The Devil Reads Poetry (and i do too)

2011-10-23T15:37:00.000-07:00

Very Excited to be reading at this on Wednesday. http://otherroom.org

Autogenous Monomania (1985) Cameron Galt and Jonathan Goslan

2011-10-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

review of Marc Saporta's "Composition No.1"

2011-09-25T03:31:00.000-07:00

my review of Marc Saporta's "Composition No.1" (recently reissued by Visual Editions) is now up at 3:am magazine.

"now that's what i call" I AM NOT A POET

2011-08-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

Some images from "now that's what i call" at totalkunst 14th-16th August as part of I AM NOT A POET (which is ongoing until 21st).

2011-08-03T05:52:00.000-07:00

Getting extremely excited about I AM NOT A POET festival. (7th-21st August, TOTALKUNST, Edinburgh)

Read about it here.

2011-07-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

"It would be easy enough to argue that this is a pretty slight poem, but it would be hard to argue the point any better than the poem does itself."

Ron Silliman from an ancient (Jan 2003) blog post about Rene Ricard.

"This summer, risk has moved from the financial world to the fashion world courtesy of “colour-blocking” for men."

2011-07-30T01:49:00.001-07:00

"This summer, risk has moved from the financial world to the fashion world courtesy of “colour-blocking” for men."

Hitchcock's Frenzy Reverse

2011-07-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

Doug Cocker

2011-07-17T16:09:00.001-07:00

2011-07-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

"too ok" now available for 86p on Kindle from Amazon.co.uk

2011-07-10T15:22:00.001-07:00

2011-07-09T04:29:00.001-07:00

http://perplex-annuale.blogspot.com

2011-06-19T12:01:00.001-07:00

As part of Edinburgh Annuale 2011, the festival of independent art practice, I'm editing and publishing a publication called perplex. (It's meant to sound like perspex, only a little more opaque).

The format (developed along with a lot of input from Derek Sutherland) is a single-page bulletin, published frequently throughout the three weeks that Annuale runs (24th June-17th July- though a few exhibitions are open already, see below) and available at Embassy gallery and as many other Annuale venues as I can manage to distribute it in. These individual bulletins will be collated into one publication at the end of the festival. I'm looking for as many writers as possible to visit any of the Annuale exhibitions and events (you can find a (not yet complete) list on Facebook here, and I presume the Embassy website will carry a list soon too, but I've also put a list below) and then write some kind of response. The response can take any form whatsoever (review, poem, play, fiction, essay, combination, found text, vispo etc etc). The responses may specifically address a single exhibition or event, they may address annuale as a whole, or they may be a lot more indirect in their relation to the festival.

I am imagining all kinds of texts, and hoping that I get them. The only thing is, because of the nature of the publication (i.e. published almost every day of annuale, at least from the 30th onwards) the responses need to be fairly quick. The publication is meant to have a certain degree of the provisional and spontaneous about it, and I guess more polished versions could be re-included in later bulletins if the writer felt like doing that.

What I'm really hoping for is a dynamic and diverse publication, a separate part of Annuale in its own right, as well as a kind of document of response.

It would be great if you could circulate this as widely as possible to any writers who might be interested (I don't see the point in this unless I have a wide and diverse and ambitious mixture of writers from as many disciplines as possible) and also maybe let me know if you're interested in contributing so I have an idea of how many interested writers to expect (though also just send work as soon as possible after seeing a show if you prefer). There's no money involved but the individual issues as well as the final publication will be freely available to all who desire one.

SEND WRITTEN RESPONSES TO ANNUALE OF ANY KIND TO COLINJHERD@GMAIL.COM.

Thanks, and really hope to receive your work,

Colin.

