Turns out paper is less of a problem than ink. My chapbook printing plans are now derailed while I wait for ink to come in the mail because the fancy new inkjet printer we've had since Christmas only takes ink that isn't sold in stores (well, maybe one or two stores, but way the hell in the suburbs). Damn, damn. Damn.
My joints crack more often than ever lately, every time I move something sounds, from a small high toe-joint crack to a deep bass hip bone, sometimes several in succession on my spine or neck, each vertebra pops-pop-pop.
I can crack my wrist joints at any time. The joints in my feet will each crack at least once a day, and sometimes in concert as well.
Neck cracks are worrisome, they’re either a symptom or a cause of bad posture and worse, that hunched over old-looking-ness. Sometimes shoulder cracks are incredibly, jaggedly loud and violent-seeming.
Strange there isn’t more pain, strange the body makes such brutal adjustments, air pocketing then sharp bursting, pressure and release, pleasure and shock.
Mystery solved: LINEbooks books are now distributed through New Star Books, which is a member of the Literary Press Group, which gets books in stores. Nice. Look for accrete or crumble in a store somewhere sometime.
I have a new chapbook all ready to print, text laid out, cover designed, but I can't find any red cover stock. Granted, the only place I've really looked is Staples, but there's nowhere else in walking distance, except for Reid's, which I might check out today. I looked online, and found that the world of paper is infinite and complex and I'll back away slowly, thanks. There are a few brands of red cover stock available online, but at American sites with high shipping costs, and really, I just want to make some chapbooks so that I can hand them out, so I should keep the cost I invest in this (and time, and sanity) to a minimum. I really hope I find some red cover stock soon, this chapbook is going to look awesome....
Last night I attended a lecture in the Shakespeare series by professor emeritus Dr. James Black, who I unfortunately never took a class with, but whose reputation for having memorized every single line of every Shakespeare play I'm of course in awe of. I've been meaning to attend one of these lectures since the series began in January, but it's always been too cold or a holiday or I've been busy. Last night Dr. Black lectured on Julius Caesar, starting with a bit about Wayne and Schuster, which the audience, mostly in their fifties, ate up, but I have no more memory of ever watching them than I do of the Friendly Giant, although they're apparently just as Canadian-ly famous. His point was that parody of J.C. only works because everyone knows it, or at least recognizes some lines from it ("beware the ides of March", etc.), because it's one of the more widely taught Shakespeare plays. He then talked about how John Wilkes Booth acted in a production of J.C., Freytag's 19th century construction of the drama theory and how J.C. transcends the formula, resonance of Falstaff as sacrificial beast in Caesar's desire to have fat men around rather than lean and hungry Cassius, resonance of cannibalism from Titus Andronicus, the politics of meals, the example of politicians handing out pancakes at the Stampede, Caesar's complicity in ignoring the soothsayer, Brutus' fatal mistake of underestimating Antony, Caesar wounding himself "among his privities" and I still wonder exactly what that means, ambition, and the overarching theme of politics linked to eating. I took copious notes, although I'm not really sure why, maybe some kind of university-withdrawal issue, and I really enjoyed the lecture. It was like being in school, but not in an unpleasant way. Looking forward to Antony and Cleopatra next week, if I make it.
From my afternoon at the library, gathering:
Our language system is linear, based on difference which sets up polarities. It provides a space within its discourse for the oppositional. People in positions of power can make use of the strategies that exist to discredit work that is contentious to the social order. The unfamiliar is often labelled by the mainstream as inaccessible, which both discredits it, and recuperates it as marginal. Or it is labelled as topical, which is an attempt to devalue it. -- (Patricia Seaman, p. 107)-- Open Letter 8.4, 1992
A real power of words is that they make our ignorance more precise. Writing is negative aspiration: to work strenuously towards the moment when failure is confirmed. -- (Anne Michaels, p. 97)
It's acceptable to be in a state of never quite arriving. -- (Patricia Seaman, p. 109)
I'm all for this trend of undesirability and cynicism in writing; a lot of what I've been writing lately is ugly, angry, bleak, generally negative. Not sure if I've got handle on the sardonic, witty angle, but I can work on that.
Hilarious account of the worst reading ever (via Cancult).
