Some sketchy thoughts on yesterday's Poets And... in Bolton coming soon. Tom Jenks of The Other Room and Parameter read, Richard didn't. I did something that involved banging bits of metal together.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
pig fervour - have you ordered yours yet?
Richard Barrett's Pig Fervour now available. Click on the image below to order your copy from The Arthur Shilling Press. Also take a look at Arthur Shilling supremo H J Godwin's blog Celery Lanes.
Monday, June 22, 2009
tarkovsy's andrei rublev
Firstly of course no one needs another review of Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev. But as you might expect a few thoughts arose from watching it yesterday which I'd like to see if can develop.
I realised watching Andrei Rublev that all Tarkovsky's films need to be watched more than once to begin to make sense of them. Yes, after a single viewing you'll be able to give a plot summary, a run-down of many of the scenes, and an impression of some of the themes of the film. But the films have much more to offer than this, and it won't become apparent how much until you watch for the second time. Among the many filmmakers/artists working in film whose work I often return to this is unique. Which is not to say that those filmmakers/artists produce work that's easily apprehended or unsophisticated. And I certainly don't want to suggest that they're inferior in any way. I just want to suggest that Tarkovsky makes films that deliberately withhold explanation. And interpretation, which is why as an atheist I never feel preached at or forced into spiritual/religious interpretations of events.
To add a little detail - here's an idea that only came through a chance connection having watched Sandrine Bonnaire's Her Name Is Sabine the day before. In this documentary there is a difficult scene to watch where the director shows her sister footage of a visit they made to New York together, some years before Sabine entered an institution after her behaviour had deteriorated. Sabine, now barely recognisable as the same person, begins to cry. This is one of the most affecting scenes in the film, and one I've thought about quite a lot. Although we have seen the footage of the New York trip previously we don't see it now, we simply see Sabine's response.
To add a little detail - here's an idea that only came through a chance connection having watched Sandrine Bonnaire's Her Name Is Sabine the day before. In this documentary there is a difficult scene to watch where the director shows her sister footage of a visit they made to New York together, some years before Sabine entered an institution after her behaviour had deteriorated. Sabine, now barely recognisable as the same person, begins to cry. This is one of the most affecting scenes in the film, and one I've thought about quite a lot. Although we have seen the footage of the New York trip previously we don't see it now, we simply see Sabine's response.
This reminded me of one of the more emotional scenes in Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man. When Timothy Treadwell, the subject of the film, was attacked by a bear, his partner turned on the camera before going to help him, but left the lens cap in place. The audio of the subsequent killing of both Treadwell and his partner formed part of the investigation into the deaths, and was then released to one of Treadwell's friend's. She plays the tape to Herzog, through headphones, so that neither she nor we hear the tape. We also only see Herzog from behind, and although we can see him shaking our response is formed by Treadwell's friend's reaction to Herzog's response. He very quickly asks her to stop playing the tape, and tells her that she must never listen to the tape and should destroy it to remove the possibility. Now with both of these scenes our emotional response is dependent on the reaction of another person, and not on the stimulus provoking the original reaction. As we have no real access to the inner life of any of the people on screen our reaction is therefore in part generated by us as viewers, by our ability to empathise with other people.
It's probably not coincidental that these two films are documentaries. The reactions of the people involved are not mediated through actors, and probably more importantly our reactions as viewers are reactions to what we believe to be 'true' as opposed to the way we might react to fiction. I think there is something here relevant to cinematic fiction though. This is that there is no need to fill in all the detail for the viewer. We don't need to be shown what Sabine is watching at the same time as she does, and we don't need to be told what she is thinking. She may in fact be crying for reasons quite different from what we project onto her, what's important is her reaction. Likewise we certainly don't need to hear what's on the tape that Werner Herzog listens to. This withholding of information also allows us to engage with the film by filling in the gaps.
My point being that one of Tarkovsky's strengths is that he trusts the viewer and trusts himself enough to withhold information from us. This means much more than not including exposition. His characters talk a lot about matters that concern them, but they don't spend a lot of time giving us spurious justifications or backstories to justify their behaviour and motives. This to me is one of the more deadening aspects of conventional cinematic narrative, that every action has to have a motive provided for it, and that every emotion has to be underlined. In Tarkovsky people behave much more like real people - we don't know their motives and they don't attempt to explain them in simplified psychological abstracts like 'trauma' or 'closure'.
Another realisation was how deliberately artificial Tarkovsky's films are. There are a lot of fairly static scenes where characters talk to one another while stood in fairly unnatural groupings, and may from time to time move to set up another fairly unnatural grouping. For the most part it's not something that I ever notice, although for some reason I find it very apparent and very grating in Sacrifice. I have no explanation why this should be. I can however think of a couple of reasons why Tarkovsky may have found such a static and artifical way of staging characters necessary. Firstly the dialogue tends to be unnatural and philosophical, and combining it with naturalistic movements would probably jar very badly with the audience. Secondly the space inhabited by the characters and the objects within that space to name only two elements are every bit as important as the characters. To have the actors moving about in a more obviously naturalistic way would again draw attention to the characters and away from other elements of the film.
It's probably not coincidental that these two films are documentaries. The reactions of the people involved are not mediated through actors, and probably more importantly our reactions as viewers are reactions to what we believe to be 'true' as opposed to the way we might react to fiction. I think there is something here relevant to cinematic fiction though. This is that there is no need to fill in all the detail for the viewer. We don't need to be shown what Sabine is watching at the same time as she does, and we don't need to be told what she is thinking. She may in fact be crying for reasons quite different from what we project onto her, what's important is her reaction. Likewise we certainly don't need to hear what's on the tape that Werner Herzog listens to. This withholding of information also allows us to engage with the film by filling in the gaps.
My point being that one of Tarkovsky's strengths is that he trusts the viewer and trusts himself enough to withhold information from us. This means much more than not including exposition. His characters talk a lot about matters that concern them, but they don't spend a lot of time giving us spurious justifications or backstories to justify their behaviour and motives. This to me is one of the more deadening aspects of conventional cinematic narrative, that every action has to have a motive provided for it, and that every emotion has to be underlined. In Tarkovsky people behave much more like real people - we don't know their motives and they don't attempt to explain them in simplified psychological abstracts like 'trauma' or 'closure'.
Another realisation was how deliberately artificial Tarkovsky's films are. There are a lot of fairly static scenes where characters talk to one another while stood in fairly unnatural groupings, and may from time to time move to set up another fairly unnatural grouping. For the most part it's not something that I ever notice, although for some reason I find it very apparent and very grating in Sacrifice. I have no explanation why this should be. I can however think of a couple of reasons why Tarkovsky may have found such a static and artifical way of staging characters necessary. Firstly the dialogue tends to be unnatural and philosophical, and combining it with naturalistic movements would probably jar very badly with the audience. Secondly the space inhabited by the characters and the objects within that space to name only two elements are every bit as important as the characters. To have the actors moving about in a more obviously naturalistic way would again draw attention to the characters and away from other elements of the film.