ANNUALE is a festival of independent art practice in Edinburgh

O N G O I N G

SunBear present 'Interspaces'
Patriothall Gallery
off Hamilton Place
EH3 5AY

Annuale event 26 June 2-5pm
Ongoing-5 July

Superclub present 'Of Form and Growth'
Superclub
11a Gayfield Square
EH1 3NT

Ongoing-3 July Thursday-Sunday 12-6pm

2 4 J U N E

'Biscuits'
Such and Such
105 Brunswick Street
EH7 3HR

Opening 24 June 6-8pm
25-26 June 12-6pm

Jambon present 'New Stuff'
Whitespace
11 Gayfield Square
EH1 3NT

Opening 24 June 6-8pm
25-30 June 10am-5pm

Embassy present 'Joy Axe'
Embassy
10b Broughton Street Lane
EH1 3LY

Opening 24 June 7-9pm
24 June-17July Thursday-Sunday 12-6pm

Superclub present 'Yuck'n'Yum Zine Launch'
Superclub
11a Gayfield Square
EH1 3NT

24 June 7-10pm

Annuale Launch Party
The Wee Red Bar
eca
74 Lauriston Place
EH3 9DF

24 June from 10pm

2 5 J U N E

Total Kunst present 'Black Matter'
Total Kunst
3 Bristo Place
EH1 1EY

25 June 12-6pm

Collective present 'Against the Realm of the Absolute'
Teviot Row House (Debating Hall, top floor)
13 Bristo Square
EH8 9AJ

25 June 2pm

'Two shy dwarves pair up and take on the world'
Upstairs at The Store
37 Guthrie Street
EH1 1JG

Opening 25 June 6-9pm
26-27 June 12-6pm

2 7 J U N E

Total Kunst present 'Diluting Orange'
Total Kunst
3 Bristo Place
EH1 1EY

Opening 27 June 7pm
28 June-24 July

'Blunderbuss' supported by New Media Scotland
Inspace
1 Crichton Street
EH8 9AB

27 June 8pm

1 J U L Y

Go Reborn present '#GR5-RMX'
Studio 128
128 Pitt Street
EH6 4DD

Opening 1 July 6-9pm
2 July 10am-8pm

Rhubaba present 'New Work by Tom Nolan and Frances Stacey'
Rhubaba
25 Arthur Street
EH6 5DA

Opening 2 July 7-9pm
3-11 July Thursday-Sunday 12-5pm

Superclub present 'Whatyoubuilding?' PET single launch
Superclub
11a Gayfield Square
EH1 3NT

1 July 9-10.30pm

2 J U L Y

'Young London'
Water of Leith
www.thenewdome.com/younglondon.htm

From 2 July

'Kitchen Lectures'
By booking at projectwakaka@yahoo.co.uk
www.projectwakaka.wordpress.com

2 July 7pm
8 July 7pm
10 July 7pm
15 July 7pm

7 J U L Y

Superclub present a film screening by Diane Edwards
Superclub
11a Gayfield Square
EH1 3NT

7-9pm

1 2 J U L Y

Embassy present 'Anticlock: Utopian Disillusion in London's Late Counterculture'
Embassy
10b Broughton Street Lane
EH1 3LY

12 July 7pm

1 4 J U L Y

'Slow Wave Through the City'
Prince's Street Gardens

14 July Afternoon

Coup Red present 'Select'
Spoon
6a Nicolson Street
EH8 9DH

14 July 7pm

1 6 J U L Y

'Dialogues with Polish Art'
Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop
25 Hawthornvale
EH6 4JT

16 July 7pm

More TBC

2011-06-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

I'm reading as part of Maintenant Slovakia on Saturday 18th June (tomorrow night) 7pm at the Rich Mix Arts Centre, Bethnal Green Road.

LINK

2011-06-16T16:59:00.000-07:00

my review of 'Suicide' by Édouard Levé at 3:AM Magazine.

crying anchor

2011-06-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

5 A1 Hits

2011-06-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

2011-06-08T04:16:00.000-07:00

I just watched this amazing thirty minute interview conducted by CAConrad with Philadelphia drag queen Les Harrison. It's fantastic, beautiful and fascinating, right down to the (what sounds like) wind chime soundtrack.

Red Museum by SJ Fowler

2011-05-31T10:44:00.000-07:00

The amazing poet and anything anymore anywhere contributor SJ Fowler has a new book out, Red Museum (Knives Forks and Spoons Press 2011). It's highly recommended. See the poster below and click this link to buy the book on Amazon.

