Phil Hall, Notes from Gethsemani

The mouth wide open in wonder & amazement

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I have killed a bug on the page I am reading

Like a shooting star—the smear of its innards—starting amid the text—& stretching into the white margin

I do not know what kind of bug it was—nor did it know what force befell it

As if the bug had been walking on a tree (the page once)—& a shadow covered it

The page as bark—the valued smear—it takes the page—back

The smear aims off—away—out from the text—the smear animates my reading

The smear—the spill—the dog-ear—the line in bold that is also underlined—then hi-lighted

The whole book has been hi-lighted—owning—it’s about owning

To underline one passage is to help you locate it again

But to underline almost everything—is to say—look I read this I read all of this I come in to the exam room bright yellow

Having yellowed many dense passages I shall never return to again

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Originally presented as the “Inaugural Page Lecture—in Honour of Joanne Page” on November 14, 2012 as part of his writer-in-residence tenure at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, is Phil Hall’s poem-essay chapbook Notes from Gethsemani (Vancouver BC: Nomados, 2014). “Think of what a page is—of what a poem is—what / they hint at being,” he writes, near the beginning of the thirty pages that make up Notes from Gethsemani. Award-winning Perth, Ontario poet and editor Phil Hall has been increasingly blurring the distinction between poem and essay in his work, most recently in his eleventh trade poetry collection, The Small Nouns Crying Faith (Toronto ON: BookThug, 2013) as well as through his previous, Killdeer (Toronto ON: BookThug, 2011), his work of self-described “essay-poems” that won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry and the Trillium Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Griffin Prize. The lecture-poem Notes from Gethsemani was composed, it seems, quite literally as notes during a retreat: “At the Abbey of Gethsemani—in Kentucky—May / 2012 // I was allowed a week of access to the monks’ library / & archives // To consider Thomas Merton’s personal library—to / contemplate the nature of rare library collections— / paper—page // To have the Abbot’s permission—to be allowed into / the book vault—to feel the door shut behind me— / us—a pressure[.]” Hall’s meditations on the page, text and the physical act of placing works upon various medium float, ebb and flow in a variety of directions, exploring the relationships between form, mechanism and distribution in a way that hasn’t been done before, or so well. Early on in the poem he writes: “Before it is written on—the page is a skin—a / surface—a weight—a bond—a field—a zone of / potential // Once marked—any skin is reduced—is as if / domesticated—fenced—lined—harnessed by ink & / rhetoric—it becomes readable—it becomes page [.]” Discussing Phil Hall and the Joanne Page Lectures in The Kingston Whig-Standard (posted October 17, 2013), Wayne Grady wrote:

As a poet, Phil is interested in the way writers relate to the page. When he was writer-in-residence at Queen’s University last year, he received an endowment from the English department to institute a lecture series dedicated to that very topic.

“I’m very proud of that,” he says, because he sees the series not only as a lasting legacy of his time there, but also as a way of honouring Kingston poet Joanne Page, after whom the series is named.

“The Page Lectures will be loosely based around the subject of the page,” he says, and will be given annually, by men and women alternately. He himself gave the first one last year.

“Every year,” he says, “I go down to the Abbey of Gesthemani, in Kentucky, on a kind of retreat.”

Sketched as a series of notebook entries, Hall’s poem writes out the physical act of writing from the mark on the wall to the page to the computer screen, and the nature of what that physical act requires and means: “Anyone who thinks that violence is not an element in / marginalia—not a factor in marking up a text[.]” Including textual examples by Susan Howe, Erín Moure, Ronald Johnson, George Bowering, Laurie Duggan, Souvankham Thammavongsa and Michael e. Casteels, Hall explores a fantastic meditation through his mastery of the essay-poem, weaving and meandering a variety of inquisitive and even folksy byways: “The fences that were captivity narratives—are in / Howe’s hands—a logjam of squeakings // The slash that will become the scar is what Derrida / calls différance—or pure trace [.]” Hall might entirely be one of the most thoughtful and inquisitive poets we have, able to explore questions and terrain that had, until now, not even occurred to others; and all in a way that would make any reader wonder: why not?

