Ongoing notes: mid-January, 2014

In case you haven’t been paying attention, there is constant activity now over at the above/ground press blog, the Chaudiere Books blog and the ottawa poetry newsletter. Haven’t you seen? The new issue of ottawater is due to appear soon, and the next issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics is most likely online in March (featuring new works by Amanda Earl, Brecken Hancock, Jessica Smith and David O’Meara, among others). Plenty of new above/ground press titles are in the works (you should totally subscribe!) by N.W. Lea, Hugh Thomas, m erskine, David Phillips and Camille Martin (with more to come!), and Chaudiere Books works up to an Indiegogo Campaign launch/announcement very soon, as well as an announcement for upcoming 2014 titles!

And Emperor Rose is nearly two months old; sleep has become some kind of fading, faded memory. What is this “sleep” you speak of, there?

Ottawa ON: Since baby keeps us from leaving the house, I only now received a copy of Three Poems (St. Andrew Books, 2013) by Cameron Anstee, which he self-produced in an edition of forty copies “for a reading in The Reading Series (In/Words) at the Clocktower Brew Pub (Ottawa ON) 30 October 2013.” The small publication is exactly what it sets out to be (reminiscent, slightly, of a similarly-built three poem item of John Newlove poems from the 1980s), a sly three-poem treat (or possibly, trick). Unlike his previous poems—long, meditative sequences that held trace echoes of the work of Monty Reid and others—these new works are smaller and far more compact, suggesting that the work he’s done over the past little while on the works of Paris, Ontario poet and publisher Nelson Ball have begun to seep in. While still holding on to the meditative moment, instead of stretching out the singular moment, these new poems of Anstee’s work to make those moments, while still allowing for breathing space between the lines, as compact as possible.

Daylight Savings

the widening

discrepancies

between the

numerous clocks

in our

home

a dissonant

stagger

I’m both optimistic and impatient about the fact that Anstee releases his work slowly, and in such small packages. I’m intrigued to see the sum of what he has accomplished up to this point, in a singular space. Whenever that might be.

Toronto ON/England: The blurb on the back cover of David Herd’s chapbook Outwith (BookThug, 2012), the first in their “New British Poets” series, writes:

NEW BRITISH POETS is a series of chapbooks edited by Stephen Collis and Amy De’Ath that brings work by younger British poets to North American readers. This is post-language poetry that betrays a transatlantic engagement with and response to contemporary North American poetry and poetics, while at the same time carving out strident new paths through current British literature. Don’t know what’s been happening in UK poetry since Prynne? This is the place to start.

I admire the ambition of this emerging series, and can only hope that BookThug continues to engage this way with contemporary British poetry via chapbooks. The first in the series, by Canterbury poet David Herd, presents an intriguing mix of language play and the straight line. I’m always intrigued by the experimental and/or avant-garde poetry of the UK, knowing full well it has an entirely different lineage than anything that has gone on in North America, even if some of the influences might overlap. There are some magnificent pieces in this collection, the first I’ve read by Herd, including the short sequence “3 notes towards a Love Song” that opens: “The world is feral today and still / There is much between us / This dumb old November weather / Consequential, nothing but itself.”

I –

Don’t know if there is a poem here.

With all the beautiful things you

We walk down by the river

In the cold through the Africa rooms of the British Museum

Tell a story of the half-brother who rose up –

I have never seen you angry

I have never seen you drunk.

I have seen you with the waitress

Listened as you ask after my family

Pictured you on the beach waiting for the agencies to show

As the boats come in oblivious to place

Each time asking a different question you saying,

‘Ceux qu’ils restent sont ils pas mes amis.’ (“The hearing”)

The second chapbook in this series is Petrarch (2013) by London poet Tim Atkins, a short collection of expansive poems composed as collage works, with clipped lines and staccato pauses. Presented out of numerical order, each poem is titled with a number, and the results are intriguing, opening with “191,” immediately followed by “325” and “164,” for example. The mix might be straightforward enough, attempting to mix up pieces that might be composed concurrently, so the connections become discordant, therefore highlighting connections and disconnections that might not otherwise have existed. Are the numbers important, irrelevant or entirely the point? Is this work, possibly, part of a much larger discordant work?

