War on Words:

the John bradleytomaz salamun onfusement

Featuring Correspondence and Occasional Outbursts of Poetry by

Tomaz Salamun* and John Bradley

With a Preface by Patti Smith (*Or Someone Who Also Goes by That Name)

BlazeVOX [books]
Buffalo, New York

Copyright 2006 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed by CafePress.com in the United States of America ISBN: 0-9759227-3-4

Book design by Geoffrey Gatza Cover Photo: Eric Vaikiki First Edition

Acknowledgements for War on Words:

Tomaz (though he will not admit it, of course) and I wish to thank the editors of the following publications for being able to live in confusement with us:

CipherJournal: Blind Translations of Two Untitled Tomaz Salamun Poems Conduit: The Feast Letters The Diagram: Bring Me the Tongue of Tomaz Salamun The Journal: The War on Words: An Interview with Tomaz Salamun (Or
Someone Like Him)

Rain Taxi: Tomaz Salamun on Tomaz Salamuns Blackboards Vert: The DeKalbania Disputation
I wish to thank Kent Johnson for his encouragement, and feel I must do so, though Tomaz has asked that I not mention Kent Johnsons name anywhere in this book. Tomaz reminds me to thank George Kalamaras, though I told him that George does not wish to be mentioned in association with this book. Finally, one thing that Tomaz and I can both agree upon: We wish to dedicate this artifact with affection to Jana and to Metka for knowingly knowing who we are, even when we most of the time do not.

War on Words:
the John bradleytomaz salamun onfusement

Tomaz Salamun and his lawyer stipulate that this statement be printed in full at the opening of this shameless collection of documents:

I, Tomaz Salamun, in no way endorse the use of my name here, nor do I endorse any of John Bradleys documents that use me in his childlike fantasies, and make me smell slightly funky, and I further wish to state that John Bradley is a giant palpitation of the rear.

Contents
Rave On: A Preface by Patti Smith................................................................................13 Anti-Confusement: A Smattering of Introductions .........................................................17 The Feast Letters ..............................................................................................................23 Infestation and Amorification ........................................................................................28 The War on Words: An Interview with Tomaz Salamun (Or Someone Like Him).............................................35 Infestation and Amorification .........................................................................................47 The DeKalbania Disputation ..........................................................................................58 Peace Is an Island..............................................................................................................69 Acidic Accidents............................................................................................................77 John Bradley, You Make Me Nervous............................................................................89 Last Words/Lost Words ...................................................................................................101 Appendix A: Blinded Translations ..............................................................................107 Appendix B: Multiplicity in Ireland................................................................................113 Appendix C: Popa Contagion.......................................................................................119 STAND SIT SHOUT: A Report on the Vasko Popa Contagion ..........................................................................123 Appendix D: "Oops, I Did It Again" 147 John Bradley & Tomaz Salamun Bios..153

Every true poet is a monster.

--Tomaz Salamun

I may have my faults, but being wrong aint one of them.

--Jimmy Hoffa

Rave On: A Preface by Patti Smith

Preface: Rave On October 31, 2003

I dont really know John Bradley, and you probably dont either, but you should. He is the founder, organizer, and Chief Minister of Information for the Cochineal Liberation Front. You ought to join. Today. Right now. Why? The red in your make-up. Your juices. Your beer. Your red socks. You red felt tip pen. Guess where it comes from? The female cochineal. In Peru. Ground up. For its red. For you. John Bradley wont wear red. Wont chew red gum. Wont dye his hair red. Wont write in red. Wont even think in red. What wont you do? Join us today. Lets fight the good fight. Rave on, John Bradley. Rave on.

Patti Smith

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Anti-Confusement:
A Smattering of Introductions

An Introduction to the Introduction

January 5, 2003 Dear Reader, I humbly approached Tomaz Salamun to ask him if he would like to provide some words for an introduction to our many exchanges. He reply was flattery will lick you everywhere. He said that it might not be exactly what I had in mind, but that he would indeed compose something for me. Then, a few days after my request, I get the following letter. Given that he had intimated he was willing to write something for me, and hence you, I do not feel it inappropriate to present his letter here, especially as it exposes the contrariness of our relationship. If you wish to respect his wishes, that Salamuns letter not serve as an introduction, then I urge you to skip the next page. Your gentle action may ease Salamuns troubled brain. But then, as he did send me the letter, making it part of an on-going and not-soprivate correspondence, which he was well aware of, I see no harm in including the next letter for you. The choice, as Fortuna always says, is yours. John Bradley

