Another Promise of Another Return

Well, it's been quite a long time since our last post. To briefly explain: both Conversely and I are officially and very deeply into our respective "dissertation stages" of the Ph.D. program here at South Carolina. Additionally, I am now the father of a one-year-old girl, and as you might expect, my free time is not what it once was. Unfortunately, this means we have both been quite distracted and have lacked either the time or motivation to keep posting on here with the regularity this project used to rely on (and which used to be one of this project's strengths!).

In any case, I'm posting today to announce that I (I'm not sure about Conversely) want to get back in the blast poetry saddle. I've been thinking a lot, and maybe it's the sleepless haze I'm constantly in or my perpetual state of intellectual exhaustion, but I think I've got some good ideas again. I'm not going to make any official promises about posting--instead, I'm just going to say that I'm going to do the best I can. I know we have probably lost essentially all of our readership over the past year, so I can say all of these things with the confidence that I'm not going to be offending very many people, at least. I also plan on putting up some of the rough demos from our musical endeavors over the past year or so. Gaston Monescu did some incredible work on these songs, and they deserve (at least) an internet forum. With some luck, I believe Gaston is going to have an opportunity to put together slightly more professional versions of his material in the next few months, so I'll be sure to pass those along as well. As for other materials, poem/lyric changes should be posted soon, and as always, we welcome feedback on any of our archived material (remember: the basis of this project is that none of this material is ever truly 'archived'...it's always 'in process'!).

Oh! One other bit of news: Two of my poems--"The Haitian President to His Women" and its companion poem, "Women to the Haitian President"--were published a few months ago in The Breakwater Review...which of course means that I am now, officially, a published poet. So that's cool, I suppose. I've already dusted off my beret and great God, you should SEE the soul patch I've grown: it's amazing.

So, until the next post, let me say again that I appreciate those of you who have been involved in this project with all my poetic heart (twice the size of a regular heart, btw!). Take care, and we'll get new material up soon.

Also: enjoy those Paterson photos! They're old, but aren't they AWESOME?!?

-T. Az. (or, more humbly, Kenny Camacho)

A New List! Paterson: Book Two, Chapter I

* NOTE * Paterson: Book Two, Chapter I spans pages 41 to 61 in the 1995 New Directions edition of the complete Paterson, editor Chris MacGowan.

To the festivities! A new and incredibly awesome list of titles is ready! Proceed with jubilation:


Paterson: Book Two, Chapter I
(Catastrophe of the Falls)


1. Dr. Paterson's Walk from the Cliff; or, Two White Towers [p. 43-61]
2. (so close are we to ruin every day!) [p. 45]
3. Walking (Fig. 6B) [p. 45]
4. Unrequited; or, Exiling One's Self From One's Self / Another Letter Unanswered [p. 45]
5. "How Do I Love You? These!" / Preceding Whispered Voices [p. 45]
6. An American Occupation [p. 46]
7. The German Singing Societies of Paterson Present: "Not On This Ground!" [p. 46]
8. "A Great Crowd, A Great Beast!" or, McNulty has a Plan [p. 46]
9. Pecking Order [p. 46]
10. Imagination; or, Pheasants in Flight [p. 47-48]
11. Chapultapec! Grasshopper Hill! [p. 47-49]
12. M.N. to W.C.W. / W.C.W. [never] to M.N. [p. 45, 48]
13. combating sleep/------------/the sleep [p. 49]
14. Officer Goodridge's Encounter; or, The Little Critter That Had Caused So Much Fun, 1939 [p. 49]
15. A New Mind, A New Measure [p. 50]
16. Lovers in the Park [p. 50-52, 54-55, 58-61]
17. Imagined Indians / the Ground Spoke [p. 52]
18. MountMt.GarrettMt. [p. 52-53]
19. The Bitch and the Man in the Park [p. 53]
20. Musty: A Love Story [p. 53-54]
21. "A Great Crowd, A Great Beast!" or, Voices Lifted in Voices [p. 54]
22. The Quaking of the Great City / The Capital of Call and Response [p. 55-56]
23. Hungarian Metronome; or, Time Over the Falls [p. 55]
24. A Song for Nothing [p. 55]
25. Eisenstein's Heavenly Man! [p. 57-58]
26. (Priapus!) [p. 58]
27. 3000 Years, 3000 Lovers [p. 58-61]
28. Desire and the Evangelist [p. 59]
29. Rush Over the Falls: A Good Dream [p. 59-60]
30. A Town Spread, A River Accepted [p. 60]
31. A Horn, A Trumpet! / Meaning Therein [p. 61]
32. To Be Good Dogs. [p. 61]
33. NO DOGS ALLOWED AT LARGE IN THIS PARK [p. 61]

