coming and going

mark and lisa swoop into the neighbourhood (welcome!). jordan's europe-bound (be safe; postcard often!). carolynn and grant visit from nelson (xoxox!). katie's off to fredericton (happy learning!).

"people come and go so quickly around here!" - dorothy in wizard of oz

review: WSfL in Broken Pencil

fellow northern ontarian vincent ponka reviews wide slumber for broken pencil.

word

"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean; neither more nor less."

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

prose

"See how weak prose is.... Presently I shall go to a bar and there one or two poets will speak to me and I to them and we will try to destroy each other or attract each other and nothing will happen because we will be speaking in prose."

Jack Spicer

readungsroman

does your solar system have eight planets and three dwarf planets?

this week's literary events have eluded me for reasons of family, distance, and assorted busy-ness. if you attended, participated in, or organized any of the following events, i'd adore a recap of what was hot in talk and text: helsinki poetics conference, calgary blow-out, and test reading series.

astronomers argue over the definition of 'planet.'

if you're in toronto tonight and care to brave the neon and concrete of dundas square, come to scream in the square. gregory betts has organized the hell out of this event, which he fondly subtitles "soundubnuos." the event will feature lillian allen, gary barwin, and paul dutton. ciara adams, conor green, and i will read from wide slumber.

i play björk's explosive "pluto" for astronomy and dundas square.
excuse me / but i just have to /explode
explode this body / off me
i'll wake-up tomorrow / brand new
a little bit tired / but brand new

laments

FEMALE VOICE: "The truth is people are pushed around by two men who move all the bodies on earth into patterns that please them."

MALE VOICE: "I love my mind when it is fucking the cracks of events."

MALE VOICE: "What I give to all the people who do not want to live with me is arithmetic."

FEMALE VOICE: "Everyday, I do nothing important because I am scared blank and lazy. But then the men come. I put my mouth on them. I spit and write with the wet."

MALE VOICE: "I was not born live. This body grew but I did not feel cells split."

Jenny Holzer

cunning

"Even a potato in a dark cellar has a certain low cunning about him which serves him in excellent stead."

Cellarius, The Book of the Machines

what is a planet?

3,000 astronomers meet to define 'planet.'

tool

"If there's no soul in the music, it's because no one put it there; it's not the tool's fault."

Björk

dancer

"Dance is an art in space and time. The object of the dancer is to obliterate that."

Merce Cunningham

this weekend: rural reading

if you're in the kingston area this weekend, pop by the red school house poetry primer. many poets will read from friday to sunday, including kevin connolly, oana avasilichioaei, and rm vaughan. i'm leading a workshop for teens on saturday afternoon, and reading saturday night with jeffrey canton and stan dragland.

nature as language

agathena dyck's nature as language, a collaboration with honeybees.
encaustic manitoban gives new meaning to the term 'wax museum.'

language

"Language is an old-growth forest of the mind."

Wade Davis

"Never underestimate a butterfly."

short-tailed blue, small blue, silver-studded blue, mazarine blue, damon blue, chalkhill blue, adonis blue, common blue, yellow shell, yellow underwing, yellow-tail

listen

"You must learn to listen before you learn to sing. And you have first to listen to your own breath and then to the self it embodies."

Sheila Dhar quoting Pandit Pran Nath, published in a Namarupa essay by Marcus Boon

love

"Love goes away when your mind goes away and then you're someone else."

Kathy Acker, Blood and Guts in High School

books

"I don't even hate books anymore."

Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

voice

"Is it not first through the voice that one becomes animal?"

Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

part I: exercising wernicke's area

ben marcus' essay in harper's magazine (oct 2005 issue), "why experimental fiction threatens to destroy publishing, jonathan franzen, and life as we know it," kicks off with an intriguing introduction that outlines the role wernicke's area has in reading comprehension. marcus employs stand-out prose passages that beg to be read aloud (gotta love prose that leaps ecstatically off tongue, teeth, and lips), and that only occasionally veer peripherally into a light rhetorical antagonism (a tone akin to that sometimes found in 'tino's "hostility suite").

the introductory ten paragraphs of this essay excited me. i initially felt the urge to invite marcus out for a beverage to chat about his work. i'd play devil's advocate; i'd relate anecdotes to corroborate his points; i'd ask questions. instead, i read aloud sections to jordan scott, as they're hugely relevant to our recent conversations around audience, publishing climate, and accessibility in writing. after reading them aloud, my brain sprouted tangents, tangents that circled back to recent toronto conversations around what we mean by words such as art, literature, poetry, performance, entertainment. and then i started this blog post. and now i'm editing this blog post. and i'm left with these fascinating marcus quotes embedded in my tangential thoughts. there is much to say about marcus' essay and the many points he raises. feel free to post in my comments box; i'm about to get all digressive...

before marcus hones in on the titular material of his essay (or, as i said to jordan, before marcus digresses from the bits i find electric), he articulates something that's been a popular topic between westward writers and me. this seems particularly timely, as jordan's brought up the ever-fascinating issue of a writer's awareness of, definition of, and potential relationship to his audience during the writing process (and prior to the reading process). note: i replaced "fiction" with "poetry" in the following passage...

