection, of course, did not yet exist. We discussed the project in advance, and I asked him to select works he wished to record, but we had no particular long-range view. After our first round of sessions (October 2017 - January 2018), which are now the foundation of Quasha’s PennSound webpage, I realized what my goal would be: to record every preverb that Quasha has written. Thus far, using Ableton Live software, Quasha and I have recorded four complete volumes of preverbs (Verbal Paradise, Glossodelia Attract, The Daimon of the Moment, and Things Done for Themselves) and six series, some published as print or online chapbooks (The Ghost In Between, Scorned Beauty Comes Up From Behind, Hearing Other, Polypoikilos: matrix in variance, The First House/Every Sound Its Word and Not Even Rabbits Go Down This Hole [the full volume of the same name containing this series and “The First House”… has subsequently been published but are so far unrecorded]);<7> these publications represent about half of the preverbs work to date (as of this writing)—fourteen books of which seven are in print. We proceed, envisioning this body of writings as a long-term endeavor.

Our recording project is itself axial in that it is “free being,” without any type of established timeline in constructing a preverbs archive.<8> Given the many demands we have on our respective lives, this component of the collaboration is especially welcome. At the outset I did not anticipate that recording Quasha would become such an extraordinary task and largescale project, but, once I began hearing the collections of preverbs, I became enthralled by their complexity and Quasha’s aesthetic intentions in composing, organizing, and producing these works. In our twenty-three hours or so of recording we have only covered approximately a fifth of the preverbs (roughly 12,000 of 50,000-70,000 lines). With still a long way to go, my perspective on the poems has gained considerable depth.

Among the steady transmissions that appear throughout the preverbs is Quasha’s direct address of poiesis or what, through his lens, poetry is. Early on in our sessions, I realized that in preverbs Quasha often addresses the matter of poetry’s multiple identities. Several lines in each of the books we recorded begin with a kind of self-reflexive phrase, “Poetry is…,” alternatively stated as “Language is…,” “The poem…,” or “Poems....” When I pointed this characteristic out to him, he said he was unaware of the habit. Pursuing the matter, to further amplify Quasha’s sense of openness and comprehension of both authority and form, as I was preparing for a performance in New York, in December 2017, I spliced together a number of the “Poetry is…” lines from the preverbs, in order to play them over loudspeakers during my reading. Most Serene Congress, an improvisational music ensemble I work with, added a musical soundtrack to the piece (which interested readers can hear via our Soundcloud). This recording makes vivid the variability and vocal energy with which Quasha delivers his lines. It discloses a focused, if unintentional, passion on the subject.

The undefinable meaning of poetry is of distinct interest to Quasha. Another of his major projects is a series of art videos with documentary value titled poetry is (together with videos titled, respectively, art is and music is).<9> Since 2002, Quasha has interviewed on video more than a thousand poets, artists and musicians in eleven countries, asking each person to offer their own perspective on the relevant one of the three topics. The range of artists featured in these videos, along with the diversity of answers received from his questions, proves how unpindownable his three topics and his own forms are.<10>

<notes>

1 The ongoing recordings are archived on PennSound after editing: https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Quasha.php.

2 Verbal Paradise (preverbs), 2001, vii; Things Done for Themselves (preverbs), 2015; hereinafter cited in text parenthetically.

3 Email to author (July 10, 2016).

4 The Daimon of the Moment (preverbs), 2015, p.134; hereinafter cited in text parenthetically.

5 Email to author (November 1, 2017).

6 Glossodelia Attract (preverbs), 2015; hereinafter cited in text parenthetically.

7 Along with the books Verbal Paradise, Glossodelia Attract, The Daimon of the Moment, and Things Done for Themselves, the six chapbooks are as follows. The Ghost In Between, 2018; Scorned Beauty Comes Up From Behind, 2012; Hearing Other, 2018; Polypoikilos: matrix in variance, 2017; The First House/Every Sound Its Word, 2018; and Not Even Rabbits Go Down This Hole, 2018 (the full volume of the same name containing this series and The First House, 2020).

8 Cf. George Quasha, Axial Stones: An Art of Precarious Balance, foreword, Carter Ratcliff, 20.

9 George Quasha, et al. poetry is, art is, music is, all three available online.

10 Excerpts from the video have also appeared in print form, via a book edited by Quasha titled art is (Speaking Portraits) (New York: PAJ Publications, 2016), which features still images and transcribed quotations taken from the video footage. The videos are viewable online at art-is-international.org.

Part II

Thus far I have outlined some of the logistical facts of production, indicating compelling, educational aspects of working with Quasha’s preverbs. Other driving, if not profound, dimensions exist. Beyond recording, handling, and preserving the data I have discussed, I want to add that I have experienced what I can only describe as a ritual in my technical preparations for working with Quasha.

I enter an octagonal room in his home in Barrytown (negotiating its built-in sounds), where we assemble audio equipment and create our sound files. (In addition, Quasha makes videos of our sessions, for himself.) We work together to make something gratifying happen. Sitting in a room, with another person, for an hour or two, memorializing poems is something I am very familiar with at this point. I value the experience. Yet it is still an odd and unusual activity—its glories and awkwardnesses are somewhat hard to describe.

