tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272001502024-03-13T12:56:05.275-07:00The Equivocaliserequivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-16451014333374623385000-04-16T23:23:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:21:28.110-07:00Thinking Toward the Event<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">This is a blog-to-blog note to Don Share, who posts two items I discuss here—</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">1) <span style=""> </span><a href="http://donshare.blogspot.com/2008/04/alienated-majesty.html">A typically exacting (and brutal) quote from Geoffrey Hill on the uses of poetry;</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">2)<span style=""> </span><a href="http://donshare.blogspot.com/2008/04/poets-go-silent.html">Some sly questions about being heard and being seen, in response to the usual round of reflections on readings.</a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>Don—the more and more I think about it (and I have been thinking about it a lot) the more some of<span style=""> </span>the current “for or against” discourse on performance (good? bad? more or less effective?<span style=""> </span>with paper or without? whatever) and readings (here? there? warm fuzzy feel of community? nasty backhanded po-biz?) leaves me thoroughly dissatisfied and with the sense that all of this is really getting at the issues involved in an extremely superficial way.<span style=""> </span>Firstly, the use of recording devices and the ability to archive/ and or broadcast should seriously complicate the questions of what is the location of a performance, what is the community of a performance, what is live, etc.<span style=""> </span>Secondly, how do we relate and re-entangle performance on a page and oral performance (not to mention a whole range of performances like those at <a href="http://quickmuse.com/index.php">Quickmuse</a> which, in effect, are somewhere in between), and might such a re-entanglement begin serve our purposes better?<span style=""> <br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I found myself trying to get to this in a blog post / performance from last year, <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/2007/03/five-easy-steps-to-becoming-better.html">“Five Easy Steps to Becoming a Better Performer of Poetry”</a>.<span style=""> </span>Of course, a lot of what I said there might seem obvious for poets, who will already know the readings.<span style=""> </span>It was my irritable response to being asked to do a “performance poetry” workshop, was meant more for a lay audience / slam poetry types aspirants, etc., and was meant to peel back some assumptions and myths about poetry in performance.<span style=""> </span>In many ways I feel unhappy with my formulations there now; but perhaps the most relevant point is the idea of a “shadow voice”, the central contradiction of a voice that is and is not there, which gets created in a poem and can never be completely fulfilled in performance.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>A line of questioning I feel could take us deeper (I can’t yet articulate how yet) struck me on reading your magnificent and profound Geoffrey Hill quote from a couple of days ago.<span style=""> </span>How might public performances (let’s call them “activations” for a second, to go beyond the question of orality, to think about the points at which the machine of the poem is switched on in public) and events, yes, including small readings of poetry be located as events and interventions in historical time?<span style=""> </span>(Since an event, eventually, is about time?)<span style=""> </span>And how might we reframe the debate on readings in terms of Hill’s intolerable, but essential contradiction between a poem’s repeated historical uses and its fundamental alienation from—transcendence of— history?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>That’s about as much as I can wing right now.<span style=""> </span>(Don’t ask me yet how to read Mary Oliver’s sold out stadium as an historical spectre—some things are better left mysteries.)<span style=""> </span>With hopes of greater clarity—</span></p>equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-59634966007589205684080-04-07T08:05:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:21:28.110-07:00Some further thoughts on I Heard It Is One of Many Possibilities<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-style: italic;">[To read the poem "I Heard It Is One of Many Possibilities", go </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4050/04/i-heard-it-is-one-of-many-possibilities.html">here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.] </span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I had grown tired of doing too many performances where I only did my own poems and wanted to try something different.<span style=""> </span>I went to Sophea Lerner, with whom I’d worked on one previous occasion, where we’d used mobile telephony to start the reading on the street outside and enact the entry into the theatre in a way that all of the audience would be able to identify with and think about.<span style=""> </span>I knew that although Sophea works in interesting ways with sound and with technology, she also tends to find the simplest technological solutions possible, suggesting to participants “things they might try at home”.<span style=""> </span>(This emphasis on low-tech turned out to be relevant when, half way through the March 28 performance, we had a power cut of the kind that is more frequent in Delhi in the summer—and we continued the performance.) <span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>My original idea to Sophea was that the audience itself should be used to generate poetry, as a kind of surprise.<span style=""> </span>In hindsight I remember that I had also been a part of a discussion at the <a href="http://caferati.blogspot.com/">Caferati site</a> — concerning questions of audience, community, and growing numbers of poets— and this was lurking somewhere in the back of my mind.<span style=""> </span>Sophea added that she wanted to do a performance that was site-specific while, at the same time, addressing dislocations of time and place.<span style=""> </span>I knew that a) I wanted the result to be an enjoyable and entertaining, and not merely instructive or boringly demonstrative in the way that much contemporary art can be and that b) that despite being generated by the audience, it should somehow assert the existence of poetry, given that much of my audience, like many intellectuals and anti-intellectuals alike, especially some prose writers and readers, might not really believe in the contemporary existence of poetry at all.<span style=""> </span>I wasn’t sure if this would be possible, but the only way I knew how was to put the audience through one or more formal constraints and/or procedures, producing a result that I could then somehow mix or assemble into a convincing poem.<span style=""> </span>Sophea noted that, since I wanted to include as many people as possible, there should be a very low threshold for participation.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">One initial idea, which unfortunately remained only in a vestigial way, was working with smses, but this was cut down a bit because we could not use a screen in the outdoor space during the day, and because we didn’t have time to build and fine tune an appropriate SMS internet gateway that would make the idea properly interactive.<span style=""> </span>But what did remain from this was the notion that we should include, through the internet, people who were not necessarily attending the performance.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Eventually, we settled for the idea of a kind of questionnaire given in advance, as opposed to something that would put pressure on the audience to generate lines during the performance itself.<span style=""> </span>Asking people to complete a sentence with a common beginning (or ending) would be a simple formal constraint that (unlike asking people to write a sonnet or complete rhyming couplets or a lipogram) would be almost invisible and produce the least amount of anxiety while, at the same time, it would guarantee a certain minimum amount of music.<br /><span style=""> </span><span style=""><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">I Heard the Google Gong vs. I Heard It Is One of Many Possibilities<o:p></o:p></span></i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Having come up with a form though, I was unsure of what kind of results it would deliver and of whether they could be combined to deliver something that I considered a good, or even a decent, poem.<span style=""> </span>On one hand, I knew that the more I took authorial control and edited a final version, the more it would undermine my argument that the poem was largely being generated by the audience, through a particular procedure; on the other hand, I knew that I had to make a convincing and entertaining poem for that very same skeptical audience.<span style=""> </span>As a trial, I attempted to compose a poem using sentences returned for the google search string “I heard * .”, then selecting lines from the search results.<span style=""> </span>I soon began to restrict my searches to the “.in” domain so as to make the poem more relevant for an Indian audience.<span style=""> </span>Finally, after collecting some sentences, I set about arranging them.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The result was called, <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4055/04/i-heard-google-gong.html">“I Heard the Google Gong”</a>.<span style=""> </span>I think it’s an interesting poem that in parts points to some peculiarly Indian contemporary neuroses and anxieties, but in the end, nowhere as interesting (in my opinion) as what emerged in <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4050/04/i-heard-it-is-one-of-many-possibilities.html">“I Heard It Is One of Many Possibilities”</a>.<span style=""> </span>The reasons for this are probably many:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">-- the poem based on google searches extracts sentences out of a larger context, while the sentences specifically composed by contributors are aware that, in a sense, the sentence must contain everything the reader will ever know about the writer;<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">--the writers of “I Heard It Is One of Many Possibilities” are aware of performing specifically for one time-bound event, aware of being part of a larger collective effort and, “disappearing into the occasion of it”;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">--very importantly, I think, my own relationship to the texts as arranger was very different. I would like to go into this last point a little more.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">A google search yields what everyone knows are unreliable results. One tries to figure out how one is supposed to feel about the truth of the statements.<span style=""> </span>Sophea notes that the idea of better or worse microphones, for instance, is almost something of a joke in the audio-savvy community, since no microphone can be the best across the board, only best suited to one purpose or another.<span style=""> </span>Zainab crying, “Papa, Papa, I am cold” seems to be part of some standard genre narrative; one’s relationship to it changes drastically when one learns it is part of an eye-witness accounts by </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Iraq</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US"> war survivors.<span style=""> </span>Other statements inevitably provoke laughter, even derisive laughter.<span style=""> </span>Thus, a large part of negotiating a google poem involves the issue of how to negotiate one’s distance from google and the world wide web.<span style=""> </span>I wonder if there is something about google as a dominating compositional tool that actually primes one to write an ironic, even mocking poem—that’s a point for discussion.<span style=""> </span>By contrast, in working with lines specifically requested and contributed graciously, I feel a certain <i>responsibility</i> to the contributors, to the human subjects of the poem.<span style=""> </span>A line like “I heard that you can be successful if you try hard” presents a particular dilemma, since I consider it a cliché, and I don’t know if it is true.<span style=""> </span>The “I heard…” format helped here, since it ensured that all statements that were not sounds had to be indirect and not assertive.<span style=""> </span>But even beyond this, I had to use this line and contextualize it in such a way that my larger poem did not belittle the writer of the line.