Friday, December 20, 2013

On Writing #17 : Edward Smallfield


poetics as space
Edward Smallfield

Many years ago, when I was first starting to try to learn to write poetry (something that took me a very long time), I had an aversion to talking or writing about poetics. I now realize that my reluctance to talk or write about poetics was based on a misunderstanding, a fallacy. I was afraid that articulating a poetics meant that the poet was somehow bound by those poetics, so that the idea of a poetics became a restriction, a kind of straightjacket or fence.
I now realize that we make our poetics, we articulate our poetics, every time we write a poem. If our work is evolving, if our work is changing, our poetics is evolving and changing. A poetics can be improvisational, can open doors and windows rather than closing them.
If we think about the idea of “composition by field,” we might consider that our poetics is way of defining what the field consists of. (Just as we create the field by using it each time we write a poem.) Most of us would like to keep the field of our work, and of each poem, as open as possible, but the right kind of definition can help us see new possibilities rather than excluding options.
In thinking about this, I thought it might be interesting to take the conversation out of the contemporary realm and begin by talking about work that is really, really old. If I think about Archilochos—writing in something like the 7th century BC, and usually thought of as the first lyric poet—I find a remarkably open definition of what poetry can be. Archilochos obviously has no idea that there is a “poetic” language and an “un-poetic language”, or that there are poetic or un-poetic subjects or emotions or states of mind.
After saying this, I realize that it would make sense for someone to ask me what makes Archilochos’ work poetry (and especially lyric poetry), when a prose writer could write about the same subjects using the same type of language. My answer—unsatisfactory, I suppose, to some—is that Archilochos is using very different language to make a poem about a battle, an insult, a curse, a love poem or an elegy, but that his relationship to that language is always the same—unbelievably intense, self-reflexive, aware of each word and each syllable.
If we return to the idea of composition by field, I wouldn’t want to say that someone couldn’t use the field of the poem to write a prose essay. (There’s nothing wrong with prose essays; I’m writing one now.) But, both as a reader and as a writer, I wouldn’t think that was the best use of the energetically charged space that the field of the poem presents us with.
Probably the best way for me to begin to articulate a poetics (other than writing a poem) is to think about the poets whose work has most engaged me, not just in terms of an admiration for particular poems or the study of particularly techniques, but in terms of an overall approach to poetry.
The two poets whose work I return to over and over again are Williams Carlos Williams and Lorine Niedecker. It might be fair to say that I can’t get away from them. I’m sure it’s important that one is a woman and the other is a man. I’m equally certain that for me they represent the two most essential polarities in American poetry, just as Dickinson and Whitman represent those polarities for others.
One of things that I can’t escape about Williams is the absolutely compulsive quality of his writing. In spite of his frustration about the distractions of his medical practice and family life, the sheer massive bulk of his collected works (not just the poems, but the novels and the plays) proves how often he was able—or was compelled—to return to the field of the poem.
On the other side of the balance we have Niedecker’s Collected Poems, which tends to balance by remaining unbalanced, because it’s perfectly possible to balance weight with lightness. For me, Niedecker’s approach to writing is as obsessive and compulsive as Williams, but the compulsion turns inward, towards revision (as she often says herself), rather than outward, toward production of new work.
Each is equally incapable of breaking out of her/his own particular method of writing, which flows from his/her particular preoccupation with language, which flows from her/his particular world and self and way of being in that world. Both are much more attentive to the music of vowels than most other American/English poets, for example, but it’s the very peculiar particular approach to language—which for me can’t be imitated successfully (though many of us have tried)—that delights me in both.
For me, this inability to escape from self, this way of making a poem, this unique approach to language (which seems to be in the DNA of each), gives them a particular freedom. When Williams tries to settle into a long project like Paterson the focus that we might expect in a long poem is absent—everything continues to come in. (But haven’t you forgotten your original purpose, the language?) For me, this is a great advantage. There may be a project, but the urgency of the moment can override it at any moment, which seems to be essential for an truly engaging project.
The same is true of Niedecker—there may be things that she wants to say, but her obsession with the language, its music and intensity, always overrides and balances them.
We all know that Williams and Niedecker are intensely local poets. For me, local in this sense does not necessarily mean “staying in the same place,” though both of them chose to do that (and Williams argued passionately and explicitly for that definition of “local”). What seduces me in both is the attention to the local—the bird calls, the language that is spoken, even the clouds and the wind.
I should say too that I don’t think we should limit our considerations of poetics to poetry. The way a painter approaches the field of a canvas could be equally useful as a example, though I admit that music has been much more important to me. (I remember Robert Creeley talking about his novel The Island in terms of the kind of music that he listened to while writing different sections of it.) I often write in public places, which have their own particular distractions and pleasures, but when I write at home I always listen to music. I like many kinds of music, but for writing the list is quite limited—Bach, Monk, Bud Powell and a few others. Obviously the improvisational nature of the work is crucial for me.
I started by talking about starting to try to learn how to write poetry. In some ways, I hope we’re all continuing to do that; if we ever decided that we knew how to write poetry, I don’t think our work would be very interesting any longer. When I was starting to write, there was much talk (perhaps even more among fiction writers than among poets) about “finding your voice.” I now find that idea more related to marketing than to creation. What I find in Williams and Niedecker is not a need to find a voice, but the need to write something, a compulsive, obsessive, inescapable need to make something in language, regardless of the result. A reckless, experimental impulse.
“Miles would rather have a bad band and play bad music than play the same thing twice.” It’s good advice.