Several weeks after we began our project, I received an email from Quasha in which he explained some of why he appreciated the project. I felt a resonance with my own creative values, instincts, and practices in working on elaborate documentary media productions in the past. Beyond graciously expressing gratitude for my effort, he made a particularly salient point, one that addresses the benefits of a focused collaboration of the type and duration we were engaged in:

Thanks for doing the work with me. What you’re doing is important on many levels, perhaps the least obvious is the contribution this kind of attention makes to poet-psychesphere—the shared mind space that valorizes poetic mind. We depend on that in many ways, mostly unacknowledged. Most of the time we may not even acknowledge that it exists—the shared dimension of creative mind. But it’s there and it’s vitally important. It’s not about culture, though culture preserves it (when it does—it can also destroy). We do what we can to sustain it. It’s about feeding the conscious engagement—and there’s an element of prajna in it (for those who understand that level).<11>

Most poets do see the importance in recording/documenting their work and broadcasting it more widely. The rest of Quasha’s missive addresses a profound point that took me years to realize: through specifically this type of documentary work, a unique intimacy develops. The “poet-psychesphere,” as he writes, is something I have experienced many times over the decades; and, importantly, while it may be as ephemeral as anything else, our having had such a “shared mind space” has evolved into something more deeply human and lasting.

Quasha’s email invokes the Buddhist concept of prajna, which succinctly comports with my own drive, purpose, and meaning I have derived from extended media practice. Prajna may be baldly defined as wisdom, though the concept, in its essence, contains much more depth. The level of insight (into reality) indicated by prajna is built upon recognition of impermanence, suffering, non-self, and emptiness. Making recordings for archival and other purposes aspires to preserve voices and other sounds, yet it seems unlikely that media in any format will have a long shelf-life. Practices such as mine cannot be said to have created or caused significant suffering; certain degrees of aggravation, however, difficulty and despair occasionally arise.

In the present era, documentary work is done by someone who sits in the background, away from the microphone, with some digital hardware. Audio experiments are conducted, if for nothing else, in order to devise and add to alternative approaches to the treatment of language that can be presented to be heard. Large-scale organizational operations benefit from having groups of people who, collaboratively, make an effort to achieve a common end. One discovers many contemplative aspects within such self-motivated, yet often selfless, work. Acts of recording, sound design, performance, and audio production eventually become a form of meditation that delivers insight. Through such practice I have gained insight more broadly into literature, communication, cooperation, and trust in intuition.

On another occasion, I received this most generous, valuable email transmission from Quasha. It speaks directly to a range of concerns I better understand now are relevant to our relationship:

It’s been a strong experience reading the preverbs aloud over the past weeks—I guess we’ve now done some 12 hours of recording sessions and the same number of “series” of preverbs. Reading aloud at length and over extended time (as the two-hour sessions, which can be somewhat challenging, and as the extension over weeks) brings forward a larger experience that, in my sense of it, is close to the nature of the work, and at the same time rather tricky to characterize. For instance, it brings forward the spatial textscape, in the sense of the extent of text as a field of resonance—as though the whole “poem” comprises all series in all the books and any given point (or line) relates to all others. It clarifies that the poem tends to educate reading (appropriate to it) by way of engaging listening. A core tenet of poetics for me is that poetry invents ways of reading. And it also invents ways of listening which feed back into ways of reading—and ultimately ways of writing (esp. as generating poetry). It opens listening to conscious and unconscious connections in the full body of the work, as resonances of what has been heard previously coming into what is being heard at a given moment.

This puts the reader somewhat in the space of the poet—access to a “poetic world” or a dimension characterized by its own language. And thinking this puts me in mind of a principle appropriate to this work: that one has to learn a poet’s language, in a sense not so different from learning a foreign language. The fact that it happens in “one’s own” language obscures how different one’s actual own language (an idiolect) is from that of others, since we tend to emphasize similarities in the interest of communicating and establishing commonality. Poetry that seems difficult or odd or somehow disruptive of understanding calls forward the idiolectual dimension. And listening makes very immediate this problematic in ways that are particularly instructive in a poetics.

Listening differs from reading, for instance, by bypassing the pause-reflect-compare access of the page/screen-held textual reading—you can’t go back. (Of course editing, like what you’re doing, returns to something more like text, and in any case you follow the reading text-in-hand.) Yet as literate listeners we are still aware that there is a “back there”—a back that is now afield, accessible mainly through quick memory and resonance. So, the ear’s resorting to its own discriminatory power opens a certain direct receptivity—of being spoken to. The agree/disagree function is softened and different levels of receptivity are activated, both consciously and unconsciously. It seems that being reader-listener is closer to the condition of poet “riding on ears.” (E.g., what Duncan called, after Pound, “the tone-leading of vowels.”) What I would call the “penetration quotient” is altered—what gets in, how far, to what effect. It’s a cut below rationalist discrimination, with the effect of activating aural imagination.

We’re in a domain here of the phenomenology of listening and how it’s distinct, though not entirely, from that of reading. Listening to poetry overlaps the writing-speaking that generates it. In reading the poems aloud I also engage listening, even as I get in touch with the writing-speaking that created it. I’m also at the same time reading a text and so become more acutely aware of how speaking/listening creates an instantly new version, itself an idiolect, a singularity. In the case of preverbs this folds back into the “amphibolous message” of the text—its opportunity for variable in-process reflective reading-listening. A session of reading aloud renews the text for me—an energetic trajectory that no doubt carries over into further composition (usually the same night). This emphasizes how complexly the performance of poetry is complicit with the continuing life of making poetry. How this plays out in the social context of poetry is infinitely complex and mostly impossible to track. A difficulty there is that we think in terms of “influence” in a way that is far too simplistic relative to the actual phenomenon. For instance, matters of “style” and the like may play little or no role in what is actually transmitted. I’ve long felt that, as important as direct influence can be, a better model for what one poet gives another is “transmission.” But this calls into play certain understandings of mind that are not easily introduced into literary discussion.

