press free press RESPOND

A monthly series of active reading.

press free press RE:RESPOND

Re:active re:reading.

1)

10/12 - 01/13



The personal is something which is driving these poets, but in very individual ways. Returning to the Hampson I sense that sense of absence; I wonder about what surrounds the language in terms of where it has been lifted from. This idea that language always comes from somewhere else, somewhere outside the poem. The poem giving it a new context constructed by the poet. A Davenport cell is a context, a bit of Waffle is, the way in which Flick moves in Crewe’s constructed landscape for it. Context of and for the poet is of interest to me. How / where / why the text is built into a context and where this then fits in a wider context of poetics or art or literature.

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The 'personal' and the single consciousness - we often talk about multi-vocality and multi-consciousness but this sense of or rejection of the 'personal' brings us to the single consciousness who is reading, who is of course one of many (potentially, conceptually) but singly is reading 'for' - 'reading for' another like him/her? Is this naive? Is this why writers resist the personal? There is the heightened persona personal of Robinson, or the fantastic figure of Flick in Crewe - do these personae represent this desire of consciousness?




I’m changing the subject, but … … How do the poets show their influences? Terry re-visions Queneau. Davenport references everyone and the title is from Bob Cobbing but also a near-homonym for Apollinaire etc. etc. But both are finding new territory. Davenport presents us with a grid that for Mac Low was a means to a poem, there it is the poetic text.

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The action of reading as an experience which should be challenged and is under construction: Davenport builds cells of multiple and physical reading strategies. I think he is not only asking how to write but how to read. Terry also challenges my how to read. With James Davies' comments in my mind returning to this I see it as a more formulaic piece, asking questions of reading in relation to the book, reading as a movement from and between and across ideas/structures/experiences. The awareness of how we read becomes important to me. Or how we are reading. Or might re-read.

Our reading/re-reading brings with it a context




There is something fragile and breakable within all these voices for me. You touched on Fowler and Kelly building a joint vocabulary or voice, but it still breaks away in the poems' structure. This is something occurring in the Ashcroft too, is there a pre-occupation with attempting to find a voice? Not one of the texts function with one voice. Is there a pre-occupation with attempting to find a voice? Not one of the texts functions as one voice. Is there a pre-occupation with attempting to find a voice? Not one of the texts functions in one voice.

with – as – in –

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To speak the poet must appropriate - covertly, consciously, subconsciously, unconsciously, conspicuously, inconspicuously, subtly, unsubtly, from seeing something, from hearing something, from out-sourcing, from in-sourcing, from delegating the work of 'poet', from taking on the work of 'poet' -

voicing voices voices
voices voice voicing
voice voicing voices

Vocabulary is important
Choices of vcices

Why does the same word(s) crop up in two different books?

e.g. 'dock leaves' in Kelly/Fowler and Crewe.




Let’s think of the texts among these eight books that seem to be more actively referencing a specific space i.e. site in which the poet finds herself – in Terry, Crewe, Ashcroft, Robinson, I read this.

Hampson and Davenport are explicitly re-locating the site of another text or texts. The textual site. In Terry, Crewe, Ashcroft, Robinson, in their sites – from their sites – what can writing do? What is it trying to do?

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The poetics then as a functioner of language is a body moving form one body to another. Body is built and re-built. Body is writer is language is book is voice is reader is context is always moving away from me

We have placed these bodies alongside each other to arrive at more bodies.

Some questions

- Do we resist or depend on the book?
- How is the book being played with temporally?
- Where is gender in these works?

These are questions I always ask and have been asking and will continue to ask of these and more bodies.




Kelly & Fowler / Hampson (10/12)

Welton / Davenport (11/12)

Robinson / Ashcroft (12/12)

Crewe / Terry (01/13)


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