"A writer laboring intensely to produce art from words would almost certainly hope for an active Wernicke's area, rather than an atrophied one, on the part of his reader. As a writer of sometimes abstract, so-called experimental [poetry] that can take a more active attention to read, I would say that my ideal reader's Wernicke's area is staffed by an army of jumpsuited code-breakers,working a barn-size space that is strung about the rafters with a mathematically intricate lattice of rope and steel, and maybe gusseted by a synthetic coil that is stronger and more sensitive than either, like guitar strings made from an unraveled spinal cord, each strand tuned to different tensions. The conduits of language that flow past it in liquid-cooled bone-hollows could trigger unique vibrations that resonate into an original symphony when my ideal reader scanned a new sentence. This would be a scheme so elaborate that every portion of language would be treated as unique, and its infinite parts would be sent through such an exhaustive decoding process that not even a carcass of a word would remain. My ideal reader would cough upa thimble of fine gray powder at the end of the reading session, and she could use this mineral-rich substance to compost her garden."

would we hope for a reader? if we did, would we hope for a reader with an active wernicke's area? at one point before/during/after the writing/publishing do we consider our possible readers? how might we approach our own texts differently (during writing, editing, or when finished) if we assume a certain reader? how do i interpret my text through my mom's eyes? how might i edit my text to have a stronger impact for jill hartman if she reads it? would i refine my poem before sharing it with BafterC? how would i consider my text through the eyes of my high-school best friend turned revenue canada agent, a toronto high-school student whose first language is cantonese, drew barrymore (i watched ever after last night; she's on my brain), my employer, the judges of supernova: rockstar, a honeybee? how many editorial passes have i made on my work by considering different readers (before and after their responses)?

back to marcus' essay... i initially question marcus' likening the reading process to a puzzle, but i realize my back rose only because i've heard arguments against some non-traditional poetries refer to them as pointless brain-teasers. marcus' prose invigorates, and i follow my thoughts to self-reflexion. i love investigating a poem's logic, and that sense of investigating could quite easily be likened to decoding. back on track...

"If reading is a skill, with levels of ability, and not simply something we can or cannot do, then it's a skill that can be improved by more and more varied reading. The more various the styles we ingest, the better equipped we are to engage and be moved by those writers who are looking deeply into the possibility of syntax as a way to structure sense and feeling, packing experience into language, leveraging grammar as a medium for the making of art."

a skill developed by varied reading, but for my learning style it's also developed by active discussion with peers about these readings. i recall the first time i read karen mac cormack's at issue; i had pleasure in some of her syntax, but was unable to fish the deeper logic of why these words met each other on the page the way they did. a few conversations later, my wernicke's area was sweaty and buff.

"Whether or not this intense kind of reading makes us freaks is another matter, but the muscle grows and strengthens every time we use it, leaving us hungrier to encounter sentences we’ve never seen before. And there are certain books that do require us to be readers, that ask us to have spent some time with sentences of all sorted and presume an intense desire for new language that might render notions of "effort" in reading meaningless. But now, in the literary world, writers are being warned off this ambitious approach, and everywhere are signs that if you happen to be interested in the possibilities of language, if you appreciate the artistic achievements of others but still dream for yourself, however foolishly, that new arrangements are possible, new styles, new concoctions of language that might set off a series of delicious mental explosions-- if you believe any of this, and worse, if you try to practice it, you are an elitist. You hate your audience, you hate the literary industry, you probably even hate yourself. You stand not with the people but in a quiet dark hole, shouting to no one.

"I am writing this essay from such a hole, I suppose, and it's my view that the reverse is true. The elitists are not supposedly demanding writers such as myself but rather those who caution the culture away from literary development, who insist that the narrative achievements of the past be ossified, lacquered, and rehearsed by younger generations. In this climate artistic achievement is a legacy, and writers are encouraged to behave like cover bands, embellishing the oldies, maybe, while ensuring that buried in the song is an old familiar melody to make us smile with recognition, so that we might read more from memory than by active attention."

this was the part that reminded me of "hostility suite" and that resonated with so many conversations i've had over the last two years with colleagues. i'm still much of a listener in this kind of conversation, still at that point where i'm eager to soak in a variety of opinions, pre-stance or having a stance but not yet displaying it lest i be asked to then display my funny walk that accompanies said stance. (digression: i do this with writing, too. i may be writing, but i won't admit it to someone else unless i'm feeling an urge to share or a confidence at the level where the writing sits.) but this is a hot topic in some literary circles i sample.

i could continue to digress and tangent and branch away; i feel like i've just scratched the surface of so many intriguing topics. i'm much more eager to learn what you think about any of this, all of this? where did your thoughts lead you (or where did you lead your thoughts -- WHO HAS THE LEASH?!) as you read this marathon of a summer blog post?

further reading re: marcus' essay... harper's has an excerpt from later on in the essay online. slate published an essay review by jess row. publisher's weekly provides a preview for the essay, hinting at the later passages (which i didn't discuss at all here).

part II: questioning classification

my previous post chatted about ben marcus' essay in harper's magazine. a phrase from the first paragraph i quoted lead me on the following tangent.