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Thus, this experiment, the way we have conducted it, and the result it has produced, is also meant to be a kind of friendly argument with (even as it relates to the work of) the Flarf poets, and writers like Kenneth Goldsmith and Christian Bok, whose theoretical formulations and stances I find interesting, but have differences with.<span style=""> </span>I appreciate that Bok, for instance, seems to keep his theory and practice a little separate— like everyone else, I have found things like the “I” chapter of Eunoia quite triumphantly amazing, but I feel that Bok’s poetic practice is more playful, uncertain, tentative and exploratory in comparison to his manifestoes and <i>accounts</i> of his own and his friends’ work—which can be programmatic and absolutist, even defensively promotional, and which try to push a certain theory.<span style=""> </span>In a series of postings about poetics and human-machine interactions (“<a href="http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/11/poetic_machines_02.html#more">poetic machines, 1- 8</a>”), over at <a href="http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/11/poetic_machines_02.html#more">Harriet</a>, Bok argues:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">“We can already begin to see here the embryonic inception of a robotic culture—one where writing does not necessarily emanate from the lyric voice of a human agent, so much as it might arise on its own from the uncanny actions of a machine, working on our behalf….”<span style=""> </span><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">What I see Bok as trying to do here, essentially, is to argue in favour of “machinic” as opposed to “organic” processes of poetry, the transfer from human to automated labour (although the word “uncanny” raises the question of—uncanny to whom?); but what this provocative position rests invisibly on is merely a continuation of a particular tradition within philosophy and science that seeks to figure the human body as a machine (the wheezing pistons of the lungs, the throbbing engine of the heart, the programmatic software of the mind, and so on).<span style=""> </span>What if, instead, we began to investigate the organic, contingent, even willed, nature of machines, to conceive of machines as composed of and animated by humans, to find ways to humanize mechanical processes instead of the other way around?<span style=""> </span>This project thus attempts to take human agents seriously as part of mechanical processes and forms and treat their utterances with a sense of responsibility. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I never felt that tension of responsibility more than when I walked around with a clipboard, handing people the form and trying to convince them to spare two minutes of their time to complete it.<span style=""> </span>There’s a tremendous amount of anxiety that people connect with the act of writing—anxiety that they would no doubt negotiate more easily if they were writing smses with their thumbs on their mobiles.<span style=""> </span>I worried that people would give me “poetic” lines. I thought about it and decided against specifically telling them not to be poetic.<span style=""> </span>At the same time, what no one realizes, and what I didn’t realize myself at the time, is that, at the rate of a single line, the self can only express itself as a flicker, at best.<span style=""> </span>Things get equalized; it would be quite hard to tell whether the composer of a given line were an “amateur” or a “professional” poet even if, I suspect, in more obscure ways, the larger poem was helped along by the participation of experienced writers of poetry.<span style=""> </span>I’m embarrassed to think that at one point I worried if I could collect “enough good lines” for the poem I would arrange to work.<span style=""> </span>Although there were a few lovely lines—“I heard the best minds of my generation blame the silence so offered” being my favourite— the larger poem, and all poems, must obviously depend on relationships <i>between</i> lines, and not good lines, to carry weight.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">For these relationships to emerge and be clear, there has to be a larger form to carry the lines too, I believe.<span style=""> </span>The listing of all the lines by itself falls flat.<span style=""> </span>The formal constraint or challenge here would be to use as many of the lines as possible in a coherent poem, and coherence, I think, is a partly musical question.<span style=""> </span>This was the question I tried to answer tentatively, using many but not all the lines in I Heard It Is One of Many Possibilities.<span style=""> </span>In that poem, I removed one or two specific references (they are restored in the full listing of lines) and corrected any grammatical errors in the lines. (The form’s low threshold meant that anyone with even a little English could participate; although one trial at Sarai showed that this game could be much richer if it incorporated several languages, certain technical problems prevented us from making it a multilingual exercise this time; and I didn’t want this poem to be even unintentionally comic in making fun of anyone’s English.)<span style=""> </span>I used up almost all of the “I Heard”s and some of the “It Is”s – the latter in a second movement of the poem.<span style=""> </span>To answer a question from Falstaff in the comments section of my blog, then, I do think that arranging the lines makes a big difference, allows the lines to come out and speak in a certain way.<span style=""> </span>A random, computer generated ordering would be a useful tool for rapidly going through all the possible ways in which the lines could be arranged, but an audience –even if it is the audience of one writer— is necessary in order to make it a poem.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I would insist, by the way, that the formal trigger here is more important than any thematic unity the poem must have; I think if poets had been restricted by a particular theme rather than by a formal device, then the results would be less interesting.<span style=""> </span>I’m thinking, for instance, of the precedent for this exercise (that I only discovered yesterday) in the collective world trade center poems which, for me, don’t hold together because they put the pressure of a specific theme and a given relationship to that theme (one of mourning) but don’t build any formal relationships that might help to make unexpected and subversive connections.<span style=""> </span>I am grateful to my colleague at Sarai, Kamal Kumar Mishra, who is a literary translator and an historian of the Hindi public sphere, who points out a precedence for this exercise in the competitive traditions of the Tarahi Mushaira in Urdu and the Samasya Purti (lit., “problem solving”) in Braj bhasha where practicing poets (highly skilled poets, of course) would offer improvised, competing versions of how a line and its requisite formal requirements of rhyme or metre could be fulfilled.<span style=""> </span>What is interesting, I learn from Kamal (if I'm not distorting his point greatly), is how the emphasis on form and style by these groupings (especially the latter) was considered decadent and transgressive and eventually suppressed by the early 20th century nationalist / reformist critics in favour of an emphasis on themes…<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Finally, this project emerges out of thinking through the startling work and insistent provocation of writers such as Kent Johnson relating to authorship, and on a formal level, Ron Silliman’s “New Sentence” and related histories of form.<span style=""> </span>I’ve also been shifted quite a bit in the time I’ve worked at Sarai-CSDS; I’ve learned from the ongoing discussions around copyright, piracy, open source culture, and so on that have been happening at <a href="http://www.sarai.net/publications/occasional/contested-commons-trespassing-publics-a-public-record">Sarai</a> and with<span style=""> </span>the Alternative Law Forum in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Bangalore</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US">.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">For some time I’ve wanted to find formal structures and procedures that would address the question of ownership and authorship in poetry and find ways to admit writers of poetry into this discussion. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, “poets” have been, of all creative producers, among the most anxious about copyright and ownership.<span style=""> </span>Part of this is the (sometimes healthy, sometimes not) skepticism and aesthetic / ahistorical conservatism that often instinctively reigns in poetic circles.<span style=""> </span>Of course, part of this anxiety also has to do with wanting to be credited for the immense amount of hidden labour that poetry sometimes requires, and it may be that a single line requires so little labour that writers are more willing to give it up.<span style=""> </span>At any rate, poetry’s position at the margins of capitalism means that we probably would have the least to lose and the most to gain by cutting our lines loose; anyway, the history of poetry is a long history of derivation, quotation, remix and replay.<span style=""> </span>(As I write this, the bpNichol website has just gone live and makes me deliriously happy and, among other revelations, shows this great poet’s lifelong <a href="http://www.bpnichol.ca/media/images/plagiarized_text_1">engagement</a> with the question of ownership.) <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">And there was also another hidden but very obvious trigger here that I’d completely forgotten about, and was reminded of by Michael Creighton: Kenneth Koch’s brilliant poetry games for children, first articulated in <i>Wishes, Lies and Dreams</i>.<span style=""> </span>I’d played similar games with kids here and there, but it was not clear at all whether what works so well for children was also going to work for adults.<span style=""> </span>I believe now that it does work for adults, and I hope we can continue to evolve various kinds of formal structures that help us to do such mass collaborative performances--<br />better.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>Vivek.</span></p>equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-15607719563924979624070-02-07T03:20:00.000-08:002010-04-22T14:17:59.532-07:00An Interview with Amadou Lamine Sall[A slightly shorter version of this piece appeared in <a href="http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/01/20/stories/2008012050130500.htm">The Hindu's Sunday magazine supplement</a>; to those already familiar with the poetry of negritude, I apologise for the quick gloss--]<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Amadou Lamine Sall</span> (b. 1951) is the best known Senegalese poet after Leopold Senghor, who was both the legendary first president of Senegal, a key African leader, and one of a handful of central and inescapable“father figures” for African and African diasporic poetry. <br /><br />Senghor’s own poems—as well as his polemic essays on poetry—attempted to make a new visionary and liberatory poetics (dubbed negritude) by fusing together various influences: the surrealist figures in 20th century French poetry (themselves, in turn, influenced by the African art brought to Paris museums) as well as the earlier Parnassians and imagists, in-between figures like the wonderful Malagasy poet Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo and African folktales and traditions of oral performance. The poetry of negritude, perhaps most famously and impressively in Senghor’s Martiniquan close collaborator Aime Césaire’s brilliant and monumental long poem, Cahier d’un Retour au Pays Natal (“Notebook of the Return to my Native Land” – 1939), brought together the rawest of polemic chants with an intense and sometimes moody and obscure lyricism, a sharp-toothed and erudite modernism. <br /><br />Senghor’s legacy has clearly ensured that poetry continues to be a central, very highly respected, and deeply well-funded part of the lifeblood of the Senegalese nation. At the same time, successive generations of Senegalese (and other African) poets have had to struggle to emerge from out of Senghor’s shadow. Sometimes this has meant an outright and forceful rejection of Senghor’s poetics. At other times, as in Amadou Lamine Sall’s five volumes of poetry so far, this has meant a more subtle modulation outward, an extension of Senghor’s tone and rhythms into a late post-colonial African era where race has become a much less central anxiety and where all ideologies, to one extent or another, have begun to ring hollow. To some degree like both Senghor and Cesaire (not to mention another of his key influences—Neruda), Lamine Sall has been anointed part of a national political machinery, working at a senior level in the Ministry of Culture; yet, at the same time, his poems frequently seem to insist on a profound ambivalence about and mistrust of official politics. Or further— they try to find a more intimate, tentative politics for the self. Despite this, Lamine Sall’s voice as a poet is still a collective voice, grand and large in its address, very far from the small, autobiographical voice, confessional in the Anglo-American sense. It relies less on observed particulars than on intense lyric and parabolic gestures, recurring images and euphonies; this also means it does not translate so easily into no-nonsense English. Given that the poetry takes these particular risks and makes them compelling, it still seems to belong uniquely to Francophone Africa and further, it builds a bridge to the currently emerging more diverse scenario populated by a wide range of poets, novelists, rappers and song lyricists, facing up to the troubled Africa of today. Some excerpts from a recent extended conversation with Lamine Sall, in Chennai for the Prakriti Poetry Festival, co-sponsored by the Alliance Française and Landmark bookstores:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Can you tell us a little about your childhood and school years, your introduction to poetry?