rob and Christine at Lunch Poems at SFU: a report,

Christine and I were fortunate enough to make our way to Vancouver last week (leaving our wee girls at home with their Oma, who was kind enough to watch them while we were away), to read at the monthly Lunch Poems at SFU series, lovingly hosted and co-curated by Renée Sarojini Saklikar. We’d originally been scheduled for last October, but Christine’s health wouldn’t allow for it, but we were able to reschedule for February, just in time to keep the funding from The League of Canadian Poets in the same fiscal year (so complicated). We flew out on Tuesday night, just making our flight, where we sat beside a four month old and her father; we assisted, of course. The baby sat with me for some time, and coughed on me repeatedly, which provided me with a head cold for many days once we returned home (I regret nothing).

It was a grand crowd! We’d already had a head’s-up that there would be a classroom’s worth of thirteen year olds (forty in all), but they barely made up half the assemblage of people attending: Fred Wah, Michael Turner, Daniel Cowper, Elee Kraljii Gardiner, Laura Farina (who now assists with the series as well), Kevin Spenst, Pete Smith, Warren Dean Fulton, Meredith Quartermain, Michael Edwards, Ted Byrne, Diane Tucker, Jenny Penberthy, George Stanley and many others. It was glorious! Although at least half the people I wished to say hello to had vanished by the time I had any attention, and Warren flew in and out during Christine's reading (apparently he was "at work," so wasn't technically there at all), but he did slip me a couple of new Pooka Press items.

I focused on reading from the "book of magazine verse" manuscript, which includes my new above/ground press chapbook and my new Anstruther Press chapbook. It was odd to read a poem referencing Quartermain and Turner with them both in the room, as well. Christine read sprinklings of both her published collections, as well as her third manuscript-in-progress. 

One thing I quite like about this series is that we were taken to lunch after, and it was grand to be able to spend some time talking to Renée and Laura (I see her so rarely, that every time I do, she's living in a different province; the last time I saw her was in spring 2008, when she was working at Banff under Steve Ross Smith; I originally met her when I read to her grade ten class at Ottawa's Canterbury High School), as well as some good time with George Stanley, who has an above/ground press chapbook forthcoming (meaning that all three of our poet-lunch companions have now been published through the press). Renée was also good enough to take us to The Paper Hound, where, of course, we spent handfuls of our book-money on even more books.

We flew in the night prior, which was an improvement over what I’d done with Stephen Brockwell [see my report on such here] three years earlier, when we left Ottawa at 4am Ottawa time and landed in just enough time to read at noon Vancouver time, and stay only the one night. Christine and I stayed two nights, at least, and at the infamous Sylvia Hotel, no less. As Christine was aware, I'd published a poem on Errol Flynn, who infamously (also) stayed his last nights at Vancouver's Sylvia Hotel, attended by Dr. Gould (uncle of Glenn), who would witness the actor's death. Here it is, a poem from my poetry collection paper hotel (Broken Jaw Press, 2002):

errol flynns last lover


breaking 40 years of silence & bad stigma,
            well after his swash & buckle days.

dying of everything in vancouver, a failure
            made complete - of liver, heart.

like malcolm lowry, death by misadventure,
            an accidental yankee caught for good.

theres love at seventeen & then theres this, the starlet
            & the alcoholic cad, old misfit.

the magic of life & bigger than, shrunk down to copy,
            when none of it matters. never did.

as the couple lands in canada, 1959, the final stop
            in all adventuring. the airplane touching earth.

Oh, Errol Flynn, you damned, damned fool. Apparently the hotel was also a favourite of Malcolm Lowry. Christine had stayed once prior, with Sandra Ridley, during a reading tour they were doing a few years back, so she had some familiarity with it. English Bay, which always makes me think of Victoria. They have one in Vancouver too? Oh, yes. And after the reading we didn't do much, didn't stray much, exhausted. We deliberately, it seemed, refused to adjust for the time-change, which meant we were up at 5am local time, but in bed at 7:30pm. We wandered the beach for a bit. We made for dinner. We made for our room.

