now we are four
Yeah, it's kind of cheesy, but it's after midnight here so it's the fourth birthday of santiago's dead wasp, and here's a few stats. This is coincidentally both the 30th post of 2008, and the 240th post here overall. Which means a not very impressive average of 60 posts a year. More impressively this is the 21st post this May - which is good compared to other months. April 2006 also had 21 posts, and only May 2006 with 25 and June 2004 with 22 had more. It would have been nice to report even a feeble milestone like 2000 hits, but they only just passed 1950, so unfortunately not. Anyway, enough back-slapping and on with the retrospective...
One very good reason for not trusting the majority of politicians is that they rarely seem to change their minds and even less frequently admit to being wrong. One of the great things about doing something as unimportant as poetry is that no one gives a fuck if you change your mind. It's not like anyone got hurt.
Over the last couple of months santiago has been exposed to a lot of writers and work previously unknown to him. In some cases, as with Caroline Bergvall and Derek Beaulieu, there was an instant negative reaction. This was followed by extensive notes trying to work out what was so difficult about the work, which led to a growing appreciation. This has ultimately begun to change the work I'm producing.
If you look back across the last four years of santiago's dead wasp you'll see an interest in visual art and in performed poetry. But the aesthetics of all these areas have remained separate. For instance, so far as audio was concerned, recordings of readings were as radical as it got. But having encountered the sound poetry work of Bob Cobbing (d. 2002), Henri Chopin (d. 2008) and others it has become obvious that there is a space for performed poetry beyond slams and readings. Desk First is the first step in that direction, although clearly there's a long way to go until santiago develops a clear individual voice. In terms of visual poetry there's arguably a more developed sensibility at work, for instance in the notebook archaeologies.
One of the interesting questions is where this change has come from? Has it been driven by santiago, or has it come from outside? On the external side, has being on the MA and exposed to other writers on a regular basis stimulated this upsurge in competitive instincts? Or is it feeling challenged by friends in other arts who appear to have more clearly defined aesthetics in their work? Is it stumbling across well-established artists previously unknown to santiago, and wanting to understand them? Or is it seeing contemporaries and younger writers with a firmer knowledge of available alternatives and not wanting to be left behind.
Or to turn it round, to the internal, has all this development come from inside. Is it dissatisfaction with his existing work that made santiago take the MA? Has that same desire to change and grow made me seek out new horizons? After all, santiago had to apply for the MA, had to find and explore UbuWeb, had to buy Caroline Bergvall's book, and had to start using the scanner and the microphone and Loop Station.
However it came about the last few months have been tremendously exciting for me, and I hope that'll continue for a time. All being well you can expect more visual and sound experiments here, as well as more conventional work. Here's to the next four years.
One very good reason for not trusting the majority of politicians is that they rarely seem to change their minds and even less frequently admit to being wrong. One of the great things about doing something as unimportant as poetry is that no one gives a fuck if you change your mind. It's not like anyone got hurt.
Over the last couple of months santiago has been exposed to a lot of writers and work previously unknown to him. In some cases, as with Caroline Bergvall and Derek Beaulieu, there was an instant negative reaction. This was followed by extensive notes trying to work out what was so difficult about the work, which led to a growing appreciation. This has ultimately begun to change the work I'm producing.
If you look back across the last four years of santiago's dead wasp you'll see an interest in visual art and in performed poetry. But the aesthetics of all these areas have remained separate. For instance, so far as audio was concerned, recordings of readings were as radical as it got. But having encountered the sound poetry work of Bob Cobbing (d. 2002), Henri Chopin (d. 2008) and others it has become obvious that there is a space for performed poetry beyond slams and readings. Desk First is the first step in that direction, although clearly there's a long way to go until santiago develops a clear individual voice. In terms of visual poetry there's arguably a more developed sensibility at work, for instance in the notebook archaeologies.
One of the interesting questions is where this change has come from? Has it been driven by santiago, or has it come from outside? On the external side, has being on the MA and exposed to other writers on a regular basis stimulated this upsurge in competitive instincts? Or is it feeling challenged by friends in other arts who appear to have more clearly defined aesthetics in their work? Is it stumbling across well-established artists previously unknown to santiago, and wanting to understand them? Or is it seeing contemporaries and younger writers with a firmer knowledge of available alternatives and not wanting to be left behind.
Or to turn it round, to the internal, has all this development come from inside. Is it dissatisfaction with his existing work that made santiago take the MA? Has that same desire to change and grow made me seek out new horizons? After all, santiago had to apply for the MA, had to find and explore UbuWeb, had to buy Caroline Bergvall's book, and had to start using the scanner and the microphone and Loop Station.
However it came about the last few months have been tremendously exciting for me, and I hope that'll continue for a time. All being well you can expect more visual and sound experiments here, as well as more conventional work. Here's to the next four years.
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