</span><br /><br />My mother was a poet; that is, she was a well-known oral poet, she never went to school. Among her duties during the day was to look after the cattle, so she composed songs about nature, about cattle, about her family, and so on. As a child, I looked after the cows as well, in a village in the north of Senegal; my early years were spent here with my mother. By this time, my father had already migrated to Kaolack, the second largest city in Senegal. He worked a number of different jobs and eventually became the chauffeur to the governor. At the age of five, I was sent to the Koranic school, which was a good education for a poet— you’re forced to memorise many verses quickly, and you are rapped hard on the knuckles if you don’t! Later, I was sent to school in the city for a French education, and I became a citizen; I read Chateaubriand, Alphonse Daudet, Victor Hugo, Rimbaud. This was crucial because I finally had in my hands a language with which I could express myself in writing. In the 1960s, at university in Dakar, I encountered the new African literature for the first time. <br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">What are your memories of Senegalese independence (in 1960)?</span><br /><br />Actually, I don’t really remember independence at all. In the particular case of Senegal, it eventually happened very smoothly, without much of a struggle, in ten minutes or so, partly because Senghor had already been a member of the French national assembly. My mother told me a story that when she was in labour with me (in 1951) that she had heard some loud sounds from the street outside. Risking censure by the nurse, she put a stool under a window and climbed up to look through it—to see a long procession in support of home rule, and Senghor’s election as president. It was then that my mother had a vision, that I too would become a famous man, like him. <br /><br />Thus, it seemed my fate was linked to Senghor’s at birth. But it was only later that I was to meet him, and Césaire, and all the other writers. That happened in the 1970s, after my first collection of poems was published. Senghor liked the collection very much. He called me to the presidential palace and more or less announced me as his successor—as a poet, that is. He was especially enthusiastic that I wrote poems, since many of our generation’s best writers preferred to write novels. But being so close by his side for many years also handicapped me. Senghor was such a strong and charismatic personality that for many years I stopped writing myself. Eventually, I had to be able to listen to him without obeying him, and find my own, separate voice. <br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">You mentioned that perhaps the largest readership for poetry in Senegal comes from people who work in the customs and in the military. Is this a legacy of Senghor having been the president of the republic?</span><br /><br />It’s possible—but I really can’t explain this strange phenomenon! Often I am stopped in Dakar by a member of the police or military who refuses to let me go until I part with a signed copy of my book. So many people in the armed forces read poetry that eventually some are tempted to publish collections of their own—and the first page of these collections inevitably contains a long series of dedications to various army personnel. <br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">How do you see the evolving relationship between poetry and politics in Africa?</span><br /><br />There is no such thing as “political poetry”, although politics might be one of the many subjects that poetry engages with. Contemporary African writing has become more intimate. Nevertheless, it is hard for African writers to ignore politics the way French writers might be able to do. For instance, the current generation of Rwandan writers all end up coming back to the genocide in some way; it’s hard for them not to do so.<br /> <br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Who are some of the Senegalese writers, poets and rappers that you would recommend?</span><br /><br />I would suggest the rap group, Daara-ji. Also the writers, Boubacar Boris Diop, Marouba Fall, Aminata Sow Fall, Sokhna Benga and Cheick Hamidou Kane, whose most famous novel is L’Aventure Ambiguë (“Ambiguous Adventure”).<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Have you ever wanted to write a novel yourself?</span><br /><br />Never. Most novels are very boring. I’m incapable of following all those characters and stories for thousands of pages. Poetry quickly distills a sensibility and a sense of the world.<br /><br /><br />Vivek Narayananequivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-44469059135515638894065-01-04T11:44:00.000-08:002010-04-22T14:17:59.533-07:00MG Vassanji's The Assassin's SongThis is a slightly longer version of a review that appeared in <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/">Time Out Mumbai / Delhi</a></span>.<br /><br />MG Vassanji, The Assassin’s Song<br />Viking Penguin 2007: 371 pp.<br /><br />This is a novel that investigates the idea of tradition as responsibility, asking the question, how might such a debt be fulfilled? Karsan Dargawalla, the narrator of The Assassin’s Song is the direct descendant of a mysterious 12th century pir but is doubtful of his powers. The sufi shrine his father presides over is destroyed and ransacked in 2002, his revered father murdered. At this time, where the book begins, Karsan has long renounced his right to be the Saheb of Pirbaag and is living an alternate life half way across the world, but he has to return.<br /><br />Vassanji is an author who deserves to be better known. If his first (lovely) novel, The Gunny Sack (“Africa’s answer to Midnight’s Children”) in 1990 was, in many ways imitative of Rushdie, he has developed, over the course of eight books of fiction, a very different style all his own. This late prose style is more mature, subtle, tender and dexterous in Assasin’s Song than ever before. Nevertheless, the new novel seems to lack the depth and complexity of insight, not to mention the dark and disturbing tones, that one found in his best book, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. Vikram Lall appeared to draw deeply if obliquely on Vassanji’s memory of his growing up years in Africa, and spoke with searing honesty and deep contradictions. <br /><br />By contrast, the pegging of The Assassin’s Song on the Gujarat riots is a device that, in its very topicality, threatens at every turn to be the novel’s downfall. The first half is full of cutout characters, representatives of every community—Karsan’s brother who later turns a bitter, narrow-minded Islamist, the Siddhi sports teacher converted to Christianity, the Jew—all playing out some pre-Godhra-like version of communal interdependence, even if violence does always shadow this delicate cultural ecology. The plot feels willfully stitched together; the interleaved sections of medieval mythic sufi history do not seem deeply felt and end up reading like “history lite”. Nevertheless, it is a testament to Vassanji’s skill, empathies and patient working through that he slowly turns this potentially epic disaster around, into a good book that one begins to care about. He does this by attention to intimate detail, and by returning to what, for him, is familiar territory: the insecure, mildly heartbreaking and sometimes epiphanic growing-up years of a sensitive, slightly confused young man. This is a story that, in some ways, Vassanji has been telling over and over again, but he can do it extremely well.<br /><br />Vivek Narayananequivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-44018013282411776824060-03-20T10:32:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:22:29.514-07:00Major Web Resource of the MonthThe pairing of Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton-- how much sense it makes, how obvious, how essential, how glad I am that it <a href="http://www.ubu.com/film/beckett.html">happened</a>, and happens again, here and free for all to see. (Not to mention a brooding and dizzy Boris Kaufman --Dziga Vertov's brother and the camera on <span style="font-style: italic;">L'Atalante</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">On the Waterfront</span>, as it turns out-- as Sam Beckett's points of view.)<br /><br />Also, this <a href="http://www.iol.ie/%7Egalfilm/filmwest/20beckett.htm">nice essay</a> on the film, and this <a href="http://www.ubu.com/papers/beckett_schneider.html">fascinating memoir</a> by the film's then young director, Alan Schneider. But please do yourselves a favour and watch the film first, if you haven't seen it-- spoiler alert!equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-45215998905821934404050-04-05T06:06:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:21:28.110-07:00I Heard It Is One of Many Possibilities<p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b><span style="font-style: italic;">See invitation <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4040/04/invitation-for-lines.html">here</a>. Taken from a myriad lines graciously contributed to the public domain by a number of contributors and available for use </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://phonebox.org/vnsl/khojlive">here</a><span style="font-style: italic;">. Lines were written by people who would describe themselves as poets and people who wouldn't. Age group: 8 - 78yrs of age.</span><br /><i style=""><span lang="EN-US"></span></i><b><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">I<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard cycles.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard a chirp.<br />I heard a foghorn.<br />I heard love letters.<br />I heard boom-boom!<br />I heard the fan whirl.<br />I heard the tube-light.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard a message beep.<br /><o:p></o:p><br />I heard there was a house.<br />I heard the crackling fire.<br />I heard he drunk it dry.<br />I heard it just the other day.<br />I heard what you didn’t hear.<br />I heard a mosquito buzzing in my ear.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the jackhammer late at night.<br />I heard the silence fall and shatter.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard new-sense (nonsense).<br />I heard mathematical tables.<br />I heard the songs of my past.<br />I heard it through the grapevine.<br />I heard that heaven is a beautiful place.<br />I heard it will be the great performance.<br />I heard I should come and watch, so I did.<br />I heard it all but it wasn’t true after all.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the bulbul fart on the neem tree.<br />I heard a woodpecker hammering at an oak.<br />I heard a flower pot crash on your head.<br />I heard somebody knocking at the door.<br />I heard an argument on the second floor.<br />I heard the pressure cooker on the first floor.<br />I heard entropy is winding down.<br />I heard percussion coming out of a speaker.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard that I can be successful if I work hard.<br />I heard that Delhi Belly knocks you out.<br />I heard it was ok to be gay if you don’t say.<br />I heard you should never cut your toenails in a public toilet.<br />I heard the world sticks to maiden answers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the unhindered turning of the world.