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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.
//
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 SJ Fowler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SJ Fowler. Show all posts
08/02/2013
07/10/2012
press free press RESPOND
A monthly series of active reading.
1)
S Kelly & SJ Fowler, 'Ways of Describing Cuts'
Robert Hampson, 'Out of Sight'
Thinking about physicality first, the object and how voice manifests itself in this object. It’s apt then that we think about single and plural voice and how this can manifest itself physically. Kelly and Fowler are in dialogue with each other, they are also in opposition; physically they come together at “drowning”, the physical space between them once vast is “cut” and merged. This action of cutting through the space to come together interests me. I wonder how they physically dealt with space, whether it is related to distance, or time, or a marker of separation between voice?
Hampson’s physicality comes in a slant, a block of slanted text justified and strong on the page, yet there is a difference between how it acts
//
We are comparing a book with multiple pages with a single fold. A similarity that springs to mind is how in both cases there is resistance to the provided structure, so the dialogue between SJ Fowler and S Kelly is not played out on opposite pages but across an invisible horizontal divide that can disappear, and Hampson's text is printed across the fold and at an angle with the page, disrupting the visual experience of reading, from opening the fold to encountering the text, to reading the text.
“how it acts” – is it one act – is it a single appearance? As with Fowler/Kelly there is still a sense of the linear. As with McCaffery’s ‘Lag’ the text between commas presents a separate image or proposition, but it begins like a film treatment and ends with a full stop.
In Hampson’s piece we always consider the text in relation to our understanding of a block of prose – a rather abstract detached notion – how about in Kelly/Fowler? Are we reading the text on its own terms or in relation to an existing model? Is the fact of two poets sharing the same book presented as a new
//
This disruption occurs in both through the physical and the use of text/voice. There is an interest in both texts in the physical rupture of the page and this is reflected in the ongoing textual rupturing. The use of speech, of how to speak or how speech is constructed is highlighted.
"not a poetry just a sitting and a speech"
S Kelly - SJ Fowler
This sense of conversation and dialogue being distressed or under duress, there being a pressure to express. One voice never allows the other to find itself. The one searching voice in 'Out of Sight' is constantly shifting and moving through a non poetry language. I wonder then how the poetic finds itself in both pieces. How the language becomes poetical and whether this is related to these physical dialogues being played out on the page.
reading experience? The sharing and action of sharing is of concern, as are they sharing or working against each other? Perhaps what is more necessary to consider is not that there are two voices, but these two voices both claim the “I”. There is then a shifting “I” in the text which flits between female and male. Both voices are claiming the “I” for themselves; what impact does this have on the text and our experience of it? The “I” in this text speaks to each other, moves between each other; I’m interested in whether the “I” stays whole
//
I was also interested in reading, perhaps specifically in reading for this purpose, whether an important part of reading is identifying language that self-referentially gives a clue to the process, this need the reader of poetry has to find in the poetry itself clues to how it should be received, and I think the first thing a reader does is to force a literalness to parts of the text to fit this purpose. For example I read in Hampson's piece a reference to movie treatments, and this reading brought a significance to 'there's more money in treatment than in cure'.
Also, what does this do to the reader? A reader is often assuming the I of the text, relating to it. Should we pick a side here? We are asked to identify with both sides of a poetic dialogue but also to replace our notion of poet with “dialogue between two poets”. There is something exciting in this dialogue as it exposes process to a point and we feel each voice constricting and liberating the other. However, we still wonder about the directions the writing(s) takes when moving away from or towards this structure.
//
This idea of literalness is interesting as we question how literal the author or authors are being. There is a mistrust between reader and author/authors in both texts as identity is always shifting away from the reader. In Hampson there is a constant and relentless labelling and retelling of this identity that leaves us freefalling with the 'I' perhaps? In Kelly and Fowler we mistrust the shifts between voices, I wonder where and if the I can rest, where you can rest. How the dialogue between bodies can resolve itself if at all possible. Does either piece resolve itself? Is there a sense that both are finished? Out of Sight
S Kelly & SJ Fowler, 'Ways of Describing Cuts', Knives Forks and Spoons Press
Robert Hampson, 'Out of Sight', Crater Press
more press free press RESPOND
A monthly series of active reading.