There may be more to say about Andrei Rublev soon.
Friday, June 19, 2009
section of untitled poem
I haven't posted anything here for a little while. This fragment is not part of the pieces I'm currently woring on for my MA dissertation equivalent. Nor is it part of what I'm planning with my twitter feed. What I suspect is that it might be one of a few linking threads I'll use to bring north together, when I finally have a chance to work on it.
libidnal.
not the direc-
tion you
think. threat.
sun.
steel door.
photographs of
feet photograph your
shadow photograph
reflections.
moss. rusted burnt
-out car.
turn. unused
land is not unused.
tension between
frame and the space
outside.
fear. fucking. walk. narrative is a way to contain threat.
outside.
dirt
on, in
fingertips. window with
dried cement
drip.
grit
on tongue.
light casts stains.
libidnal.
not the direc-
tion you
think. threat.
sun.
steel door.
photographs of
feet photograph your
shadow photograph
reflections.
moss. rusted burnt
-out car.
turn. unused
land is not unused.
tension between
frame and the space
outside.
fear. fucking. walk. narrative is a way to contain threat.
outside.
dirt
on, in
fingertips. window with
dried cement
drip.
grit
on tongue.
light casts stains.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
shameless brag
I haven't written much about my MA course here, mainly because it's not all that interesting to other people. But having just seen the intermediate transcript of last semester's grade I'm feeling quite pleased.
Without going into specific numbers, and with the proviso that the grade still has to be approved by the School Board, it's a better mark than I feared and puts me on target for a pass (possibly with Distinction) if the standard of my creative work holds up for the dissertation equivalent, which I've already started work on.
This will be a collection of poems, about the length of an average new collection, and a critical commentary if I remember rightly (I'll have to check my handbook at home). I'm confident I can manage this.
In fact the curious thing about the MA is that although I just about managed to get a 2.2 for my BA and felt like I was pushing myself a lot of the time, the MA hasn't really felt like work at all. Of course I didn't start my MA until 9 years after I finished my BA, and the MA is more dependent on what you bring to it with a less rigid curriculum, but even so.
The next news you'll have on this is likely to be February next year when I'm able to tell you whether or not I actually complete the course successfully.
Without going into specific numbers, and with the proviso that the grade still has to be approved by the School Board, it's a better mark than I feared and puts me on target for a pass (possibly with Distinction) if the standard of my creative work holds up for the dissertation equivalent, which I've already started work on.
This will be a collection of poems, about the length of an average new collection, and a critical commentary if I remember rightly (I'll have to check my handbook at home). I'm confident I can manage this.
In fact the curious thing about the MA is that although I just about managed to get a 2.2 for my BA and felt like I was pushing myself a lot of the time, the MA hasn't really felt like work at all. Of course I didn't start my MA until 9 years after I finished my BA, and the MA is more dependent on what you bring to it with a less rigid curriculum, but even so.
The next news you'll have on this is likely to be February next year when I'm able to tell you whether or not I actually complete the course successfully.
Monday, June 15, 2009
knives, forks and spoons press
Not enough linguistically innovative poetry action in Manchester for you? Then say hello to Richard Barrett's exciting new venture. Hot on the heels of his backyard poems (look out for Pig Fervour coming through Arthur Shilling Press soon) his knives, forks and spoons press is now a proper publisher. To prove it the first book will be * by Tom Jenks - details here. Cause for celebration I'd say.
latest text festival reading
The performances by Judy Kendall, Sarah Tremlett, Nick Thurston and Jesse Glass at the Text Festival on Friday last week were interesting if mixed. Each of the poets reading read twice, with the exception of Sarah Tremlett who screened a single film. I knew nothing about any of the artists beforehand.
To start with the negatives, there was nothing especially engaging or unusual about the poetry which Judy Kendall performed. It was fairly standard personal descriptive/emotional poetry that wouldn't scare your average mainstream poetry reader. An impression that wasn't helped by the kind of conventional sing-song poetic reading style you might hear by any reasonably proficient reader. This is unfortunate, but probably a result of her having to stand up and read in front of an audience. Her visual text poem in the Text 2 anthology, and her visual work here http://extra.shu.ac.uk/proof/ or in collaboration with Steven Earnshaw here http://teaching.shu.ac.uk/ds/sle/earnshaw/gallery/ show a great deal more inventiveness and interest in technology and experimentation than was apparent from the reading. Whether a concurrent visual presentation, a different performance style, or a different choice of poems and a delivery with less explanation in it might have helped is difficult to say. A missed opportunity.
Nick Thurston read a variety of pieces that shared a methodology of reconfiguring, modifying and concentrating existing texts. There may have been more but I'll describe the three that I can remember. One was an extract from Samuel Beckett's Watt which replaced the names of shoes with the word 'noun', and other occasional words with 'adverb' and 'pronoun', in order to highlight the structure used by Beckett. Less concentrated and protracted were extracts from publically available readings of Andrew Motion in which he introduced various poems by talking at length about their genesis and personal basis, as a kind of critique of this kind of method of writing. Not that the personal has no place in poetry, but that a form which concentrates language should do more than just turn anecdote into chopped-up prose. Finally he read a series of quotations from Kafka drawn from a critical essay. I understand that this had at least one visual iteration, which I would like to see. As a performed piece it was too long by quite some distance, and it's a shame he chose to finish with it. This was an interesting take on the kind of poetics and conceptual poetics practiced by Kenneth Goldsmith in particular, and was rigorous, engaging and funny.
Sarah Tremlett presented a film which combined slowed down, colour-shifted images with a slowed down sound track that sometimes appeared not to relate to the images on screen, and a slowly scrolling text at the bottom which once or twice appeared to coincide with the soundtrack. I enjoyed the piece. It raised questions - why was the colour shifted, and why was it shifted in the way it was - for instance, but for me these didn't get in the way. More obtrusive was the fact that the distortions were reminiscent of Chris Morris's Jam (or its remix Jaaaaam) though never quite as unsettling. But the tight framing of a space that might be in any part of any UK city without ever defining or locating that space, and the randomness of the movements of people within that frame gave the piece a character of its own. The duration of the film, the audio-visual distortions, the lack of contextual clues or narrative in the text meant that the viewer was constantly trying to assemble a meaning or narrative, and was aware of doing so, even while aware that there was no obvious structure of that kind. Whether there was a theoretical structure of another kind is not clear, but was a possibility that necessarily arose. To this extent at least the piece was 'about' the reaction of the viewer, and how we assemble meaning.