Part of the benefit of that was being up in the morning for our flight, with a 7am opportunity to have coffee with Vancouver poet and critic Soma Feldmar, who I hadn't previously met, despite our years of email correspondence. She was absolutely delightful! And I loved her first book. She should have more poems out in the world. Don't you think? She was even good enough to drive us to the airport, which allowed for a slightly longer visit (and we barely made our flight, honestly). Maybe next time we'll stay a bit longer?

Vancouver poet laureate Brad Cran’s Olympic Response;

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Kudos, sir. A must-read.

N 49 15.832 - W 123 05.921
:::::: POSITIONS COLLOQUIUM ::::::

AUGUST 19 - 24, 2008

1965 Main Street, Vancouver, BC (Coast Salish Territory) presented by The Kootenay School of Writing with & at VIVO Media Arts Centre
http://www.videoinstudios.com/

participants include

Rita Wong Tyrone Williams Darren Wershler-Henry Mark Wallace Aaron Vidaver Rodrigo Toscano Catriona Strang Brian Kim Stefans Juliana Spahr Rod Smith Colin Smith Kaia Sand Lisa Robertson Judy Radul Pat O'Riley Sianne Ngai Dorothy Trujillo Lusk Kevin Killian Reg Johanson Robert Fitterman Roger Farr LauraElrick Stacy Doris Jeff Derksen Michael Davidson Peter Cole Louis Cabri Clint Burnham Jules Boykoff Dodie Bellamy

newly commissioned works
readings + talks + panels + performances

THEMATICS
N 49 15.832 - W 123 05.921

We are deliberately leaving the colloquium thematically open-ended, having invited writers and artists whose critical and creative practices already intersect (or, in enough cases, contradict) inproductive ways. A pertinent conversation will arise from the juxtaposition of the works themselves. Our direct critical interventions in the lead-up will therefore be kept discreet.

In our collective discussions, however, some of the active terms have included old standards / conceptual pillars of politicised poetics: aesthetics, form, knowledge, and political agency/subject position. The specific set of contexts within which these items are interpreted will constitute the core question(s), constructed as such, of N 4915.832 - W 123 05.921 / POSITIONS COLLOQUIUM.

Here we might ask: How is poetry a political field of action? What can poetry un/do? What do 'limits' mean for poetry? What are the crucial issues in taking a social (ideological) position with in a poetics today? What relationships arise between cultural production and broader social projects?

With these questions in view, the following quotations are presentednot as authoritative statements, but as problems.

"Politics and poetics are united: 'This is a dream not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia.'"- Brian Lennon,"Screening A Digital Visual Poetics" (Configurations Vol.8, No.1,Winter 2000)

"Can we hold onto the possibility of a self-consciousness that does not, simply because it must be critical of oppressive forces, repeatedly fold in upon itself, becoming self-referential—and self-incarcerating—in the form of that non-communicative language that Foucault (mis)recognizes as 'literature as such'?" - Rey Chow, introduction to "The Age of the World Target: Self-Referentiality in War, Theory, and Comparative Work"

"…the unpacking of the semiotic density of discourse, including political discourse, performs an anthropological function in politically dangerous environments in the sense that pure value is accorded positions that let the theorist evade statements of clear opposition to the status quo and allow him or her to defer instead to the values of ambivalence and indeterminacy. To penetrate the meaning of contemporary politics, we think, demands a different and difficult intellectual leap in which one is required to work one's way through—and out of—this subjectively experienced complexity and grasp the bald objectivity staring us in the face." - Timothy Brennan and Keya Ganguly, "Crude Wars" (South Atlantic Quarterly 105:1)

"Art as a separate sphere was always possible only in a bourgeois society. Even as a negation of that social purposiveness which is spreading through the market, its freedom remains essentially bound up with the premise of a commodity economy." - Theodor Adorno, Dialectics of Enlightenment

"Poetry, as a creative practice can aim at an 'actual [rather than 'formal'] freedom' through a language that challenges and negotiates a neoliberal structure of feelings" (9)." - Jeff Derksen, introduction to the West Coast Line anthology Poetry and the Long Neoliberal Moment

"The inability to find an 'optimism of the intellect' with which to work through alternatives has now become one of the most serious barriers to progressive politics" - David Harvey, Spaces of Hope

"Thus, there is an ambiguity of agency at the site of this decision...One decides on the condition of an already decided field of language, but this repetition does not constitute the decision of the speaking subject as a redundancy. The gap between redundancy and repetition is the space of agency." - Judith Butler, Excitable Speech,129


