Inbetwixt

I am having a little wonder/ponder about things like familiarity and contempt in term of writing and performance. We headed off on Friday evening to Pascalle Burton's book launch and it was quite interesting for a few reasons. One thing I noticed is that I have heard her perform quite a few times now, perhaps half a dozen - and so her poems are becoming 'old friends'. This is to say, I am now familiar with the words and the way Pascalle performs them. I don't feel 'bored' when I hear the individual poems - but I find myself listening less carefully, picking up on other things. Other aspects of the performance have picked up greater significance as I am no longer trying to simply 'hear the poem'. I think at this point in my listening, I am actually in a position to critique - and likely would not have been able to do so earlier -- I would have just been saying, "wow this is great!" Last night was also the first time I have seen Pascalle's poetry on the page as all the people who attended her book launch were given a copy of her book,  A Vast Laugh'. Does seeing the words on the page change things as well? Probably a little.

I notice things about using voice recording/reading/performing and poetry. For some people, the poem doesn't seem to 'click' until they hear it read. At the point voice in integrated, it is like the poem makes 'sense' and I listen to people talk about ah ha! moments.

This is an interesting thing for me as I enjoy reading a poem off the page a great deal ... and it may well be for me, the poem doesn't feel 'complete' until I see it on a page.

Once people get into performance poetry - I wonder how their appreciation for 'just poetry' on a page changes? Do people get into a sort of jazzed poetry experience, and anything less, seems flat, or bland by comparison?

Is this simply down to the different way people enjoy poetry ... hell ... enjoy words in general ...  and does it have something to do with our limited range of opportunities to appreciate poetry in different ways? Does integrating new experience with 'poetic means' forever alter the way we approach poetry. [Consider as well, the recent information I posted in respect to experimental and sound poetry].

At the point where we start to meet people at their needs for our work to be presented in a different way(s) at which point does this 'presentation process' start to actually drive the work, the writing, the poetry? Is it a 'good thing' that it does? If we start to use things like voice recording, an/or other media ie/ visual imagery, film, music, sounds ... does the majority of our creative focus move from writing a great poem, to actually keeping people interested in the presentation of it?

Ponderings ...

I'm posting this to keep it foremost in my thinking as I am going to need to sort out where I am going to go with this. I may invite some conversation with other poets on the subject, and consider a representative sample of poems which speak to the idea of "I" in poetry.


The notion that poets can-and should-speak personally through their poems raises radical notions about the structures of memory and truth and the nature of “I”. Poetry is much more than words and objective cognitive processes it is also lyrical, metaphorical, compositional and resists literal measurements of ‘truth’. It is precisely these qualities that allow poetry to speak honestly even if not literally truthfully; and precisely this possibility, which contributes to the conundrum about the validity of the poetic “I”.

Prior to the 1950-60’s, literary convention supported an objective and impersonal sort of poetry, which was to be an escape from personality and emotion [TS Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent," (1919)] Movements such as the Beat Movement and Confessional poetry proposed a different sort of poetic ‘truth’ telling that did not gain easy acceptance. This was poetry written from the perspective of “I” and was assumed to be autobiographical. Such poetry has been criticized as inferior, gratuitous, sloppy and self-indulgent. Ironically, it has also been interpreted as literally ‘true’.

In this paper I propose to explore the use of “I” as a poetic convention, which allows for the manipulation of memory and subjective positioning to ‘tell truths’. I will use my own work as well as that of other selected poets to explore the process of making and ascribing of ‘meaning’ to poetry and to explore the relative value of truth in poetry.

BIRTH PALETTE

Lizard air lichens ivy driven urchin’s pry to a pounce.
Scribbled terrestrial traor, the paw actions tainy blee
scoa, blue scog. In eat, gashed harmonica stresses to
skull icon, jigged but shower, Crushtative bundles,
Doe, Owl, the Hare mantled in a planetary pivot.
Vulture-Jar, dragonfly & waterbeetle are we,
each veil of the glide species.

Sheer Shoe-Shoe darks, Weem Cyclicity,
Threads & Wisps.
Yesterday’s loaf soaks on the spindle,
sky blue large the sea’s purple Octopi bickerings
re-in-indigo dozens indignant.
Options Falter.
Rodent, Bat Swing Mare-O-Crow-O-Crane
Midscales cache,
untilled kestrels carded,
ancestrous to a Song.

Earth scalded, wired lame.
Yew Hung Abbatoir Voltages.

Wouldja Pouches, sun crawl. Snail, Serpent,
Wren stroke of this tiny wobble entrailed massively.
Rune Retro whiskers congregate, blood squeak of the herd
do fruit
& jabbing trill,
flood plains.

Lagoon remnants bleeding salmon aquatic nocturnal warms,
wanted,
curved.

Deers – early as early a knifing in livid Ever
fens’ve powder Spider fishes ground,
flew turbid
stealthy sweet smoke heart size.

Dread.
Dulled.
Pebble,
putty tone,
Vessel
differing den pegs –
Pheasant
the dark moon turns.

Ricochet, straw cauldrons, water sickle
rooting turbid Rails.
Pig gathers in the lemon.
Cow, later of wood.
Lioness, ’twas all moon down in the brainstem,
tally-sticks –
Jackal woke fresh, key made from Butterfly depths,
the Chrysalis,
the Spider.
Treasury Futures.
Asterisms liced from the Skull.
Nerve Surge.
Expulsions to a Rope.

© Maggie O'Sullivan, 2003.

I took this series of photos deliberately and heavily over exposed - I love the color and the effect. The pics I have put up are not touched yet, not cropped, not photoshopped not anything. I will get to them, but I need to be able to see them, think about them and ponder them.