What could be called “expanded field of listening,” for what occurs in longer sessions over time, can engage an experience of what I call meeting thoughts from afar. It has to do with emergent language of obscure origin—one feels it in the mind as something different from ordinary thinking. Over the years I’ve cultivated a particularly subtle version of this. I suppose it’s related to other histories such as “automatic writing” and “channeling” but for me these overstate the case, make it seem dramatic. For me it’s subtle and interconnected with one’s conscious thinking—yet it’s also quite distinctively itself. The thinking here suggests that the expanded field of listening is a sort of mimesis of meeting thoughts from afar. The field resonance should open receptivity to subtle emergent insight inside language. I would say that that’s a core intention of axial poetics.

This is meant to let you know how the experience of recording preverbs has been important to me.<12>

Part III

<notes>

11 Email to author (November 14, 2017).

12 Email to author (December 8, 2017).

Collegiality aside, Quasha’s message highlights a number of potentially valuable outcomes from our recording project. Human interactions that involve “engaged listening” are a rarity, and we are in a situation where we need to invent and manifest “ways of listening”—which for me has evolved into cultivating instructive ways of listening. I value the entering into a “poetic world” in such a way, having the experience and instruction “of being spoken to.” Having worked on several extensive single-author recording projects, Quasha’s sense of an “expanded field of listening” agrees with me.<13> I experience an informative, genuine, human outcome while being stimulated by sophisticated, wise literary creations and perspectives. If I hadn’t realized the preverbs’ thoughtful underpinnings, their “opportunity for variable in-process reflective reading-listening” (cf. above), I certainly was well-aware of their capacities by this juncture.

As Quasha says, in one of the preverbs from Glossodelia Attract, “My work is not experimental, I am” (72). His active engagement of Eastern spirituality—over the course of nearly a half-century, including t’ai chi, meditation, and healing arts—sets him apart from most everyone else I come into contact with, and informs his poetics in most interesting ways. Like the preverbs, Quasha embodies openness regarding his own diverse nature.

To be sure, apart from matters I have already discussed, there is to be had an understanding of how the carefully phrased swoosh of language in his lines, the effect of it, expressively parallels the experience of his axial paintings. The overall trans-medial unity in his work more than interests me. Despite their differences in form, the fluidity of his poetic language is so very like the swerves of paint he creates instantaneously, purely intuitively, in his axial paintings. It is particularly in this sense that he is a trans-medial artist whose in-the-moment compositional approach pulls into a unity different strands of his work. I am impressed by how much energy his demanding approach adds to the output.

“Overall, I see lack of authoritative modeling as a positive fact in poetry,” Quasha has written in an essay of his he titled “Healing Poetics,” which sets out his praxis, “not only for the good of diversity,” he continues, “but for the trust it encourages in conscious poetic process itself. No doubt we would have to betray poetry to pin it down” (Poetry in Principle 34). Reciting his preverbs, Quasha isn’t simply going through the motions of reading a text he has previously read and perfected. Rather, his effort is to make each line a new experience for himself—through which a unique vibrancy is transmitted, in each poem. This is a powerful experience to be present for, to receive the communication.

The relevance of his remark, “Tape recorder joins typewriter as instrumentation of the muse,”<14> which I uncovered forty years later, is even greater, more salient now, possibly more than ever. It rings in a most valuable potentiality—one of wide-ranging benefit given the portability of our technologies. As someone who has an exorbitant amount of direct experience with sound recording and audio production, I concur with his prescient observation, while I am inclined to add that the recorder is not only potentially a muse; it is also a most valuable, instructive tool.

Listening to poetry, in many cases, slows down the process of reception, which opens the possibility of more time to think inside the formations of language, what is being said and done there—and the particular experience of the poem as a listener receives it. The first-hand experience of hearing a poet’s voice traverse the course of a book (in Quasha’s case a series of books) instructs and inspires me as much as, if not more than, reading the work on the page.

Rhinebeck, New York / July 2019

<notes>

13 Other projects of mine have included collaborating with Peter Lamborn Wilson and Charles Stein, for instance, including on their respective author pages at PennSound, and with Andy Clausen on Audible.

14 In Quasha’s 1977 essay “Dialogos: Between the Written and the Oral in Contemporary Poetry” (New Literary History 8: 488, 1977); reprinted in Jerome Rothenberg and Diane Rothenberg, eds. Symposium of the Whole: A Range of Discourse Toward an Ethnopoetics, 461-74 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983).

Several hundred people filled The Poetry Project’s sanctuary in New York City last Wednesday night to celebrate the 100th birthday of Allen Ginsberg, born on June 3, 1926 (Newark, NJ). Here I do not comprehensively review the festivities, which were passionate throughout, but rather extend a thumbnail tale of personal experience.

