the day maybe died
running out on the new book half way through you deal
faces these are blue days blues ‘I wish we was (I were) in St Malo’
or wherever I’m not sure this is not
so illogical as it sounds today land’s never mind
considering the where you are where I am factor of the situation
at first I too had intended harmony like a huge ‘O’ but I seem to have
finished early ‘the bad break is hardest to mend’
no shit
and the criminal loops his smooth fingers
about a tree it is all too tall and obvious
how about a short tomato what’s the difference?
the difference is my face is empty as a rotten microscope
waiting for something really big to get my teeth into
‘is it your bank or another one?’ I don’t have the heart
too many questions
I’m not really interested in the intricate yesterdays of a talking horse
give me the down to turf derby every time laugh to win
bubbles (10-1) at Ascot ‘is it really possible to go anywhere with ladybirds?’
you may well ask
we rose too early this morning to do things the way we intended
work was out the exercise bike of broken images had flown away with itself
making a mockery of my lit cigarette the moon in which
future rooks are roosting their eyes quail like eggs in the walked crooks
of their hands
‘is nothing sacred?’ ‘dear teddy-bear Joe: no’ it’s not as if
it’s only you who is tasteless energy sleeps south of your thrilling paws
clubbed together for a glass of sangria I offered but a bottle of Raymond
was what was needed not quite celebratory coverage but celebrity ladies wear
in a shop window Jacques Brel style
the effortlessness of your impossible health
is frustrating sure you can sing but can you dance
the king of Pepsi duffed up outside court opens his white arms
like an uncharitable disease with soft spots for everyone
soon we’ll be talking notes too many questions
are out of the question hair trigger reactions blue looks
‘dear Frank (you’re fired)
what do you make of all this’ but you’re having a coke with the wrong sponsor
the burgers are on bald Elvis green eyed in Hawaii
25-26 June 2009
Monday, 29 June 2009
Friday, 26 June 2009
Two poems by bani haykal
from adsurbism
#01
decidedly, the staples unbuttoned
unscrambles together the purpose
trudgingalong our methodologies breathing
towards the corridors where perceptions
are mimicked to profess in metaphors
for betterments hidden in puzzle boxes.
whata sentence whata sentence what
a sentence. unstructured; tongues
bloom into music kissing lip gloss
bright in the afternoon sun, as we stand
to pretend caring, catching bites whilst spitting
plastic into cans, bring the legs and make them
taste sweetly in unison to the satisfying sigh
called relief.
who standsbaffled to the
acoustic moon violently marooning the clumsy
thinker washing his face in dull cinema
called care? i certainly don't, i certainly
don't; intend to pretend
is a phrase used in a sentence, a sentence
whata sentence, breathing life only seconds
to comatose relief because friends, friends,
friends, friends, friends :
undecidedly
my buttons scrambled a purpose
a purpose i call life
and an open call to death
is default payment we cash
in every puzzling month.
#03
prior
to this nested atrium farming brain
cancer, each sunrise was mad
beautiful. a harbor for a balcony, a bed
for a suitcase, toasts for table scraps and
red bloom kisses
for fumes and hard
trucks rushing through. gravity restless
blushing.
no
order to restrain a m i c r o s c o p i c
perception of joy. restless illumination
meandering / undulating and i bask soaking;
crooning. killjoy marooned.
killjoy.
bluffed out intermission
paused ;
through curtains in a headfuck
gunpoint victim crouching to
meticulous bipolarity called life. ours
was a curve; bending
in unison to song; swoop in
betweening cradle and tongue, and
poof ; brain cancer. in
depth of pinches
fractured, post-giddy headache
b l o o m to footsteps of f cue.
==
bani haykal is from Singapore. You can read more of his work at misinterpretings, or at the adsurbisms microsite, which also has #01 as a pdf and as audio. bani is also part of the mux collective and the B-Quartet.
#01
decidedly, the staples unbuttoned
unscrambles together the purpose
trudgingalong our methodologies breathing
towards the corridors where perceptions
are mimicked to profess in metaphors
for betterments hidden in puzzle boxes.
whata sentence whata sentence what
a sentence. unstructured; tongues
bloom into music kissing lip gloss
bright in the afternoon sun, as we stand
to pretend caring, catching bites whilst spitting
plastic into cans, bring the legs and make them
taste sweetly in unison to the satisfying sigh
called relief.
who standsbaffled to the
acoustic moon violently marooning the clumsy
thinker washing his face in dull cinema
called care? i certainly don't, i certainly
don't; intend to pretend
is a phrase used in a sentence, a sentence
whata sentence, breathing life only seconds
to comatose relief because friends, friends,
friends, friends, friends :
undecidedly
my buttons scrambled a purpose
a purpose i call life
and an open call to death
is default payment we cash
in every puzzling month.
