Voices of the Vanguard: Modernist Roleplaying

Early versions of Ezra Pound’s game mechanics and powers for Voices of the Vanguard.

I’ve received a Summer Scholar Fellowship from Siena University to playtest my Modernist Roleplaying game, Voices of the Vanguard. The game will immerse students in the cultural, historical, and literary contexts of early 20th-century Modernist aesthetics by allowing them to roleplay key figures such as Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, Langston Hughes, and William Carlos Williams. Players will respond in character to pivotal events like World War I, the Harlem Renaissance, and industrialization, while grappling with themes of artistic revolution. Through storytelling, poetry reading, and debates, students explore each poet’s stylistic innovations and ideological conflicts, composing original works inspired by historical prompts and their character's literary style. Mechanics, inspired by tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, provide structure for creativity, blending historical analysis with imaginative engagement. Players navigate scenarios, such as H.D. critiquing feminist discrimination in Poetry Magazine’s publications, Langston Hughes critiquing artistic appropriation of Black American theater, or Ezra Pound arguing American art’s role in a fractured world. This game deepens students’ engagement with Modernist principles, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity.

Early versions of the Epiphanies game mechanics for Voices of the Vanguard.

Early versions of the Abilities game mechanics for Voices of the Vanguard.

Great Time at Salon Salvage #35

What great company on August 30th 2025! I Read from my new manuscript “14 Yawns,” with Aditi Machado and Alicia Wright. A good night!

James Belflower

Aditi Machado

Alicia Wright

New poetry published - Capacities To: Affect Up Against Fascism

I’ve been working on two new series, Capacities To and SPLTTD. A special issue of Capacities To from Imbricate Press published quite a few of them. It’s awesome to be in such good company.

Thanks to Gregory J. Seigworth, Mathew Arthur, Wendy J. Truran, Chad Shomura for their wonderful editing skills and their timely release of this joyful collection.

HIST Soundtrack Excerpts On ANMLY

Thanks to the wonderful people at ANMLY mag who have an awesome hybrid creative blog, “The Markings of Music.” The editor, Olivia Muenz, was kind enough to publish excerpts from the HIST soundtrack, “Canoe Chase on the Horican,” and “Narra-mattah,” my audio/visual collaborations with Matthew Klane. Our recordings are accompanied with an interview diving in to the process behind the book and the reasoning behind a soundtrack for it. There are so many wonderful things on the blog so check them all out!

Hist premiere @ Unnameable Books, Amherst 10/22/22

Thanks to Unnameable Books for hosting the HIST soundtrack premiere!

Photo courtesy of Catherine Bresner

Excerpt from “The Rescue of Hist” courtesy of Catherine Bresner

Excerpt from “The Rescue of Hist” courtesy of Catherine Bresner

New Review in Journal of Modern Literature

Emerging Improvisations

A Review of Paul Jaussen’s Writing in Real Time | Emergent Poetics from Whitman to the Digital

My review of Paul Jaussen’s Writing in Real Time is out. Enjoy it when you get a chance!

Writing in Real Time

Excerpt: In Writing in Real Time | Emergent Poetics from Whitman to the Digital, Paul Jaussen reconsiders the formal idiosyncrasies of the American long poem through contemporary systems theories. Jaussen claims that the immutable architectures that support long poems from Walt Whitman to Nathaniel Mackey cannot be reduced to the play of lyric intensities, nor are they productively approached through extensive genre categorization. Instead of these two methodologies, he argues that their forms interactively emerge; they unfold in real time as adaptive systems with the capacity to critique, rework, and respond to their changing material environments. To read the diversity of the American long poem through systems theoretical discourse is to reveal what Jaussen calls “interactive emergence,” the poet’s sustained creative/critical improvisation with the material dynamism of time.

New Review: Writing In Real Time

Writing in Real Time

Emergent Poetics from Whitman to the Digital. Cambridge UP, 2017. 226 pp. $105.00 hardback.

I just finished a review of Paul Jaussen’s excellent Writing in Real Time | Emergent Poetics from Whitman to the Digital for the Journal of Modern Literature. I highly recommend it! With the Covid Pandemic, I’m not sure when this will be published, but I’ll keep you posted.

Abstract

In Writing in Real Time | Emergent Poetics from Whitman to the Digital, Paul Jaussen reconsiders the formal idiosyncrasies of the American long poem through contemporary systems theories. Jaussen claims that the immutable architectures that support long poems from Walt Whitman to Nathaniel Mackey cannot be reduced to the play of lyric intensities, nor are they productively approached through extensive genre categorization. Instead of these two methodologies, he argues that their forms interactively emerge; they unfold in real time as adaptive systems with the capacity to critique, rework, and respond to their changing material environments. To read the diversity of the American long poem through systems theoretical discourse is to reveal what Jaussen calls “interactive emergence,” the poet’s sustained creative/critical improvisation with the material dynamism of time.

Green Kill Performance of With Walden

A great time reading with Ruth Danon at the Green Kill Performance Space on 2.13.20. Using Touchviz, I improvised video and read from an ongoing project titled With Walden. You can see other stills of the project here. I return to Green Kill on 2.27.20 to perform an except from a new sound poem called Idiopathic. Hopefully I’ll see you there!

Photo Courtesy of Bill Lessard

Photo Courtesy of Bill Lessard

Photo Courtesy of Bill Lessard

Photo Courtesy of Bill Lessard

Audio: Ronald Johnson’s “ARK 38, Ariel’s Songs to Prospero”

I’m very excited to see access to the audio file of Ronald Johnson’s ARK 38 “Ariel’s Songs to Prospero” available (thanks Peter!). I was looking for this during my dissertation chapter on Ronald’s cookbooks! This is a wonderful addition to the recent reissue of Ark by Flood Editions.

Ronald Johnson's papers are held at the Kenneth Spencer Research Collection at the University of Kansas Libraries. His books are published in the U.S. by Flood Editions. Send all inquiries to peter [at] luxhominem [dot] com.

Below is a link to the recording of “ARK 38, Ariel’s Songs to Prospero,” for Dorothy Neal, recorded with Roger Gans at KQED in San Francisco in the early 1980s. It is “constructed out of recordings of songs of the birds of eastern United States,” according to Johnson.

English Department Colloquium Presentation