Jesse Glass was the highlight of the evening for me. I have to confess that it took me a while to adjust to his accent and rhythms of speech, as well as the fact that he was relatively quiet in the first half. Once I attuned to his voice the poetry was dense and with a misleading ease and simplicity. As usual given these provisos and the fact that I'm unfamiliar with his work my review is going to be impressionistic. At a superficial level the language might seem intensified, a kind of sub-species of that poetic diction which states that everything has to be heightened. But this is misleading. There are a number of words with dense clusters of associations - the sort of language I mostly try to avoid - and many less familiar, exotic seeming words. The imagery again could be taken as simply surreal - either in the sense of consciously trying to emulate the unconscious while leaning heavily on psychology and sexuality, or in the sense of consciously 'random' juxtapositions of elements. Once more this is misleading - the imagery is more interesting and less tedious than that. There is sex (occasionally what appears to be machismo), there is arresting imagery that doesn't reveal its meaning immediately, but it's either plainly stated (in the case of sex) or descriptive of a visual or auditory or other stimulus. Without looking at the texts the poems appear to be structured rather than thrown together, and I suspect there is an element of research in all of them.
I would be interested to hear a recording of the reading (and I understand one was taken), and to read the text of the poems - especially those from the first half before I'd properly tuned-in. The poems in the second half were interesting too, apparently based on the texts that John Dee and Edward Kelley claimed were dictated by angels in Enochian language. While reading these his rhythm and voice were on fine form, and combined with the language to make a simultaneously antique and contemporary poetry, with at least a trace of Captain Beefheart. There were a lot of echoes without the work ever being derivative. What it was about I'm not certain - life as competition and collaboration, the ways we make sense of the world, the utility of art, how affectional bonds are also marked by resistance and aggression. At least that's what I got.
Overall the evening was varied and highlighted different approaches to text from the visual through the auditory to the actually text-based. There were elements that I was not fond of or which lingered a little too long, but the evening added to the experience of the festival rather than detracting in any way. I suggest that you look up work by all the participants. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to attend the P.Inman reading in the Gallery at 12:30pm on Tuesday 30 June (which I think is free to attend). I could take the day off work except that I've already agreed to attend a work-related conference in Alsager on 30 June and 1 July. Luckily I believe I'll be able to make the reading with Tina Darragh at The Other Room on 1 July. I understand that both P.Inman and Tina Darragh will also be reading the following day (Thursday 2 July) at the Openned event in London if you can't be arsed to travel to the northwest.
To start with the negatives, there was nothing especially engaging or unusual about the poetry which Judy Kendall performed. It was fairly standard personal descriptive/emotional poetry that wouldn't scare your average mainstream poetry reader. An impression that wasn't helped by the kind of conventional sing-song poetic reading style you might hear by any reasonably proficient reader. This is unfortunate, but probably a result of her having to stand up and read in front of an audience. Her visual text poem in the Text 2 anthology, and her visual work here http://extra.shu.ac.uk/proof/ or in collaboration with Steven Earnshaw here http://teaching.shu.ac.uk/ds/sle/earnshaw/gallery/ show a great deal more inventiveness and interest in technology and experimentation than was apparent from the reading. Whether a concurrent visual presentation, a different performance style, or a different choice of poems and a delivery with less explanation in it might have helped is difficult to say. A missed opportunity.
Nick Thurston read a variety of pieces that shared a methodology of reconfiguring, modifying and concentrating existing texts. There may have been more but I'll describe the three that I can remember. One was an extract from Samuel Beckett's Watt which replaced the names of shoes with the word 'noun', and other occasional words with 'adverb' and 'pronoun', in order to highlight the structure used by Beckett. Less concentrated and protracted were extracts from publically available readings of Andrew Motion in which he introduced various poems by talking at length about their genesis and personal basis, as a kind of critique of this kind of method of writing. Not that the personal has no place in poetry, but that a form which concentrates language should do more than just turn anecdote into chopped-up prose. Finally he read a series of quotations from Kafka drawn from a critical essay. I understand that this had at least one visual iteration, which I would like to see. As a performed piece it was too long by quite some distance, and it's a shame he chose to finish with it. This was an interesting take on the kind of poetics and conceptual poetics practiced by Kenneth Goldsmith in particular, and was rigorous, engaging and funny.
Sarah Tremlett presented a film which combined slowed down, colour-shifted images with a slowed down sound track that sometimes appeared not to relate to the images on screen, and a slowly scrolling text at the bottom which once or twice appeared to coincide with the soundtrack. I enjoyed the piece. It raised questions - why was the colour shifted, and why was it shifted in the way it was - for instance, but for me these didn't get in the way. More obtrusive was the fact that the distortions were reminiscent of Chris Morris's Jam (or its remix Jaaaaam) though never quite as unsettling. But the tight framing of a space that might be in any part of any UK city without ever defining or locating that space, and the randomness of the movements of people within that frame gave the piece a character of its own. The duration of the film, the audio-visual distortions, the lack of contextual clues or narrative in the text meant that the viewer was constantly trying to assemble a meaning or narrative, and was aware of doing so, even while aware that there was no obvious structure of that kind. Whether there was a theoretical structure of another kind is not clear, but was a possibility that necessarily arose. To this extent at least the piece was 'about' the reaction of the viewer, and how we assemble meaning.
Jesse Glass was the highlight of the evening for me. I have to confess that it took me a while to adjust to his accent and rhythms of speech, as well as the fact that he was relatively quiet in the first half. Once I attuned to his voice the poetry was dense and with a misleading ease and simplicity. As usual given these provisos and the fact that I'm unfamiliar with his work my review is going to be impressionistic. At a superficial level the language might seem intensified, a kind of sub-species of that poetic diction which states that everything has to be heightened. But this is misleading. There are a number of words with dense clusters of associations - the sort of language I mostly try to avoid - and many less familiar, exotic seeming words. The imagery again could be taken as simply surreal - either in the sense of consciously trying to emulate the unconscious while leaning heavily on psychology and sexuality, or in the sense of consciously 'random' juxtapositions of elements. Once more this is misleading - the imagery is more interesting and less tedious than that. There is sex (occasionally what appears to be machismo), there is arresting imagery that doesn't reveal its meaning immediately, but it's either plainly stated (in the case of sex) or descriptive of a visual or auditory or other stimulus. Without looking at the texts the poems appear to be structured rather than thrown together, and I suspect there is an element of research in all of them.