#03
prior
to this nested atrium farming brain
cancer, each sunrise was mad
beautiful. a harbor for a balcony, a bed
for a suitcase, toasts for table scraps and
red bloom kisses
for fumes and hard
trucks rushing through. gravity restless
blushing.
no
order to restrain a m i c r o s c o p i c
perception of joy. restless illumination
meandering / undulating and i bask soaking;
crooning. killjoy marooned.
killjoy.
bluffed out intermission
paused ;
through curtains in a headfuck
gunpoint victim crouching to
meticulous bipolarity called life. ours
was a curve; bending
in unison to song; swoop in
betweening cradle and tongue, and
poof ; brain cancer. in
depth of pinches
fractured, post-giddy headache
b l o o m to footsteps of f cue.
==
bani haykal is from Singapore. You can read more of his work at misinterpretings, or at the adsurbisms microsite, which also has #01 as a pdf and as audio. bani is also part of the mux collective and the B-Quartet.
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Katie Allen: Decomposition
Decomposition
.
Roses.
Roses.
Roses erupt.
Roses. Brother, erupt.
Only roses, brother. Well-loved, erupt.
Only roses. The brother. Well-loved, goose bumps erupt.
Only at night. Roses; the summer. The brother is well-loved. Goose bumps erupt.
Only at night – roses. The summer, the brother. Watching the girl. She is well-loved. Goose bumps erupt. Her eyes open, limpid.
Only at night. The roses, the summer. The brother watching the girl. She is beautiful, well-loved, quiet. Goose bumps erupt. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while. Limpid, he thinks.
Only really noticeable at night, the roses. The summer on the patio. The brother, drumming his fingers, watching the girl. She is beautiful, well-loved, quiet. It is morning. Goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while, as ever. Limpid, he thinks of their shared nights.
The orchids – a luminescence, only really noticeable at night. A week later, all the roses. In the house, the summer. On the patio, the brother, drumming his fingers, watching the girl. She is beautiful, well-loved. Those slender fingers. Quiet. It is early morning. She reminds him that he knows. The girl falls. Goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. She drifts. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while. He watches (as ever, he thinks). Limpid, he thinks of their shared nights. Later, he found roses.
One evening, the orchids acquired a luminescence, only really noticeable at night. Then, a week later, all the roses. They had been in the house. The summer on the patio. The brother, drumming his fingers, watching the girl. She is beautiful, certainly. One can only assume well-loved. Those slender fingers. He considers making a statement, but keeps quiet. It is early morning. She reminds him, in that house surrounded by roses: he is a bad hand of cards to be dealt to anyone. He knows it. Inevitably, the girl falls. Goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. She drifts. Resurface. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while. He watches (as ever, he thinks, in self-disgust). Limpid, he thinks again of that other girl, of their shared nights. He had dissuaded her – successfully, he’d thought. Later, he had found rotting roses.
It began one evening when the orchids in the conservatory acquired a luminescence, only really noticeable at night. Then, a week later, all the roses. The next day they had grown back, all of them much larger. They had been previously in the house. Signs started appearing on doors. The summer on the patio. The brother, drumming his fingers, watching the girl on the diving board. She is beautiful, certainly. One can only assume well-loved, with humiliated hearts dripping from those slender fingers. He considers making a statement, but keeps quiet. It is early morning. She reminds him of the other girl, back in that house surrounded by roses. He is a bad hand of cards to be dealt to anyone, now. He knows it, so do they. Inevitably, the girl falls from the ledge. Goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. She drifts, making no move to resurface. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while. He watches (as ever, he thinks, in self-disgust) from the sidelines. He could leap in after her, haul her towards the shallow end like a disappointing catch. But he does not. He knows she will not. The oxygen in her lungs. Limpid, he thinks again of that other girl, of their shared nights. He had dissuaded her – successfully, he’d thought. Foolish. Two days later he had found rotting roses, the colour of rust.