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Page backwards spells a new word—egap—& we half-understand such e-words now

There is an egap in our relation to writing on paper this day—perhaps it has always been there

Example—what of the strangeness of electronic signatures—the hand has not been a shadow or weight on that page—the written has been photographed & clipped & pasted

There is an egap between the legend of John Hancock & the legend of rag-paper

Or what of the persisting cult of the signed copy—what is treasured is the evidence of the maker’s body having been a shadow over that copy of that book—she wrote it & was here & left a tracing

(Like the bug on my book left a tracing)

We want the page & the body to have proximity—& this is being taken from us

At Gethsemani—the sign says—silence is spoken here

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12 or 20 (second series) questions with Laurie Duggan

Laurie Duggan grew up in Melbourne and over the years has lived in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. Since 2006 he has been living in a market town East Kent in the UK and is a regular reader on the London poetry circuit. Works include the documentary poem The Ash Range (2nd ed), Exeter, Shearsman, 2005; and a critical volume Ghost Nation: Imagined Space and Australian Visual Culture 1901-1939, Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 2001.  His most recent books are Crab & Winkle, Exeter, Shearsman, 2009; The Epigrams of Martial (2nd ed), Boston, Pressed Wafer, 2010; Allotments [1-29], Wendell, Massachusetts, Fewer & Further, 2011; The Pursuit of Happiness, Bristol, Shearsman, 2012; and The Collected Blue Hills, Sydney, Puncher & Wattman 2012.  His blog is at: www.graveneymarsh.blogspot.com

1 - How did your first book change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
I was 27 when my first book (East, 1976) came out. It was a small book and I’d edited out quite a few things that I’d keep if I were doing it now. I’d been writing for a while so it didn’t really change my life much. What did change things a lot was the first reading scene I was involved in, in 1968, at Monash University in Melbourne. The first book tried out a number of styles. I still tend to operate in different modes though I guess the most characteristic work I’ve done dates from my second book. It’s a more open-ended ‘continuous nerve movie’ sort of thing. For a long time I wrote satires and I’ve also written poems ‘including history’. I think I’ve just become more proficient, hopefully without becoming slick.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
I started writing poems in 1966 but I still didn’t think of myself as a poet. I’d wanted to write fiction (for which I have no talent whatsoever – and these days not much interest either), I’d wanted to be a painter (I wasn’t any good at it), and I’d wanted to be a rock star (like just about every other male of my vintage. I still noodle on a guitar but I wouldn’t kid myself about it). So I sort of blundered into poetry, then everything else fell away and that was what I was.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
It varies from work to work. Some things require a great deal of revision, others seem fully formed, but these have usually been percolating away off the page for some time.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
I always keep a notebook. Occasionally I’ve worked at projects but the parameters have usually been simple ones. It’s always fascinated me that fragments of ancient poems can seem more interesting and more alive than some completely available things.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
I don’t think readings are as essential for me now as they were in the beginning but I like doing them and am a tolerably good performer. Readings are more of a social occasion for people who work in isolation.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
I function from doubt, if you could call that a theory. It means I can never satisfactorily justify or even explain what I do. At the same time I know what I don’t like.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
I always tend to avoid being grouped as a ‘writer’ with others involved in political actions. I do get involved in political events but as a citizen rather than as a poet. I don’t think poetry gives me (or anyone)any special kind of authority. In this I’m with George Oppen.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
With poetry the only editing done on my work centres on questions of layout and general page design. With any other kind of writing I welcome editorial assistance. Good editors are a rare and wonderful species.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
‘There are a lot of bastards out there’ (William Carlos Williams).

10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
I do move between these two genres. The relationship is indirect but ultimately fruitful.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
Sluggishly. I’m not terribly organised to start off with. But I do keep a notebook and keep it handy. So much of what I write in it is rubbish but if I didn’t do it I wouldn’t get the good things either.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
I go for a long walk. Take photographs.