Edward Smallfield is the author of The Pleasures of C, One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (a book-length collaboration with Doug MacPherson), locate (a chapbook collaboration with Miriam Pirone), equinox, and, most recently, lirio (a chapbook collaboration Valerie Coulton). His poems have appeared in alice blue, Barcelona INK, bird dog, e-poema.eu, Five Fingers Review, New American Writing, Páginas Rojas, Parthenon West Review, 26, Wicked Alice, and many other magazines and websites. He has participated in poetry conferences in Delphi, Paou, Paros, and Sofia, and lives in Barcelona with his wife, the poet Valerie Coulton.

Monday, December 09, 2013

BISSETT, KARASICK & NUOTIO - an A B XMAS!


A B Series 3rd Annual Xmas Party with BILL BISSETT!

Poetry by bissett & ADEENA KARASICK!

Music by GLENN NUOTIO
& MELODY McKIVER!

PRIZES!


8pm
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2013

RAW SUGAR CAFE

692 Somerset West
Ottawa, Ont.


Buy tickets on Eventbrite: ab-xmas-14dec.eventbrite.ca


More info: abseries.org

bill bissett
's charged readings, which never fail to amaze his audiences, incorporate chanting, sound poetry and singing, the verve of which is matched only by his prolific writing career: over 70 books of bissett's poetry have been published. An energetic "man-child mystic," bill bissett is living proof of William Blake's adage "the spirit of sweet delight can never be defiled."

Combining chamber music and folk, Glenn Nuotio delivers unnervingly complex pop. As Ottawa Xtra! notes, "he channels it through an indie musician's paper heart and the results are invariably stirring."

Adeena Karasick
is a poet, cultural theorist, media artist and the critically acclaimed author of seven books of poetry and poetic theory, and Professor of Pop Culture and Media Theory at Fordham University in New York. Writing at the intersection of Conceptualism and neo-Fluxus performatics, her urban, Jewish feminist mashups have been described as “electricity in language” (Nicole Brossard).