It began one evening when the orchids in the conservatory acquired a pallid luminescence, only really noticeable at night. Then, a week later, all the roses died. The next day they had grown back, all of them sickly white and much larger than they had been previously. In the house, signs started appearing on doors that hadn’t been there before. Not the signs, not the doors. The summer guests grew nervous, and increasingly, lost. On the patio, the brother sipped tea and watched events flower open, drumming his fingers as he does now, watching the girl on the diving board. She is beautiful, certainly. One can only assume that she is well-loved, with more than her fair share of humiliated hearts dripping from those slender fingers. The white of her swimming costume makes a statement against the turquoise tiles. He considers making a statement himself, but keeps quiet. It is early morning. She reminds him of the other girl he tried to save all those years ago, back in that house surrounded by roses, back when he was a different person. A better person, most would agree. He is a bad hand of cards to be dealt to anyone, now. He knows it, so do they. Inevitably, the girl falls from the ledge. As she plunges into the chilled water, goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. She drifts along the bottom, making no move to resurface. Does chlorine do anything to preserve corpses? he wonders for a moment. Will she die with her eyes open? Will the chlorine dissolve them after a while? He watches (as ever, he thinks, in self-disgust) from the sidelines. He could leap in after her, haul her towards the shallow end like a disappointing catch. But he does not. He knows she will not die this way. The oxygen in her lungs refuses such limpid suicide. He thinks again of that other girl, of their shared cups of tea on the patio, of their shared nights. The horrors of that house coming between them, her escalating despair. The cyanide attempt. Just her cup, of course. He had dissuaded her – successfully, he’d thought. Foolish. Two days later he had found her rotting among the new roses, her eyes the colour of rust.
.
Roses.
Roses.
Roses erupt.
Roses. Brother, erupt.
Only roses, brother. Well-loved, erupt.
Only roses. The brother. Well-loved, goose bumps erupt.
Only at night. Roses; the summer. The brother is well-loved. Goose bumps erupt.
Only at night – roses. The summer, the brother. Watching the girl. She is well-loved. Goose bumps erupt. Her eyes open, limpid.
Only at night. The roses, the summer. The brother watching the girl. She is beautiful, well-loved, quiet. Goose bumps erupt. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while. Limpid, he thinks.
Only really noticeable at night, the roses. The summer on the patio. The brother, drumming his fingers, watching the girl. She is beautiful, well-loved, quiet. It is morning. Goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while, as ever. Limpid, he thinks of their shared nights.
The orchids – a luminescence, only really noticeable at night. A week later, all the roses. In the house, the summer. On the patio, the brother, drumming his fingers, watching the girl. She is beautiful, well-loved. Those slender fingers. Quiet. It is early morning. She reminds him that he knows. The girl falls. Goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. She drifts. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while. He watches (as ever, he thinks). Limpid, he thinks of their shared nights. Later, he found roses.
One evening, the orchids acquired a luminescence, only really noticeable at night. Then, a week later, all the roses. They had been in the house. The summer on the patio. The brother, drumming his fingers, watching the girl. She is beautiful, certainly. One can only assume well-loved. Those slender fingers. He considers making a statement, but keeps quiet. It is early morning. She reminds him, in that house surrounded by roses: he is a bad hand of cards to be dealt to anyone. He knows it. Inevitably, the girl falls. Goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. She drifts. Resurface. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while. He watches (as ever, he thinks, in self-disgust). Limpid, he thinks again of that other girl, of their shared nights. He had dissuaded her – successfully, he’d thought. Later, he had found rotting roses.
It began one evening when the orchids in the conservatory acquired a luminescence, only really noticeable at night. Then, a week later, all the roses. The next day they had grown back, all of them much larger. They had been previously in the house. Signs started appearing on doors. The summer on the patio. The brother, drumming his fingers, watching the girl on the diving board. She is beautiful, certainly. One can only assume well-loved, with humiliated hearts dripping from those slender fingers. He considers making a statement, but keeps quiet. It is early morning. She reminds him of the other girl, back in that house surrounded by roses. He is a bad hand of cards to be dealt to anyone, now. He knows it, so do they. Inevitably, the girl falls from the ledge. Goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. She drifts, making no move to resurface. Anything to preserve a moment – her eyes open after a while. He watches (as ever, he thinks, in self-disgust) from the sidelines. He could leap in after her, haul her towards the shallow end like a disappointing catch. But he does not. He knows she will not. The oxygen in her lungs. Limpid, he thinks again of that other girl, of their shared nights. He had dissuaded her – successfully, he’d thought. Foolish. Two days later he had found rotting roses, the colour of rust.