1)
S Kelly & SJ Fowler, 'Ways of Describing Cuts'
Robert Hampson, 'Out of Sight'
Thinking about physicality first, the object and how voice manifests itself in this object. It’s apt then that we think about single and plural voice and how this can manifest itself physically. Kelly and Fowler are in dialogue with each other, they are also in opposition; physically they come together at “drowning”, the physical space between them once vast is “cut” and merged. This action of cutting through the space to come together interests me. I wonder how they physically dealt with space, whether it is related to distance, or time, or a marker of separation between voice?
Hampson’s physicality comes in a slant, a block of slanted text justified and strong on the page, yet there is a difference between how it acts
//
We are comparing a book with multiple pages with a single fold. A similarity that springs to mind is how in both cases there is resistance to the provided structure, so the dialogue between SJ Fowler and S Kelly is not played out on opposite pages but across an invisible horizontal divide that can disappear, and Hampson's text is printed across the fold and at an angle with the page, disrupting the visual experience of reading, from opening the fold to encountering the text, to reading the text.
“how it acts” – is it one act – is it a single appearance? As with Fowler/Kelly there is still a sense of the linear. As with McCaffery’s ‘Lag’ the text between commas presents a separate image or proposition, but it begins like a film treatment and ends with a full stop.
In Hampson’s piece we always consider the text in relation to our understanding of a block of prose – a rather abstract detached notion – how about in Kelly/Fowler? Are we reading the text on its own terms or in relation to an existing model? Is the fact of two poets sharing the same book presented as a new
//
This disruption occurs in both through the physical and the use of text/voice. There is an interest in both texts in the physical rupture of the page and this is reflected in the ongoing textual rupturing. The use of speech, of how to speak or how speech is constructed is highlighted.
"not a poetry just a sitting and a speech"
S Kelly - SJ Fowler
This sense of conversation and dialogue being distressed or under duress, there being a pressure to express. One voice never allows the other to find itself. The one searching voice in 'Out of Sight' is constantly shifting and moving through a non poetry language. I wonder then how the poetic finds itself in both pieces. How the language becomes poetical and whether this is related to these physical dialogues being played out on the page.
reading experience? The sharing and action of sharing is of concern, as are they sharing or working against each other? Perhaps what is more necessary to consider is not that there are two voices, but these two voices both claim the “I”. There is then a shifting “I” in the text which flits between female and male. Both voices are claiming the “I” for themselves; what impact does this have on the text and our experience of it? The “I” in this text speaks to each other, moves between each other; I’m interested in whether the “I” stays whole
//
I was also interested in reading, perhaps specifically in reading for this purpose, whether an important part of reading is identifying language that self-referentially gives a clue to the process, this need the reader of poetry has to find in the poetry itself clues to how it should be received, and I think the first thing a reader does is to force a literalness to parts of the text to fit this purpose. For example I read in Hampson's piece a reference to movie treatments, and this reading brought a significance to 'there's more money in treatment than in cure'.
Also, what does this do to the reader? A reader is often assuming the I of the text, relating to it. Should we pick a side here? We are asked to identify with both sides of a poetic dialogue but also to replace our notion of poet with “dialogue between two poets”. There is something exciting in this dialogue as it exposes process to a point and we feel each voice constricting and liberating the other. However, we still wonder about the directions the writing(s) takes when moving away from or towards this structure.
//
This idea of literalness is interesting as we question how literal the author or authors are being. There is a mistrust between reader and author/authors in both texts as identity is always shifting away from the reader. In Hampson there is a constant and relentless labelling and retelling of this identity that leaves us freefalling with the 'I' perhaps? In Kelly and Fowler we mistrust the shifts between voices, I wonder where and if the I can rest, where you can rest. How the dialogue between bodies can resolve itself if at all possible. Does either piece resolve itself? Is there a sense that both are finished? Out of Sight
S Kelly & SJ Fowler, 'Ways of Describing Cuts', Knives Forks and Spoons Press
Robert Hampson, 'Out of Sight', Crater Press
more press free press RESPOND
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