So, the new rules: any response is a valid response, and any post is a responsive post. What do you guys think so far?

Another Quick Update: A Substitution of Centers

So, Conversely and I have decided that we are returning, so to speak, to the Paterson Project: instead of just fleshing out the musical aspect of the original project, we will be continuing that work (which is pretty arduous, for a variety or reasons, not the least of these being that neither Conversely nor I are particularly talented musicians) AND we will be beginning a poetic dissection and flowery-offshoot-eruption-(can i say eruption?)-re-creation of Paterson: Book II, Ch. 1. We are working on titles for this section now, and, man, we are excited. First of all, the poetic rules are going to change a bit, as the liberty (thank you, George Rogers Clark) to expand from the geographical locus of Paterson, N.J. has been discussed between the two of us and we agree that, NO!, these poems should happen, as much as a poem happens, wherever and whenever we think appropriate. This means little to you, but it is a great and exciting bit of news to us. More important to you is this: similar rules of media and form are also being relaxed, so don't be surprised if songs come before poems or pictures come before songs or whatever whatever whatever. It's all fun times, now.

So, you can probably expect a new list of prospective titles in the next week or so. Until then, I leave you with Conversely's favorite so far:

Poem 5; or, "How Do I Love You? These!"

Here are My Keys, Go Up and Help Yourself

Without further ado, we present the third song-offering for the Paterson Project: "The Incomplete Seduction of a Scholar and Clerk; or, 'Here are My Keys, Go Up and Help Yourself." As before, you can access the poem page HERE and the song file HERE. This one has a few ch-ch-ch-changes, so check 'em both out and see what you think.

Oh, and then tell us what you think. All you silent site-checkers are makin' me nervous...

Song 2: The Murder of the Dutchman

The second rough cut of a Paterson Project song is now up on the "Murder of the Dutchman Jonafen Haring" page. For those about to rock: we salute you.

Click HERE to go straight to the audio file.

In related news, we will be posting "lyrics" and (what do you think, LaValle?) possibly music for these songs soon. We will also put up any revisions to songs in the same manner that we post revisions to poems: erase the first one and give you the one that's totally better. So, if any of this changes, you will be the first to know. As for now, enjoy another entry in the Project's second wave - I have to say, I think this one is niiice.

How many extra vowels can you put in your response?

A Note on Translation; or, Striking Up A Chord

The Paterson Project is extremely proud to announce the first entry into the second phase of this enterprise:

Contributor Gaston LaValle has started working on translating the poems Conversely and I have been putting together here on the site into lyrical - and, in due course, musical - form. And we've got the first batch of initial recordings in stock. The first song going up is LaValle's quite-faithful rendition of "The Skeleton of Peter the Dwarf." The link below will get you straight to the sound file, but if you want the poetry at your fingertips as you take it all in, please go to the poem's existing page and link to the Internet Archive (who is hosting our music so graciously) from there.

Two more songs should be up by tomorrow, and after that, it will be up to you guys to keep this thing rolling - not unlike a mythical fairy, LaValle needs the sounds of your hands clapping to keep his light shining - so let's all go hit up the message board!

THE LINK: "The Skeleton of Peter the Dwarf"

This is an ecstatic T. Azimuth signing off - you all take care of yourselves.