Complete Stein Poems

Jackson Mac Low was a leading member of the Fluxus group, an innovator of procedural poetics and liminal compositional forms, and a progenitor of the Language Poets and other conceptual artists.Michael O'Driscoll is Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta. Along with Anne Tardos, he is the coeditor of Jackson Mac Low’s The Complete Light Poems.

“In his inventive interactions with Gertrude Stein on one side and his computer on the other, Mac Low brought Stein’s modernist word composition into the digital twenty-first century. Michael O’Driscoll’s commendable edition now makes these marvelous works fully accessible to artists and scholars.”—Tyrus Miller, Distinguished Professor of Art History and English, University of California, Irvine“A must for anybody interested in experimental poetry.”—Rosmarie Waldrop, poet, translator, editor“‘What are Masterpieces?’ The Stein Poems are the culminating achievement of Mac Low’s ‘writingways,’ a refunctioning of Stein’s oeuvre by algorithmic and human decisions.”—Barrett Watten, poet and critic, Wayne State University“Jackson Mac Low’s love affair with Gertude Stein’s minimalist language alchemy defies comparison. This collection is a cut-up of echoes with teeth, tenacity, homey wit, and aural revelation. Viva the excesses of the Post Modernism Liberation Experimental Revolution!”—Anne Waldman, Poet, Founder and Artistic Director, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, Summer Writing Program, Naropa University

• Series ForewordForewordAnne Tardos“This shining makes revision of a string more strange”: An IntroductionMichael O’DriscollA Talk about My WritingwaysJackson Mac LowList of AbbreviationsStein 1: Little BeginningStein 2: Pleasant Regular Neat and Gave That Much MoreStein 3: Little Lingering PuddingStein 4: Little Open PlaceStein 5: Father SoilsStein 6: The Big Stay AwayStein 7: Very Pleasant SoilingStein 8: Big BitesStein 9: Begin a Piece Of the WholeStein 10: The Whole Matter Is Better Half-Filled There than HereStein 11: And Sing More Very LoudlyStein 12: Use and ChooseStein 13: Green Completers SoStein 14: Meaning Was Certainly Always This HimStein 15: And One That ClearStein 16: One CompletelyStein 17: Always One’s Others’Stein 18: Time That Something SomethingStein 19: Time Be We Going ThenStein 20: Time to Be WeStein 21: Time Pleases UnderstandingStein 22: Then What Thing Might Be?Stein 23: Seat That One EndStein 24: Stay There That One SingStein 25: Something She Had Was DancingStein 26: It Is a Difficult Thing ContinuingStein 27: Enough of Them Who Walk Come AgainStein 28: When He Came Again He Would Say What He Had Just Been WearingStein 29: When is Enough?Stein 30: Some Did Not See Who Had Come.....Stein 142/Titles 37: Hurt StrangerStein 143/Titles 38: A Blind Cousin? No.Stein 144/Titles 39: Victory’s Saving Bent Was Kind of Green And Very RudimentaryStein 145/Titles 40: Is of in Obligation ExchangeStein 146/Titles 41: Glass Resembling YesterdayStein 147/Titles 42: A Different Red ResigningStein 148/Titles 43: Not a Single Spectacle in That Show Was Quite VisibleStein 149/Titles 44: Ordinary Buttons Hurt the PlatesStein 150/Titles 45: likely difference grinding suggestingStein 151/Titles 46: What Torches?Stein 152/Titles 47: Scatter the OccasionStein 153/Titles 48: That Tender Spectacle Is BitterStein 154/Titles 49: Groan, Redwood Pressed TogetherStein 155/Titles 50: Even Kindness Can Be Distant NoiseStein 156/Titles 51: Mercy No MoreStein 157/Titles 52: Hurting Colors Pleasing CrackersStein 158: Is Has Breakfast TheStein 159/Titles 53: That OrangeStein 160/Titles 54: Is Adventure Feeling Being Connected with Others?Stein 161/Titles 55: Disappointing Not Sweet RednessEditing the Stein PoemsBy Michael O’DriscollNotes and Acknowledgements