How does Allen connect with Sandy Rock Poetry? Firstly, because a 1994 DAT recording I made of his reading in Hudson, NY, flawlessly and faithfully captures an instant in time where Allen tirelessly reads a range of work spanning decades, for an hour and forty minutes. Amongst the two best recordings I have ever made, it can be heard in-full at PennSound [https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Ginsberg.php]. In 2015, when I began producing the Poet Ray’d Yo on WGXC, the first edition of the program brought forth work from the Hudson reading as a sample of what listeners would be in for. Although that program seems to be missing from the station archive at present, a 2021 on-air radio tribute to Allen is available [https://wavefarm.org/wf/archive/e47j59]. The Hudson performance of “Hum Bom” was part of Kenning Vol. 4, No. 3 (CD edition) [https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Kenning.php]. Before the Hudson reading, a group of us went up to Olana, where he photographically captured our bodies being (temporarily) snatched by the landscape (and our experience in general).

Secondly, everyone else who resided at Sandy Rock—my “nuclear” family, Avery, John, Stewart, Margaret—met Allen at one time or another, and although she changed her tune about it years later, Avery once said she believed he was my “worst influence”! As noted below, I write elsewhere about the profound impact Allen made on my pursuit of combining poetry and audio technology.

I met Allen shortly after his 60th birthday, upon enrolling as a student in the Summer Writing Program at Naropa Institute (Boulder, CO), where he was on the faculty. Someone had thrown him a nice birthday party, and I remember asking him—in the first of numerous conversations we had over the next decade—“What was the most interesting present you received”? His answer: a MacIntosh computer!

I was unsure of what to expect at The Poetry Project, with an abundance of performers, and even had the fleeting thought, knowing so many longtime comrades—and many other Ginsberg admirers—would be performing and attending, that it might be just as good to have a party, hang out, catch up, talk about new and old times, what sorts of writing and resistance we are doing, &c.

That was a really misguided notion, since most of the performers delivered great-to-hear renditions of Ginsberg’s poems, or/and poems/performances offering tribute his life and spirit. And everything I imagined above happened anyway.

Despite knowing that numerous friends would be there, I made no plans to meet up with anyone in advance. Arriving in Grand Central, I subway’d to get takeout at Messy in Soho, and walked through the West and East Village, to the churchyard, to eat. In my mind, the proceedings started at 7. I happily arrived at about 5:30, figuring eventually familiar people would begin to appear, and meanwhile I’d nourish, people watch, journal a few thoughts.

The first people I knew arrived about an hour later, all from Woodstock. Through them, I learned that the celebration actually started at 8. With some time to wander then, I followed through with an earlier idea: to make a pilgrimage to the building where Allen lived for many years, and where I stayed a few times while passing through.

Many things change, and others don’t. Visiting the East 12th street apartment building for the first time in ages unlocked numerous memories, like taking pictures on Allen’s fifth-floor fire escape, and being in that exact place with other dear companions as well.

A storied space, always with great company. Famously, there was no buzzer at the door. If you wanted to go in and did not have a key, somebody would drop one down to the sidewalk in a sock.

The Poetry Project stage was occupied by a range of people Allen worked with, artistic collaborators and students, as well as younger people who never knew him, but find inspiration and build connections though his work.

Among my favorite moments of the evening was when David Amram, introducing his piece (a solo version of “Pull My Daisy”), said, about Pull My Daisy (1959):

For those of you who’d like to make a film, all you need is to take an iPhone, get a bunch of friends who are out of work—which we all were when we made the film—and you have your cast, and can film it your yourself…

He makes the task sound easier than it really is, but this is such an important message to send!

Since she was (is!) also a truly important and inspiring teacher at Naropa, and is so connected to The Poetry Project as well, I was sorry to learn Anne Waldman was unable to attend, although she was certainly present in spirit, and performing on larger-than-life video (“Death News”) with Devin Brahja Waldman.

Another important and always supportive teacher, David Cope, sojourned from Michigan to read (“Three for Allen”), and otherwise commune with Boulder brethren in the Ginsbergian fallout.

To be able to have meaningful conversations with people whom both Allen and I are/were connected—Peter Hale, Ed Sanders (who told his teenage Ginsberg origin story onstage), Sharon Mesmer (who read “Song”), Bob Rosenthal (who read a forceful tribute, carrying the Ginsberg flame forward, proclaiming, “today is the beginning of our studies”), Lee Ann Brown (who performed “HOWL, part 3”, with Bob Holman and Rochelle Kraut), Steven Taylor (who sang “Broken Bone Blues” with Jair-Rohm Parker Wells)—and to at least briefly catch up with so many others, as well as make new connections, added to the hearty evening. Only to spend more time with these—and all the other characters who were there—would have made it more delightful. As it was, relying on trains for transport to the next station, I departed shortly before the program ended, and was grateful to be able to see the final three acts via YouTube.

Though it hadn’t occurred to me prior to reflecting on this event, Allen now strikes me as a tree that branched out in so many directions, and at least a few of those branches I find supremely interesting. Others would be drawn to different branches. The tree was—and still is—sturdy and formidable to (for) his artistic progeny, though you couldn’t say it is pruned and neatly sculpted. AND, it’s still growing!

Getting food from Messy, wandering ever-evolving (if not sanitized) Village streets, and then absorbing Allen’s brilliant work in the present—alongside gleaming adoration of who he was, and what he did—was an incomparable, life-flashing-before-your-eyes experience! A space-age anarchist, who was an incredibly supportive teacher, Allen journeyed everywhere to sing the body electric, through whom we learned so much. True joy to be amongst other travelers who emanate love to and from him on his birthday this year.