Watched the Ramones movie last weekend: so, so good, they were such pathetic freaks, now I love them even more. The movie sparked an interesting discussion about originality and failure, how the Ramones were seminal but never successful. As usual, in my opinion, Gertrude Stein has the best insight into the issue:
No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who also are creating their own time refuse to accept. ... Those who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classified and the description of it is classical. That is the reason why the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic, there is hardly a moment in between and it is really too bad very much too bad naturally for the creator but also very much too bad for the enjoyer, they all really would enjoy the created so much better just after it has been made than when it is already a classic, but it is perfectly simple that there is no reason why the contemporary should see, because it would not make any difference as they lead their lives in the new composition anyway, and as every one is naturally indolent why naturally they don't see. ... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling. Now the only difficulty with the volte-face concerning the arts is this. When the acceptance comes, by that acceptance the thing created becomes a classic. It is a natural phenomena a rather extraordinary natural phenomena that a thing accepted becomes a classic. And what is the characteristic quality of a classic. The characteristic quality of a classic is that it is beautiful. ...- Gertrude Stein, "Composition as Explanation"
Of course it is beautiful but first all beauty in it is denied and then all the beauty of it is accepted. If every one were not so indolent they would realize that beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic. ...
I had a great time reading in Edmonton on Tuesday: the smallish but very receptive audience perfectly fitted the cozy space of the Cafe Select (upstairs), which is just oozing with ambience, all black walls and art and high ceilings. Everyone laughed when I read from Dirty Work (always a plus -- it's so awkward when you try to deliver funny lines in a funny way but the audience isn't expecting to be amused and just seems befuddled) and it was nice to read from accrete or crumble knowing that no-one there has heard me read from it ad nauseam. My fellow readers were lovely, particularly K.L. McKay, she has a great rhythm and command of lyricism in her poetry. I sold a few books, handed out a bunch of chapbooks, and picked up a copy of Spire. Also got to hang out with my sister, and her boyfriend gave us a quick tour of Edmonton sights (ie. the bridges, the river, the U of A), I always forget how pretty parts of Edmonton are -- overall, it was well worth the six hours of Greyhound hell getting there and back.
Le contretemps ~ The contretemps-- Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes
His (admissible?) dream would be to transport into a socialist society certain charms (not values) of the bourgeois art of living (such a thing exists, indeed there once existed several): this is what he calls the contretemps. What rises up against this dream is the specter of Totality, which demands that the bourgeois phenomenon be condemned entire, and that any leak of the Signifier be punished.
(Might it not be possible to take one's pleasure in bourgeois [deformed] culture as a kind of exoticism?)
La chantage a la theorie ~ Theory blackmailed-- Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes
Many (still unpublished) avant-garde texts are uncertain: how to judge, to classify them, how to predict their immediate or eventual future? Do they please? Do they bore? Their obvious quality is of an intentional order: they are concerned to serve theory. Yet this quality is a blackmail as well (theory blackmailed): love me, keep me, defend me, since I conform to the theory you call for; do I not do what Artaud, Cage, etc., have done? --But Artaud is not just "avant-garde"; he is a kind of writing as well; Cage has a certain charm as well... --But those are precisely the attributes which are not recognized by theory, which are sometimes even execrated by theory. At least make your taste and your ideas match, etc. (The scene continues, endlessly.)
One of my favorite Harryette Mullen poems:
Off the pig, ya dig? He squeals, grease the sucker. Hack that fatback, pour the pork. Pig out, rib the fellas. Ham it up, hype the tripe. Save your bacon, bring home some. Sweet dreams pigmeat. Pork belly futures, larded accounts, hog heaven. Little piggish to market. Tub of guts hog wilding. A pig of yourself, high on swine, cries all the way home. Streak o' lean gets away cleaner than Safeway chitlings. That's all, folks.- Harryette Mullen, Recyclopedia: Trimmings, S*PeRM**K*T, and Muse & Drudge
Oh my god, my book is on amazon.ca! As are the other LINEbooks! My little book is part of the corporate machinery. I feel so validated. Also a little dirty. But I like it. Of course, if you're going to buy a copy, you should go through an independent, like Apollinaire's Bookshoppe or McNally Robinson. Unless you want the sweet savings (27%!) only a mass distributor can offer. Not sure why I find this so exciting...
reading Kyle Schlesinger's chapbook Look. from No Press (which has No web presence). intrigued by but not sure what to make of the period in the title and the complete lack of punctuation in the text. the poem reads like soundbites played over and over, snatches of phrase woven together. the alternation of phrases suggests a pattern, but if there is one I didn't discern it. the possibility of complex pattern hints at a procedural poetics, while the colloquial tone of the alternating phrases invokes a form of found poetry, an idea of the poet recording all the voices he hears in an urban environment, on a bus maybe, or a street corner. at first it reminded me of Robert Fitterman's notion of the unified voice of the poem giving way to a multiplicity of voices collected at random. but Schlesinger's text doesn't reveal any such method, it could just as easily record the speech of one putative person in snatches of time, or the thoughts circling and resurfacing in someone's mind. on a second reading, i realized that the text presents a narrative, actually a very strong narrative, centred on someone getting shot, money, drugs, danger, which makes me wonder why how I could have missed it at first. probably because I was so taken with the idea of sampling and remixing the text evokes.