I would be interested to hear a recording of the reading (and I understand one was taken), and to read the text of the poems - especially those from the first half before I'd properly tuned-in. The poems in the second half were interesting too, apparently based on the texts that John Dee and Edward Kelley claimed were dictated by angels in Enochian language. While reading these his rhythm and voice were on fine form, and combined with the language to make a simultaneously antique and contemporary poetry, with at least a trace of Captain Beefheart. There were a lot of echoes without the work ever being derivative. What it was about I'm not certain - life as competition and collaboration, the ways we make sense of the world, the utility of art, how affectional bonds are also marked by resistance and aggression. At least that's what I got.
Overall the evening was varied and highlighted different approaches to text from the visual through the auditory to the actually text-based. There were elements that I was not fond of or which lingered a little too long, but the evening added to the experience of the festival rather than detracting in any way. I suggest that you look up work by all the participants. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to attend the P.Inman reading in the Gallery at 12:30pm on Tuesday 30 June (which I think is free to attend). I could take the day off work except that I've already agreed to attend a work-related conference in Alsager on 30 June and 1 July. Luckily I believe I'll be able to make the reading with Tina Darragh at The Other Room on 1 July. I understand that both P.Inman and Tina Darragh will also be reading the following day (Thursday 2 July) at the Openned event in London if you can't be arsed to travel to the northwest.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
lucio capece
The latest in the Salford Concerts Series at Islington Mill was a solo performance from Lucio Capece. The turnout was really disappointing with probably a dozen people there. If you weren't there - and statistically you probably weren't - you missed a fantastic evening.
The instruments used were not especially exotic, and the techniques not especially showy. But the resulting sounds were amazing.
I don't want to give a minute description of what happened in what order because there's not much that's more pointless than a written description of a piece of sound art. However, I will discuss the techniques used and the sounds made, and hope that it's enlightening. In addition there are a couple of areas I want to touch on. I previously mentioned that I distrust claims that music and sound art describe physical spaces. This is still the case, but with a slight modification inspired by this performance which I'll explore. Also the role of quietness and slow development of themes.
First the kit used. His set up was pretty minimal by some standards. He had a tiny saxophone, a bass saxophone, a variety of cardboard tubes, some mutes, a couple of balls/marbles, a plastic (?) disc, a violin bow, a ring modulator, some filters and a sruti box. The pieces he played sounded as though they were composed rather than improvised, and the text on the flyer suggested as much, while also confirming that they were part of the same sequence.
One of the things which most impressed me at the time, and which has remained with me very strongly across the days since, was Lucio Capece's use of breath. Both blowing through the saxophones while deliberately not playing a note so that all you heard was the breath, and the fact that he appeared to be utilising circular breathing (which I've been trying intermittently to master with limited success for a while now). To use such a basic, quiet and apparently unmusical sound as a major texture - as the first texture - of a piece shows a great deal of confidence. That confidence probably comes from skill and control. This was a very controlled performance without being uptight or mechanical. Breath and the physicality of noise, of the instrument, of the artist were crucial throughout.
So far as I can recall the saxophones were only played with the cardboard tubes in place in the mouth of the instrument, usually with a mute on top, but sometimes not. The plastic disc mentioned earlier was placed over a tube at one point and held in place with one finger to give a tapping sound. At other times round hollow containers were placed over the instrument mouth and balls/marbles rolled round the edge to create another sound, either in conjunction with the breath or not. Although I said that the techniques weren't especially flashy they were obviously impressive feats of dexterity and control - imagine holding a small saxophone with one hand and using that hand and knee to rock the container over the mouth of instrument, sending the marble spinning round, while holding the container in place with the other hand, and using circular breathing for a prolonged period. Other techniques used included bowing the mutes and parts of the saxophone.
Although audible the ring modulator and whatever filters were used were not intrusive and acted as though they were merely extensions of the sound being created. In fact most of the time you could forget they were there. Instead the sound appeared wholly untransformed. But that aside the techniques used sometimes seemed to be analogue methods of achieving effects that might normally require an array of pedals. For instance the ball/marble rolling is a sound that I would probably create live on a loop and then leave playing to allow me to move onto something else. Usually it was exactly that, a durational dedication to making a particular loop live for as long as it was needed rather than relying on a more predictable but ultimately less organic or responsive recorded loop. Obviously this approach heightened the sense of physicality and control already mentioned several times.
I indicated earlier that I would discuss quietness and the slow development of themes. The entire work was relatively quiet, and each piece assembled itself only slowly. It might start with merely the sound of breath through a saxophone with no notes present. Then there would be a silence. Then as if starting again there would be breath. This breath might also end, or a slight variation might be added, a brief tone for instance. Often, even as the evening progressed, a sound might seem to be accidental only to resolve itself as intentional as it emerged again with additional elements. There seemed to be no sense of hurry, no concern to move on immediately to the next element once one element had been introduced. Without wishing to make comparisons, or introduce too much of a personal note, this is something that I am finding hard in my live performances of especially semi-improvised work. My timing and control is not yet such that I can take the time I would like, or operate at a lower volume. These concerns were already on my mind, and as some of the techniques - breath and bowing - are things I've dabbled with, the evening was a really useful study for me.
The flyer suggested that the piece was composed in response to Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (which I have yet to see). And at times I found myself thinking that the sounds could almost be descriptive, or part of a soundtrack. And yet as I've previously said I have serious doubts about so literal a reading of music or sound art. But the sounds were never quite descriptive - breath was never wind or water rushing through pipes, pattering was never leaves blowing or rain falling. It was more that the sounds had a non-musical, furtive and yet physcal nature that suggested a world beyond the instruments being played. I'm not quite sure what I'm reaching for here - it was not so simple as the sounds being descriptive or even metaphorical, more that they were textures that would fit into a location or a sequence of images of a location and somehow enhance it. This is something I need to think some more about.
It's a real shame that more people didn't make the effort to attend. If you're one of them I believe the Salford Concerts are back some time in the autumn after a brief hiatus, but as soon as I know more I'll let you know. Make sure you go if you get the chance.
The instruments used were not especially exotic, and the techniques not especially showy. But the resulting sounds were amazing.
I don't want to give a minute description of what happened in what order because there's not much that's more pointless than a written description of a piece of sound art. However, I will discuss the techniques used and the sounds made, and hope that it's enlightening. In addition there are a couple of areas I want to touch on. I previously mentioned that I distrust claims that music and sound art describe physical spaces. This is still the case, but with a slight modification inspired by this performance which I'll explore. Also the role of quietness and slow development of themes.
First the kit used. His set up was pretty minimal by some standards. He had a tiny saxophone, a bass saxophone, a variety of cardboard tubes, some mutes, a couple of balls/marbles, a plastic (?) disc, a violin bow, a ring modulator, some filters and a sruti box. The pieces he played sounded as though they were composed rather than improvised, and the text on the flyer suggested as much, while also confirming that they were part of the same sequence.
