Week 9 Workshop

CalArts

I am listening to "K-9 Was in Combat with the Alien Mind-Screens" and it seems to make sense. Not the words in sequence so much, but the broken words are deliberate, as is the gradual slowing of tempo. The sound itself inform the odd, dystopic mood more than what is being said. That is not to say that the words are meaningless, but they are difficult to follow as a story; the random word standing out informs more.

There is a static-laden radiocast now. It too is difficult to follow sequentially, but I can tell that it started speaking more of the war and shifted to local sports. After a point no single channel can be heard, but two or more at once, making the induced confusion more profound.

The emancipation of poetry

William Burroughs makes an interesting point about poetry in "The Cut-Up Method of Brion Gysin". He announces that poetry and all prose is really constructed of cut-ups of words. This is true in life, as what we do when we speak, compose an essay, interpret a speech, is extricate words from the number of articles that we collect in our memories and reconstruct them in a manner that gives them meaning, at least to us. By doing this, he, like Tristan Tzara, allows poetry to be accessible for everyone. He emancipates poetry. Poetry is for everyone. The downside of this realization is that the value of poetry may decrease in value to some. "Poetry is for everyone", Tzara said... and chaos ensued. Poetry in its traditional form, was not meant to be accessible to the public. It was the art form of the "educated", of the bourgeois. To pluck it from this exclusive market and make it available to the masses would be to renounce it as an art form. Or some may think.

First hearing William Bouroughs breakthrough in the Greyroom, I though he was saying random words in a non-linear fashion, as if he is making stream of consciousness. I had likened that idea of having to read aloud stream-of-consciousness, until I found out he did the hat trick. They are all just excerpts about drug life from his stories and mix them together. That was kind of disappointing for me but I could always try that out from the top of my head. It would be interesting to find a stream of conscious audio poetry created just at the start of the recording.
Another interesting thing you (Matt) mentioned is the difference with audio/visual poetry from video art from Bouroughs' "Hello/Yes" film. I had wondered if there is a border between poetry and fine art and music and you had pointed out to his film. What gives it that limit? Is it the combination of film and audio that stands it apart from poetry, the film itself, or the repeated words (despite having different tones)? Probably film as I have yet to see or hear about a film as poetry, even visual. Unless there is, then where is the line drawn?

A transliterated poem would be interesting from Caroline's reading of different versions of the translation. Even a pictographic or semanto-phonetic.

Mairead byrne

GROOMING

I brush with your father's soft silver brush,
which you love, for it smoothens the surface,
asks no questions, like his hands, hurriedly
settling, before lighting a cigarette.

Then with my brush, which you hate, difficult
fingers rake, immune to your cries, insistent
on manifest destiny, idée fixe
of encroachment, I will know, I will know.

I take up the fine tooth comb, snout nosing
blankly along white runnels of scalp, north
to south, snuffling for inroads, thrust back
again and again by covert refusal of hair.

I change tack, airlift from the interior,
send foot patrols out, skirmishing on the perimeter,
stalking unfurrowed brow, skirting the pools
your forehead exudes — your hairline presses
out beads like the crowns of the princesses
you draw — as silence falls down

and I come to the delicate country
at the back of your neck, my Burren flower,
damp tropics at the down-covered nape,
my only one, exposing the mauvish inlet,
naive skin, candid hollow (which took
such ages to cover) to risk of the sun.

I lift molten strands, copper straps, ox-blood
ribbons, I sift and I pin, caught in the task
of placement, displacement, separation
a dream that evades until,
abandoning instruments, I plunge in,
I handle your warm weight of hair,
rummage through it, meditative as a cat

remembering the ache of this head, or
was it this head, under my ribs before
birth, then the rudeness of passage
and after, when it still needed propping,
already turned from me, neck red and stunned
with milk, this head which I almost own!

remembering long afternoons in the schoolroom,
slow storage of heat from high windows
hair heavy as a hat on my listening head

lulled now, resistance to blunt finger-tip
fades to nudge slips to shift at my touch

I unfold skein after skein, layer loosing
layer, lustrous fiber, tessellation
sans syntax, blonde heliograph, amber
chatter, criss-cross of russet on gold,
burnished chaos, semiotics of shafts'
gleam and glint, now, at its most maddening,
the hair opens up to me,
yields from its mass the particular
rhythm of the singular hair
like a poem from debris of drafts
child from the pit of birth
it seems that at last I can know
one living hair of your head, for nothing
to the diligent expert is impossible,
my consort my familiar my mate.

At night you lie finished beside me,
heaped on our bed, sculpted
in light from uncurtained windows,
inviolate as marble,
anointed at forehead and throat
with the rank oil of the mother,
sleep clothing each exit and entrance
that morning gives access to —

the imperious voice has turned in,
imperious finger that points
to this button, that nail,
collaborative silence that submits
to my stroking, fastidious
naming of parts —

And still your fingers furl towards me,
still the incessant winkling of time,
involuntary donorship of parts.
I trade my red meat for all your soft substances,
your harvests of hair and skin.
You repay your debts in scales and secretions
and a threat (that you will always sleep with me),
your blood pulsing onward as I relapse

afraid to look at your milk-teeth
to mark the first signs of decay

And still your fingers furl towards me,
while your head, hair tied tightly back,
bent in dream, explodes on a vision
of Adam and Niamh, as you hear it,
gallantly naked and riding the waves,
Niamh's golden hair whipping round them,
astride her white mare and galloping
from Eden to Beann Éadair, Howth,
from Paradise to the Land of Youth.

The bright diadem breaks out!
You sort through the myths I have funneled you
for fear you might think I am God.

Poetry or Motion Graphics?

I really like the animated work that Penelope Umbrico and Sam Stark have done. By showing words in multiple contexts, written in multiple ways you give them a deeper meaning. They put together something that is both visually interesting and thought provoking while still remaining simple.
One could also compare the animation Typolution to these pieces as well, although I think of Typolution as more of a motion graphics piece than a visual poem. I am wondering what defines the difference between visual poetry and art or animation? How animated can one make a poem before it is simply just an animation? Does the presentation of the piece also effect how the audience is reading it? Am I to assume that anything and everything that i find on ubuweb is poetry? And for that matter, why would something that is supposed to be a fine arts piece or poetry piece be on youtube? For me, the fact that I am watching something off of youtube has a huge impact on how I read the piece. I see youtube as a promtoional site, used for posting videos that might promote or advertise a company. I don't see it as an art space, unless the art is aware of the effect of youtube.

some random things

http://annievought.com/

http://web.mac.com/washford/Wills_Words/Artists_Statement.html

http://nickm.com/poems/progress.html