REGISTRATION
information Fees

$100 = full registration
$30 / full day (both sessions)
$20 / daytime session only
$15 / evening session only
$10 / Tuesday night reading + party

subsidies available, please contact us

Everyday:
Readings, talks, panels 11 am - 3:30 pm +
Readings, performances 7 pm - 10:30 pm
Payable by cheque or Canadian money order to The Kootenay School of Writing Society Dominion Building 309-207 West Hastings St. Vancouver, BC, V6B 1H6, CANADA

direct all electronic correspondence to positions.colloq AT gmail DOT com


SCHEDULE

August 19 - 24, 2008 at/with VIVO Media Arts Centre 1965 Main St, Vancouver

TUESDAY 19 August
Afternoon-Evening Session only *not* at VIVO, location TBA
4:00 pm - late Opening day social - a party + bbq with readings by poets who have been members of the KSW board or collective.

} tentatively including {
Sachiko Murakami, Donato Mancini, Maxine Gadd, Peter Culley, Steve Collis, Ted Byrne, Andrea Actis + surprise guests

WEDNESDAY 20 August
Morning - Afternoon Session

11:00 am Panel presentation Title / theme: "On Line: Poetics and the Distribution of Meaning" Moderator and Curator: Andrew Klobucar
Panellists: Darren Wershler-Henry, Brian Kim Stefans, Judy Radul, Sianne Ngai

1:00 pm Theatrical presentation Kevin Killian and Dodie Bellamy w/guests "The Clifford Irving Show" Dinner Break 3:30 pm (circa)

Evening Session
7:00 pm Readings, presentations, and performances by: Darren Wershler-Henry, Brian Kim Stefans, Colin Smith, Robert Fitterman, Clint Burnham

THURSDAY 21 August
Morning - Afternoon Session

11:00 am Panel presentation Moderator and Curator: Rita Wong Title / theme: "Alpha Bets: Language Gambles on a Gift Economy"
Panellists: Juliana Spahr, Pat O'Riley, Reg Johanson, Peter Cole

1:00 pm Talk Michael Davidson "On the Outskirts of Form: Cosmopoetics in the Shadow of NAFTA."

Dinner Break 3:30 pm (circa)

Evening Session

7:00 pm Readings, presentations, and performances by: Rita Wong, Juliana Spahr, PILLS (A. Vidaver, R. Johanson, R. Farr), Pat O'Riley, Peter Cole, Louis Cabri, Jules Boykoff

FRIDAY 22 August
Morning - Afternoon Session

11:00 am Seminar Seminar leaders: Kaia Sand and Jules Boykoff
Title / theme: "Landscapes of Dissent: Guerilla Poetry & Public Space"
Respondents: Catriona Strang, Colin Smith, Juliana Spahr, Nicholas Perrin, Laura Elrick, Clint Burnham

1:00 pm Panel presentation Moderator and Curator: Jeff Derksen
Title / theme: "Neoliberalism and the Politics of Poetics"
Panellists: Rodrigo Toscano, Rod Smith, Dorothy Lusk, Roger Farr, Laura Elrick

Dinner Break 3:30 pm (circa)

Evening Session
7:00 pm Readings, presentations, and performances by: Rodrigo Toscano, Rod Smith, Kaia Sand, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Jeff Derksen

SATURDAY 23 August
Morning-Afternoon Session

11:00 am Seminar
Seminar leader: Sianne Ngai Title / theme: "The Zany Science: Post-Fordist Performance and theProblem of Fun"
Respondents: Tyrone Williams, Mark Wallace, Andrew Klobucar, Rob Fitterman, Stacy Doris, Michael Davidson, Louis Cabri, Dodie Bellamy

1:00 pm Audio feature
Lisa Robertson and Stacy Doris "The Perfume Recordist"

Dinner Break 3:30 pm (circa)

Evening Session 7:00 pm Readings, presentations, and performances by:
Tyrone Williams, Mark Wallace, Catriona Strang, Judy Radul, Laura Elrick

SUNDAY 24 August
Afternoon-Evening Session only *not* at VIVO, location TBA

3:00 pm - whenever
closing-day social