It began one evening when the orchids in the conservatory acquired a pallid luminescence, only really noticeable at night. Then, a week later, all the roses died. The next day they had grown back, all of them sickly white and much larger than they had been previously. In the house, signs started appearing on doors that hadn’t been there before. Not the signs, not the doors. The summer guests grew nervous, and increasingly, lost. On the patio, the brother sipped tea and watched events flower open, drumming his fingers as he does now, watching the girl on the diving board. She is beautiful, certainly. One can only assume that she is well-loved, with more than her fair share of humiliated hearts dripping from those slender fingers. The white of her swimming costume makes a statement against the turquoise tiles. He considers making a statement himself, but keeps quiet. It is early morning. She reminds him of the other girl he tried to save all those years ago, back in that house surrounded by roses, back when he was a different person. A better person, most would agree. He is a bad hand of cards to be dealt to anyone, now. He knows it, so do they. Inevitably, the girl falls from the ledge. As she plunges into the chilled water, goose bumps erupt on the man’s arms. She drifts along the bottom, making no move to resurface. Does chlorine do anything to preserve corpses? he wonders for a moment. Will she die with her eyes open? Will the chlorine dissolve them after a while? He watches (as ever, he thinks, in self-disgust) from the sidelines. He could leap in after her, haul her towards the shallow end like a disappointing catch. But he does not. He knows she will not die this way. The oxygen in her lungs refuses such limpid suicide. He thinks again of that other girl, of their shared cups of tea on the patio, of their shared nights. The horrors of that house coming between them, her escalating despair. The cyanide attempt. Just her cup, of course. He had dissuaded her – successfully, he’d thought. Foolish. Two days later he had found her rotting among the new roses, her eyes the colour of rust.
Monday, 22 June 2009
A Madness of Utterance: A Prynnetroduction
George Ttoouli reacts to A Manner of Utterance: The Poetry of J.H. Prynne, ed. Ian Brinton, (Shearsman, 2009) pp. 188, £12.95
Ian Friend & Richard Humphries in dialogue on JHP:
"IF: Prynne has always impressed me with the diversity of his language and sources--it's a trademark I suppose. It can read very lyrically at times, particularly for me in 'The Oval Window', but at other times it is fractured or dislocated and without any traditional beauty to it. Often it makes one work very hard, but I don't mind that at all. I don't mind art being difficult and contradictory, so I suppose I can transfer that attitude to visual art and to my own work.
RH: Can you say a bit more about enjoying art being 'hard'?
IF: Maybe 'hard' is the wrong word. Perhaps 'multi-layered' or 'complex' are more appropriate. I don't like to get the 'story' straightaway. Having said that, I'm certainly not in favour of narrative in art."
This seems an important distinction to me: the initial response to Prynne as 'hard', is like saying, "This poetry is like double differential equations, or particle physics, or baking a wedding cake in one sitting, or fixing the engine on a Harrier." Whereas describing the work as multi-layered, or complex, means you can, if you choose, treat it one step at a time.
The responses to Prynne's poetry in this collection of essays is interesting, for the fact that they range from people who have taken several steps through the layers of Prynne's work, to those who have stopped on a particular layer to draw inferences about the whole. My favourite responses are Ian Friend's and Eric Ulman's, both of which take alternative artistic media (visual art and music, respectively) as parallels for understanding Prynne's poetry.
Ian Friend once again:
"I like the density in Prynne's poetry. One is simply aware of a profound intelligence at work. I feel that I am in the presence of an inquiring mind, someone with a curiosity and understanding of a wide range of experience and disciplines. I don't pretend to be in that league intellectually or academically, but I'd like to think that my work is the product of an inquiring and intelligent approach that understands the ramifications of knowledge and in particular of the history and methods and materials of my craft. That sense of inquiry in Prynne urges me on."
So the book becomes a statement not just about poetry, about Prynne's poetry, but something more important: artistic and readership practices, decision-making, self-awareness, motivation. It's life-affirming, mission-affirming. 'This is why I read.' 'This is why I create.'
Eric Ulman:
"Prynne's poetry seems to me exemplary, of a rare fullness and invention. My initial encounters with it have often baffled me, and there are many sequences into which I have as yet only rudimentary insight; but my imperfect understanding mutes neither his work's immediate nor more gradual power. Few poets use language--as sound, as social fact, as historical object, as representation, as manifestation--with such thoroughness and agility. Prynne's works invite and endure exacting attention, in Empson's words, "with undiminished reputation." If much Language poetry takes modernist achievement into a realm of diminishing returns--the complacent impenetrability of a mere 'free play' of surfaces, or the repetitive exposure of the emptiness of social tropes, the poetic 'mainstream' in England and America is striking for the vacuity of its rhetoric and technique. Prynne avoids both culs-de-sac."
What he said, but louder, on every billboard in the country (and OK, I guess, edited into bitesize chunks). Isn't this the point? Once you're aware of the depth of experience you can pass through, as a reader, in certain texts, doesn't that suck the life out of so many other writings? And not merely in terms of the 'camps', types of writing. This is a challenge to the writers of experimental and traditional poetry, prose, whatever: why have you set the bar where you have, in terms of complexity, simplicity, layers of meaning, etc.? Do you, like these musicians and painters, have an awareness of your own process?