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard a siren, then someone called my name.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard, three days: taptap TAP TAP TAP taptap.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the tape dispenser crashing to the<span style=""> </span>floor.<br />I heard that being on time didn’t matter in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US">.<br />I heard tigers growling in the empyrean drainpipe.<br />I heard the shriek of elipses colliding into a full stop.</span></p> I heard Eric Clapton streaming from Fillmore East, 1970.<o:p></o:p><span lang="EN-US"><br />I heard that life can be beautiful with a positive mind.</span><span lang="EN-US"><br />I heard that air travel isn't the main cause of global warming.</span><span lang="EN-US"><br />I heard paper being collated and then stapled; people laughing.</span><span lang="EN-US"><br />I heard her say she was bored and that it was a deep kind of thing.</span><span lang="EN-US"><br />I heard everyone is in their 30s or early 40s who were kids in the 80s.</span><span lang="EN-US"><br />I heard that it’s slightly difficult and yet quite fulfilling at the same time.</span><span lang="EN-US"><br />I heard of us in the forgotten village, the one past the last railway stop.</span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the best minds of my generation blame the silence so offered.</span><span style=""><o:p><span style="font-family:monospace;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><o:p><span style="font-family:monospace;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><o:p><span style="font-family:monospace;"></span></o:p></span><b><span style="">II<o:p></o:p></span></b><span style=""><o:p><span style="font-family:monospace;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><o:p><span style="font-family:monospace;"></span></o:p></span><i><span lang="EN-US">It is a house that grew around a tree.<o:p></o:p><br />It is near the faux-green </span></i><st1:place><i><span lang="EN-US">Chicago River</span></i></st1:place><i><span lang="EN-US">.<o:p></o:p><br />It is the same place over and over again.<o:p></o:p><br />It is early morning, and the light is turning.<o:p></o:p><br />It is as if I might catch some fish for you.<o:p></o:p><br />It is as if you might reel me in when I needed some safety.<o:p></o:p></span></i><span style=""><o:p><span style="font-family:monospace;"><br /></span></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""><o:p><span style="font-family:monospace;"></span></o:p></span><span lang="EN-US">I heard a squirrel nibbling on my window this morning.<br />I heard contented cooing, and walked in to find pigeons in the room.<br />I heard what the Zen master said to the hot dog salesman: make me one with everything.<br />I heard the reel swishing in the wind and the crunch of my crispy French fries.<br />I heard my soul sing in the breeze just like the rustling of leaves casting shadows as I write.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is important to love nature whether inside or outside.<o:p></o:p><br />It is turquoise, glass, and film strips flapping in the wind. <o:p></o:p><br />It is a flowing wall of images blowing in the breeze.<o:p></o:p><br />It is the kind of garden you never want to leave.<o:p></o:p><br />It is our job to break laws if they’re blocking the doors.<o:p></o:p><br />It is a particular reality rescued to fit their anecdotes.<o:p></o:p><br />It is nevertheless never too bright to say hello to the sun. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the train - the invisible train - that people think is a train only because they can hear it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is tenuous.<o:p></o:p><br />It is eclectic. <o:p></o:p></span></i><i><span lang="EN-US"><br />It is what it is.<o:p></o:p><br />It is what they say it is.<o:p></o:p><br />It is addictive.<br />It needs staples.<o:p></o:p><br />It is quite a feat.<o:p></o:p><br />It is crowded. <o:p></o:p><br />It is crowded. <o:p></o:p><br />It is totally theatrical activity.<o:p></o:p><br />It is dry, warm, lit simply beautiful. <o:p></o:p><br />It is an attractive distraction to hear your ring tone.<o:p></o:p><br />It is my favourite time of day when the sleep starts from my legs.<o:p></o:p><br />It is crowded, sweaty and a bit dark.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />It is a small room full of bewildered chatty people driven by beer and boredom.<o:p></o:p><br />It is a madhouse of form-filling, need and endurance. <o:p></o:p><br />It is a room too small for two.<o:p></o:p><br />It is good that we are not friends.<o:p></o:p><br />It is to be done today.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard about the Good Friday and Easter Sunday services at the Khasi Jaintia Christian Fellowship.<br />I heard him through the night and it was exquisite and painful and I wept for two out of five hours.<br />I heard the nubile girls of the then metropolis muffle their pain of tattoos with warm starch water.<br />I heard the man on his cellphone say, don't worry, soon they'll figure out you're gay, and then you'll be out of the army.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is so fun to play with the baby.<o:p></o:p><br />It is an educated animal.<o:p></o:p><br />It is never just peaceful.<o:p></o:p><br />It is plastic, yellow, circular.<o:p></o:p><br />It is a gaudy yellow toy submarine.<o:p></o:p><br />It is better that we will never be.<o:p></o:p><br />It is not what it was just two weeks ago. <o:p></o:p><br />It is trying to be something that actually does not need to be tackled in the first place.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p><br />It is the quintessence of the abstractability in the fungibility of the creative nature of art. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the cling clang clack of pots being washed in the alley below and I strained to hear dust falling on curtains.</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is an announcement of a concert, the blank side of which I have used to take notes. <o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the seed pods rattle against each other, or maybe I was just remembering walking in past times in quiet places.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is a cigarette butt between an acoustic piano with several broken notes and an electric keyboard with little action and too much tint.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard the trucks grinding down the hill out front slowing before the road crew filling potholes their orange cones, green vests, surest sign of spring.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is a sound that pulls out the underskin from under the skin till it is over, overt, overdetermined.<o:p></o:p><br />It is the sound of a child reading aloud, voice splintering and cracking, a child growing by himself in light and forlorn love.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard my Dean yelling at his wife, berating her over the phone, something about their child, this really just happened, I am serious.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is the only brown dry tree between the hospital and the taxi rank but I watch it the most.<o:p></o:p><br />It is grey outside my window but if I turn I know the light behind me will be dusty yellow.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard whatshisname is in </span><st1:city><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">London</span></st1:place></st1:city><span lang="EN-US">, I wonder for what, the tabloids don't tell you such things, it looks like he's showing off his new wife Carla Bruni.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard about the Lacanian lack today, that forever-propelling nothingness which consumes us and without which we are simply voids.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is a room lit dimly in the mid-afternoon by light filtering through the overcast sky: only the red table cloth seems to shimmer, sending rays up to the ceiling, coloring it pink with its glow.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard a loud instrumental (a new Nine Inch Nails piece called "Ghost 32") through the warehouse PA System; it's not the kind of music I usually play, but, singing along with it, I got to feel a part of it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is the hot sun that burns my shoulders now.<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard my name on the phone spoken by someone I wasn’t calling, sounding as surprised as me, and then, on this rain-soaked cloudy day when nothing seems to connect, the line went dead and I checked the number-- no way had I got it wrong, and no way could the woman I heard have picked up the line and spoken my name.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-US">It is a blinking bright face that hums and ticks that I'm staring into.<o:p></o:p><br />It is eerily early as sirens compete with stories from around the world.<b> <o:p></o:p></b><br />It is the smell of nothing arriving, nothing moving; the smell of suffocation.<o:p></o:p><br />It is time the ice around my mailbox melted; write me a proper letter, why don't you?<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard many things, and believed few, heard wonderful sounds, and understood little, I heard you were right nearby, or that you were tragically distant, I heard everything slowly, in a prolonged torpor of dreaming.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p>equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-70670608029014151684047-04-07T07:54:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:21:28.110-07:00I Heard the Google Gong<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-style: italic;">[Based on a google search for the string, "I heard * .", some of it in the .in domain. Compare with <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4050/04/i-heard-it-is-one-of-many-possibilities.html">this poem</a>, doing the same with lines specifically composed for the purpose. And <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/2008/04/some-further-thoughts-on-i-heard-it-is.html">an essay</a> that, among other things, compares the two poems.]</span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Shalini say, "Row one, hang up your coats."</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard the voices of legendary poets as a teenager.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard footsteps approaching, and closed the shutter hastily.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard racism.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard bang, bang, bang.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard voices, loud voices, men's voices, laughter.<span style=""> </span>Forgive me for saying that I hope and believe it was English laughter.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard fruits like grapes and oranges are fattening.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard rumors that she was a lesbian (personally, I don't think she is, what do you think)?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard that helium comes from the middle of the earth and it’s running out.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard Condoleezza say: "There are contacts between al-Qaeda and Hussein that can be documented."<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard Yoweri Museveni. describe foreign aid as ‘a life-support system for brain-dead regimes’.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard Zainab crying: "Papa, Papa, I am cold, I am cold," before she went silent.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard Mr. Jenkins say. "Get that lift running. Those poor miners are trapped down there." <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p><span style=""></span>I heard a growly motor sound, and then some squeaky groaning noises. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard cicadas buzzing as if for the first time.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard bears are afraid of lights and music.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard screams, hoarse screams as if from utter terror.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard Bugha. -. say to them, “Villains! You are all dead men without escape; at least. die with honor.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard carnatic music on the double bass.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard growly blues, reminiscent.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>I heard, in between laboured breaths.<o:p><br /><br /></o:p>I heard ingenious arrangements, gorgeous background parts, and seamless audio engineering.