improvisation
A few times I've been asked if I've thought about gathering my tweets into a booklet or ebook. The answer is that I have. I even started planning it a couple of times. But I'm now clear that it won't happen, and that I think it would be a terrible idea.
The tweets are enabled by particular technologies and viewed onscreen - either on twitter or facebook (where they update my status). In both these cases they're going to surrounded by other snippets of information. Other tweets in the case of twitter; statuses, videos, invites etc. on facebook.
I do also have feedboxes both on this blog and on tamlyn 11 - but there they are limited to five tweets - and are supplementary to the main content. Each blog is also only a part of anyone's online reading.
Rather like the way they are created the tweets are seen and read in a passing sort of way amongst a whole constellation of other information. They have developed to match the medium and now - I think - suit it quite well.
For this reason I feel that to collect the tweets in a conventional print form would not only remove them from their intended context, but would have the effect of flattening out whatever feels special about them.
Increasingly over the last couple of years it's felt that large parts of my life are also a part of my practice. Not in the sense that you might understand from confessional poetry - disclosure of myself in art doesn't interest me. Nor in the sense that anything reviewed has to be experienced - although that's nearly there.
When I go for a walk, on my breaks from work, at exhibitions and events, and so on I often find I'm carrying out research and gathering material. Sometimes obviously in the form of notes, sketches photos, audio recordings etc. Sometimes less obviously - thoughts filed away, striking images and moments that might be both tweeted and marked for future use.
This is exaggerated when it comes to projects like ) TH GOOD /OLD W~AY or tamlyn 11 - and even the performance at New York's AC Institute. These improvisations draw from songs and other art that I'm familiar with, from things I've recently encountered and thought, and from the circumstances and location(s) of their creation.
writing
Although I've consistently denied here that I'm moving away from poetry, and although I can't definitively say I'll never write another text poem, it seems increasingly unlikely that I will return to writing poetry.
I found that I had no way of judging whether or not my last poem had any merit at all. What's more I found that even when some positive comments came through I simply didn't care. Worse, as already documented, the whole process was so unpleasant and unrewarding that I have no desire to repeat it.
It's always been the case that I've found it difficult to edit poems, difficult to tell when a poem doesn't work, and difficult to abandon poems. On the other hand I regularly abandon, restart, or edit/modify sculptural, sound, and performance works. All these reasons, and the belief that my text poetry really isn't that good also make a return to poetry unlikely.
tamlyn 11
From the beginning tamlyn 11 has felt quite exposed. I was launching on an extended improvisation incorporating text, performance, song, and the creation of sculptural objects. Right from the beginning there was a danger of creating something shapeless, self-indulgent, and uninteresting.
Nor was I aware of any pre-existing model for the kind of work I was about to begin. That doesn't mean there are no models - just that I don't know about them. The first six days so far have been a process of working out how to approach the piece, what I feel is allowable, and what sort of balance should be struck between different elements of it. There has been more reflection on this than on the actual work I've been producing.
folk art + bullshit
It shouldn't be any surprise that Bob Dylan is a big influence on me. Or that my work recently has drawn heavily on folk art.
When I returned to writing poetry after an eighteen month hiatus I turned to Dylan as a model for bullshitting. A way of writing about things that interest me without talking about myself. At times a way of writing about myself in fictionalised form without confessional self-disclosure.
Dylan's roots in the early 60s folk scene are amply documented. More recently I've returned to the folk music and folk art influences of my childhood. This again is a kind of bullshitting. The exploration of fears, cultural prohibitions, the expression of limited personal self-determination, and more through stories and songs.
When we were asked - as part of the Creative Writing MA - what we felt poetry was, everyone else on the course offered some variation on 'a way of telling the truth'. My interpretation was that you could explore the world through lies.
This discovery of bullshit was incredibly liberating.
recording
Like all the themes here I've discussed my ambivalence about recording work - especially performances - before. Recorded work is finalised and repeatable. It no longer has the energy and possibilities of work still in the process of being created. It is not remembered in the same way. Something you experience once retains a specialness that something repeated can't quite match.
But at the same time there is something attractive about having a product to show for your work. This may be why I favour recordings that sound rough, and physical pieces that look unfinished and messy. That way there is a product - but one that is provisional and shows the traces of how it was made - the process is visible (or audible).
improvisation
Improvisation is where all this comes together. Ideas are enacted, explored, and abandoned. Both the content and the form that content will take develop at the same time. If the improvisation is recorded it can't help but retain the marks of its creation - more so than a completed and rehearsed piece.
I feel my way through the piece - starting with what feels right and regularly reevaluating where the piece is going and whether it's working. Gradually a shape does emerge from the apparently chaotic elements - and this is almost a disappointment.
As the piece develops ideas (and material) of no use to the work in hand but perhaps useable in future develop.
And when the piece is finished it's done with. There is no need to revisit or remake it. Having explored and developed these particular themes in this particular way you're at liberty to move on to the next thing.
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