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A monthly series of active reading.
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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.
//
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.
//
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 –
//
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?
//
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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Showing posts with label Joanne Ashcroft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Joanne Ashcroft. Show all posts
08/02/2013
08/12/2012
press free press RESPOND
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.
//
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.
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
more press free press RESPOND
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
more press free press RESPOND
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