164

Oh! Here I am & what is this

Duvet & ketamine   lemons in the North & South Circular

    stars asleep in their beds & the paparazzi

Do not twinkle at the gates   or were they   Cheerios &

    cold milk

Producing a temporary high & then finally   the remorse of

    a lover   human or   other   he said

Feeling a little  light-headed over   multiple copies of

    Wallace

Spilling & losing weight from the fingertips               but

    I Do Not

I got IBS paying off the IRS      perhaps the

Ignis Ignis   on the branch   pecks my wood when life is good

    (perhaps)

I went to the library in order to learn things but   To Kill A

    Mockingbird   taught me

Nothing about how to kill mockingbirds

It is beautiful to look at   beautiful things   & say

Fuck to the revolution      because one has already done it

I got the tiny mumps   instead of   Concupiscent Cups

You never do get all your money back

MESSAGIO GALORE: TAKE VI

[Carmel & Roland, pre-show] On January 24, 2009 as part of Max Middle’s A B Series at the City Hall Art Gallery, jwcurry presented another in his “Messagio Galore” series of performances to a packed house of over ninety people, this one including a vocal ensemble consisting of himself, Roland Prévost, Carmel Purkis, John Lavery, Sandra Ridley and Grant Wilkins (with the vocal addition of Toronto writer Maria Erskine near the very end) performing orchestrated vocal works by writers such as Shant Basmajian, Four Horsemen, bpNichol, Mike Patton, The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie, Hugo Ball, Claude Gauvreau, Paul Haines (father of musician Emily), Jack Kerouac, d.a. levy, bob cobbing, Wharton Hood, Gerry Shikatani and Frank Zappa, among others. A long selection of works, the order of the performance was shuffled by random by the audience themselves, as Pearl Pirie went through the crowd pre-performance asking us all to “shuffle” the pages, thus letting the performance speak for itself, as opposed to letting any particular order take charge.

What was interesting about this version of the MASSAGIO GALORE was in how curry had selected a group of otherwise quiet people as his voices. John Lavery is certainly a seasoned performer of his own works, with more recent multi-vocal performances with Max Middle, and participating in a performance for 3 voices of Samuel Beckett works with Max and Carmel Purkis at the writers festival a few years ago, but the rest are far quieter, and it was interesting to hear the voices of all, but especially Sandra, Grant and Roland, come out of themselves, whether Roland’s thoughtful precision, Sandra’s careful steps out into her own voice, or Carmel simply allowing herself to let go. If you can imagine, for weeks preceding the event, curry had them in ten to twelve hour practice sessions, a few evenings a week, pushing the group further than I’ve known any performers of writing to push themselves in this town at least.

Holding himself as the anchor to the evening (being the only performer of the group to perform solo works), the evening was framed around John Cage’s “LECTURE ON NOTHING,” with fragments of the essay performed as a sextet and intersperced throughout the 90-minute performance, being a talk of “nothing,” “continuity” and “structure,” and watching, through essay and the performance as a whole, how the three wrap themselves around each other, each thread impossible to separate from the rest, without the whole of the evening coming apart.

One of the highlights had to be Carmel and Lavery performing “that old remembering song” from Fraggle Rock (with jwcurry on the floor, he was laughing so hard). A magnificent piece and magnificent performance by both, and all Carmel needed was her hair in two braids, and she would have made a perfect “Red” (playing “Red,” despite, she said later, the original was performed by “Boober”). What really made the performance was watching, for example, Lavery knowing to let Carmel shine during “that old remembering song,” each performer allowing the space for whoever needed to be featured during a particular piece, whether singular or all of the above. What made the performance as a whole was the lack of ego from each of the performers, letting the works themselves speak, and not let themselves get in the way of those works.

Another highlight had to be curry and Lavery performing “OPIUM MARBLE,” a small piece for two voices that curry has performed with many over the years, including Max Middle, Gary Barwin and Stuart Ross, made at one point as a small chapbook through above/ground press. There were a couple of works in this set that I’d heard before, in other of curry’s performances, and I know that “OPIUM MARBLE” is a particular favourite. Interesting to hear Lavery’s voice where Max’s once was, to see where the interpretive differences lay.