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

On Writing #16 : Sonia Saikaley



On Writing: Writing Before Dawn to Answer a Curious Calling
Sonia Saikaley

I wake up early. Really early. Before the sun has even risen, I’m awake, working away at my writing. Even when I’d rather hit the snooze button, well, over the years that alarm clock has become an internal thing, I get out of bed and start the day with a fresh perspective. Eager and grateful, I rise because I have another day to do what I love the most: write. I don’t have an alarm clock anymore but a routine. Rise early and write in the utter silence before dawn, before darkness gives way to light. This has become a necessity for me. We all lead busy lives. When others are still asleep in my household, I reach for the power button on my computer and begin the day with words. Some words may have come to me in dreams, but mostly they arrive in the velvety silence of the morning. I feel that being in front of my computer and writing before dawn is the most beautiful place in the world for me. The words on the screen have transported me in the past to a frigid day in Montreal, where two lonely souls shared their personal stories and fell in love. Now in the present, the words take me to the old Jewish quarter in Beirut, where the powerful scent of jasmine bushes floats down a cobblestone street destroyed by bombs and shelling, a sniper on the rooftop, and an eccentric poet, who reminds me of a flapper, a 1920’s woman in Paris, wears a grey sherwal, baggy trousers, and stares out her living room window in full view of the sniper. But I am in the safety and warmth of my room, leaning forward, yearning to hear their whispers. The quiet of the morning allows me to hear them and, gaining the trust of these characters, I write these murmured words on my computer screen. Maybe they speak in hushed tones because they know it’s too early in the morning to speak in abrasive words. Or maybe they haven’t yet had their coffee or green tea! As dawn slowly colours the sky, I create these people and places in my fictional worlds. I wonder if the sky would be the same in Beirut or Montreal on this particular Ottawa morning as I craft these scenes.
Writing before dawn is so beautiful and breathtaking that I am eager for the start of every day. Of course, it helps that I have always been a morning person. From those elementary school days of dashing down the street to meet my friends in the school yard before our first class to the necessity of rising early to prepare for an eight a.m. university exam, I have always been drawn to the quietness right before dawn. I have always had a nine-to-five job so rising early and writing is something that I must do in order to answer this curious call to write. Writing is a curious calling. Writers find various ways to answer this vocation. Some rise early like I do, some write during their lunch hours, and others write on buses and in coffee shops. They use laptops, notebooks, napkins, and so forth. Regardless of the method or time of day, the words still get out there.
A few years back during a period of convalescence, I was frustrated and feeling down with the thought of not being able to write for a couple of months. But I managed somehow to find a way to write in my journal while lying flat on my back in my bed. Like Frida Kahlo and her painting. Because writing is so much a part of my being, there are very few things that can keep me from it. Writing has always been a refuge of sorts for me. To visit with the characters in my stories or poems is like visiting with close friends. I lean in or sit back and listen deeply. Real life can sometimes be complicated and messy and there are plenty of things that can come in the way of writing. Family commitments, health issues, the everyday tasks like laundry or taking out the garbage, but when I read the stories of writers who have found great success in their literary careers, while still tending to other obligations or day jobs, there appears to be a common thread: these authors just carved out the time in their busy lives. Somehow found that precious period to write even if they were exhausted or worn-out from being awake all night with an ill child or an ailing parent or grieving the loss of someone or something in their lives. They just somehow did it. Either in those early morning hours, or late-night evenings when the world allowed them slivers of silence and solitude, given to them like thoughtful and generous gifts, these writers just did what writers do: write. I’ve been asked on several occasions where do I find the energy to rise so early to write and I say, smiling playfully, “I’m just answering my calling and this call happens to come at four in the morning”.


Sonia Saikaley’s first book, The Lebanese Dishwasher (Quattro Books), was co-winner of the 2012 Ken Klonsky Novella Contest. Her collection of poetry, Turkish Delight, Montreal Winter, was published by TSAR Publications in 2012. She is currently working on a novel called Jasmine Season on Hamra Street. A graduate of the Humber School for Writers, she lives in her hometown of Ottawa. In the past, she has worked as an English teacher in Japan.

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

BLOOD IS BLOOD: THE BATTLE LINES ARE DRAWN




ENDRE FARKAS and CAROLYN MARIE SOUAID are taking poetry to the next level! The two major Montreal poets have come together to create BLOOD IS BLOOD. Both a film and a book, BLOOD IS BLOOD draws on the authors' diametrically opposed backgrounds, whose cultural and personal lives intersect, clash and confront the truths and fictions that have become the destructive reality of Jews and Arabs trying to co-exist in the Middle East.

