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A monthly series of active reading.

3)

Sophie Robinson, 'The Institute of Our Love in Disrepair'

Joanne Ashcroft, 'From Parts Becoming Whole'



There seems to be a core in Sophie Robinson's writing in this book and the core is a body-self experiencing and self-consciously writing and trying to heal the divide between experience and writing. The residency at the V&A, the word installations, do not pull far from this core, from this scribed sense of longing, loss, desire, self.

you wouldn't write

yourself a poem

you can't arrest

yourself in the

dead of night or keep

yourself a secret.

//

Structure of the Robinson book as an object functions with ongoing themes of BODY/LOVE/LOSS/REPAIR/LANGUAGE and I'm interested in how these function differently in each section. The “I” for instance, does it shift perspective throughout? Does it shift itself as a body? Does it move its perspective through writing? In Ashcroft we see this progression happen more clearly through the sections – she is linking these works – grouping them. Robinson provides us with a selection of work asking similar questions, but functioning differently.

The I in the photos for example is different to the I in Lotion. I'm interested in the collisions of the I's in each section; what she is placing in opposition to herself or to the writing.




Where to place poetry or how to place language into a poem, when the body/self is so heavily relied on. There is an ongoing struggle to locate the self/body in the writing but a constant resistance to allowing it to fade out. The female body in both is of concern, both ground the language and its place in locating it, building towards a body: whether this be spatial/performative or physical. Ashcroft builds or her body emerges, is this a writing body / poetic body of writing or an actual body

//

When Robinson removes the word PRESS RESET from an oven display in “kitchen” (pg 22-23) and frames them in red ink in the body of her poem it is almost a reciprocal act from allowing lines of her poetry to escape into a ‘real’ photographic context.

In Ashcroft’s “A stroll in the Park” (pg. 23) there seems to be a linguistic sensory fusion that incorporates found speech to give a brief document of experience. Ashcroft allows random text/imagery to disrupt her self-reflection, yet in this poem all is filtered through her poet-consciousness.




Ashcroft reveals herself as a poet very accepting and entertaining of past and present avant garde strategies and incorporates some romantic/confessional strategies too. Robinson explores text-art and sometimes brings in the 'concrete'. Neither collection is pushing too hard against the book as a physical structure.

//

A sense of optimism in the action of writing drives Ashcroft, her sense of play leads to moments of real clarity in the writing. This is brave! Robinson’s brevity comes in the form of a constant persistence at these self referential themes, is there a tireless action of doing, happening, or a constant questioning which leaves this heap of language as a result. Poems as heaps of loss or ruin or bodies.

Ahscroft’s poems do not function in this same way, the motion moves more, collects as it goes, body is recognising change and not resistant to it in the same way.

A HEAP A CAPSULE

A ROOM A POEM

Poems as spaces which are closed off but are




A self curating; a self curating body how does this function in terms of the poetic strategies at play in the poems themselves. I'm moving away from the point but am interested in this. Both women curate themselves in the book and their writing functions as a body of work both expressive and expressing, it's a struggle and struggling, it's a being there and not being, both move from presence to non.
But the body of the book remains whole even if the language is not.

//

A response to a museum and the text object it produces makes me think of Olsen and Johanknecht’s Here Are My Instructions and how that played on the idea of an exhibition catalogue. For Robinson the experience of responding to exhibits feeds into her poetry- then her text installations- then her poetry collection.

In Ashcroft the collection of parts, or whole-ing of parts is the impetus if not for the writing in the first place, then for the final curation as a poetry collection, and pretty much abiding to the rules of a poetry collection.




Sophie Robinson, 'The Institute of Our Love in Disrepair', bad press

Joanne Ashcroft, 'From Parts Becoming Whole', Knives Forks and Spoons Press


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