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Kahu's high treble voice shouting something to the sea, she was singing to the whale.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard moissanite could look just like a diamond.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Asha's classic mod 60's number "Dum Maro Dum".<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I Heard a Petey, Petey, Petey Bird Today. I never paid much attention to the voices of birds, but now I do.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Shure SM 58 is a very good microphone and I suggested it to some people.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Swami's enchanting voice. He was saying, "Take this Vibhuti Prasadam for three days, and everything will be alright.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard that cash accounting cannot be certified by a Chartered Accountant.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) saying, "We (Muslims) are the last (to come) but (will be) the foremost on the Day of Resurrection though the former nations were given the Holy Scriptures before us.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard airtel 's speeds fluctuate ......esp if u dont use download managers.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Daddy's footsteps coming up the stairs, and my heart began to beat faster.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Narendra Modi boasting that his policemen killed a man in cold blood because they suspected he was a terrorist. <o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I thought I had heard wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and I wasn't convinced with what all he said on the subject.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard from my telugu friends that he is an excellent teacher and a good-natured person.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Azim Premji describe in a talk, the challenge of building a. world-class enterprise in </span><st1:country-region><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">India</span></st1:place></st1:country-region><span lang="EN-US"> and the lessons that could be learnt.<o:p><br /></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard in IIT Bombay many of the suicides are guys from privileged sections who got in entirely through merit.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard they tend to need some work to feed reliably.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard TVS RTR 300cc is coming up, can I get photo of it?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Sue's instruction through my aroused senses.<o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard </span><st1:place><span lang="EN-US">Shannon</span></st1:place><span lang="EN-US">'s voice call out into the haze as I passed out from the blow that rained down on my head.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I heard Dawn moving around in the living room, so I dressed and kissed the fullness of its emerging light.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard this poem and I changed my mind as it says little time remains and this will also pass.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard it (my defeat).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard her footsteps coming near.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I heard her gasp in disbelief.<o:p></o:p></span></p>equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-71510749424139167692061-10-08T00:40:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:25:50.010-07:00I, Too, Dislike Anthologies<a href="http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844712946.htm">Don Share</a> is the author of a very intense and cutting new book of poems, angry and cerebral, perverse, blunt and far reaching, completely different from most of the current American poetry that's out there. He completely nails the problem with reading poetry anthologies, and why, I have to admit, I haven't read one for a while (and yes there is a sometimes a place there for the genuine in them, but...):<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"I was conveying that I don't have much admiration for anthologies, either. It's one thing to discover a Sitwell (or a Graves or a Riding (Jackson) in just the way this thread describes, another to be beset with set pieces! The discussion here actually illustrates the value of real reading and exploration as against the artificial elevation of a poem or poet here or there."</span><br /><br />The mention of Robert Graves and Laura Riding here is a reference to the subversive power duo's 1928 <span style="font-style:italic;">Pamphlet Against Anthologies</span>. DS elaborates a little further on his <a href="http://donshare.blogspot.com/2007/09/back-in-1940-delmore-schwartz-wrote.html">blog</a>.<br /><br />That's exactly it, Don. And would you believe the work of most Indian English poets is available to the general public, including in India, only as a small set of set pieces in anthologies? What kind of writing would such reading encourage?<br /><br />I'm thinking, for instance, of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_De_Souza">Eunice De Souza</a>'s first collection, <span style="font-style:italic;">Fix</span>, which I only recently came across in someone's house and read, which I think is an innovative, pretty much flawless and ultimately very dark, ambitious and serious book that, for years, I knew and remembered only by its "funnier" set pieces in anthologies. They were nice, typically sharp and inventive in their language, but didn't necessarily show the larger scope of her work. So often anthologies privilege funnier and more accessible aspects of a poet, presumably to pull a wider public in, but often leaving the anthology as a kind of replacement for the writing itself.<br /><br />The quote from Don Share above comes itself from a discussion thread at <a href="http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/">Harriet</a>, the Poetry Foundation blog, notable and exciting for its clash of different (and unpredictable) points of view. Requoted in a <a href="http://poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2007/10/missing_persons.html">piece</a> by Ange Mlinko about the poet as detective.equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-84397201420098417602060-10-07T23:22:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:15:24.941-07:00Almost Island: Issue 1Dear friends,<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Please find the first issue of ALMOST ISLAND now online at: </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.almostisland.com/" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> http://www.almostisland.com/</a> </div><br /><br />Almost Island is a new literary magazine, edited by <a href="http://almostisland.com/board.php?page=1" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> Sharmistha Mohanty</a>, with <a href="http://almostisland.com/board.php?page=1" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Vivek Narayanan</a> as consulting editor. Based in India, we are resolutely international in scope and conception. We are dedicated to distinctive, essential, innovative, exploratory writing, with special emphasis on the internal and the philosophical. Each new issue will endeavour to publish a substantial selection of work as an introduction to a small number of writers. There will also be shorter updates to the issue each month. All texts are available both on screen and as pdf downloads.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;">IN THE FIRST ISSUE:<br /><br /></span> </div> The inaugural issue of Almost Island is all PROSE, but this includes poems in prose, and a wide variety of styles, forms and approaches. Find here a range of alternatives to what your average mass-marketed prose machines are serving up:<br /><br />[Contributors listed in alphabetical order]<br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/madeleine_is_sleeping_1.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> <span style="font-style: italic;"> </span></a><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/sarah_shunlien_bynum.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum</a>, from <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/madeleine_is_sleeping_1.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> <span style="font-style: italic;">Madeleine Is Sleeping</span> </a>:<br />Excerpts from one of the most unusual novels to be shortlisted for the National Book Award: a darkly sexual and even perverse fable written in rich, distinctive and ringing language.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/cybermohalla_collective.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Cybermohalla</a>, <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/what_is_it_that_flows_between.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> <span style="font-style: italic;">What Is It that Flows Between Us </span></a>:<br />Three texts by members of Ankur / Sarai-CSDS's Cybermohalla labs. True views of Delhi from the inside, intense, navigating steadily and intently away from categories and easy narratives of heroism and victimhood, and from the cliched seductions of traditional narratives altogether--explorations without "the weight of presentation within".<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/mikhail_epstein.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Mikhail Epstein </a>, from <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://almostisland.com/prose/amost_island_acknowledgements.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> Cries in the New Wilderness </a><br />Excerpts from the "cult classic" by one of Russia's quirkiest and most original contemporary philosophers: an ethnographic catalogue of shadowy religious cults that may or may not have existed, hidden in the folds of the former Soviet Union--purportedly taken from the files of Moscow's erstwhile "Institute of Atheism".<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/david_herd.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">David Herd</a>, from <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/tuesday.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> <span style="font-style: italic;">Mandelson! Mandelson!</span></a> and <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/from_the_hut.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"><span style="font-style: italic;"> The Hut </span> </a><br>Is it actually possible to keep it real in the age of manipulative images, compulsive consumption and panacea-peddlers? What is the price we pay for our cynicism? In the most contemporary language, with a light touch but one completely free of easy sentimentalism, these poems and fictions ask the ancientest of questions, and make a strong case, despite despair, for the return of <span style="font-style: italic;">enthusiasm</span>. David Herd's writings somehow make you feel happier: a rare effect in literature.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/kent_johnson.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> Kent Johnson</a>, <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/i_once_met.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">I Once Met</a> and <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/33_rules_of_poetry_for_poets_2.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> 33 Rules for Poets Under 23 </a><br />Two works from one of the most subversive and, in fact, <span>serious</span> writers: a warm, various and often naughty encyclopaedic embrace of poets famous and obscure; and unflinching advice for young poets, after the Chilean poet Nicanor Parra.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/james_alan_mcpherson.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">James Alan McPherson</a>, <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/going_upto_atlanta.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> Going Up to Atlanta</a><br />A relentlessly honest and searching improvisatory memoir, that explores uncertain recollections of racial discrimination and the rise and fall and rise of a family, that seeks to answer the question, "Can the offspring ennoble the ancestor?" From one of America's most important writers of short stories and literary non-fiction, and a past winner of the Putlitzer Prize.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/tosa_motokiyu.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Tosa Motokiyu</a>, <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/a_true_account_of_talking_to_t.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> The Strange Account of 'A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island'</a><br />A fascinating and ambiguous "critical fiction", curiously fusing together elements of literary criticism, memoir and detective parody, proposing, with disturbing, factual and convincing circumstantial evidence, that Frank O'Hara was not quite the author you thought he was. It does make you wonder.