...
Gonna take that
I'll take it
Worked you over
Cup of coffee
Along for the ride
Worked you over
Along for the ride
Holdin' the bag
Worked you over
Cup of coffee
Holdin' the bag
Put you away
Kiddin' me
Holdin' the bag
Kiddin' me
Save yourself
Holdin' the bag
Put you away
Save yourself
How you doin'
How you doin'
Save yourself
....
- Kyle Schlesinger, Look.
Just got back from mailing my Alberta Foundation for the Arts writing project grant application, in itself a huge accomplishment for me. I've been thinking about applying for writing grants for years (or at least for the few years in the past many years that I haven't been disqualified by attending university full-time), but I've never been able to conceive and describe a coherent writing project. I tend to write without any preconceptions, and then look back at what I've written to see if any themes/similarities/ convergences can be teased out through editing. So I've found it difficult to propose a project before writing and even more difficult to explain why a project should be funded.
The project I applied for is probably a long shot. I think most funding organizations evaluate applications with a certain mindset that includes certain buzzwords, and I have no idea what the AFA's buzzwords are. I tried to focus on themes that are very particular to Alberta, and even moreso to Calgary - hell, I even mentioned the prairies a couple of times - but I'm not really sure if that's what they want. Oh well, I'm just glad I actually tried, for once.
Here's one of the poems my application depends on:
Is this Desire?
Claw’s manic retraction means a long fall, tumbling and rafting, borne aloft and lilt. The chump weighs heft, tittles a thrust, a glisten of spittle signals excitable sheen. Chump pockets knives, rusted bolts, flat cans – roadside ravages glimmer sure salvages the chump thumbs hungrily.
rob mclennan read at the U of C on Monday night, as part of the Markin-Flanagan writers in residence exchange with the U of A. I thought the turnout was a bit disappointing, particularly from the non-student literary community. But it was a decent sized audience, and as long as the usual Markin-Flanagan spread of wine and food is available, why complain? Sina Queyras delivered a comprehensive introduction to rob's writing, quoting someone (I can't remember who, and I really have to start taking notes at these things) who called rob a northern beat poet, pointing out the Whitmanesque impulse to know the self in his body of work, and referencing an illuminating line from one of rob's poems that he later read: "a body moving past lyric into post-lyric"...
rob read from a couple of different poetry series, including his recent sex at 38, from his novel white, and from a novel in progress. I think that listening to rob read has given me more access into his poetry than I've had previously. Hearing his intonations and rhythm of voice makes his choices of form and line breaks more apparent, and more organic. I enjoyed his novel in progress, which follows a character called Alberta through some sort of experience of living in the prairies; I have to admit that when I hear people read fiction I never follow the plot at all, I mostly just listen to the sound of words and the structure of sentences. Even more enjoyable than the reading was rob's somewhat subversive refusal to engage the usual English-department-ish questions about narrative and form or Aritha Van Herk's question about appropriating Dennis Cooley's characters. Maybe you had to be there to appreciate it, but it was all very entertaining.
I have a new chapbook from above/ground press: Dirty Work. It's not entirely new, because the same text was published in 2005 by No Press in an edition of 26 copies, but it may be new to you. I think it's free with a subscription to above/ground press, or $6 plus postage. rob mclennan tells me that it'll also be available as a PDF sometime in May, but surely you don't want to wait that long.
Also, nypoesi.net is featuring some excerpts from accrete or crumble ("Chump" and "sudden"), as well as another poem of mine called "Sentencing", and an Introduction that I feel kind of iffy about; I really, really need more practice putting my ideas about poetry into prose. nypoesi is a great resource for poetry and poetics from Norway, Sweden, Canada, and various other northern countries. Pretty cool (ha? eh).
Heard many poetries over the past few days. First the flywheel series on Thursday evening, where I was particularly impressed by Wakefield Brewster, a sound poet with all kinds of slam poetry chops, he's an incredible performer with some really great lines (not that I wrote any down...) I was pretty pleased with my reading as well, I think it was a bit calmer and controlled than the last couple of times I've read, and my new writing seemed to go over okay. My new favorite poem to read is "a long and fitful sentence accumulating grace", basically because it's a really long sentence that tests my lung power, and I think any grace it accumulates is through sounding out loud.