1. 7 KNOTS, jwcurry (Canada, 1982) (duo: JL/SR)
2. Alice in Wonderland, Sam Loyd (USA, 189-?) (sextet)
3. A LITTLE NASTINESS, Four Horsemen (Rafael Barreto-Rivera/Paul Dutton/Steve McCaffery/bpNichol; Canada, 1961) (sextet)
4. anacyclic poem with two shouts DHARMATHOUGHTS STUPAWARDS, don sylvester houedard (England, 1966) (duo: CP/SR)
5. A THOUSAND MOODS A MINUTE, Shant Basmajian (Canada, 1992?) (sextet)
6. auf dem land, Ernst Jandl (Austria, 1968?)
7. B, Francois Dufrene (France, 1958) (trio: JC/JL/RP)
8. CANZONE RUMORISTA cantata in coro sui testri d’Italia in ANICCAM del 2000, Fortunato Depero (Italy, 1916?)
9. ears, Michelle April/jwcurry (Canada, 2006)
10. EAST WIND, bpNichol (Canada, 197-?) (quartet: JC/JL/CP/SR)
11. end ant, Wharton Hood (Canada, 1996) (duo: JL/GW)
12. Gadji beri bimba, Hugo Ball (Switzerland, 1916)
13. getting there rapid, jwcurry/Qanni Lore (Canada, 1989?) (duo: CP/SR)
14. Hour 3, bpNichol (Canada, 1978?)
15. “How The Pigs’ Music Works”, Frank Zappa (USA, 1994) (trio: JL/RP/CP)
16. IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE, Frank Zappa (USA, 1965) (quartet: JC/JL/RP/CP)
17. Jacques Dulume, Claude Geauvreau (Canada, 195-?)
18. LECTURE ON NOTHING, John Cage (USA, 1949) (quartet: JC/JL/CP/SR)
19. Marcia futurista, F.T. Marinetti (Italy, 1916) (sextet)
20. Me and the Flamer, Mike Patton (USA, 1998) (sextet)
21. “Mon Olivine”, Claude Gauvreau (Canada, 195-?)
22. “My Olivine”, Claude Gauvreau/translated Ray Ellenwood (Canada, 197-?)
23. OLD ANGEL MIDNIGHT 57, Jack Kerouac (USA, 1959?)
24. OPIUM MARBLE, jwcurry (Canada, 1980) (duo: JC/JL)
25. Pike-Fishing North Milne Lake, Gerry Shikatani (Canada, 1977?) (quartet: JC/JL/CP/SR)
26. roses that, d.a.levy (USA, 1966)
27. SHIFT 3, jwcurry/Peggy Lefler (Canada, 1982) (intro: JL; duo: SR/GW)
28. sounds’ favorite words, Paul Haines (Canada, 1986)
29. “that old remembering song”, Phil Halsam/Dennis Lee/bpNichol (Canada, 1983) (duo: JL/CP)
30. THE MAN IN THE LOWER LEFT HAND CORNER OF THE PHOTOGRAPH, Mike Patton (USA, 1995)
31. THE MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE, Spike Jones/Doodles Weaver (USA, 1947)
32. The Tibetan Memory Trick, traditional/arranged The Phlorescent Leech & Eddie (Howard Kaylan/Mark Volman; USA, 1975) (sextet)
33. TRACT, jwcurry (Canada, 1995) (duo: JC/CP)
34. TWO: Less Time, bpNichol (Canada, 1982?) (sextet)
35. weeds, John Barlow (Canada, 1995)
36. WORM, bob cobbing (England, 1964) (quartet: JC/JL/SR/GW)

curry has done a number of interesting performances in Ottawa over the years, including the first edition of the ottawa international writers festival in 1997, where he did half his reading as his own pseudonym, Wharton Hood, a reading with Maria Erskine at Gallery 101 (as part of the Factory Reading Series), a reading of the first few books of bpNichol’s The Martyrology on Parliament Hill, and his infamous reading under his Somerset Street West apartment where he, naked, pounded out a reading with Alpha-Bits (the first half of the performance framed with bill bissett's "what fuckan theory," an essay/book from the 1970s). How is it that over the brief span of a few years, Max Middle and jwcurry have managed to develop an audience for sound poetry in Ottawa?

And let’s not forget the stamps that curry made, put on everyone’s hand as they came into the performance, made from stencils from Toronto graffiti artist P. Cobb, “Mr. P. Cobb had sex with dog.”

related notes: Pearl Pirie’s report; Amanda Earl’s report; Charles Earl’s photo; Rod Pedersons's report; previous MESSAGIO report; jwcurry's bookstore;