"to produce art from words"

how is literature classified? is literature art? is literature entertainment? is art entertainment? what is the relationship between literature, art, entertainment? who categorizes what is art, lit, entertainment? how and why could these classifications be useful? there are no immediate answers; questions spur additional questions. these questions do not invite an immediate answer from me, as i first want to build a definition for each word to plot its scope/focus/limitations/boundaries.

instead, i ask myself why i have snagged on this phrase, "art from words." at what point do i or does someone else choose to label text as art, as literature, as performance, as entertainment?

this questioning of classification and its relationship to art and writing reminds me of a curious example that an academic institution has batted about housing a creative writing program. york university's creative writing program is housed under the humanities department. as i understand it, the CW program used to be classified as a branch of english before it was taken over by humanities, and there may be continuing talks to have the program returned to english. to complicate this shuffling at york, the fine arts department offered a one-time course in 1997/8 that doubled as an intro to creative writing and workshop. the program's identity crisis surely raises interesting questions for its students and professors. how might a creative writing program housed in english differ from one in fine arts? similarly, how might a creative writing MA differ from the MFA? what factors go into shaping the program through its larger affiliation with a department?

exiting this example, i wonder about how we apply terms like "literature," "art," and "entertainment..." do we use them consistently, and what worlds of knowledge and definition does each word imply when spoken by me? by you? by ben marcus? etc.

marko niemi's nurotus

i followed paal's links and one landed me on marko niemi's hella delightful and often interactive visual/digital poems. go play, and make sure to browse the blog's archives.

sever whether

City of Toronto * 9:12 PM EDT Wednesday 2 August 2006
Severe thunderstorm warning for City of Toronto

9:41 PM EDT
temperature from 31 to 22 celcius.

This is a very high impact severe weather situation..Take immediate precautions as advised. Most of southern Ontario will be impacted with damaging winds as the squall line tracks southeastward.

the striking of one body against another
A tree has been knocked down.

..Widespread damaging winds gusting to 120 km/h and nearly continuous lightning with a line of severe thunderstorms..At 8.15 PM the line stretched from Goderich eastward to Orangeville to Newmarket thence northeastward. Damaging winds precede the band of heavy rain.

word and ward ard wrd winds precede the bands

The line has slowed to a southeastward motion of 40 km/h. The line will reach Toronto near 9.15 PM. Damaging downbursts are the main threat with these severe thunderstorms but a cluster of supercell thunderstorms over eastern Ontario ahead of the squall line..Are probably producing tornadoes.

powerful current from cumulonimbus
Move and react as a single entity.

The hot..Humid and unstable air mass remains over southern Ontario. The cool front sprawled west to east across the northern Bruce Peninsula will slump very slowly southeastward overnight.

hot..Humid sprawled.. .. ..will slump

Thunderstorms are developing over Michigan west of Lake Huron this afternoon. Squall lines of thunderstorms are expected to race eastward along the cool front overnight. Damaging downbursts are the main threat with these thunderstorms. Eastern Ontario will be affected by these thunderstorms after midnight.

.. .. ..race
Sunshine by tomorrow afternoon.


weather report from environment canada.
definitions from dictionary.com.

tagged: a bookish survey

1. one book that changed your life:
the first night i imagined my dinner as a book.

2. one book you’ve read more than once:
"curioser and curioser..." -- alice's adventures in wonderland by lewis carroll.

3. one book you’d want on a desert island:
codex seraphinianus by luigi serafini.

4. one book that made you giddy:
"farmermaids plough underwater fields with their tails." -- spiral agitator by steve venright.

5. one book that wracked you with sobs:
the bears and i: raising three cubs in the north woods by robert franklin leslie.

6. one book that you wish had been written:
english translation of codex seraphinianus.

7. one book you wish had never been written:
what is the point of wishing a book out of existence?

8. one book you’re currently reading:
finally we are no one by múm.

9. one book you’ve been meaning to read:
reading the illegible by craig dworkin.

10. now tag six people.
jilly, eiríkur, geeb, sina, paal, maggie: you're it!

this post has been brought to you courtesy of said like reeds or things. said like reeds or things: the tagging specialists.