A B SERIES PRESENTS A SCREENING OF BLOOD IS BLOOD + READINGS & CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHORS!

8pm
Thursday, November 28, 2013

Ottawa Art Gallery
Arts Court
2 Daly Ave.
Ottawa, Ont.

Free
A hat will be passed.

More info:
abseries.org

The trailer for Blood is Blood:

Monday, November 18, 2013

Recent Reads: Marcus McCann and Christine McNair and rob mclennan


The Laurentian Book of Movement by Christine McNair and rob mclennan

Both titles published by above/ground press, 2013.

It was an ill-fated combination of “firsts”: riding a Greyhound bus that was library quiet while reading Marcus McCann's stylistic tribute to David McGimpsey. Maybe I was being naĂŻve – I’ll admit, literature isn’t my medium of choice when it comes to humour – but it bears repeating what so many people already know: McGimpsey is very funny. And for McCann's humour to stand up as strong in a pop-culture arena that isn't exactly his home-field, well – I was more surprised by my muffled chuckles than any fellow passengers were.

Comedy is an umbrella word harboring countless sharp divisions. For the same reasons the art-form garners cautious recommendations and brazen critiques, comedy as a term maintains its positive associations because of our subjective preferences. So it comes as no surprise that Labradoodle, An Essay on David McGimpsey eschews broad observation by targeting its key demographic: the creative class. If you noted the “on” in the title, you’ll know that McCann's punchlines are either bouncing off McGimpsey or self-inflicted, riffing constantly on the humble life of the poet. Here’s the sort-of title poem:

Three years ago, I was not quite ready to use the word
labradoodle in a poem

It’s like that time I found, in the memo folder
of my Blackberry, the one word memo
Cocktapus. I thought about it for a long time,
how it got there, what I was trying to say

to my future self. Dear self. Cocktapus.
Much later, I added two more words:
Cocktipmus Prime. You can be physically
ready for sex but not emotionally ready,

I learned in grade eight. It was confirmed
the day I crossed out April on the office
calendar and wrote Cocktober. I just hadn’t
figured out what part of misery

“labradoodle” stood in for. Now I think I know.
Every day is a David McGimpsey poem,
and it’s half golden lab, and half whatever
“doodle” stands for. It is not good news.”

His comic timing not only registers on paper, it proves inseparable from his line breaks and I’ve sometimes needed reminding that McCann remains a poet first because of that fluidity. Beneath all of his wry, self-depreciating wit, however, is the insightful and inventive mind capable of catching fresh humour out of everyday rituals. Labradoodle contains many instantly classic, write-on-the-wall, one-liners that are best preserved in the hilarious logic of McCann's full verse and not necessarily in McGimpsey's shadow. All killer, no filler.


As someone with a background in music journalism, I find it difficult to approach The Laurentian Book of Movement without thinking of the many “super-group” bands whose results feel somehow less than the sum of their parts. That may seem like a ridiculous stretch but, across all mediums, the attempt to tug varying creative mindsets toward one communal goal often results in compromise. Thankfully the partnership of Christine McNair and rob mclennan amounts to a much deeper commitment than two songwriters opting to share a jam-space and that bond opens a gateway traversing nature and memory.

The lead poem delivers a history and relationship weighed in wet leaves; the mention of Augustin-Norbert Morin in 1842 forms a backdrop for the place itself, in a neat reversal. Caught up in the sensory overload of Lower Canada, late summer, McNair and mclennan traipse fresh language out of familiar, if rarely acknowledged, sensations:

“The skyline, black against the night blue. The first few pages of the
weather wrote a thunderstorm. The eaves were full of leaves. Rain
water overflowered the porch. We chomped out portions of late
summer, reckless portions of Aurora Borealis.

A thread pulls powder across various landmarks. We walk into the
Metro. This is not a pilgrimage.”