CODA

Words emerging from the stage 6/3/26, transcribed in linear sequence (as they were spoken), arranged into acrostic poems:

Animal

loved

longtime

events

new

Gay

in

non-judgmental

son

business

endless

results

get

AH

light

loud

even

night

Gods (gave) (go)

into

never

say

better (burden)

excellence

return

genius

A

life

lives (listen)

endlessly

next

Gather

including

named

said

beat

elegy (everyone)

ready

ground

Adopted

later

learning

eminently (extraordinary)

now

Grinning

is

nose

smells

burning

eyes

rubble

grass

Amount

last

library

end

necessary

Goes

introduction

no

simply

birthday

empires

rainbow

gold

And

long

lines

‘ere

needy

Glimpse

inability

national

superhuman

bedsheets

electrified

roof

got

Architecture

legibility

lessons

each

number

Gone

it’s

no

stay (so)

bald

even

right

gone

After

love

lyrics

each

nation (now)

Goddamn

israeli (illegal Iran)

night table

stubborn

believe

even

range

gringos (glasses)

Note: “On Ginsberg: Press Record” is the opening chapter of my book Technicians of the Ephemeral: Living Audio Poetry (manuscript in progress). A draft of “On Ginsberg” was published in Open Space 21: Things That Matter, 2018. In this writing, I explore Ginsberg’s important engagements with (and in) the realm of recording poetry, and describe his influence on my own practices. Some of this material is drawn from a short article, published in Jacket2 (2014) [see https://jacket2.org/commentary/audio-practice-iv].

Future artists whose work will be released on Sandy Rock Poetry have been guests on the program as well. Poet Ray’d Yo’s online archive homepage is located at https://wavefarm.org/radio/wgxc/schedule/ya0aha.

So, a major project happening in the Sandy Rock Poetry vortex for the past year and a half has been transcribing and editing all of the radio interviews I’ve conducted since 2015. Here’s a list of writers who I have hosted on the program so far:

Lucio Agra, Will Alexander, Bruce Andrews, Miriam Atkin, Joshua Beckman, Steve Benson, Charles Bernstein, Alexis Bhagat, Dawn Breeze, Lee Ann Brown, Laynie Browne, Don Byrd, Azure Carter, John Cayley, Abigail Child, Andy Clausen, CA Conrad, David Cope, Stephen Cope, Brenda Coultas, Jon Curley, Maria Damon, Tim Davis, Brian Dewan, Brandon Downing, Nancy Dunlop, Marcella Durand, Ben Friedlander, Drew Gardner, Alan Gilbert, Philip Good, Nada Gordon, Anne Gorrick, Lee Gough, Cole Heinowitz, David Jhave Johnston, Pierre Joris, Michael Joyce, Erica Kaufman, Robert Kelly, Burt Kimmelman, Richard Kostelanetz, Kush, Jeffrey Lependorf, Richard Loranger, Bernadette Mayer, Sharon Mesmer, Shiv Mirabito, Lori Anderson Moseman, Fred Moten, Carrie Bradley Neves, Joel Newberger, Mark Nowak, Tamas Panitz, Ted Pearson, Wanda Phipps, Kristin Prevallet, Patrick Pritchett, George Quasha, Evelyn Reilly, Joan Retallack, David Rothenberg, Douglas Rothschild, Michael Ruby, Ed Sanders, Satan’s Black Acid, Alana Seigel, Alan Sondheim, Sparrow, Charles Stein, Edwin Torres, Sam Truitt, Pamela Twining, Cat Tyc, Jasmine Dreame Wagner, Anne Waldman, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Rebecca Wolff, Workers Writers School.

Most of the dialog in these transcripts has been edited, though only about five of the textual transcripts—including correctly formatted poetry that was broadcast over the airwaves—are fully completed. In the mythic future I hope to finish and put into circulation as many of them as possible. It’s a slow process, and a kind of herding cats kind of endeavor, though I seem to be willing to be patient with it.

Last month, the first of these interview transcripts appeared online, when a 2021 radio presentation and conversation with John Cayley—a translator, musician, and writer who is among the pioneers of digital poetry and poetics—was published by electronic book review, and is available via https://electronicbookreview.com/publications/poet-rayd-yo-an-interview-with-john-cayley-and-chris-funkhouser/.

John and I first met in 1996, at the Assembling Alternatives conference/festival organized by Romana Huk (Durham, New Hampshire). John, along with Jim Rosenberg, Loss Pequeño Glazier, and I, made presentations at one of the plenary sessions at the event. The next spring, John arranged for Rosenberg, Glazier, and I to give a reading in Lawrence Upton’s Subvoicive series London—his home at the time—and the three of us visited Stonehenge together during a road trip between Southampton and London. Over the years John and I have become close, especially once he moved to Providence to teach at Brown—as well as host several powerful, innovative artistic events—about twenty years ago. I write extensively about his work in Prehistoric Digital Poetry and New Directions in Digital Poetry, as well as in a standalone essay, “Irregular Solid: John Cayley’s Cybertextually Engineered Digital Poetry”, which is available via https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:338/PDF/?embed=true. We’ve traveled in several countries together, including Canada, France, Norway, and Spain. At the 2011 E-Poetry festival in Buffalo, John and I, along with Lucio Agra, Stephen Cope, Andrew Klobucar, Siew-wai Kok, and Eugenio Tisselli, formed a panhemispheric “pick-up” band called grope uSurp. One of our pieces, proposed by John, remade a Neil Young lyric (“Albuquerque”) that was particularly apt to the gathering:

Our social and professional activities over the years have been quite varied, and I admire his work so much, teaching it in my courses at NJIT. If you are not familiar with what he does, check out the P=R=O=G=R=A=M=M=A=T=O=L=O=G=Y website, https://programmatology.shadoof.net/. Several of his works include significant sonic components, including The Listeners, which features custom software and aurally accessible linguistic compositions for the Amazon Echo’s ‘Alexa,’ using ASK (the Alexa Skills Kit). In the above-linked interview he introduces and discusses some of his work in this realm.