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/srikanth_reddy.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Srikanth Reddy</a>, <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/from_voyager.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> Voyager</a><br />In this long excerpt from his current project, a book length poem composed of sentences, Srikanth Reddy continues to consider our world and its total history as if through some kind of new, intensified lens, both passionate and estranged, both lyrical and aphoristic by turns, working from first principles, asking, it would seem to us, <span style="font-style: italic;">what is world, what is looking, what is representation, what is time, what is sequence?</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/rodrigo_rey_rosa.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> Rodrigo Rey Rosa</a>, <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/the_proof.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">The Proof</a> and <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/the_truth.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> The Truth</a><br />Simple, violent, ruthless, and deeply disturbing philosophical tales, inevitable and irrefutable, by one of Guatemala's most respected writers. Translated by Paul Bowles.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/george_szirtes.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> George Szirtes</a>, <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/prose_poems.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">6 Prose Poems</a><br />New work from the major Hungarian-British poet and translator, winner of the TS Eliot prize for his luminous <span style="font-style: italic;">Reel</span>-- varied, typically understated, and patient but insistently, methodically, weird. Suddenly things are not so solid, or so clear. Suddenly you no longer know where you are.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://almostisland.com/eliot_weinberger.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">Eliot Weinberger</a>, <a href="http://almostisland.com/prose/the_rhinoceros.php" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)"> The Rhinoceros</a><br />A rare and carefully modulated elegy for the rhinoceros, collaging images, hearsay, myth and history, starting with the arrival of the first rhinoceros in Europe 1300 years after the fall of Rome. Weinberger is, among many other things, well known as the translator of Octavio Paz and Borges; his innovative essays read like hidden, empirical poems. The Rhinoceros is from his new book of "serial essays", <span style="font-style: italic;">An Elemental Thing</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span>For questions, suggestions, comments and errata, and<br />to join this, our occasional <span title="Click to correct" class="to_transl_class" id="0">newsletter<br /></span>(which will appear sporadically, never more than once a month),<br />please write to: <span style="font-weight: bold;"> editor [at-sign] almostisland [dot] com<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><br />Happy Reading!<br />The Almost Island Teamequivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-47617552586895597532007-03-17T02:53:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:21:28.111-07:00Five Easy Steps to Becoming a Better Performer of Poetry<p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText">Some of you have been asking for the "didactic text" that I did to launch the Kitab and then Sarai open mikes, so here it is (scroll to the bottom of this post). It's a prose piece for performance with a bell.<br /></p> <p class="MsoPlainText">It's interesting to think about what kinds of bells could be used. <a href="http://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/grant_recipients/annewaldman.html">Anne Waldman's</a> book, Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble, has poems with gong sounds in them that are marked in the text by gong symbols of different sizes, indicating volume. At Kitab I used a bicycle bell that I'd bought at Chor Bazaar for Rs. 20; because it's an instrument I've often used while riding my bicycle, somehow I felt there would be a lot of room for variety of expression with it. At Sarai, because I'd lost the bell at Kitab, I used a spoon against an ugly glass ashtray with cigarette butts in it. Actually, this was fine, since the bicycle bell was a very strong sound which worked well in the open air of the Prithvi Cafe, and the glass ashtray produced a smaller sound for the Sarai basement. What seems important to me for this particular piece is that it NOT be a temple bell, or gong, or anything reminiscent of ritual or organised religion, since that should be a secret / unpretentious purpose here. I've tightened the text slightly based on how it went in performance and I've added three last bell sounds at the end. How to mark the ending of the piece was a bit of a problem, and I think this solves that problem-- will try it if I ever perform the piece again.<br /><br />About the Lorca essay that I mention in the piece-- it's really a very strange and intense essay and-- I can say this with confidence since I've given it to others to read-- it has an extraordinary effect on the reader who gives it close attention. The clearest translation I have is by J.L. Gili, in this somewhat obscure penguin selected with prose translations of the poems. There's an <a href="http://www.musicpsyche.org/Lorca-Duende.htm">online version</a> which is interesting since (I'm guessing) it preserves the weirdness of language in the original, but many find it less accessible.<br /><br />And <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15552">here</a> is the late Auden poem, On the Circuit (with Auden reading) that I also mention.<br /><br />Incidentally this poem is also in the ballad metre (loosely, 4 beats, 3 beats, 4 beats, 3 beats) that Koch and Ginsberg improvised their Popeye and Blake poem in, that I played at the Sarai open mike. (You can find the amazing <a href="http://jacketmagazine.com/15/koch-popeye.html">recording</a> at Jacket Magazine. I've also made a transcript of the session after some repeated listening; if you're having trouble following everything I'll email it to you.)<br /></p> <p class="MsoPlainText">I always chuckle about the last couple of stanzas of Auden's On the Circuit:<br /><br />Another morning comes: I see,<br />Dwindling below me on the plane,<br />The roofs of one more audience<br />I shall not see again.<br /><br />God bless the lot of them, although<br />I don't remember which was which:<br />God bless the U.S.A., so large,<br />So friendly, and so rich.<br /></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><br />Don't get jaded!<br /><br /></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-style: italic;">Vivek Narayanan’s</span><br /><o:p></o:p><span style="font-weight: bold;">FIVE EASY STEPS TO BECOMING A BETTER PERFORMER OF POETRY</span><o:p></o:p><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-style: italic;">Caveat</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">First lesson: do away with the term “performance poetry”.<span style=""> </span>Poetry can travel back and forth between the page and oral performance; that’s one of the things that almost all poems do, that is the transaction that poems are very often born out of. When you read a poem on the page, it carries the ghost of a sound, a voice, a music; and in that longing lies its mystery.<span style=""> </span>It is a longing that is opened up, but never quite fulfilled by performance.<span style=""> </span><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">To separate two kinds of poetry, as is sometimes still done in the UK and the US, is to separate activities that thrive on, and live in, interaction.<span style=""> </span>This is a need felt now more and more in the “performance poetry” scene of those two countries also—for there is a debate, that one hears from the more searching and serious poets in those scenes, about whether the “performance poetry” scene discourages complexity and depth, whether it has become too commercial, with recording contracts involved, whether what we should all be turning towards now is something more, something beyond.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">Truth is, there’s a trade off. What you get from performance is a very palpable sense of an audience, a community, a situation that pushes you to write, keep writing, get better.<span style=""> </span>Auden famously said that poetry makes nothing happen—and this is true in a larger geo-political sense, but in a small way, in this way (pause) <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">in this way (pause) <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">poetry can make something happen.<span style=""> </span>But although performance is immersion and direct dialogue, it is usually on the performer’s terms, not the audience’s.<span style=""> </span>When a poem has to be read on the page, by contrast, the reader has a lot more work to do, but at the same time, the reader is completely in control, and this too is an immeasurable, different, gift.<span style=""> </span>Why forsake it?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">So with that caveat, here, just as you have five easy steps to becoming a better manager, here are my five easy steps to becoming a better performer of poetry.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">Step One (bell)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">READ what I think is the most important text for poetry in performance, which is the famous essay by Federico Garcia Lorca sometimes translated as “Theory and Play of the Duende”.<span style=""> </span>You’ll find that the possibilities of poetry in performance can go deep.<span style=""> </span>The duende, a concept taken from gipsy singing, is a life force and a death force, a gravitational pull.<span style=""> </span>“All the arts are capable of having duende, but naturally the field is widest in music, in dance, and in spoken poetry, because they require a living body as interpreter.”<span style=""> </span>Moreover both the composition (which could be a poem) and the performance are both capable of having duende; and although he says that it is possible for a composition that doesn’t have duende (say, an ordinary pop song) to be given duende by the performer, it is very clear that the real answer lies where both the composition and the performance possess duende.<span style=""> </span>Lorca <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">was a performance poet, in the sense that he was intense in performance of his work, and the story goes that editors had to chase him around and convince him publish his work.<span style=""> </span>He felt that people would not be able to hear his poems on the page, that they would become vulnerable to—in his words—“idiots, dilettantes, and the complacent, pat-on-the-back smile”; which is to say that a different kind of complacency can set in when poems are circulating only in print.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">Step Two (bell)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">The most obvious choice for those starting out tends to be the route of the proscenium stage, of theatre, or more precisely, of drama.<span style=""> </span>And while I admire and respect a great actor who understands poetry well enough to perform it, poetry has its own different traditions of performance and recitation that have evolved, and continue to evolve, for centuries, which depends on the solo voice, on the strength of one’s conviction, one’s willingness to stand behind one’s words and give it straight.<span style=""> </span>I am not saying that there can be no overlap or dialogue between poetry performance and drama, but to recognise and PERCEIVE this distinction is the second step (the first step, really).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">Step Three (bell)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">BE yourself, and not an unintentional caricature of yourself.<span style=""> </span>Be natural, if that’s who you are, but beware of naturalism.<span style=""> </span>Restraint and understatement is all very well, but restraint and understatement can itself be a trap, a pose, a mask to hide a lack of courage or conviction.<span style=""> </span>Forget about pretending naturalism, but follow only the intensities that are already in you as far as they will go.