In The Margins	Recycling the Present with Robert Fitterman by Michael Kelleher

I met poet Robert Fitterman at a reading I gave with Toronto poet Christian Bök at the Bowery Poets Club in New York last January. When I returned to Buffalo, Rob sent me a copy of his most recent book, Metropolis XXX: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (Edge Books) The book is the third volume of Metropolis, a long poem-project Fitterman has been working on over the last decade or so. I soon went online and bought the first two volumes: Metropolis 1-15 and Metropolis 16-29. Each work is a kind of catalog of avant-garde strategies of writing, with poems ranging in form from found Internet texts to visual collages to hilarious deconstructions of pop song lyrics.

As part of Just Buffalo’s Orbital Series, Fitterman will give a free poetry reading tonight (November 17) at 7 pm at Big Orbit Gallery, 30 d Essex St.

Born in St. Louis, 1959, Fitterman says he “grew up in Creve Coeur (Broken Heart), a small suburban hamlet name for the ‘squaw’ who, in her unrequited love for a white man, leapt from a cliff to her fate.” He moved to New York City in 1981 and has lived there since, except for a two-year work stint in Florence, Italy. In a recent interview, he noted the influence of the museum on the writing of Metropolis.

“Many people have asked me what the model is for Metropolis—Louis Zukofsky’s A and William Carlos Williams’s Paterson are the most common claims—but for me it is the art gallery. Not only the space itself, but also the Chelsea experience of viewing several spaces in one day (at once). So that the first two books of Metropolis are more like installations where a reader can walk into a section and have a particular experience and then move on. There isn’t meant to be much connection from one section to the next.”

An early admirer of Ezra Pound, Robert Creeley, and Louis Zukofsky, Fitterman said he hit a wall with his writing after about ten years, which lead to the first book: Metropolis 1-15.

“Metropolis really came about because I didn’t want to publish a ‘collection’ of my poems in a more conventional package,” he said. “It felt like a greatest hits thing and I wasn’t comfortable with it. In the early ’90s, I started working on pieces that were quasi-conceptual—usually poems that were 2-25 pages long—each one of these I thought could be a book if extended (but the extension often seemed too tedious). That’s why I started to organize and compose these early pieces as Metropolis.”

Metropolis XXX, the most recent collection, is divided into two sections: “Decline,” and “Fall,” each of which contains fifteen pieces whose titles mirror one another from section to section. I asked him if this mirroring effect was meant to suggest a cyclical view of history or some kind of ironic commentary on cyclical views of history.

“Metropolis XXX is constructed as 15 ‘aspects’ of the Roman Empire updated and then the same 15 aspects mirrored in reverse that emphasize how much it costs,” he said. “Some readers do think of it as a cynical or ironic view of history. I think of it as an embrace in a language that documents our historical moment. All of the text is appropriated, most of it from the internet, with the intention of including everything because we have access to everything.”

I had to write him back to mention that I had said, “cyclical,” not “cynical” and to ask if that changed his answer.

“That’s one of the best Freudian slips ever!” he replied. “If cyclical, I would only add that Metropolis XXX forefronts the obvious conclusion that in history or art in history we recycle. And the Internet is the apex of this trash heap. Met XXX is way more interested in managing information than ‘creating’ new information. Is that cyclical or cynical?”

Good question. Reading this book is sort of like being read to by a thousand voices at once, none of whom you recognize, but all of which seem very familiar. All of the text is lifted from the Internet—sometimes directly, other times reorganized in collage-like poems. The effect is at times hilarious, at other times haunting. Fitterman has captured the feeling of “surfing” text on the Internet with great skill and panache.

Looking eagerly forward to more of Metropolis, I asked, “What’s next?”

“I don’t really know what’s happening with Metropolis. I don’t see myself as the epic type, and sometimes I feel like the three books are complete enough. I have recently completed two new manuscripts (This Window Makes Me Feel www.ubu.com and War, the musical Subpress, forthcoming). Who knows? I find that I do my best work when I’m unsure. If there is a next volume, it looks to be about suburban sprawl, malls, and waste.”

Cool.

•••

MCX. Justice

Because my client is an immigrant, do you think
you might have a problem with that? Or that he was
riding a bicycle? Are there other people in your
family where there were personal injury cases
involved? Any close friends or family as lawyers?
Have you ever suffered a knee injury? Sports
related injury? Have you ever known anyone who has
suffered a knee injury? Do you use cabs? What’s
your feeling towards New York City cab drivers?
What’s your feeling towards people who bicycle in
the city? Do you think bicycling in the city
should be restricted to designated areas? Do you
think cars, buses, should share the road with
bicyclists? Do you ride a bike in New York City?
Do you wear a helmet? Do you think there should be
a law requiring bicyclists to wear helmets? Do you
think anyone who has gone this far, who has hired
a lawyer and filed a suit, etc., should be awarded
something? Does it bother you that an illegal
alien can use our legal system and walk away with
money even though he or she doesn’t pay any taxes?
Have you or anyone you’ve known been sued? Anyone
in your family? Do you think that there is too
much suing going on in this country? Do people sue
each other too often in your opinion? What type of
engineering work do you do? Do you own the
apartment that you live in? Do you have any ill
feelings toward landlords? Do you have any ill
feeling toward commercial bus drivers? Do you have
any feelings, or any ax to grind, with the Mobil
Gas Company? Were you a resident of Texas at that
time? Where are you finishing your MBA? Is she
also from Texas? Do you have any feelings about
commercial bus drivers? About the Greyhound bus
company? Do you teach Acting? Is that one of those
financial counseling services for people in credit
distress? How long have you worked with computers?
When you were working as an engineer, what kind of
work did you do? Did you compete as a professional
tennis player? How long have you been a tennis
instructor? In the States? Do you have any
preconceived notions about the way businesses
should be run? Do you have any feelings about the
Mobil Gas Company? How do you feel about the civic
trial system? Do you have any ill feelings toward
commercial bus drivers? Anything about that
experience that I should worry about? Is your
brother’s case still pending? Is it fair to say
that you work mostly as a personal trainer? How do
you feel about the civic justice system in this
country? The jury system? Do you feel, because
your husband is a doctor, do you feel this could
make you prejudice in any way? How would you
describe your experience with commercial bus
companies? How long have you taught American
History? Do you have any problems, any ax to
grind, with the Greyhound Bus Company? Mobil Gas
Company? What field in American History do you
teach? Do you teach the constitution or
constitutional history? Are you presently suing
someone? Are you being sued? Do you have any
feelings about commercial bus drivers?

From Metropolis XXX. Printed courtesy of Edge Books, 2005.