13 - What fragrance reminds you of home?
Eucalyptus after rain (Australia). Here (in Kent), malt from the local brewery.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
Just about every sort of experience enters the work. Including books.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
The list would be endless. Williams is always there. Oppen, increasingly so. Then there are my long-time companions (and compatriots) Pam Brown and Ken Bolton. But there are so many others.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Visit Portugal. And Chile.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
Everything I’ve done has, more or less, been by accident. I’ve been a number of things: a librarian, an academic, a cleaner, unemployed. It’s hard to say what else I might have done.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Pure chance.

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
There are so many great books it’s hard to even begin. Most movies I tend to forget within days. I haven’t forgotten My Winnipeg though.

20 - What are you currently working on?
I won’t know until it’s finished.

12 or 20 (second series) questions;

Fewer & Further Press: Monk, Duggan and Szymaszek

I recently received a package of chapbooks from a press I hadn’t previously heard of, Fewer & Further Press of Wendell MA, with titles including Andrew Mister’s Hotels (2007), Clark Coolidge’s Counting On Planet Zero (2007), Shannon Tharp’s Determined by Aperture (2008), Arlo Quint’s Drawn In (2009), Geraldine Monk’s SKYSCRAPERS (2010), John Godfrey’s Singles and Fives (2011), Laurie Duggan’s Allotments (2011) and Stacy Szymaszek’s austerity measures (2012).  Going through these chapbooks, Fewer & Further Press appears to favour the sequence, and has a reach far further than the continental United States, publishing poets from the United States, Europe and Australia.

Today

sky vacant          prosaic

after drenching and departures

almost carved in a tree

‘we’re out of control’

cold tea and a quick meal disastrously

decorates book cover

(smears of crime move with wild-fire spread)

puzzles testing resilience to facts

keeping out fear

                            rudimentary horns may

sprout from rocks

(theatrics breaking out of bounds)

almost wrote on the wall

‘we’re straining the day out’ (“CS,” Geraldine Monk)

A reissue of a chapbook originally produced by U.K. publisher Galloping Dog Press in 1986, Geraldine Monk’s SKYSCRAPERS is a sequence of short poems built on clouds, each with a two-letter title, from “CI” to “CS” to “AS” to “NS.” Through ten poems, Monk stretches the fluidity of cloud-poems, using the space and the stretch of the open page in lines that float apart, dissolve and cloud together, in the most tenuous of connections. Each poem opens its first stanza by naming a type of cloud, and later, opens a stanza at mid-point with “Today.” Writing a sequence of binaries, each first half writes a descriptive of cloud, and the second, grounds the poem temporally on the ground.

Allotment #3

halfway round the world

friends assemble an exhibition

of our former lives:

Coalcliff circa 1980;

photos of us, younger,

me washing dishes before the louvres,

out of my depth in a ‘career move’

that didn’t come off: scriptwriter

with skills for neither plot nor dialogue;

a house on sinking land,

(warped corner of the living room) (Laurie Duggan, Allotments)

Twenty-nine in number, Australian poet Duggan’s Allotments appear as fragments of something larger, less than stand-alone poems. What is Duggan working up to, his slow way towards? They read like small observational pieces, but with a slight skid towards abstract, leaving a door open where others might close. His poems read deceptively straightforward, even the ones that might be no more than they appear.

Sears Tower

harbinger for

trip over

useless crutches

at Holy Hill

we left nothing

flew East

with one

carry on (austerity measures, Stacy Szymaszek)

The most striking of the small selection of chapbooks, Szymaszek’s austerity measures works as a poem, as well as a sequence, building up an accumulation of sharp, short pieces into something absolutely devastating. At one point, the poem reads “slow down,” and it nearly feels redundant, as though the entire piece requires the reader to slow, absorb with attention, to really comprehend what the poem is doing. Creeleyesqe in the adherence to short lines and small moments, she even quotes him, slyly, within the bounds of her extended piece. Some sections appear self-contained, and others, points along a further, lyrical line.

when memory attacks

bring breath back

one thousand times (austerity measures, Stacy Szymaszek)