One of the things which most impressed me at the time, and which has remained with me very strongly across the days since, was Lucio Capece's use of breath. Both blowing through the saxophones while deliberately not playing a note so that all you heard was the breath, and the fact that he appeared to be utilising circular breathing (which I've been trying intermittently to master with limited success for a while now). To use such a basic, quiet and apparently unmusical sound as a major texture - as the first texture - of a piece shows a great deal of confidence. That confidence probably comes from skill and control. This was a very controlled performance without being uptight or mechanical. Breath and the physicality of noise, of the instrument, of the artist were crucial throughout.
So far as I can recall the saxophones were only played with the cardboard tubes in place in the mouth of the instrument, usually with a mute on top, but sometimes not. The plastic disc mentioned earlier was placed over a tube at one point and held in place with one finger to give a tapping sound. At other times round hollow containers were placed over the instrument mouth and balls/marbles rolled round the edge to create another sound, either in conjunction with the breath or not. Although I said that the techniques weren't especially flashy they were obviously impressive feats of dexterity and control - imagine holding a small saxophone with one hand and using that hand and knee to rock the container over the mouth of instrument, sending the marble spinning round, while holding the container in place with the other hand, and using circular breathing for a prolonged period. Other techniques used included bowing the mutes and parts of the saxophone.
Although audible the ring modulator and whatever filters were used were not intrusive and acted as though they were merely extensions of the sound being created. In fact most of the time you could forget they were there. Instead the sound appeared wholly untransformed. But that aside the techniques used sometimes seemed to be analogue methods of achieving effects that might normally require an array of pedals. For instance the ball/marble rolling is a sound that I would probably create live on a loop and then leave playing to allow me to move onto something else. Usually it was exactly that, a durational dedication to making a particular loop live for as long as it was needed rather than relying on a more predictable but ultimately less organic or responsive recorded loop. Obviously this approach heightened the sense of physicality and control already mentioned several times.
I indicated earlier that I would discuss quietness and the slow development of themes. The entire work was relatively quiet, and each piece assembled itself only slowly. It might start with merely the sound of breath through a saxophone with no notes present. Then there would be a silence. Then as if starting again there would be breath. This breath might also end, or a slight variation might be added, a brief tone for instance. Often, even as the evening progressed, a sound might seem to be accidental only to resolve itself as intentional as it emerged again with additional elements. There seemed to be no sense of hurry, no concern to move on immediately to the next element once one element had been introduced. Without wishing to make comparisons, or introduce too much of a personal note, this is something that I am finding hard in my live performances of especially semi-improvised work. My timing and control is not yet such that I can take the time I would like, or operate at a lower volume. These concerns were already on my mind, and as some of the techniques - breath and bowing - are things I've dabbled with, the evening was a really useful study for me.
The flyer suggested that the piece was composed in response to Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (which I have yet to see). And at times I found myself thinking that the sounds could almost be descriptive, or part of a soundtrack. And yet as I've previously said I have serious doubts about so literal a reading of music or sound art. But the sounds were never quite descriptive - breath was never wind or water rushing through pipes, pattering was never leaves blowing or rain falling. It was more that the sounds had a non-musical, furtive and yet physcal nature that suggested a world beyond the instruments being played. I'm not quite sure what I'm reaching for here - it was not so simple as the sounds being descriptive or even metaphorical, more that they were textures that would fit into a location or a sequence of images of a location and somehow enhance it. This is something I need to think some more about.
It's a real shame that more people didn't make the effort to attend. If you're one of them I believe the Salford Concerts are back some time in the autumn after a brief hiatus, but as soon as I know more I'll let you know. Make sure you go if you get the chance.
other room 8 + other things
Videos of the brilliant Alex Davies and the legendary Allen Fisher can be found here on The Other Room blog for those of you that weren't there. There's also video of me for those of you who like that sort of thing.
Don't forget tomorrow Friday 12 June at 7:30pm at Bury Art Gallery an evening of experimental poetry and sound with Jesse Glass, Nick Thurston, Sarah Tremlett and Judy Kendall as part of the Text Festival. Free admission.
And two readings imminent at The Other Room according to if p then q. On Wednesday 1 July it's the one you should already know about - P.Inman and Tina Darragh, and on Wednesday 5 August to get The Other Room back to its usual slot Sean Bonney, Frances Kruk and Steve Willey will be reading. The Other Room three months in a row - now that's what I call summer.
Not only that, but in case you want to see him twice or can't make one of the readings, P.Inman also reads the day before The Other Room on Tuesday 30 June at the Text Festival.
Don't forget tomorrow Friday 12 June at 7:30pm at Bury Art Gallery an evening of experimental poetry and sound with Jesse Glass, Nick Thurston, Sarah Tremlett and Judy Kendall as part of the Text Festival. Free admission.
And two readings imminent at The Other Room according to if p then q. On Wednesday 1 July it's the one you should already know about - P.Inman and Tina Darragh, and on Wednesday 5 August to get The Other Room back to its usual slot Sean Bonney, Frances Kruk and Steve Willey will be reading. The Other Room three months in a row - now that's what I call summer.
Not only that, but in case you want to see him twice or can't make one of the readings, P.Inman also reads the day before The Other Room on Tuesday 30 June at the Text Festival.
Monday, June 08, 2009
why no politics?
Anyone who's read much from the first couple of years of santiago's dead wasp, and even more those who have known me since I lived in Cardiff may wonder what has happened to the politics. There used to be quite a significant number of political poems and periodic commentary on various issues. In the case of poetry for once the answer is simple, I wasn't very good at it. The best that could be said for my explicitly political poems is that they were 'felt' and 'energetic' - unfortunately they were also often shit. As for commentary on specific issues, like most things that's a little more complicated.
But before that, what's prompted this reflection is obviously the election of Nick Griffin to the European Parliament. Well Nick, I didn't vote for you, you don't fucking talk for me and you never will. It seems like the BNP never met a problem that couldn't be blamed on immigration.
The last paragraph represents exactly one of the reasons why I write less about politics than I used to and less than I would like. After the final sentence I attempted four different ways of continuing. The first idea was to refer to Britain's, and the northwest's, radical tradition. I would have mentioned unions, Tom Paine, republicanism, chartism, the Peterloo massacre - essentially a random tumble of bits and pieces. The second idea was to talk about the self-evident stupidity of BNP policies, and how absurd it is to claim not to be racist when the repatriation of immigrants is one of your aims. The third idea was to talk about the dubious history of Andrew Brons in particular, who got a seat in Yorkshire and Humber. The fourth and final idea was to talk about the sort of ideals I was brought up with, which were ideals of tolerance, equality and respect for others. But for all of these I would have had to do a minimal amount of fact-checking at the very least, and I'm not writing journalism, it's merely an opinion piece. Now you could say that laziness is a poor excuse for not broaching the subject, but I'd rather people read properly informed debate rather than my half-formed musings. But it is clear I haven't been especially explicit about my principles recently, that is a problem, and I will correct it shortly.