<span style=""> </span>Auden, of course, was very against any kind of high energy, intensified performance, but this was also because he was concerned to work against the power of performance to move and control an audience, about poetry working in service of propagandists and orator-politicians in his time.<span style=""> </span>Hitler <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">was a great performance poet.<span style=""> </span>George Bush is a gawkier and more understated performance poet, but I suspect he knows what he is doing.<span style=""> </span>I think Auden’s dogma about how to do a poem is at least partly a reflection of his well-mannered English public schoolboy upbringing—but I think it is important to keep the question of control alive.<span style=""> </span>And don’t forget that at the height of his powers Auden was On The Circuit, booked by his agents called (if the poem is to be believed) Columbia-Giesen management.<span style=""> </span>He recited poetry from memory to audiences of two thousand or more, and people remember his readings vividly; which suggests that Auden <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">was a public poet, he had duende.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">Step Four (bell)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">STAND with your feet slightly apart, ground yourself.<span style=""> </span>If you stand, it is easier to draw the poem, and your breath, from your whole body and not merely from your mouth.<span style=""> </span>Later you will perform from a wheelchair, or from somewhere in the air.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">Step Five (bell)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">TALK to the audience, not at them.<span style=""> </span>Before you start look at them, and without a word tell them, with your body and your eyes: thank you <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">and fuck you.<span style=""> </span>Read the poem for yourself as well as for them, conscious of every word.<span style=""> </span>Weigh the words as you read, perform to discover your words as if anew, find new false notes not visible otherwise.<span style=""> </span>Use performance to defend and stand behind your words, and to defend yourself against your own private self-enchantment. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-US">(end with three bells one after the other, played clearly but much softer than above, with a one second pause between each bell; the last bell should be played to linger and echo slightly.) <span style=""> </span></span></p>equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-1146224903212430562006-04-28T04:43:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:25:50.011-07:00This is not a postWell, I've been exhorted, and I've been exhorted, but I still can't quite get my head around the idea of being comfortable in a blog. I'm no neo-luddite, I promise you, but somehow the blog format seems at the moment too restrictive, too wedded to linear time, to the constitution of the self in that 19th centurish form-- the daily diary-- that we take so for granted. I'm trying to relate to it, see what I can do with it. But until then, this, a convenience which allows to me to post an interloper's comment on the blogs of others (see, how my language immediately begins to take on the pomp and circumstantial airs of self-broadcast!)equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-89463283228349916382002-04-05T05:37:00.000-08:002010-04-22T14:21:28.111-07:00An Invitation for Lines<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span>[This was the invitation for lines for the performance, "What Have You Heard?" conducted by Sophea Lerner and myself. I collected these lines by walking around with a clipboard during the Khoj performance festival and convincing people to sit down and compose a couple of sentences for me; in addition, I solicited lines over email.<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span><br />For an essay, post-facto, on the lines and the poem that resulted from this exercise, go <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/2008/04/some-further-thoughts-on-i-heard-it-is.html">here</a>.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">To see the poem that was performed by selecting and arranging these lines, "I Heard It Is One of Many Possibilities", go <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4050/04/i-heard-it-is-one-of-many-possibilities.html">here</a>.</p><p class="MsoNormal">For a description of the larger event that this was part of, see <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4070/04/dear-contributors-friends.html">here</a>.<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span>To see all the lines that were collected, see <a href="http://phonebox.org/vnsl/khojlive/">here</a>.<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span>We are still soliciting sentences for this project. If you have some for us (and for the public domain), please send them to ihearditis [at] gmail [dot] calm .]<br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span> --V.]</span><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">Khoj Live Open Space - Contribute Sentences for Use in a Poem on Friday 28 March 2008</span></b><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">Vivek Narayanan and Sophea Lerner would like to ask you to contribute sentences to the public domain for use in a poem to be performed on 28th March at 12.30pm as part of the Khoj Live Open Space at Alliance Francaise...<span style=""> </span></span></i><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">This task is likely to take approximately 2 (two) minutes <b style="">or less </b>of your time.<span style=""> </span>Please, please help us by filling this out.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">1.<span style=""> </span><i style="">Complete the following sentence:</i> <o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span style=""> </span></span></b><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">I heard…<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">2.<span style=""> </span>DESCRIBE your immediate environment<span style=""> </span>/ or some object or event in your immediate environment <i style="">by completing the following sentence:</i> <o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span style=""> </span>It is…<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span style=""> </span></span></b><span style="" lang="EN-US">date and time of writing:<b style=""><o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">3. We would also to invite you to OPTIONALLY contribute LIVE TEXT via SMS.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">DURING THE TIME OF THE PERFORMANCE from WHEREEVER YOU ARE<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span style=""> </span><i style="">Complete the following sentence as a text message:<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span style=""> </span></span></i><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">We are... </span></b><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">SMS: </span></b><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">[We gave the number of a dedicated mobile line here]<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">between 12.30pm & 1.15pm IST<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">(or up to 3.5 hrs before if you are in an awkward time zone)</span><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">please, put the number in your phone and set a reminder right now! - <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Thank YOU!! </span><i style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">Please hand the top part of this page back to Khoj Crew now for inclusion in the poem.</span></i><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">ALL CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE PUBLISHED ONLINE AT:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">http://phonebox.org/vnsl/khojlive/</span></b><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">“What Have You Heard?” by Sophea Lerner and Vivek Narayanan.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">Vivek Narayanan and Sophea Lerner</span></b><span style="" lang="EN-US"> will present a suite of site-specific, pre-composed and improvised poems, sound objects and audience interactions.<span style=""> </span>They would like to explore and unveil disconnections and echoes around time, place, language and voice, using their <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/2007/03/vivek-narayanan-some-poetry-faq-yous.html">toolkit</a> of<span style=""> </span>poetry, performance and sound art practices.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">Sophea Lerner</span></b><span style="" lang="EN-US"> is an Australian sonic media artist and broadcaster based in India. Her work brings together experience in group devised physical performance with many years of experimental radio and new media art into a collaborative art practice which explores mediated temporal experience and translocal participation. Her radiomaking encompasses intricately composed radiophonic projects as well as engineering and production and collectively devised, rapidly executed semi-improvised live broadcasts. Community and creative networks are integral to collaborative aspects of her practice.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">She has taught at universities in australia finland & u.k and has participated in media arts residencies and festivals on four continents, occasionally up to three at a time. Sophea is currently affiliated with Sarai-CSDS in New Delhi, where she is engaged in practice based research towards a Doctor of Creative Arts at University of Technology, Sydney.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">http://phonebox.org/sophea</span></i><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style=""><span style="" lang="EN-US">Vivek Narayanan’s</span></b><span style="" lang="EN-US"> first book of poems was Universal Beach (Harbour Line, 2006). He has been publishing his poetry since 1994, and has been performing it in various locations since 1995. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">In Narayanan's performance, the idea is first that ritual chant, old talk, performance art, song, rap, and slam can all aim to flow into and out of the classical tradition of English literary performance on record: he is equally interested in reviving late 19th century / early 20th century styles of poetry recitation and bringing them in contact with 21st century possibilities.<span style=""> </span>Over the years he has moved from thinking about performance as a way to make poems more entertaining and accessible, to thinking about the radical contextual possibilities of performance, and collaboration.<span style=""> </span>He is interested specifically in the active performance of “difficult” poems. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">His poems, stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in india and internationally. He is currently based in Delhi, where he works at Sarai-CSDS.<span style=""> </span>He is also Consulting Editor for the international online literary journal, Almost Island, edited by Sharmistha Mohanty.<i style=""> http://almostisland.com, http://sarai.net<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Publically<b style=""> </b>contributed sentences will be performed on FRIDAY MARCH 28th 2008 by Vivek, Sophea and audience as part of the Khoj Performance Art Festival “Open House” event at Alliance Francaise, Delhi<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span lang="EN-US">http://khojworkshop.org/book/open_space_the_hub_alliance_francaise</span></i><span lang="EN-US">.</span><span style="" lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">All lines are considered generous contributions of the writers to the public domain, for use by all and will be published collectively at <i style="">http://phonebox.org/vnsl/khojlive<o:p></o:p></i></span></p>equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-62083433770336842122001-04-05T06:38:00.000-07:002010-04-22T14:21:28.111-07:00Dear Contributors, Friends...<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p>[A follow up posting with some more detailed thoughts on the experiment is here. The invitation that started this scheme off is <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4040/04/invitation-for-lines.html">here</a>. The poem that was performed is <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4050/04/i-heard-it-is-one-of-many-possibilities.html">here</a>.]