It’s a striking rumination of place made sharper by its unclear boundaries, its transient timeline. Nature, on its own clock. And as it becomes clear, the woods in The Laurentian Book of Movement bestow a burden just as indistinguishable. In “A red remark,” the landscape calms but yearns for exaggeration at the same time. A conscious distance also marks “salt seasons”, where the lowered stakes of luxury introduce twitchy desires. Inside there’s a peace that feels almost comatose; outside, an impetus to learn how one endures alongside nature.

As a guide, the most tangible history proves to be a personal one: “flash backward” illustrates in poignant, childhood snapshots how we grapple with our environment. Seemingly in agreement with the adage that we’re closest to nature as children, the near-prose numbers a series of trial-and-error memories, nostalgic only as a byproduct of being a reverent witness to nature – the lake and greenery cradling youthful confusion.

Due to its personal admissions, “flash backward” also calls long-overdue attention to the duality of authorship at work. Up until this entry The Laurentian Book of Movement has progressed bearing the styles of two writers entwined to a greater awe. Only in reminiscing about “cranberry stains along my dress” or being “conscious of my thighs. 10.” does the witness lean toward a particular sex and, even then, I suspect both parties are active in the composition.

“2.

French, based on the Roman actus. We systemize distance.
Generations, at length. A blunt object of decades. Sixty years ago, my
father, these hills. His own parents, too. My grandfather, his hands.
His generous smile. She is shaking out nothing.

My father, these hills. Ten years old. And a cousin, long lost.

Land division, we parcel. A district of ski hills, of trees. Shoved up by
the stands. We picture a river-front. We picture, a passable day.
Not simply some acres of snow.”

This above section taken from “Arpent,” presents a second example of McNair and mclennan’s hybridized style. It also, despite an early disclaimer, feels very much like a pilgrimage, even if their overlap of familial footprints is coincidental. The Laurentian Book of Movement was always going to be interesting; the merger of two such distinct voices assured it. But the autumnal journey taken across these pages has succeeded in nullifying my impish desire to dissect who wrote what and instead savour its bittersweet scope. A revisit of Prelude: selections from a collaboration is in order as McNair and mclennan have accomplished here what few super-groups are capable of: a project not necessarily beyond the sum of their individual powers (how would one quantify that, anyway?) but something unexpected, gripping and worthy of each author’s best work.

[Here's a supplemental reading (courtesy of Open Book Ontario) on the origins of this collaboration as well as some history on Sainte-Adele, Quebec, written by rob mclennan in 2011.]

Thursday, November 14, 2013

On Writing #15 : Roland Prevost


Ink / Here
Roland Prevost

As for ink over here, it begins in the words of French-Canadian songs memorized as a child, sung at late-night rĂ©veillions, or in the summer at the family cottage by the campfire.  Lyrics.  Lots of them.   In metre and rhyme often backed by a guitar and some kind of percussion, like a tambourine or spoons, the stomp of feet, or hands clapping time.  Playing with breath, voice, intonation . . . and emotion.  Everyone present took their turn.  I learned how songs could give powerful expression to feelings.  By my early teens I started to write songs.  Something I've done for a lifetime.

Another lifelong writing practice has been keeping a journal.  It now stands at fifty-thousand pages, give or take. If songs give expression to emotions, then the logbook (as I tend to call it) acts as a potent mind-amp.  In the logbook, the reach of complexity, strength of focus, and accuracy of recall all get boosted by the powers of ink.

Interestingly, many elements of Song and Journal can marry:  breath and focus,  emotion and complexity,  sounds and ideas,  feelings and language, rhythm and thought.

Looking at this marriage, it's not surprising that I soon wanted to write poetry.

Poetry's more intricate, I feel, than either logbook or song.  I can't see its borders.   Which makes it particularly attractive.

~

Why write poetry? 

First, out of a desire to encapsulate some of the mysteries at here/now's edge.  Self-expression isn't exactly the correct term, though I've no objection to the word 'expression' by itself.  I find it very meaningful to try to give a body to that strange substance.  An incarnation.  That's at the core of why I even try. 