Then on Saturday afternoon, I attended the Just My Type reading at the Palette Coffeehouse in Art Central, featuring derek beaulieu, Paulina Constancia, Emily Carr, Glen Dresser, Emily Elder, Stuart McKay, Samuel Garrigo Meza, ryan fitzpatrick, and Natalie Walschots. I love going to Art Central, although I didn't stay to look around after the reading, mainly because I wanted to go home and hide from the cold. The Palette coffeeshop is a great place for a mid-afternoon poetry reading, full of brightly coloured art and comfortable couches, and a wall-sized window overlooking the C-train line, part of the Telus Convention Centre, the Regis Hotel, and the empty lot that used to contain a gorgeous brick building, no idea how old it was, I just remember noticing the intricate brickwork around its roof last summer and thinking it wouldn't last long. Anyway, it was fun to watch the poets decide how to relate their writing to the theme of "love": my favorite was Samuel's series of bear poems, and I also enjoyed Stuart's observation about male poets' hairlines (hardly specific to Calgary). Two things maybe we need more of are afternoon poetry readings, and themed readings.
Summer notebook series 6
The frame of page, mind, picture, capture. Stunned longing. Strung longingly, along a stuccoed wall struck lofty nails at rippled interval. This frame of mind sticks rigid to foursquare, flaccid to rapt mouth gape stare.
A whole city elates in gentle decay. The city without the city clusters support, rain-streaked paper bleeds sympathies, lead to laminated signs of comfort, the smallest capitalist gestures are heartfelt, and warranted. The city without the city sprung up hill, up vine and upknotted root rash in flower and flowering, flowered. Trees split wide for electrical wires in the city without the city skyline is a boon and value.
Steep bridge to sea spreads a sundry bay. Steamers and freighters slick wavering intention daily and nightly churning dark leagues. Sole agent strings a thin line and winds in arrays of sea species. Shell fragments slice up sand packs, seaweed clings and rots, the sky is best when glowering, mountain line shot, grey cloud glowering, grey sea slopping, beach a wasting line.
Summer notebook series 5 (dregs)
Frame of door, window, city light, speech.
Sod blossom, petal blossom, roof wide garden teem.
Hot wet weather curls down chirrup crash clank skew frame of city sounds drenched, subdued by drench.
Signs of clamoring maddening gargantuan span.
Spirals unwinding raucous snap fast gathers mossy cost analysis split stone ledgers from boulders and splinters from masts.
Earth-tone city, ripples whip through grass, sandstone city, blinding glass.
Synonyms!
In London "trulls, trots, molls, punks, queans, drabs, stales, nuns, hackneys, vaulters, wagtails -- in a word, whores -- were everywhere."- from this review of The Lodger Shakespeare, Charles Nicholl (via Silliman's blog)
Summer notebook series 4
Split fine mist. Spilt times drips. Drops milk down deep well of forced phrase. Mind on track on chugging. I hate to be this hunching cliche. Hate to stare down the distance fraught with meaning, stop start stagnate, radiate work and effort.
So this is the new state of my discourse, straight up and bland. damn. Not with a bang but a whimper.
This city feels patched together, thin like a showhome, showy like culture strained through a weak grasp of the concept. These words are not spackle. I'm a shoddy woodframe, I'm crumbling.
Thursday night the CBC held its annual Poetry Face-off, Calgary installment, at the packed Auburn Saloon. Dale Lee Kwong, ryan fitzpatrick, Sabo Forte, Jill Hartman, and Shone Abet were competing for... something, a chance to go on to a national round, I think. Anyway, I thought the jazz band added a really interesting element to the readings, especially because the CBC host asked each reader to explain their choice of music before starting. ryan's answer of "a little punk rock, Pink Floyd, and Enya" was the best, and whatever the band was playing worked really well with his reading, which ventured into the sincere end of the deadpan-t0-sincere spectrum ( ironically?) to good effect. Jill, who requested Twin Peaks type music for her "esoteric love poem", read a lovely, sensual poem that really resonated with the backing music. Dale Lee Kwong (who ended up winning) asked for "Chinese jazz", which the band did a great job with -- a slow, haunting sound fitting for her dramatic reading. All the readings were enjoyable, and the slickness of the event (CBC sponsorship, expensive bar, large crowd, judges making impassioned but essentially empty speeches about the poems, etc.) put me off less than I thought it would. It's good to see the Face-off becoming more representative of all the different poetry in Calgary, not just sound poetry.
Book I have to read: just found out (via Lemon Hound) about Vanessa Place, a lawyer who wrote a 130-page book with only one sentence. Convergences of law and poetry are always good (her book is described as a novel, but I think when you're pushing the limits of grammar that much, you're writing poetry whether you mean to or not) but a convergence of law, poetry, and sentence is very exciting. I don't get the impression that the book is about law, but still. There are very few people, to my knowledge, who can practice law (meaningfully) and create art (relevantly). If she can do both, maybe I'm not insane to try.
