Jim McCurry

jim mc curry, b. 10-3-43 in hawthorne (los angeles) california, has taught at carl sandburg college since 1980, in poetry & philosophy; since recently going online, his links include Big City Lit, Cyber Oasis, Drought, and Snow Monkey—ten poems in all, four of which now appear at the websites of the first two zines just named. His philosophical interests center on nonduality: especially maha ati, dzogchen, or madhyamika. (David Loy's recent study, NONDUALITY, is a convenient handle.) For example, "the man" includes Huang-po, Yun-men, Dogen. The trouble with What Is Enlightenment is the dubious assumption that we can think our way to enlightenment, or that there is truly conscious evolution, 'progress,' rather than recovery of primordial innocence/happiness. In this respect, contrary to some of his best friends, actually, Jim is somewhat skeptical of Andrew Cohen's work, and Ken Wilbur's—not to say the work of Eckhart Tolle, let's say. The literary interests include V. Woolf, B. Cendrars, Lydia Davis, Knut Hamsun, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Casares and Borges, Marquez, Neruda, William Carlos Williams, Jack Collom. I think that's enough indication. O yes, Pessoa. Jim has a granfalloon of masks, some of whom are becoming heteronyms, mebbe: Baron Axel Angst, Ramadooly Foofoo, H. Pumphrey Smogrove, and the most fully realized of all, Dogwag Bummerstead, PhD, aka Old Dog. email: jmccurry@csc.cc.il.us