Will there ever be a Sandy Rock Poetry album featuring John’s work? I would love that, and wouldn’t count it out! Here’s a picture I found of John and Sandy Rock, taken a few years ago:

In related news, the transcript of my 2019 WGXC conversation (and poetry recordings) of Pierre Joris, completed before he left us last year, has also been accepted for publication. It will appear in a local online chapbook series known as Metambesen. Stay tuned for that, and more!

However, last Thursday (5/14/26), I was fortunate to experience a surprising and remarkable semi-promotional event for Brian Dewan’s CURIOUS SEALIFE (SRP 001). Brian was the monthly guest on WGXC’s “Suddering Words” program, hosted by Ric Royer and G. Lucas Crane. I’d heard great things about their radio performance work, and was everything except disappointed by the occasion. In fact, I was blown away by the madcap, spontaneous sonic antics of Ric and Lucas in the best of ways, and the way Brian—who had previously attended the show, and sort of knew what to expect—was able to fit into it.

The show transpired live in WGXC’s storefront studio in Catskill, with an audience of about six. Ric had purchased a copy of the CURIOUS SEALIFE flexidisc at our Spotty Dog launch in February, and was enthused by it. When he mentioned he was planning to play a track from it on their show this month, I decided to head up there and hear what they were getting up to (after recording this month’s Poet Ray’d Yo program with Alana Siegel at Q 25 in the afternoon).

Beyond Brian’s contributions to—and participation in—the rollicking Royer/Crane collages (or, I think it’s safe to say, audio designs), much occurred during the program, including call-in questions, guest readers (e.g., Miriam Atkin reading from The American Kennel Club Stud Book Register), vegetable giveaways, and more.

It’s always thrilling to witness such fun, passionate, improvised creativity, and don’t see nearly enough of it happening! I am sure there are pockets of such exuberant strangeness happening here and there, and was really glad to be THERE. If you take a listen, you’ll notice it was quite imperfect as a promotional event, though the sounds coming from Brian’s Melody Gin (+ voice), Ric’s laptop (+ voice), & Lucas’s cassette mixing and other toys (+ voice) were extraordinary to receive. I greatly appreciated the segment towards the end when Royer was playing Brian’s reading of just the titles of the work that are on the CURIOUS SEALIFE album. Why? Because while sequencing the album, I initially arranged the tracks we recorded so that the titles might be read—with the inclusion of some imaginary punctuation—as a type of fluid abstract poem of its own. Brian ultimately desired a shift in placement of two of the tracks, but in many ways, it still works out, and I’m glad Ric tuned into the frequency of that detail.

At any rate, you can listen to Brian’s performance with Ric and Lucas on Suddering Words for yourself via this link: https://wavefarm.org/wf/archive/ck8gre. Brian and CURIOUS SEALIFE featured during the first hour.

Sandy Rock’s the name of a house on Cape Cod where my family resided from 1977-2024, purchased by my grandparents in the 1950s. There’s a rock in the salt marsh inlet in front of the house that gave it its name. I took a portion of the proceeds of the sale of the house and set it aside to fund the Sandy Rock Poetry label, so there’s a direct connection between the two.

I own a few vinyl records containing songs featuring my parent’s voices, and for more than sixty years, my father—a literature major who ended up practicing medicine—was involved with singing groups that produced LP records and CDs. At one point in the 1980s, when I had access to the proper equipment at WTJU, I remember conspiring with him to reclaim sounds of his old reel-to-reel tapes from his years with Yale’s Alley Cats (without success, unfortunately). Acknowledging his encouragement (setting example in the realms of books, music, and photography), with Sandy Rock Poetry I offer a sincere tip-my-hat to my parents and our sacred family Rock for providing so much. They continue to provide even now that they’re gone!

Further considering the topic of nomenclature, it’s fair to say that for four decades I’ve been enamored by, and involved with, combination(s) music and poetry, and therefore sandy (gritty) “rock poetry” is a cool name on that register.

Progress:

I went over to Kingston to buy inks for stamping CURIOUS SEALIFE flexidisc covers this morning (1/14), then went Uptown to meet with Henry Lowengard about his GPT work (some of which can be heard via (https://largelanguage.bandcamp.com/), and possibly collaborating on something. Henry is a friend and fan of Brian Dewan’s, and was the first person to purchase the flexidisc. I haven’t seen him in a while, so suggested I deliver the record in person as a way to catch up with him.

In the afternoon, I set up a little printmaking studio in the Q 25 Kitchen, tested out all of the inks, and printed a few covers.

Early feedback on the flexidisc:

So far, less than a handful of people have heard our flexi. Each have had a different experience with it. I had to make a couple of turntable adjustments to get it to play, and Brian had trouble getting one of the tracks to play at a certain point. Looking at the surfaces of several discs, it seems like some are different than others, and maybe there are some imperfections…

Then, a day after I saw him, Henry L. emails:

Just a heads up ! The Flexi disc’s center hole is about 0.25 mm too small and hugs the spindle! This isn’t so bad if the spindle rotates with the turntable, but not if it doesn’t!
I can probably work around this.