Is that even an essential quality? Simon has argued (well, discussed, I'm not in disagreement) with me that we should respect an artist in any medium when they've shown a willingness to acknowledge those giants whose shoulders they stand on. (That's the bitesize chunk for the new G&P side-of-bus posters, but he put it more eloquently than that. Still, I think I owe him an interrogation.)
Important yet again to note Ulman's distinction between the initial, immediate readings of Prynne's poetry and the gradual power that builds as you descend through the layers. There is a sense of more going on, but you don't have to tunnel deeper than you wish to go.
Professor Li Zhimin:
"When one reads Prynne's poems, it is actually unnecessary, not to say impossible, to refer to other poetical works, as all possible quotations from or adoptions of the other works have been assimilated into an organic part of his poems, which stand by themselves. One can just read and enjoy this in whatever way one likes without worrying about the meanings of the 'original'... Prynne has suggested that each word is a history for him, but we do not need to trace the history of every word as Prynne has done before cooking a poem. What a reader needs to do is to enjoy, not to go to the kitchen to see what Prynne has done, and not necessarily to have the abstruse knowledge or skills that Prynne has acquired."
Yes, yes, yes. And bonus points for the cooking metaphor. Why feel you have to 'get' Prynne? Why can't you accept that there's an immediate, initial power that just sits there? 'Getting' Prynne is an impossibility, but also something instantly achieved by anyone who wants to read Prynne with an open mind. You can throw the book across the room if you don't like it. You don't have to get anything there in whole units, in systems of interpretation. The old 'cryptic crossword' mentality is a waste of time, a way of allowing yourself permission to be dumber than you are. Take what you want, and if you don't like what's there, fine. And if some other reader tells you, 'You don't get it!' call them an elitist prick once you've gone to your level and tell them to fuck off. Say why you don't like it. Is it too cold? Too hot? Too analytical? Too Latinate? Too scientific? Do the neologisms make you queasy? Are they neologisms or just obscure/obsolete words? Do you not like reading poetry with a dictionary on your other knee because you lost a leg in an accident on an escalator? That's OK, that's all fine. You have permission to be yourself when you read.
Now I am hungry, and need to re-read Prynne's poetry, because I was unfair on it first time around, because I felt excluded by the Academy. I no longer feel excluded, not because I work in a university, but because I don't care if I don't get it.
===
A Manner of Utterance is available now from Shearsman. It's an interesting and eclectic collection. Some of the essays are downright odd, or boring. Others are very charged and entertaining, with a playful form, like Richard Humphries' & Ian Friend's discussion. I found Keston Sutherland's essay fairly unreadable; I made it through two pages and thought, "That's enough for me," mainly for reasons of time, but if you read it and get through it, tell me what you think. The book needs a proof-read. Desperately. Some of Li Zhimin's essay is incomprehensible. But that's OK too. This book is kind of unique, and I kind of like that.
And thanks (or blame) to Andrew Bailey for the pun in this article's title.
Ian Friend & Richard Humphries in dialogue on JHP:
"IF: Prynne has always impressed me with the diversity of his language and sources--it's a trademark I suppose. It can read very lyrically at times, particularly for me in 'The Oval Window', but at other times it is fractured or dislocated and without any traditional beauty to it. Often it makes one work very hard, but I don't mind that at all. I don't mind art being difficult and contradictory, so I suppose I can transfer that attitude to visual art and to my own work.
RH: Can you say a bit more about enjoying art being 'hard'?
IF: Maybe 'hard' is the wrong word. Perhaps 'multi-layered' or 'complex' are more appropriate. I don't like to get the 'story' straightaway. Having said that, I'm certainly not in favour of narrative in art."
This seems an important distinction to me: the initial response to Prynne as 'hard', is like saying, "This poetry is like double differential equations, or particle physics, or baking a wedding cake in one sitting, or fixing the engine on a Harrier." Whereas describing the work as multi-layered, or complex, means you can, if you choose, treat it one step at a time.
The responses to Prynne's poetry in this collection of essays is interesting, for the fact that they range from people who have taken several steps through the layers of Prynne's work, to those who have stopped on a particular layer to draw inferences about the whole. My favourite responses are Ian Friend's and Eric Ulman's, both of which take alternative artistic media (visual art and music, respectively) as parallels for understanding Prynne's poetry.
Ian Friend once again:
"I like the density in Prynne's poetry. One is simply aware of a profound intelligence at work. I feel that I am in the presence of an inquiring mind, someone with a curiosity and understanding of a wide range of experience and disciplines. I don't pretend to be in that league intellectually or academically, but I'd like to think that my work is the product of an inquiring and intelligent approach that understands the ramifications of knowledge and in particular of the history and methods and materials of my craft. That sense of inquiry in Prynne urges me on."