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Introduction
January 3, 2003 Dear John Bradley, Why does a pumpkin float in the fjord? Why does a baby crawl into pumpkin? Why does John Bradley pester me so? No, I dont think it a good idea for you to gather all your Tomaz Salamun delusions into one larger delusion, publish it, and let it be spread like a cosmic mange. No, I will not write an introduction, preface, foreword, afterword, or anathema (though the latter is quite tempting, I admit). I think this would only make worse your state of multiple confusements. No, I will not publicly debate you on a cable program of my or anyone elses choosing. I ask that you go back to being the old John Bradley we all know and pretty much liked. At least let me pay for the first doctor visit. A mental health worker is after all just another worker, though in need, it is true, of some mental health treatments. Still, it might calm you and clear away some of your frogs. Please refrain from publishing this letter. Or I will set my dogs loose on your liver. With apologetic affection, Tomaz

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Note on Tomaz Salamuns Introduction

January 4, 2003 Reader, Now you can see what I have been going through. All I can say in reply to this act of servile arrogance is: Do not believe that Tomaz Salamun always speaks for Tomaz Salamun. He says so much that is so contradictory how can it all fit into one Tomaz Salamun? The confusements he speaks of sprout from his sputum as well as mine. And to think this all began by my purchasing a used copy of his book with three of his letters inside (as you will see in the next series of letters). How can he continue to blame and punish me for this act of coincidence? Or perhaps it is not an act of coincidence? Did NASA stage the 1969 moon landing? Am I losing my hair due to something in the water? Did Salamun tell my mother not answer my calls? You can see the dangerous effects of reading and corresponding with Salamun. Be forewarned. In the spirit of anti-confusement, John

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The Feast Letters

March 31, 2001 To the Reader: The following letters were found in a used (as new) cloth copy of Feast, poems by Tomaz Salamun, Harcourt Inc., 2000, which I purchased online from the Strand Bookstore, of New York, on 3/3/01. They appear to be letters from Salamun to his editor Charles Simic, translator Christopher Merrill, and to a John Bradley. I make absolutely no claims as to the veracity or lack thereof of the letters found within the book. In fact, I must add that I have never written to nor received a letter from Salamun, though I would be flattered, of course, if Salamun did indeed write me. I must state, however, that I did once--circa 1977-- write a poem that employed the phrase I smell. . . (the subject of the Salamun/Bradley letter) at the opening of each line. I showed the poem to Thomas McGrath, who was teaching the poetry workshop at the University of Minnesota at that time. Only after getting the poem back (with a Very interesting in pencil on the poem) did I discover, to my horror, that I had made the repeated typo that turned I smell into I small. I have asked the Strand Bookstore to offer an explanation as to the existence of the letters. They have responded with a No comment to my phone call. Thus who may have owned the book before me is not known at this time and may never be known. And even if it was, who may have handled the book once it was in the store would be impossible to track down. I offer the letters for your scrutiny not as a commentary of any kind on Salamun or the parties to whom he allegedly writes, but on the curiosity of the letters themselves. Is this a prank? If so, to what end? Might it be retaliation of some sort for my publicly defending the literary merits of Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada (Roof, 1997), that work which has been branded a hoax, and which Charles Simic, as you may recall, quickly dismissed? No doubt I am overreacting here to the appearance of my name in the third letter. Perhaps I, like Salamun, am getting old in head and crotch, as he says here. With apologies, then, to Tomaz Salamun, his family, friends, associates, the Salamun pet goldfish, raccoons, goats, bees, and assorted nearby and not too far off trees. Here, and now, the letters. Sincerely, and with actual sincerity, John Bradley
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September 4, 1999 Dear Charlie, Tomaz Salamun is a three-legged beetle. Sorry I havent written you sooner. It keeps one very busy, tending to Tomaz Salamun. I like very much your selections of the poems for the new book, but I worry. The translations still sometimes dont always get the exact shading of the snake skin hanging from the apple tree. So I send them back, and they come back again. I make some changes, send them back, and they come back again. Pretty soon I cannot tell who is Salamun and who is the translator. Who is Salamun and who Simic, for your spacing and pacing make the poems seem unforeseen and unknown. There are even a few poems, can you believe, I have no memory whatsoever of writing. Ah, it must be the Ljubljana light, the musk, the newsprint, the pollen, the sex, the whales in their monkey cages. I for some stupid reason cannot for once recall composing I Smell Horses in Poland. Yet who could have written such a Salamun poem if not Tomaz Salamun? Oh this Salamun is a tricky fellow, you must be saying. He throws us a spitball by spitting on his own poems and hiding behind his doubting of his own spit. But you know, this must be must be a door that swings both ways. All I need do is get out of the way. Let the critics cut open the belly of the sow to find out what furniture grows from the interiors there. And what furniture was imported there. And what furniture is not furniture but thumbbeat thermometermusic. I must run--I hear Salamun downstairs chewing on the doorframe. Yours and ours and everyones, Tomaz