Another set I plan to put poems to.

The terrible lightness of being keeps playing in the back of my mind, and the idea of playing god ... like a Greek god maybe. The Greeks had a way of humanizing their gods to the point where godliness didn't seem like a great career opportunity.

When I look at these pics, I also get this cemetery angel feeling. But heavier. More weight. A terrible beautiful ... final thing?

Pretty in a manner that isn't pretty at all. You have to look at these images, differently.

J and I  went to a speed poetry event on Sunday. There were 20 poets reading, including yours truly. J said something interesting to me ...

He asked if there was a particular 'way' poets read, or poetry was meant to be read. It seemed to him that the most of the poets who were reading, read very 'flat' almost 'monotone' and he naturally found that dull.

I think, especially in the world of performance poetry - where the poem is meant to be memorized and performed - eliminating the barrier of paper between the poet and the audience - I would expect 'performance' not a flat read.

I am going to post a couple links here of poets reading poems.

First  of them is Louise Glück reading The Red Poppy. I have to say I love Louise's poetry, I think she is breath taking and brilliant - but I think her reading is appalling, abysmal ... absolutely terrible!

Next up for grabs, Anne Sexton reading Her Kind Now I of course, love Anne's poetry too ... this reading is better, her voice is interesting, not so flat, but still, it sounds 'read' and certainly not performed. This is how I'd sit and read my work to my husband or a friend. I would not 'perform it' in this way.

Ok, a last read one, Adrienne Rich reading The Art of Translation. Again, she's reading with at least some feeling, but there is the same 'sound' to the reading. Its got something to do with an inflection added to the endings of words, a slight upward 'tilt' to the word endings, especially noticeable at the end of lines.

Now .. try this .. Emilie Zoey Baker' s Fannyism  (click the link at the right hand top of page)- she's an Australian performance poet -- and ok, she's using props, sounds etc - and is using humor -- but tell me there is not a HUGE difference in interest and likability factor!

I am considering all of this, as of course, the performance heats for the Queensland poetry competition start this weekend. I intend to perform my pieces, without paper, and I certainly hope I will sound interesting.

This is one, I wish I had written, it is that good. A Myth of Devotion
by  by Louise Glück
When Hades decided he loved this girl he built for her a duplicate of earth, everything the same, down to the meadow, but with a bed added. Everything the same, including sunlight, because it would be hard on a young girl to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness Gradually, he thought, he'd introduce the night, first as the shadows of fluttering leaves. Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars. Let Persephone get used to it slowly. In the end, he thought, she'd find it comforting. A replica of earth except there was love here. Doesn't everyone want love? He waited many years, building a world, watching Persephone in the meadow. Persephone, a smeller, a taster. If you have one appetite, he thought, you have them all. Doesn't everyone want to feel in the night the beloved body, compass, polestar, to hear the quiet breathing that says I am alive, that means also you are alive, because you hear me, you are here with me. And when one turns, the other turns— That's what he felt, the lord of darkness, looking at the world he had constructed for Persephone. It never crossed his mind that there'd be no more smelling here, certainly no more eating. Guilt? Terror? The fear of love? These things he couldn't imagine; no lover ever imagines them. He dreams, he wonders what to call this place. First he thinks: The New Hell. Then: The Garden. In the end, he decides to name it Persephone's Girlhood. A soft light rising above the level meadow, behind the bed. He takes her in his arms. He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you but he thinks this is a lie, so he says in the end you're dead, nothing can hurt you which seems to him a more promising beginning, more true.
"A Myth of Devotion" from Averno by Louise Glück.

I am chuckling here ... the feedback on the Lilith image is overwhelmingly positive ... but there are a couple of people who think that the material/veil is her hair that I have 'painted' in.

I have had to explain, no that is material you are seeing. Is this like how people mail me asking, what does your poem ... mean!!??

I did nothing at all yesterday, no writing, no 'art'. I am tired. I need to recoup some energy and my plate is full. Ha! Just wait until I am back working full time.

I really don't know what to call what I am doing.

.... 'art'? 

That sounds so presumptuous. When does a person say, "I am an artist"? or indeed, "I am a poet."

In kindergarten and grade school, they call coloring 'art', or gluing stuff and adding sparklies ... 'art' ... so why not?

I never said I was a poet, until I had work published. I never thought of it as a rule or anything. I just never said it until then. When I return to work I will be Fiona the Clinical Therapist, or Fiona the Social Worker ... and  I won't be Fiona the poet or artist, except somewhere in my head in the evenings or on the weekends.

Ok not going there.

First off - I think the series name might need to be  changed to "Red".  It doesn't matter in my head I know what the series is about ... silence, being silenced, speaking, what I dare to say, or not say - and the terrible weight of what is said, and ironically - also what is unsaid.

Ironically, Lucy also felt the series should be called 'Silenced". I didn't ask for feedback about the title - but that was her thought. She is spot on too - because for me, that is what its all about.

It is just as well there will be  poems attached to the series of images.

Ok, so I am on image 5 at the moment. I already am unhappy with the first image, the Mouth Still Sees ... I can see a dozen things I'd like to change or do differently. J says to just get to the end of the series then consider re-working. This is going to be like my poetry/writing ... where it all is lovely the day I complete it, then two weeks later I hate it.

I love the Lilith one - the luminosity/light. I like the Eyes Are Silent one - even tho I think it is quite painful to look at. I like the grit of it.

I think this is where I need to let it go - sleep on it -- maybe back away from the visual images I am working on and do some writing.

Traitors, the mouth and the eyes. The mouth keeps the peace, the eyes look away.


PS/ have I mentioned I do not have the poems for this series written?