So the book becomes a statement not just about poetry, about Prynne's poetry, but something more important: artistic and readership practices, decision-making, self-awareness, motivation. It's life-affirming, mission-affirming. 'This is why I read.' 'This is why I create.'
Eric Ulman:
"Prynne's poetry seems to me exemplary, of a rare fullness and invention. My initial encounters with it have often baffled me, and there are many sequences into which I have as yet only rudimentary insight; but my imperfect understanding mutes neither his work's immediate nor more gradual power. Few poets use language--as sound, as social fact, as historical object, as representation, as manifestation--with such thoroughness and agility. Prynne's works invite and endure exacting attention, in Empson's words, "with undiminished reputation." If much Language poetry takes modernist achievement into a realm of diminishing returns--the complacent impenetrability of a mere 'free play' of surfaces, or the repetitive exposure of the emptiness of social tropes, the poetic 'mainstream' in England and America is striking for the vacuity of its rhetoric and technique. Prynne avoids both culs-de-sac."
What he said, but louder, on every billboard in the country (and OK, I guess, edited into bitesize chunks). Isn't this the point? Once you're aware of the depth of experience you can pass through, as a reader, in certain texts, doesn't that suck the life out of so many other writings? And not merely in terms of the 'camps', types of writing. This is a challenge to the writers of experimental and traditional poetry, prose, whatever: why have you set the bar where you have, in terms of complexity, simplicity, layers of meaning, etc.? Do you, like these musicians and painters, have an awareness of your own process?
Is that even an essential quality? Simon has argued (well, discussed, I'm not in disagreement) with me that we should respect an artist in any medium when they've shown a willingness to acknowledge those giants whose shoulders they stand on. (That's the bitesize chunk for the new G&P side-of-bus posters, but he put it more eloquently than that. Still, I think I owe him an interrogation.)
Important yet again to note Ulman's distinction between the initial, immediate readings of Prynne's poetry and the gradual power that builds as you descend through the layers. There is a sense of more going on, but you don't have to tunnel deeper than you wish to go.
Professor Li Zhimin:
"When one reads Prynne's poems, it is actually unnecessary, not to say impossible, to refer to other poetical works, as all possible quotations from or adoptions of the other works have been assimilated into an organic part of his poems, which stand by themselves. One can just read and enjoy this in whatever way one likes without worrying about the meanings of the 'original'... Prynne has suggested that each word is a history for him, but we do not need to trace the history of every word as Prynne has done before cooking a poem. What a reader needs to do is to enjoy, not to go to the kitchen to see what Prynne has done, and not necessarily to have the abstruse knowledge or skills that Prynne has acquired."
Yes, yes, yes. And bonus points for the cooking metaphor. Why feel you have to 'get' Prynne? Why can't you accept that there's an immediate, initial power that just sits there? 'Getting' Prynne is an impossibility, but also something instantly achieved by anyone who wants to read Prynne with an open mind. You can throw the book across the room if you don't like it. You don't have to get anything there in whole units, in systems of interpretation. The old 'cryptic crossword' mentality is a waste of time, a way of allowing yourself permission to be dumber than you are. Take what you want, and if you don't like what's there, fine. And if some other reader tells you, 'You don't get it!' call them an elitist prick once you've gone to your level and tell them to fuck off. Say why you don't like it. Is it too cold? Too hot? Too analytical? Too Latinate? Too scientific? Do the neologisms make you queasy? Are they neologisms or just obscure/obsolete words? Do you not like reading poetry with a dictionary on your other knee because you lost a leg in an accident on an escalator? That's OK, that's all fine. You have permission to be yourself when you read.
Now I am hungry, and need to re-read Prynne's poetry, because I was unfair on it first time around, because I felt excluded by the Academy. I no longer feel excluded, not because I work in a university, but because I don't care if I don't get it.
===
A Manner of Utterance is available now from Shearsman. It's an interesting and eclectic collection. Some of the essays are downright odd, or boring. Others are very charged and entertaining, with a playful form, like Richard Humphries' & Ian Friend's discussion. I found Keston Sutherland's essay fairly unreadable; I made it through two pages and thought, "That's enough for me," mainly for reasons of time, but if you read it and get through it, tell me what you think. The book needs a proof-read. Desperately. Some of Li Zhimin's essay is incomprehensible. But that's OK too. This book is kind of unique, and I kind of like that.
And thanks (or blame) to Andrew Bailey for the pun in this article's title.
Friday, 19 June 2009
Three Poems by Tom Stevenson
The dispersing of a large crowd
‘Come and see me in a minute when I’ve not got my hands full with all of this.’
The Marquee ran at full capacity for eight hours then broke into tattered wreckage.
Pull down the community veil.