Also, I've recently begun to feel something I'd not felt before.  Writing had always seemed a solitary pursuit;  I experienced no desire for publication.  Then I noticed how many others were trying to put their work 'on River', making efforts to pass it on.  I realized that what I refer to as my 'self' was in large part a patchwork of what I've found in thousands of publicly shared artworks.  Culture suddenly felt like a third, unrecognized parent.  So now, I sometimes add a publication attempt to my creative ritual as many others did for me.  I'm trying to keep faith with them.  In a solidarity tinged with thanks.

Beyond that, trying to write poetry presents such a complex and layered challenge.   It's not always easy, but when it succeeds it feels great to 'have written'.  Like very few other things in life, it provides me with a renewable 'tall enough mountain' to climb.  A proper gerbil-wheel for my cage, if you like.

Then there are my associations with members of the local arts community.   These exchanges result in a rich sharing of substantive 'notes on being'.  Artworks act as a starting point, providing something in common to build on.  I find this social aspect of poetry worthwhile.

There are other more transient motivations over time, but these four seem to have taken hold and keep me returning to the blank page.

~

How do I write poetry?

            I've always had this Picture-Mind, or Pixmind as I call it, as far back as I can remember.  It provides me with an ability to call up free-flowing pictures, like snippets of movies, if I just get out of the way.  I often say it's like there's a constant stream of images out there on the horizon.  That I can choose to watch or not. 

            This Pixmind's centrally involved in writing poetry, for me. 

Let's go through the actual steps, and you'll see what I mean.

            I wake up at six or seven in the morning.  Grab a quick breakfast, sip a coffee.  I want to get downstairs to my poetry binder, pen and paper, as soon as possible.  Preferably within ten or twenty minutes after waking up, so that some of the sleepiness remains with me when I face the empty page.  A bit of dream-dust left in my hair, so to speak.

When I get there, instead of trying to stake out a linguistic terrain, I just wait.   And a picture comes.  With no fingers pressing.  Most of the poems I write, if you look, have an image at their core.
 
My approach involves writing a text-response to the spontaneous graphic output (as with ekphrasis: texts in response to graphic artworks).  It's almost like writing subtitles to a foreign film clip.  These 'subtitles' end up providing the first seed-draft for a poem. 

At this point, the poem's still very incomplete.  I've no idea where it might eventually go or what it might mean.   But it hooks me well enough to stay with it.  I've often said that I like to write into, instead of out of, inspiration.  So long as I have this kind of visual seed to start from, I feel able to do that.






It's only later that the time comes for applying edit-transforms and somewhat more practical skills.   That work gets done on the computer.  Remove clichĂ©s, add some senses, adopt a voice & tone, orchestrate a confluence, play with rhetorical forms of meaning.   A few hundred fairly loose rules, more like tendencies towards certain do's and don'ts.  My goal with editing is to sculpt the words towards the original feel of the unscripted Pixmind.

I write poetry this way simply because other approaches don't seem to get me there.  Like anyone else, I prefer what works.

Along the way, poetry's become my favourite sort of ink by far.  

Probably because it has such a mind of its own.


Roland Prevost's poetry appears in Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly, Dusie, The Ottawa Arts Review, Stone Chisel, The Bywords Quarterly Journal, The Peter F. Yacht Club and Ottawater, among many more. He has four chapbooks: Metafizz (2007, Bywords), Dragon Verses (2009, Dusty Owl), Our/Are Carried Invisibles (2009, above/ground), and Parapagus (2012, above/ground). He's also been published in three poetry collections by AngelHousePress: Whack of Clouds (2008), Pent Up (2009), and Experiment-O (Issue 1, 2008 online). He won the 2006 John Newlove Poetry Award. He was, for a few years, the managing editor of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics, as well as poetics.ca, both online. He studied English and Psychology at York University and the University of Manitoba. He lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada.