Having taught Jackson Mac Low’s poetry and performances over the years at Stanford Online High School, I have had the chance to talk with students about publishing in Mantis parts of his HSC series (poems created using a digitized version of one of his diastic text selection methods) and meeting him shortly before his death in 2004. I sometimes share my ‘Mac Low poem’ with students in those conversations.

So, in a similar context—i.e., teaching modernist and avant-garde writing connected to the typewriter, typography, phones, tape recorders, & computers—I was struck by Apollinaire’s question (from “La Victoire”) as I found it in Louis Zukofsky’s The Writing of Guillaume Apollinaire, translated, “Do you know this joy of seeing new things”? The “joy” in that line prompted me to revisit (after years) tape cassette recordings of Joy Harjo at the 2002 conference, “Intersections in Native American Studies,” which I organized at Stanford with scholar and activist Mishuana Goeman. We made recordings of songs and panel discussions in hopes of publishing them in Mantis # 3. “Joys Multiplied” was written as an homage to Harjo and her work. Yet I think in this 20th issue, it also pays homage to relationships created in and around the activities of poets and poetry, such as those I found at Mantis.

Joys Multiplied

Once said, “You!
[singular, committed
to] must be Joy,”
Because first said, “Hi,
You [singular] have a
Saxophone,” such
Being 2, person &
Saxophone, doubles
Chance to be Joy [us]
At Yerba Buen-
a Center of the world
Or park in San Francisco.
Joy said, “Yes.”

Joy said fe-
males males both
Talk about it [it
cataphoric],
Women more,
That children
See [sing-u-
lar] you & their
Paths [plural, col-
lection of sing-u-
lars], though
They then [we
too had then,
too have our]
“sleep.” 3
Times over

Joy repeats it
[anaphoric]
[sleep] [time
delays [some
delayed [yet
farther [still
[to wake]]]]].
They [you
then, we]
Forget it
[cataphor-
ic].

Joy over
Time &
Space [lunch
served, 2nd
panel, tape
cassettes
[[which play
[on two
speakers]
Joy o-
ver Joy ed-
ited in this
transcript-
ion of Joy
entrusted to this
[speaker]
editor] re-
corded aud-
ible move-
ments a-
round Joy]
Are visible Joys
Of mnemonic
Devices.

Do you know
This Joy of new
Things?
W/ bells &
Saxophone
Joys are
Enumerated
On stage
A lone in
Song & re-
membered.
Later, be-
for now, we
[w/ permission]
Transferred
Joy [w/ others]
[performers,
poets] from
Tape to C
D to dis-
[said this
poem]
tribute.

Joy made
Possible
By Joy.

for Mishuana
& Joy & other
Participants
thanks

At Mills College poetry reading after publishing “Willie’s Clatter” [HSC 1] “You Began Behind Red Doors” [HSC 2] “Valley Life at a Locked Gate” [HSC 3] “AS-mix” & “merzmix” (with Anne Tardos) in Mantis #3 The Performance Issue (2002)

When I asked Jackson Mac Low who had started
his correspondence with Robert Duncan,
he said it was me, which was surprisingly happy.
I had not thought at my age this was the case
until I read it.

Douglas’s Selection:

Jackson Mac Low - Willie’s Clatter