The park is shut in the day time
and at night, who knows?
Cherry-pickers gave a birds-eye view of the crater before sunset when it flooded.
Of course, it’s all made safe
Behind the fence now.
Historical Notes
The obituaries of that period were excellent but
No letters of thanks were received.
Still, some fine examples are awaited
‘with no little anticipation.’
Water damage or possibly fire may be held responsible
Drastically reducing our records of definite newsprint.
Murder Mystery
‘And now if you will permit me
I think I can make sense of it all.
If everyone could remain present for the next quarter of an hour
They might learn something surprising.’
A woman excuses herself to a curate.
She begs a hanky to pass to a young girl, barely twenty
(the one who sobbed into her sleeve from the beginning).
Such sadness.
Everyone else likes it of course
But please, I think we all could use a drink.
‘Two scotches for twins?’
They only met for the first time the night before.
‘If you could stay with us,’
(A man in black ferries drinks)
‘We have need of someone discreet and characterless.
Lead us into the chambers!’
Leaden mirror. Florid mist.
==
Tom Stevenson is an artist and writer who was born in Southampton and studied Fine Art at Plymouth University's Exeter campus. He now lives in Exeter where he is part of the DJ collective Birds, Orphans and Fools. Tom is a regular reader at events such as The Umbrella Factory and People on Sunday and his work can also be found in The Cabinet Paper.
‘Come and see me in a minute when I’ve not got my hands full with all of this.’
The Marquee ran at full capacity for eight hours then broke into tattered wreckage.
Pull down the community veil.
The park is shut in the day time
and at night, who knows?
Cherry-pickers gave a birds-eye view of the crater before sunset when it flooded.
Of course, it’s all made safe
Behind the fence now.
Historical Notes
The obituaries of that period were excellent but
No letters of thanks were received.
Still, some fine examples are awaited
‘with no little anticipation.’
Water damage or possibly fire may be held responsible
Drastically reducing our records of definite newsprint.
Murder Mystery
‘And now if you will permit me
I think I can make sense of it all.
If everyone could remain present for the next quarter of an hour
They might learn something surprising.’
A woman excuses herself to a curate.
She begs a hanky to pass to a young girl, barely twenty
(the one who sobbed into her sleeve from the beginning).
Such sadness.
Everyone else likes it of course
But please, I think we all could use a drink.
‘Two scotches for twins?’
They only met for the first time the night before.
‘If you could stay with us,’
(A man in black ferries drinks)
‘We have need of someone discreet and characterless.
Lead us into the chambers!’
Leaden mirror. Florid mist.
==
Tom Stevenson is an artist and writer who was born in Southampton and studied Fine Art at Plymouth University's Exeter campus. He now lives in Exeter where he is part of the DJ collective Birds, Orphans and Fools. Tom is a regular reader at events such as The Umbrella Factory and People on Sunday and his work can also be found in The Cabinet Paper.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
The Nutshell Philosophies of Katie Allen
#3
Out of the bus-load of people on that dark night, not a one survived. Each died in tragic circumstances, each one worse than the last. Are you horrified yet? I am. Is there any chance that we can convert this sorry tale at the last moment into a love story?
#4
“Biccy?”
“No.”
“Biscuit?”
“No.”
“Go to park?”
“No. Go to bed.”
“Please may I have a biscuit?”
“No.”
“Forgive me, but why do you insist on such negativity at all times of day and night? I’m sick of it. You make me look a complete fool.”
“Biscuit?”
“Oh, fuck off.”
#5
It is my duty to announce to you, reader, that, however hard you and I both try, we know we’re kidding no one, in that by the time we have hurtled to the end of this rather elaborate and unnecessarily long sentence, our relationship will be over forever – goodbye!
#7
She noticed him at the supermarket, selecting mangoes. At the cheese counter, he asked if she believed in love at first sight; she said no, but when she got home she painted an oil-on-canvas that later sold for a lot of money. He wasn’t in it, but mangoes featured prominently.
#10
There was once a famous writer who wrote brilliant novels and won all the prizes. This writer’s wife could not read a word; she was an illiterate peasant. She took her husband’s books and built an ark so big from the paper it became wood again, and off she sailed.
#14
She waited behind the hedge. Who were they? Men in bowler hats, pink A4 files tucked underarm. Why pink? (Well, it was unsettling... less unsettling than the fact that they were, without question, following her.) They walked past her, heading further into the maze. She breathed a sigh of relief.
#15
No, no, I can’t, I simply can’t, I refuse in fact. I’m tired and my psychiatrist said I’m not to put up with this anymore. I mean, it’s getting out of hand, it really is. It’s got to stop. You know where the machine is. Make your own Goddamn cappuccino.
