Jackson Mac Low

A landmark publication in computer-generated poetry drawn from the works of Gertrude Stein. The Stein poems of Jackson Mac Low (1922–2004) were written between 1998 and 2003. Comprising more than 500 pages of text, this edited series of 161 poems—most of them never published—is the poet’s last great work, composed during the final years of a lifetime of prolific creation. The raw material of each poem was produced through Mac Low’s diastic text-selection method of reading through passages of either Ulla E. Dydo’s A Stein Reader or a corrected version of Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. Guided by Charles O. Hartman’s 1994 DIASTEX5 computer program, which replicates the diastic method first developed by Mac Low in 1963, the process requires that words be drawn sequentially from the source text in accordance with their rule-driven, algorithmic correspondence with a seed text. Taken as a whole, these poems are a breathtaking invitation to the reader into a space of creative possibilities and unforeseen encounters.

Jackson Mac Low's Complete Light Poems appear exactly ten years after the poet's death. The first 22 Light Poems were published by Black Sparrow Press in 1968. In the ensuing 20 years, Jackson wrote 38 more Light Poems, ending with the " 60th Light Poem: In Memoriam Robert Duncan, 8- 9 October 1988." The Light Poems, begun in 1962, are unique to Mac Low's body of work in that they were written intermittently, over a period of 26 years. I have often wondered where selfreferential writing ends and objective observation begins. Endearingly, Mac Low continually invites us into the time and place of his writing. We are, as it were, being let in from the cold: " Just me & the cats & and the plants I just took a shower it's not quite 100 degrees here." From the Preface by Anne Tardos

Written in memory of the German collagist, painter, sculptor, and writer, Kurt Schwitters (who referred to all of his works as Merz; a syllable taken from the advertisement for the Kommerzund Privatbank and included in all his earliest assemblages), this is a series of visually arresting verbal collages from America s foremost experimental poet of the last 30 years. Lacing together words, word fragments, and phrases all relating to Schwitters and his work, some computer generated this is a landmark celebration of the Dada spirit in modern poetry. 42 Merzgedichte is yet another masterful work from the inventor of a prolific range of systematic chance operations for poetry and one of the most unique voices of modern literature.

This landmark collection brings together poetry, performance pieces, 'traditional' verse, prose poems, and other poetical texts from Jackson Mac Low's lifetime in art. The works span the years from 1937, beginning with "Thing of Beauty", his first poem, until his death in 2004 and demonstrate his extraordinary range as well as his unquenchable enthusiasm. Mac Low is widely acknowledged as one of the major figures in twentieth-century American poetry, with much of his work ranging into the spheres of music, dance, theater, performance, and the visual arts. Comparable in stature to such giants as Robert Creeley, John Ashbery, and Allen Ginsberg, Mac Low is often associated with composer John Cage, with whom he shared a delight in work derived from 'chance operations'. This volume, edited by Anne Tardos, his wife and frequent collaborator, offers a balanced arrangement of early, middle, and late work, designed to convey not just the range but also the progressions and continuities of his writings and 'writingways'.