These flaws (if that’s what they are) are only vaguely bothersome to me. Anyone who wants to hear a crystal-clear version of Brian’s CURIOUS SEALIFE pieces can check out the digital album. Nonetheless, we are thinking of dropping a little troubleshooting note into the insert/sleeves…

Sandy Rock Poetry is an independent Hudson Valley-based record label formed to circulate voices of poets and sounds around poetry in various audio formats. Formation commenced in 2025, a doing by radio programmer / recording engineer-archivist / literary publisher / mechanical humanist Chris Funkhouser.

The CURIOUS SEALIFE (digital) album and flexidisc are now available via Sandy Rock Poetry’s Bandcamp site

—Chris Funkhouser / Tivoli, NY / 16 January 2026

the album and flexidisc are now available via Sandy Rock Poetry’s Bandcamp site

—Chris Funkhouser / Tivoli, NY / 15 January 2026

CURIOUS SEALIFE, the digital album emerging in January 2026, presents 29 poems I recorded at Q 25 Studio in Tivoli, NY, plus a bonus track of Dewan’s tuning of Robert Burns’ “Ae Fond Kiss” recorded on the radio program I produce, Poet Ray’d Yo (WGXC, Hudson, NY), in September 2023.

In addition to the album, Sandy Rock Poetry is producing a limited edition flexidisc featuring 6 tracks from CURIOUS SEALIFE mixed by Brian and I.

Yesterday I tried my hand at composing a press release, and this is what came out:

Given CURIOUS SEALIFE’s title, iconography, and its spoken content, someone might believe that a few of the ocean’s most sage creatures temporarily transformed themselves into human form, then proceeded to write a series of nearly thirty Earth-observant poems about what they saw, which Brian Dewan conveniently channels into creation in this collection.

I’m not sure what Brian will think of that, or if it will remain in the press release—it’s what came out in a free-write.

The flexidisc cover insert combines photocopied information with individually hand-stamped imagery, applied with custom-made rubberstamps of the cover image created by Brian.

Today I visited the Water Street Art Studio in Catskill to meet with Liz Martinez, who transposed the cover image prepared by Brian into a rubberstamp. Liz showed me proper printing techniques.

We made a few test pressings.

The artifacts described above can soon be uncovered, procured, and heard via sandyrockpoetry.bandcamp.com

Sandy Rock Poetry Postoffice Box 63 Tivoli, NY 12583

Brian Dewan

Born

June 14, 1963 (age 62)

Genres

• Folk

• electronic

• chamber music

• jazz

Occupations

Musician, composer, vocalist, instrument builder, illustrator, cartoonist

Instruments

• Electric zither

• organ

• piano

• autoharp

• koto

• accordion

• Dewanatron

Years active

1985–present

Labels

Bar/None, Instinct, Eschatone

Brian Dewan (born June 14, 1963) is an American multi-media artist, who produces music, audio-visual performances, decorative painting, furniture, poetry, filmstrips, illustrations, and musical instruments. He has released three albums of songs and performed extensively in clubs and concert halls as a solo artist and as a member of various ensembles. He lives in Catskill, New York. Brian is the brother of artist Ted Dewan and the cousin of musical instrument builder/musician Leon Dewan.^[1]

Music

Genre

Dewan has a cross-genre approach to music, although he is predominantly known for his folk-tinged vocal stylings and instrumental electronic music, which on a performance level are generally mutually exclusive. His vocal repertoire references folk music, hymns, popular songs from bygone eras (especially topical songs from the 19th and early 20th centuries), and rock music. He also composes original songs reflecting these influences.

These genres permeate his first two full-length albums, Brian Dewan Tells the Story (1993, Bar None Records) and The Operating Theatre (1998, Instinct Records). His songs often contemplate the nature of submission to authority, often in a storytelling manner. His lyrics are by turns humorous, philosophical, and contemplative. His historical song repertoire often betrays a post-modern irony in the re-telling.

Live

In live performance, Dewan accompanies his singing with a home-built electric zither, outfitted with eight humbucker pickups and 88 strings, sometimes piped through a leslie cabinet or guitar effects pedals. He also plays a variety of other instruments, including autoharp, koto, organ, and accordion. His electronic music, either solo or in collaboration with his cousin, Leon Dewan, tends to be more sprawling and free-form, often evoking the dissonance of early analog electronic music.

Bands Worked With

Dewan has worked with They Might Be Giants,^[2] Sesame Street, Flaming Fire, Jed Davis, The Music Tapes, Loser’s Lounge, The Shondes and The Musical Stones of Skiddaw.

He is a member of the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, a group dedicated to reinterpreting Scott’s compositions, and appeared on their 2002 album Pushbutton Parfait. He also composes and performs with the Patient Island Singers, a project loosely centered around the topic of Roosevelt Island. He was an original member of the Blue Man Group Tubes house band, for whom he composed musical scores. He later sued the group for authorship claims, and eventually prevailed in court.^[3]

Musical Work

Dewan’s 2007 album Words Of Wisdom (Eschatone Records) was the first in a series of folk archival recordings called the Humanitarium Series. Each record in the series will collect a set of song artifacts by theme: temperance, school songs, hymns, folksongs ancient and modern, institutional music, advertisement and persuasion, ditties, jingles, and popular music.^[4]

He has also performed a song for the original soundtrack CD for the “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?” television series, though this track was commissioned for the CD and never used in any other context.

