press free press RESPOND

A monthly series of active reading.


2)

Matthew Welton, 'Waffles'

Philip Davenport, 'Appeal in Air'



Form and content and how the situation of text and language can inform this is interesting. Davenport is working within the “form” of a spreadsheet, it is determining the inevitable form the language takes; the very physical space then constructs and deconstructs the language. Words are broken by the line of the cell – words are enclosed. The relationship then is one where the form becomes part of the construction of language. Davenport is not being allowed to build form in the same way Welton is. Welton has constructed his own cells of working, these also allow for a building of interaction between the language and the form it takes. Waffles repeatedly utters that it is under “construction” – the making of these phrases is interesting to me. The stencil action of repeating, yet altering; a word becomes a sound becomes a word again; there is a progression and

//

There are conceptual sections and divisions in Welton that are intricate and multiple, and yet the book observes a rigid visual decorum, perhaps pushing hardest against this in the square bracketed italicised sequence in the first construction. Davenport's post-poetic idea is to embrace the spreadsheet as a visual norm.




Is the personal in Davenport shown up in

e.g. “Can’t remember” (D469)

which appears in the row that is generally a list of names of contemporary experimental poets. It seems to show the human/personal in this data-collector, this spreadsheet filler. In Welton the personal similarly appears, in his confessions

e.g. “The real mistakes I maybe make”

but also in reference to the speakers girlfriend and “girlfriend’s kid”. Welton defines a particular local personal field through repetition of certain words.

//

The sense making stategy; a way of working which attempts to work through process using language as a tool.

In Waffles we have three distinct strategies at play in three sections. How do these link together? Is there a common strategy?

Language is being manipulated in both texts with a playfulness. Does this allow for more accesibility?
What makes these pieces accesible?
How do we read each of them?
Can we read the Davenport with one voice?
By putting these together we see just how difficult the Davenport is to navigate.
By difficult I mean;




This “I” is important in Waffles as it is one which is moving as an “I” in the poems but also as the “I” of the poet. I wonder about the separation or closeness between these two “I’s”.  The link between the poem and the personal perhaps? We see definite cognitive moves taking place in Waffles, there is a visible “construction” and de-“construction” of the forms this “I” finds itself in. Do we see it move from an “I” of “multiplicity” to and “I” of “minimality” as constructions of six principles?

//

The poet's mind and eye in Waffles refers back to the same real/unreal images and among these repeated images e.g.

monkey
coffee

is 'a pile of apple waffles'

To pull this word out for the title is to emphasise its other meaning to do with speaking - but also, as we have just mentioned - this grid structure that may or may not be a clue to the constructions.

Either way there is a play between the visible real/unreal and the invisible structures and concepts perhaps producing the visible - it is language that connects




Davenport is celebratory, public, joyful, claiming poetic space, hijacking the spreadsheet form. Welton also constructs his own space but within an already understood poetic framework.

//

The idea of context and where to place these texts is worth considering. We have drawn them together by chance, yet they each comment on the other interestingly.
Davenport creates a structure of poets within his text; an army perhaps, constructing a space for this work to sit in, to be nested in.

I wonder then where to place Waffles, what traditional or non traditional space. It is pushing outwards with its conscious decision to play with form & break verse traditions by paying attention to the construction process of form. This interests me; its construction interests me.

Davenport begins with a topical structured space of the spreadsheet, yet explodes it with language. It is a reading score of experience & constructs a space which is



Matthew Welton, 'Waffles', Egg Box Publishing

Philip Davenport, 'Appeal in Air', Knives Forks and Spoons Press


more press free press RESPOND