This is not the only reason why I write less about politics than I have done in the past. The other reasons are a distaste for party political/ideological affiliations, and my background and character which mean I have never really been part of a group of people aligned along primarily political lines.
To take the last first I grew up shy, bullied through most of middle and high school, in a small village a long way from even a small city like Lancaster. There were not a lot of opportunities to make affiliation with others, and I was anyway distrustful of groups. Even when I later started to communicate with others it was mainly by post. Public transport was so poor it was a major organisational feat to get to somewhere like Bradford. Having not much money and no great confidence in places where I didn't know anyone, it was not something I did frequently. Not having much one to one contact with others, not engaging in much political debate or activity meant I had little confidence in my own beliefs. This still has effects today, it's still extremely difficult for me to go anywhere on my own, especially where a lot of the people there already know one another.
The first point about my distaste for party political/ideological affiliations is perhaps easier to understand. I find that both party affiliations, and adherence to any specific ideology can build-in an inflexibility of attitude. For this reason I've always resisted getting too deeply into study of any particular -ism. The nearest I came was a period of studying anarchism and exchanging letters with anarchist groups. But I very quickly found that some anarchists were unrealistic about their ability to bring about what they wanted, and had no historical sense of what the potential pitfalls might be if a revolution were to happen. Other anarchists were more realistic but held views I found utterly objectionable. Faced with Class War and other similar anarchists advocating community justice made me realise how much I value a system of law and order that respects the rights of the accused as well as victims and the wider community.
But I have strong convictions. I am republican, I am opposed to the death penalty, I am opposed to violence of all kinds, I believe in equality for all, I feel that we need both stronger links to Europe and the rest of the world, and a greater localisation of democracy. I feel immigration to be a beneficial thing, I believe that both government and the legal system should be secular, and more. It often concerns me that I don't make this clear enough frequently enough, and that it seems to be almost invisible from my poetry.
But before that, what's prompted this reflection is obviously the election of Nick Griffin to the European Parliament. Well Nick, I didn't vote for you, you don't fucking talk for me and you never will. It seems like the BNP never met a problem that couldn't be blamed on immigration.
The last paragraph represents exactly one of the reasons why I write less about politics than I used to and less than I would like. After the final sentence I attempted four different ways of continuing. The first idea was to refer to Britain's, and the northwest's, radical tradition. I would have mentioned unions, Tom Paine, republicanism, chartism, the Peterloo massacre - essentially a random tumble of bits and pieces. The second idea was to talk about the self-evident stupidity of BNP policies, and how absurd it is to claim not to be racist when the repatriation of immigrants is one of your aims. The third idea was to talk about the dubious history of Andrew Brons in particular, who got a seat in Yorkshire and Humber. The fourth and final idea was to talk about the sort of ideals I was brought up with, which were ideals of tolerance, equality and respect for others. But for all of these I would have had to do a minimal amount of fact-checking at the very least, and I'm not writing journalism, it's merely an opinion piece. Now you could say that laziness is a poor excuse for not broaching the subject, but I'd rather people read properly informed debate rather than my half-formed musings. But it is clear I haven't been especially explicit about my principles recently, that is a problem, and I will correct it shortly.
This is not the only reason why I write less about politics than I have done in the past. The other reasons are a distaste for party political/ideological affiliations, and my background and character which mean I have never really been part of a group of people aligned along primarily political lines.
To take the last first I grew up shy, bullied through most of middle and high school, in a small village a long way from even a small city like Lancaster. There were not a lot of opportunities to make affiliation with others, and I was anyway distrustful of groups. Even when I later started to communicate with others it was mainly by post. Public transport was so poor it was a major organisational feat to get to somewhere like Bradford. Having not much money and no great confidence in places where I didn't know anyone, it was not something I did frequently. Not having much one to one contact with others, not engaging in much political debate or activity meant I had little confidence in my own beliefs. This still has effects today, it's still extremely difficult for me to go anywhere on my own, especially where a lot of the people there already know one another.
The first point about my distaste for party political/ideological affiliations is perhaps easier to understand. I find that both party affiliations, and adherence to any specific ideology can build-in an inflexibility of attitude. For this reason I've always resisted getting too deeply into study of any particular -ism. The nearest I came was a period of studying anarchism and exchanging letters with anarchist groups. But I very quickly found that some anarchists were unrealistic about their ability to bring about what they wanted, and had no historical sense of what the potential pitfalls might be if a revolution were to happen. Other anarchists were more realistic but held views I found utterly objectionable. Faced with Class War and other similar anarchists advocating community justice made me realise how much I value a system of law and order that respects the rights of the accused as well as victims and the wider community.
But I have strong convictions. I am republican, I am opposed to the death penalty, I am opposed to violence of all kinds, I believe in equality for all, I feel that we need both stronger links to Europe and the rest of the world, and a greater localisation of democracy. I feel immigration to be a beneficial thing, I believe that both government and the legal system should be secular, and more. It often concerns me that I don't make this clear enough frequently enough, and that it seems to be almost invisible from my poetry.
Friday, June 05, 2009
go to these
Salford Concerts Series 3 - 10 June
Text Festival - 12 June & 30 June
Friday 12 June
Jesse Glass, Sarah Tremlett & Judy Kendall at Bury Art Gallery
Tuesday 30 June
P.Inman
Jesse Glass, Sarah Tremlett & Judy Kendall at Bury Art Gallery
Tuesday 30 June
P.Inman
The Other Room - 1 July
buy whisper online
For those of you who have yet to buy either of the delightful items below - June's collection of toe-tapping sound poetry for lovers, Whisper, or the handmade collection of the first six months' worth of CD-Rs, you can now do so from the comfort of your own office. Just use the PayPal button over on the right. Whisper costs a mere £3 and the six-month collection a paltry £10.
Whisper
The first 6 months' CD-Rs
Whisper
The first 6 months' CD-RsThursday, June 04, 2009
the other room 8
The nights at The Other Room feel like they're getting shorter all the time. Last night felt like half an hour at most. Partly that's because I was performing, but I'll let other people write about that in more detail if they feel the inclination. My notes will be even more sketchy than usual since the whole event is quite blurry. Also getting shorter are the intervals between events, at least for this month. The next event will be July 1 when P.Inman and Tina Darragh will be reading. I mean do they spoil you or what? Anyway before you stumble through my impressionistic reading I'd suggest you look at Richard Barrett's far more coherent account here.