<br /></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">I’m sorry it’s taken so long to put this all together—we pushed ourselves a little towards the end in getting the performance (which happened last Friday, March 28) together, and since then, apart from taking a little while to recover from the exhaustion, we’ve also been doing some unrelated things, trying to think through what happened a little, and have been gathering together and ordering all the stray lines that may have been missed (I believe we have them all).<span style=""> </span>At any rate, we’re deeply, truly grateful to all of you for taking the time to contribute these lines.<span style=""> </span>First:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>1.<span style=""> </span>At Sophea Lerner's website, <a href="http://phonebox.org/vnsl/khojlive/">phonebox</a>, you’ll find a grouping of all the lines thus far donated to the public domain as part of this project.<span style=""> </span>The “I heard…” lines are grouped from the shortest to the longest line, since for me this was the first step to grouping them formally and coming up with the poem for performance (see below).<span style=""> </span>The “It is…” lines are, as best as I can tell, grouped according to the absolute sequence in time of their writing, corrected for time zones, in case anyone wants to look into that or do something with it.<span style=""> </span>IST = Indian Standard Time.<span style=""> </span><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Please do a quick search for the lines you have contributed, and if you find them missing from these lists, do let me know.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">All these lines are unsigned, and are essentially under a license that should protect them <i>and all their derivatives</i> from copyright, for all time. (Although I think you can attribute your name as “organiser” or something, on a derivative, if you like.) </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>These lines are now available for remixing and recombining into longer poems or other things that you might think of.<span style=""> </span>We plan to also put up some simple text processing / ordering tools written in open source software by Gora Mohanty, and you’re welcome to contribute to this effort as well.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p><br />2.<span style=""> </span>These lines were presented as part of <a href="http://equivocaliser.blogspot.com/4050/04/i-heard-it-is-one-of-many-possibilities.html">“I Heard it is One of Many Possibilities”</a>, which is the poem I put together, with a selection of the lines, for performance by five voices [in this case, these voices were Danish Husain, Monica Mody, Annie Zaidi, Priya Sen, Iram Ghufran and myself] as part of “What Have You Heard?”, on the afternoon of Friday 28th March in Delhi, as part of the KhojLive Performance Art festival.<span style=""> </span>My task was to put together and orchestrate a coherent poem that would last about 9 minutes.<span style=""> </span>Given the time limit, I knew I wouldn’t be able to use all the lines of both the I Heard and It Is lists, but I did try to represent something from every contributor, although in practice I missed some of you—because I’d slipped up in typing in a few lines, or because your lines came after the poem was finally finished, after an all-night session, at 7 am on the 28th of March.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p><span style=""> </span>Interesting things start to happen in the process of arranging the lines; affinities emerge, some lines rhyme.<span style=""> </span>This particular poem that I’ve put together betrays, of course, some of my own (perhaps “classical”) formal inclinations and indulgences.<span style=""> </span>We would be very interested to receive and post other remixes of these lines that tackled the question of form differently.<span style=""> </span>And—we would be very, very interested to receive an entry that, as a kind of formal constraint, had to use up <i>all</i> the lines in the archive in a convincing poem that was more than the sum of its parts.<span style=""> </span>As to what exactly counts as a “convincing and coherent poem”—dare I say, a “good poem”—well, we leave that to you to show and assert.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps it has something to do with movement and resonance.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>The third by product of this process, “I Heard the Google Gong” was a trial run for this project that I did using the string “I Heard…” in a google search.<span style=""> </span>In my opinion, the poem collectively composed by participants is better and richer than the one produced from google searches, and I discuss why I think this is so in the blog post, “Some further thoughts on I Heard It Is”.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p><br />3.<span style=""> </span>For the time being, we plan to continue accepting lines for this strange little archive (see 5d below); lines that, as per the invitation form, are one sentence long and begin with “I heard” or “It is” (the latter describing something in the writer’s immediate environment).<span style=""> </span>So let people know.<span style=""> </span>All future entries should be sent to the following email address: ihearditis [at] gmail [dot] com .</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p><br />4.<span style=""> </span>This project was one element of a longer, hour-long performance put together by Sophea Lerner and myself that presented “a suite of site-specific, pre-composed and improvised poems, sound objects and audience interactions exploring and unveiling disconnections and echoes around time, place, language and voice, using a toolkit of poetry, performance and sound art practices.”<span style=""> </span>This included, among others, the piece, “What Is Live”, a composition of sound and words that involved playing back recordings of the (outdoors) performance space at different times of the day, “dueling” with an earlier, improvising version of myself, and making a connection between the idea of “live” and “dead” spaces in sound theory and the solitude of writing in anticipation of an audience who would somehow “reflect back” the way a live space reflects sound.<span style=""> </span>We should have the recording of the whole performance up at some point.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>I’d just like to note (since it might be assumed that she only worked with the sound mixing and recording) that Sophea was a co-conceiver and co-designer of “I heard it is” as well—given her long experience with orchestrating large scale collaborative performances with many participants from around the world.<span style=""> </span>She has also been working with the question, “What have you heard?” in her own research and the idea of giving the audience questionnaires.<span style=""> </span>Among many other things, she was, crucially, the designer of the easy-to-use invitation form—since I am by nature a little long-winded!<span style=""> </span>I’m also very grateful to Michael Scharf for his advice and thoughts, and the long conversation we had about all of this.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>5.<span style=""> </span>A copy of this letter goes on my blog and, for the time being, I invite your comments there.<span style=""> </span>If you’d prefer to discuss this project on your own blog, please provide a link in the comments section of this post.<span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p>Specifically, we’d like some some *critical* comments that address:<br />a) What do you think is going on here?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">b)<span style=""> </span>What kind of histories / precedents can this kind of practice (a mass-coordinated exercise in formal restraint by several writers, a concert of unsigned lines then arranged into a poem) be located in, and what kind of future might it have?<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">c) What do you think of how we have handled attribution?<span style=""> </span>We decided to keep it completely anonymous for various reasons—because that was how we had started this exercise, because we didn’t want to start a guessing game on which poet had written which line, because we wanted to free up the ownership of the archive as much as possible, and so on.<span style=""> </span>Another option we could use for future projects is to list all the contributors alphabetically.<span style=""> </span>What’s your opinion on this?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">d) Should we close contributions (at what point) or should we continue accepting contributions?<span style=""> </span>Ie., to what extent should this be a restricted time-based performance? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">e)<span style=""> </span>How might it be done differently <i>and</i> how might it be done better?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p>That’s it for now.<span style=""> </span>I’ll keep a more detailed account and postmortem for the next posting, which will be up in a couple of days.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Thanks & yours ever--</span></p>equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27200150.post-50404511433044422331999-03-17T03:19:00.000-08:002010-04-22T14:25:50.011-07:00Vivek Narayanan: Some Poetry FAQ Yous1. Poetry is <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> a genre. It is a toolkit, a set of operations on words.<br /><br />2. While it may serve a practical purpose to treat poetry as if it were something outside of us, we ought to never forget, and never be afraid of, the fact that poetry is a human invention. As a result, the reigning divisions between poetry and prose mirror the reigning divisions of duties, the powers of the separate assemblies, in our civilization, at any given time; and the function, identity, possibilities and limitations of poetry change and stay exactly the same to the exact extent, and in the same way, that the human stays the same and changes.<br /><br />I am not saying that the distinction between prose and poetry is a bad thing, and certainly not that it can be wished away, but merely that it belongs to us.<br /><br />3. The only way to keep a tradition alive is through innovation. History bears this out. We may talk of the value and solace of repetition, but when looked at closely, this is only in a manner of speaking.<br /><br />4. The heart is not an outmoded emblem in poetry because poetry has something to do with the pulsing of blood. "The steep encroachments of my blood... / ... whose pulse I hear, counting the strokes / My veins recall and add, revived and sure / The angelus of wars my chest evokes..." (Hart Crane.)<br /><br />5. I personally see no reason to abandon the spiritual quality and claim of poetry at precisely the historical moment when, freed from high-priestly authority and mass organisation, the spirit is finally ready to make a new contract with matter. <br /><br /><span lang="EN-US">6. The only true friendship is between poetry and ethics: it outlasts the squabbles, the petty jealousies, the breakups.<span style=""> </span>Politics never really gave a damn about poetry, but because politics means to be the institution of ethics, and because politics arrives with the worldly air of a man who is going to put his money where his mouth is, ethics and poetry put their faith in politics.<span style=""> </span>But, as everyone knows, the only thing that politics is capable of properly instituting is politics.<span style=""> </span>Politics, in most of the instances I can think of, betrays the wishes of poetry.<span style=""> </span>Wounded, perhaps bitter, poetry seeks shelter in the sad apartment of ethics.<span style=""> </span>The two watch the victory parade from their balcony.<span style=""> </span></span><br /><br />7. There has to be a certain degree of clarity in a poem to make the irrational in it powerful.<br /><br />8. Poetry and philosophy are safeguards against each other. Philosophy begins where poetry ends, and poetry, where philosophy ends. For this very reason, it is of vital importance that they play on opposing teams, but for this very reason, neither is possible without the other, and each must contain the grain of the other to be real. Warning to self: these are fine distinctions that must be lived and not spoken of, because if I dare to pronounce on exactly where poetry begins and philosophy ends, or vice versa, then I may lose sight of both in the bargain.<br /><br />9. Poetry is thought, no doubt about it and I will take on anyone who wants to argue otherwise, but poetry is also the attempt to use language to reach the source of a thought, in the brain or in the central nervous system, where it is indistinguishable from emotion, rhythm, habit or reaction: poetry is nothing if not holism.equivocalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00408199156528969347noreply@blogger.com0