Poetry and the database

John Walter "Database Rhapsody: From Database to Geek DJ." Refashioning memory for digital age. Drawing on medieval tradition of not strongly distinguishing between internal and external memory; we don't really understand medieval rhetoric because we understand the history of rhetoric through the handbook tradition, and medieval rhetoric's emphasis was memory. Memory not as rote, but (paraphrasing Carruthers) a library of our life, a matrix (database) for composing. Reminds me of McLuhan's diss.; grammar as database, rhetoric as creative output for database. Pre-electronic databases: oral tradition itself--proverbs and songs--common place things, social common places (could draw on Cliche to Archetype here). Covers good ideas of contemporary databases as invention, the compose with flickr exercise, etc. Wondering how we encourage knowledge management on the part of our students, ourselves.

Rhymes and Reasons for an Academic Poet's Electronic Platform, Brad Henderson and Andy Jones. They identify themselves as Rhet / Comp by day, poets by night; explain a poetry night program that they run in Davis; start with contrast, move towards integration, square peg of prose inside of round poetry. Cover topics from multimedia to publicity; they have interns working for them to help with the publicity--wonder how that works, funding, etc.? Wondering about Poetry Across the Curriculum. Also wondering about their experience with pre-professional classes: the pleasure they finally take in writing. Andy's show available on kdvs.org.