Due to heavy promotion by Tom and James, and probably also due to the Allen Fisher effect, I'm told last night was one of the busiest so far with just over forty people in attendance. It was great that a number of them were faces I hadn't seen there before. I arrived pretty early because I had a lot of kit to set up and ensure was working, as well as CD-Rs for the bookstall. I didn't notice if there was anything from Alex Davies there, I don't think so. There were a number of Allen Fisher's books available. I already have Leans and although I could have happily bought everything else he had there I restricted myself to Place. Also available, and also highly recommended are the Text Festival tie-in if p then q poster pack, the latest Parameter (with Jamie Birch's excellent Eight I Am's), and the anthology for the first year of The Other Room. Late addition, I read from Richard Barrett's account that P.Inman's Ad Finitum from if p the q was on sale, I'm quite annoyed with myself as I've been meaning to buy it for ages. Amazingly despite everything else that was on display I sold a few copies of the first six month CD-R set.
But to business. Alex Davies kicked off the night in great style. I'd heard a reading of Londonstone, and I think I may have seen video of him reading elsewhere, probably on the Openned site. He had a really interesting approach to his reading which involved him opening with extracts selected from various texts by other people, as he put it to get his voice in the room. I take this as meaning both helping the audience attune to his voice and style of reading as well as to the content, themes, etc of his work, and helping him to find his place within the space. Both Alex and Allen read without the microphone, and as far as could tell were able to be heard throughout the venue without needing to raise their voices too much. Alex read from Londonstone. As usual when I don't have a written text to compare to or refer back to I'd have difficulty telling you what it was about. One of my initial impressions was that it was quite broken-up, short phrases and sections that might be unrelated. Beyond that I got impressions of the city, of life in the city, of vocabulary drawn from a range of sources, and of movement and change. I was reminded in perhaps a superficial way of Lucy Harvest Clarke's work - except that crudely I'd call hers photographic while Alex's strikes me as linguistic - which is a description in each case not a judgement.
I really wish I'd kept notes now, it's not very useful to tell you that I was completely concentrated on what Alex read, and that I enjoyed it, if I can't give you any impression of what the work was actually like. Part of that may also be down to performing. Although I don't get nervous before I perform I do get a significant adrenalin rush and find it really difficult to concentrate on things beforehand - and sometimes after. Anyway, apologies to Alex, I'll listen to some performances online and see if I can't come up with a more focused response shortly.
I was next and have only a shaky sense of what happened. The first piece, dryer, went very smoothly, although a lot louder than I anticipated. The second piece, born perfect, was scrappy from my perspective - the volume was all wrong and started to feedback almost straight away. For a piece that was supposed to be relatively quiet and slowly developing this was a problem. Rather than start over and draw attention to the problem I set one of the cassettes playing and killed the loop, cleared it and restarted that way without breaking the piece up. I was then able to quickly go back and add in the elements I needed with only a small flare of feedback in the loop. I'd also broken the glass I brought to bow, and the beer glass I had was only able to muster a faint scraping. It's an interesting thing about performing live that compared to rehearsals and to recording I always end up much more ferocious and confrontational than I intend. Anyway, from my perspective it was camera-shake impressions of people, a lot of feedback and noise throughout, and seemed to be over in five minutes. I'm told it was actually about fifteen.
Thankfully for everyone there was a break next and we were able to get a drink and sit and stand outside for 20 minutes or so. Although I had to spend some time packing my stuff. By this time I felt like it wasn't long after 7:30 but I think it was closer to 8:20. Like I say the whole evening seemed to compress down to a fraction of the time it actually took.
Back from the break we were on to the main attraction, Allen Fisher. He read in two sections. The first half consisted of pieces from Gravity, I think mainly drawn from Leans [buy it, it's great, and you'll be supporting Salt]. The second was from a new series called Proposals, some of which has been published in new booklet Birds. His reading style appeared more confident than Alex's, and I thought was clearer and smoother than the short bits of video I'd seen previously. His work is incredibly dense and takes in areas of mathematics and science that I have trouble understanding, even on the page through repeated readings I have difficulty forging an understanding and a coherent response so apologies to Allen if my account of his reading is less than clear... as if he's ever going to read this.
The first half gave me a stronger sense of dialogue, or at least of the presence of other people, and an interaction between them than I'd gathered from reading the works on the page. I'll have to go back through Leans in the light of the reading and see what comes out. There was also a sense of place, of human interaction with the environment - the built environment primarily but not exclusively. Again I was aware of paying close attention. During the second half when he read from Proposals I found myself closing my eyes in order to concentrate better on the words. The reading seemed even more fluid and the words were amazing. Although the selection was from Birds and indeed featured birds in the poems I got a sense of poems written from the point of view of being in transit. Whether in a car, bus or train - and there are specific references to rails. Direct human presences were fewer, but there was no less humanity about the poems. Early on there was a section that stuck in my mind, and extract of which is, 'until a swan opens his wings in my head / and I take a deep breath'. Now it's a little misleading to pull out just that section because the poems are about so much more than just clever phrases. I'd suggest you go here to see why. Apart from putting the phrase in context you can see how well-constructed the writing is. Every line, every word contributes something to the poem, meaning that when I extract something from the poem I take something away from the extract presented. Realistically the two lines quoted require the lines before in order for you to see how they arise naturally from what has already been said, and they require the lines afterwards for you to see how the argument develops from there. This is one of the reasons why I said several times (and in a comment on Richard's review) that one day I'd like to be able to write that well. Something similar was articulated by other people at the reading.
Once again hearing work read provided me with another way of looking at poems and poets I was already partly familiar with, and opened the work out slightly more. Now I recently heard a J H Prynne lecture online in which he talked about reasons why he doesn't like to read his own work, and why he doesn't feel that hearing an author read is necessarily helpful to understanding a piece of work. I'll try to find the link and post it here at some stage. I can see his point, and I think I agree that there is the possibility of the author getting in the way of the text. But I think it is helpful to hear someone read the words, so long as you're aware that the reading is not a definitive statement on the text, if only because it puts the words into a another physical state and allows you to approach them with a different set of considerations from those called into play when reading on the page. For instance, it's harder to properly appreciate sonic effects from written text. One of the invaluable opportunities afforded by The Other Room is that of shifting from written text to spoken word and back to written text in order to see words on the page from a greater number of angles. Being able to weigh the different emphases that the different iterations offer and negotiate a finer understanding from that process.
Due to heavy promotion by Tom and James, and probably also due to the Allen Fisher effect, I'm told last night was one of the busiest so far with just over forty people in attendance. It was great that a number of them were faces I hadn't seen there before. I arrived pretty early because I had a lot of kit to set up and ensure was working, as well as CD-Rs for the bookstall. I didn't notice if there was anything from Alex Davies there, I don't think so. There were a number of Allen Fisher's books available. I already have Leans and although I could have happily bought everything else he had there I restricted myself to Place. Also available, and also highly recommended are the Text Festival tie-in if p then q poster pack, the latest Parameter (with Jamie Birch's excellent Eight I Am's), and the anthology for the first year of The Other Room. Late addition, I read from Richard Barrett's account that P.Inman's Ad Finitum from if p the q was on sale, I'm quite annoyed with myself as I've been meaning to buy it for ages. Amazingly despite everything else that was on display I sold a few copies of the first six month CD-R set.