Visual and multi-media art

Filmstrips

Brian Dewan’s series of I Can See filmstrips use the technology of the educational filmstrips from the mid-twentieth century as a point of departure for imaginative personal invention.

Each panel features one of Dewan’s fanciful drawings, usually rendered in magic marker or watercolor. The images are accompanied by elaborate soundtracks in which Dewan is heard, adopting a deadpan narrator’s voice, and playing various musical instruments to create a different miniature soundtrack for each panel of the filmstrip.

When it is time for the projectionist to advance the strip to the next panel, Dewan’s voice is typically heard singing “boop” in close imitation of the noise traditionally used for this purpose. The themes of the strips often seem as though they could have been taken from actual educational strips – Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Civic Pride, and a short history of the Organ. Biblical stories have all served as conceits for the filmstrips. The strips tend to take many free-associative liberties and are by turns satirical and surreal, often whimsical and sometimes touching on serious themes. “Before the White Man Came” seems as though it might be about colonialism or racism, but the “White Man” of the filmstrip starts to seem more likely to be a folkloric evil spirit, with a charged and ambiguous relationship to racial stereotypes.

In 2003, Dewan created an installation at the Pierogi 2000 Gallery in Brooklyn which transformed the appearance of the gallery into that of an American classroom from an indeterminate bygone era, perhaps from the 1940s. He presented his filmstrips regularly during the course of the month-long exhibition, to audience members seated in old schooldesks.

Shrines

Dewan has created a series of what he terms “shrines”. They are constructed of wood and other materials, such as light bulbs, clocks, photographs and bottles. The best known shrine is the one appearing on the cover of They Might Be Giants’ album Lincoln. The shrines range from about one to six feet tall and often evoke New England church architecture with their lean geometrical spires. While the word “shrine“ might connote a site created for devotion to a spiritual entity, Dewan’s shrines seem to exist not as a conduit for worship, but as playful aesthetic objects.

Dewan created a number of shrines for New Year’s Eve parties and performances, and those shrines often have some sort of illumination which could be turned on at midnight. At least one had a drink-dispenser built into it. The cabinetry he built for his recent series of electronic instruments, created in collaboration with his cousin, Leon Dewan, often continue some of the visual ideas behind the shrines. His New Year’s Eve shrine ritual involves completing the shrine only moments before midnight.

Dewanatron

Brian Dewan currently works with Leon Dewan under the name Dewanatron. Together they have designed and built a series of synthesizers in custom cabinetry, often reminiscent of either New England churches or 1940’s school house architecture. The instruments create sounds evocative of the early electronic music. The instruments were exhibited and concertized at the Pierogi 2000 gallery in Brooklyn in December 2005, Pierogi Liepig in Germany in April 2006 and at “Another Year in LA” gallery as well as the Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles in August and September 2007.

Cover art for albums

Dewan has created album art for others, such as the cover of David Byrne‘s Uh-Oh, They Might Be Giants’ Lincoln, Beat Circus’ Dreamland, and the interior artwork of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel.

Discography

Albums

• Tells the Story (Bar/None, 1993)

• The Operating Theatre (Instinct, 2001)

• Dewanatron [with Leon Dewan] (2005)

• Live at the Auk (Obedience School, 2005)

• Irregular Hours, Vol. 1 (Live at Pierogi) [with Leon Dewan, as Dewanatron] (Obedience School, 2006)

• Sleep on It - Electronic Excursions (Obedience School, 2007)

• Words of Wisdom (Eschatone, 2007)

• Semi Automatic [with Leon Dewan, as Dewanatron] (Cuniglius, 2008)

• Ringing At The Speed Of Prayer (Innova, 2009)

• The Greenhorns Presents: Brian Dewan Sings Grange Future: Songs of the Patrons of Husbandry (2014)

• The Hunting of the Snark (Obedience School, 2017)

• Catskill Escapade [with Elizabeth Karp] (2024)

EPs

• Hello Recording Club EP (March, 1993)

• Hello Recording Club EP (September, 1994)

Guest appearances

• “The Violin” (w/ Eileen Ivers on violin), Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? soundtrack

References

1.

“Cyclemas Bio”. Archived from the original on July 18, 2011. Retrieved April 22, 2010.

“Brian Dewan”. TMBW: The They Might Be Giants Knowledge Base. Retrieved November 24, 2025.

Court filing, Dewan vs. Blue Man Group Limited Partnership, 73 F.Supp.2d 382 (1999)

4. Maltempi, Domenic. “Brian Dewan - Interview and Ruminations”. Perfect Sound Forever. Archived from the original on February 4, 2012. Retrieved April 22, 2012.

External links

• Brian Dewan’s page at Eschatone Records

• Dewanatron site which describes many of the Dewan cousins recent musical inventions

• Brian Dewan: Tells the Story bio from Bar/None Records

Sandy Rock Poetry is an independent Hudson Valley-based record label formed to circulate voices of poets and sounds around poetry in various audio formats. Formation commenced in 2025, a doing by radio programmer / recording engineer-archivist / literary publisher / mechanical humanist Chris Funkhouser.

—Chris Funkhouser / Tivoli, NY / 13 January 2026