#17
The couple smiled into each other’s eyes. The boy kissed her gently, laughed a little. Why did he laugh? Was he happy? Was he cheating, trying to hide it behind an open mouth? Why ‘laugh’? Why not ‘chuckle’? Why are they so happy? Why can I have none of this?
#18
In Lucy’s bedroom, the giggles subsided. The girls were bored. ‘Not to worry,’ Lucy said. ‘Let’s analyse boys now.’ This did the trick; they all grinned. Boy-language was serious business. What did Ben’s raised eyebrow signify? They stared at Lucy’s open notebook where she had pinned it down, still twitching.
Thursday, 11 June 2009
One Poem by Jane Commane
Shivering Sands
Cast alone tripod
spider-turrets
Maunsell fort –
an army
on stilts.
Sentinels
of weld-sparks
struck-scars
on cliff-face metal.
seven
stoic
watchtowers.
Our backs to England,
the shingle of Kent’s horizon shores.
Rust relics in Pathé newsreel:
nails above the coffins,
the hem of split rivets,
the flotillas of corporals.
Six long weeks of fever.
Give me land,
land,
a place to sleep
that does not
pitch
and roll
beneath dreams.
Cast alone as creels,
sunk
shin-deep
at the estuary’s wide gab.
Hollow storm-broken knells
isolation’s slow rust
the
tubular gush
of tide echo in tin legs.
Calendar hours,
delirium,
in the squall of waves
forms of faces
phantoms
emerge
as trawlers
in grey channel haze.
The sand banks
Shudder-shift below us.
Surveillance-map
knows us
U-boat coordinates
lost to the brine.
Signals down and
the Thames sleeps safe.)
Battleship anchored
Radio marooned
stoic sunk to streaked russet
scarlet black
winter-bitten
decommissioned welds,
the innards split.
Maunsell fort – radio inactive.
general synopsis, deepening rapidly
Screaming Lord Sutch
southeast veering southwest
- no signal, frequency eccentric.
Somewhere to sleep
without the pitch and roll.
Gun-turret uncapped,
searchlight winched free,
wounds open to salt.
We stare out
at nothing
a
horizon
our backs to the sea
England expects but is dreaming.
Kent unfurls a long grey shingle tidemark of coast
quayside pubs spill out warmth
cast a lantern’s show –
come home
war’s over.
==
Jane Commane runs Nine Arches Press with Matt Nunn, and they also co-edit Under the Radar magazine. She is currently working on a first collection, due out in Summer 2010.
Her poems have previously featured on G&P.
Cast alone tripod
spider-turrets
Maunsell fort –
an army
on stilts.
Sentinels
of weld-sparks
struck-scars
on cliff-face metal.
seven
stoic
watchtowers.
Our backs to England,
the shingle of Kent’s horizon shores.
Rust relics in Pathé newsreel:
nails above the coffins,
the hem of split rivets,
the flotillas of corporals.
Six long weeks of fever.
Give me land,
land,
a place to sleep
that does not
pitch
and roll
beneath dreams.
Cast alone as creels,
sunk
shin-deep
at the estuary’s wide gab.
Hollow storm-broken knells
isolation’s slow rust
the
tubular gush
of tide echo in tin legs.
Calendar hours,
delirium,
in the squall of waves
forms of faces
phantoms
emerge
as trawlers
in grey channel haze.
The sand banks
Shudder-shift below us.
Surveillance-map
knows us
U-boat coordinates
lost to the brine.
Signals down and
the Thames sleeps safe.)
Battleship anchored
Radio marooned
stoic sunk to streaked russet
scarlet black
winter-bitten
decommissioned welds,
the innards split.
Maunsell fort – radio inactive.
general synopsis, deepening rapidly
Screaming Lord Sutch
southeast veering southwest
- no signal, frequency eccentric.
Somewhere to sleep
without the pitch and roll.
Gun-turret uncapped,
searchlight winched free,
wounds open to salt.
We stare out
at nothing
a
horizon
our backs to the sea
England expects but is dreaming.
Kent unfurls a long grey shingle tidemark of coast
quayside pubs spill out warmth
cast a lantern’s show –
come home
war’s over.
==
Jane Commane runs Nine Arches Press with Matt Nunn, and they also co-edit Under the Radar magazine. She is currently working on a first collection, due out in Summer 2010.
Her poems have previously featured on G&P.
Thursday, 4 June 2009
I Scorn Glee
Giles Coren, holding his head up under the weight of his ill-considered opinions, or something The Editors have just stumbled across this nasty, mean-minded, unintelligent, unfunny, uninformed 'article' by Giles Coren. It's obvious where we stand, but we'd like to hear from you too.
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