But to business. Alex Davies kicked off the night in great style. I'd heard a reading of Londonstone, and I think I may have seen video of him reading elsewhere, probably on the Openned site. He had a really interesting approach to his reading which involved him opening with extracts selected from various texts by other people, as he put it to get his voice in the room. I take this as meaning both helping the audience attune to his voice and style of reading as well as to the content, themes, etc of his work, and helping him to find his place within the space. Both Alex and Allen read without the microphone, and as far as could tell were able to be heard throughout the venue without needing to raise their voices too much. Alex read from Londonstone. As usual when I don't have a written text to compare to or refer back to I'd have difficulty telling you what it was about. One of my initial impressions was that it was quite broken-up, short phrases and sections that might be unrelated. Beyond that I got impressions of the city, of life in the city, of vocabulary drawn from a range of sources, and of movement and change. I was reminded in perhaps a superficial way of Lucy Harvest Clarke's work - except that crudely I'd call hers photographic while Alex's strikes me as linguistic - which is a description in each case not a judgement.
I really wish I'd kept notes now, it's not very useful to tell you that I was completely concentrated on what Alex read, and that I enjoyed it, if I can't give you any impression of what the work was actually like. Part of that may also be down to performing. Although I don't get nervous before I perform I do get a significant adrenalin rush and find it really difficult to concentrate on things beforehand - and sometimes after. Anyway, apologies to Alex, I'll listen to some performances online and see if I can't come up with a more focused response shortly.
I was next and have only a shaky sense of what happened. The first piece, dryer, went very smoothly, although a lot louder than I anticipated. The second piece, born perfect, was scrappy from my perspective - the volume was all wrong and started to feedback almost straight away. For a piece that was supposed to be relatively quiet and slowly developing this was a problem. Rather than start over and draw attention to the problem I set one of the cassettes playing and killed the loop, cleared it and restarted that way without breaking the piece up. I was then able to quickly go back and add in the elements I needed with only a small flare of feedback in the loop. I'd also broken the glass I brought to bow, and the beer glass I had was only able to muster a faint scraping. It's an interesting thing about performing live that compared to rehearsals and to recording I always end up much more ferocious and confrontational than I intend. Anyway, from my perspective it was camera-shake impressions of people, a lot of feedback and noise throughout, and seemed to be over in five minutes. I'm told it was actually about fifteen.
Thankfully for everyone there was a break next and we were able to get a drink and sit and stand outside for 20 minutes or so. Although I had to spend some time packing my stuff. By this time I felt like it wasn't long after 7:30 but I think it was closer to 8:20. Like I say the whole evening seemed to compress down to a fraction of the time it actually took.
Back from the break we were on to the main attraction, Allen Fisher. He read in two sections. The first half consisted of pieces from Gravity, I think mainly drawn from Leans [buy it, it's great, and you'll be supporting Salt]. The second was from a new series called Proposals, some of which has been published in new booklet Birds. His reading style appeared more confident than Alex's, and I thought was clearer and smoother than the short bits of video I'd seen previously. His work is incredibly dense and takes in areas of mathematics and science that I have trouble understanding, even on the page through repeated readings I have difficulty forging an understanding and a coherent response so apologies to Allen if my account of his reading is less than clear... as if he's ever going to read this.
The first half gave me a stronger sense of dialogue, or at least of the presence of other people, and an interaction between them than I'd gathered from reading the works on the page. I'll have to go back through Leans in the light of the reading and see what comes out. There was also a sense of place, of human interaction with the environment - the built environment primarily but not exclusively. Again I was aware of paying close attention. During the second half when he read from Proposals I found myself closing my eyes in order to concentrate better on the words. The reading seemed even more fluid and the words were amazing. Although the selection was from Birds and indeed featured birds in the poems I got a sense of poems written from the point of view of being in transit. Whether in a car, bus or train - and there are specific references to rails. Direct human presences were fewer, but there was no less humanity about the poems. Early on there was a section that stuck in my mind, and extract of which is, 'until a swan opens his wings in my head / and I take a deep breath'. Now it's a little misleading to pull out just that section because the poems are about so much more than just clever phrases. I'd suggest you go here to see why. Apart from putting the phrase in context you can see how well-constructed the writing is. Every line, every word contributes something to the poem, meaning that when I extract something from the poem I take something away from the extract presented. Realistically the two lines quoted require the lines before in order for you to see how they arise naturally from what has already been said, and they require the lines afterwards for you to see how the argument develops from there. This is one of the reasons why I said several times (and in a comment on Richard's review) that one day I'd like to be able to write that well. Something similar was articulated by other people at the reading.
Once again hearing work read provided me with another way of looking at poems and poets I was already partly familiar with, and opened the work out slightly more. Now I recently heard a J H Prynne lecture online in which he talked about reasons why he doesn't like to read his own work, and why he doesn't feel that hearing an author read is necessarily helpful to understanding a piece of work. I'll try to find the link and post it here at some stage. I can see his point, and I think I agree that there is the possibility of the author getting in the way of the text. But I think it is helpful to hear someone read the words, so long as you're aware that the reading is not a definitive statement on the text, if only because it puts the words into a another physical state and allows you to approach them with a different set of considerations from those called into play when reading on the page. For instance, it's harder to properly appreciate sonic effects from written text. One of the invaluable opportunities afforded by The Other Room is that of shifting from written text to spoken word and back to written text in order to see words on the page from a greater number of angles. Being able to weigh the different emphases that the different iterations offer and negotiate a finer understanding from that process.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
the first 6 months in one bag
Available specially for The Other Room are packs holding the whole first six months of CD-Rs in my year long monthly programme of sound poetry releases. They come in a variety of colours and are very limited.
The front, above - and the rear, below.
whisper on sale tomorrow
On sale for the first time tomorrow at The Other Room will be Whisper, June's CD-R. It will be available through PayPal from Thursday all being well.
The front cover (above) was previewed before I added the title. The rear sleeve, unfolded for readability, is below. There are three tracks - silo, just short of 10 minutes, waterpark, just over 25 minutes, and concrete pipe, just under 16 minutes.
don't forget - the other room wed 3 june
The Other Room 8 with Allen Fisher, Alex Davies and me takes place Wednesday 3 June from 7pm.
Get yourself down to The Old Abbey Inn on Manchester Science Park. It's going to be a lot more fun than whatever else you you might have been planning to do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