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September 9, 1999 Dear Christopher, Translators crawl over the roadkill and leave only the bones. Thats what Simic once told me, and he could be right, but not with you. I find the poems of yours/ours bigger, meaner, funnier than anything Salamun could write, and thus I want to call you Christopher Salamun, if my wife would let me. Figure this one out. Charlie asks about certain poems, how much I like the translation, how about this ordering, would you like it with poppy seeds or chocolate sprinkles, and its fine, really, whatever orbit he spins the poems. I like it even better when the order makes the poems kick me in ways I have not been kicked before. But Charlie, he makes me nervous sometimes. Does he realize what he is asking me? He says I Smell Horses in Poland can stand as one of my finest creations. Yes, yes, wonderful, fine, Im glad he likes it. But I tell you, I dont believe I wrote it. Not a word of it. I simply vanish whenever I try to read it. I must say that when I go outside to walk with Marushka, or stand in line at the store with milk, or lie in bed at night listening to the wind scratching the roofs itches, I know I did not ever write that. Not once. And there are others. Other poems in the book that make my knees go numb. And yet in the back of the book it says I Smell Horses in Poland was translated by Andrew Wachtel (whoever he is). So I must have written it? Salamun, you old slime juggler. What are you saying about such a dear friend? You cannot stand it that Simics Salamun is as good or better than Salamuns Salamun? Or are you saying that Salamun is getting old in head and crotch? Or that once in the grave I will laugh and say let them figure it all out. Or will I haunt Simics feet with horny bunions? My pants grow cold. You must calm me. Tell me it is all Salamun and it does not matter. Tell me Tomaz Salamun is such a fertile beast that wherever he shits Salamun poems flower and feast. I nibble and wobble. As always, Tomaz
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September 27, 1999 Dear John Bradley, Your name has the taste of old boards left out in mud and rain. Of watchdail turtletrumpet soup. Of a boy who wears clothes underneath his clothes. I am afraid I have never met your nor had the splendor of reading your poetry. Thomas McGrath I think I met once in New York City. Or someone who reminded me of him. Yet I know nothing about the poem you say you wrote with the phrase I smell. . . Nor did I ever mean to borrow your phrase or any of your words or private thoughts when I composed I Smell Horses in Poland. Surely we all bump into each others language sometime while stumbling around in the dark. Surely even you must have had this happen. You write a phrase, say terrestrial music, and then one day find it in Walden. Did Thoreau borrow your phrase? Do we dig Thoreau up and spank him? Perhaps you wish me to add an asterisk to my poem and say: *John Bradley may have plowed this terrain before Salamun. Would that untangle your tangled bowels? Sedate your doubts? Erase your stigmata? You must admit I warned you. Tomaz Salamun is a monster. Sad I am today with your sadness over this confusion. If it would make you feel better, then go ahead. Say you wrote I Smell Horses in Poland and that Salamun gobbled it up. Or say you wrote it once upon a time as Tomaz Salamun. Or say if you wish, if you dare, you are the real Tomaz Salamun. Or simply there are many Salamuns and you happily bounce off your chest as one. Perhaps it is best to forgive the ants their antness. There are metals in the wine we will never be able to urinate. I embrace the ground out from under you. Tomaz Salamun

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Infestation and Amorification

Bring Me the Tongue of Tomaz Salamun Tomaz Salamun will write the last poem on a rainy day in Ljubljana, a Friday in April when lilacs fumble toward the light and a hand lingers over a light switch. Friday it will be, when a sparrow wrestles twigs into the o in the word Tomaz Bits of string and straw will fall upon Tomazs shoulders and hell nibble upon them. Tomaz Salamun it will be then who will be blamed long after the need for blame, when poems will thirst for human mouths, mouths hunger for poems. A poem not unlike this one, the stem of each letter lit from within like a throat.

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Note on Bring Me The Tongue of Tomaz Salamun

January 10, 2003 When this poem was published in the online journal The Diagram in mid- December, 2002, a note by the author appeared on the same page as the poem clearly stating: For the record, please do not send me the tongue or any other bodily part of Tomaz Salamun. This statement, I believe, merits reprinting as Salamun is now brandishing a lawsuit against me for threatening him with bodily and poetic harm by the publication of this poem. So much for the bread of friendship that Salamun said he extended me when he emailed December 21, and said how much his entire intestinal nimbus enjoyed this poem. In confusement, John Bradley

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Note on Note on Bring Me The Tongue of Tomaz Salamun

January 15, 2003

It is in my memory that upon reading John Bradleys homage/threat that I sent him a note explaining my mixed reaction to his infestation and amorification, thanking him for writing of me, and asking that he refrain from using my name and bodily parts in any manner in the future. No threats of any sort were made against him or his bodily parts. For the record--Mr. Bradley never bothered to reply. In self-defense I offer these words: John Bradley, who will blame Tomaz Salamun, who will blame no one but the thirst For a human mouth, not unlike yours. A poem cannot help but be a poem. Just as John Bradley cannot help but squat in my throat. Tomaz Salamun

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