Heathcote Williams Channel 4 docu from 1993

2011-05-25T11:23:00.001-07:00

STARRY RHYMES

2011-05-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

(Ginsberg and Frank O'Hara)

STARRY RHYMES is a chapbook edited by poets Claire Askew and Stephen Welsh. It collects work by poets writing in response to individual poems by Allen Ginsberg. The contributor list is here.

The poem I responded to was Night Gleam, and my poem is called "moon pitch, maybe night gleam". I'm really delighted to be involved in the project.

There is a launch event at the Forest Cafe on 3rd June. Details here.

(Ginsberg talking to Frank O'Hara (right) and Vincent Warren (left).)

i found this escalator video sweet for some reason

2011-05-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

"schindler!" "see, schindler!"

"schindler" etc.

Ed Emswhiller "Sunstone" 1979

2011-04-29T07:09:00.000-07:00

2011-04-28T04:27:00.000-07:00

Review of Oliver Rohe's wonderful novel Vacant Lot at 3:AM.

Diagonale Symphonie 1 by Viking Eggeling

2011-04-27T16:05:00.000-07:00

2011-04-26T04:55:00.001-07:00

one of my favourite singers, songwriters and poets, Willie Singerman, has a new website, and if you click this text you'll be taken there, which is where you want to be

Margot Mallard

2011-04-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

2011-04-23T01:59:00.000-07:00

At the wonderful Transductions Blog, a Q&A I answered about "anything anymore anywhere" with one of my favourite writers Thomas Moore. Check out the rest of the blog too, it's awesome.

Alex Hubbard

2011-04-19T11:49:00.001-07:00

2011-04-17T04:34:00.000-07:00

Kevin Killian has interviewed me, and put it together with a load of pictures, added in a supremely generous introduction and some very funny captions, put the whole lot on Dennis Cooper's blog. Follow the link, if you care to.

2011-04-13T03:02:00.001-07:00

2011-04-12T15:33:00.001-07:00

2011-04-11T11:48:00.001-07:00

2011-04-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

2011-04-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

asemic glitter glue fingerpainted postcards

2011-04-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

2011-03-31T02:53:00.000-07:00

My review of Joseph McElroy's Night Soul and Other Stories (Dalkey Archive) at 3:AM.

2011-03-30T03:45:00.000-07:00

My review of Simon Starling's show "Recent History" at Tate St Ives now up on Aesthetica Blog.

2011-03-24T03:55:00.000-07:00

My review of Claude Cahun and Sue Tompkins at Inverleith House, now up at Aesthetica Blog.

2011-03-23T05:53:00.000-07:00

My review of Richard Kalich's Penthouse F now up at 3:AM.

Allauddin Khan

2011-03-21T17:07:00.001-07:00

Harry Thubron links and information

2011-03-13T17:08:00.000-07:00

(untitled collage)

from wikipedia:

Harry Thubron (1915 – 1985) was an English artist and art teacher.

During the 1950s and 60s Thubron was a familiar name in education for his pioneering experiments in post-school art education. He taught at Sunderland College of Art from 1950 to 1955, and then became Head of Fine Art at Leeds College of Art. During his ten year tenure in Leeds he helped to revolutionise art education in England by establishing the Basic Design Course, a programme inspired by the German Bauhaus college and the theoretical writings of Herbert Read. In this programme, art and design students were not taught specific skills for any of the disciplines of art and design, but visual literacy in the use of colour, establishment of form and construction of space. Out of this, and similar experiments undertaken by Victor Pasmore, Richard Hamilton at Kings College Newcastle, a new introductory course for art, design and architecture students emerged, called the Foundation Course,^[1] which went on to became the standard degree course-entry qualification for art, design and architecture students in many countries, including Britain, Ireland, Canada and elsewhere. and

At Leeds Thubron also established close links between the art college and the School of Fine Art at the University of Leeds, which allowed the University's Gregory Fellows in Fine Art to start teaching at Leeds College of Art. He also helped to create a prototype for Britain's Polytechnics by sending his students to work on collaborative projects with engineering students from Leeds College of Technology, out of which Leeds Polytechnic was formed.^[2] This was also a time when Thubron organised a series of summer schools in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, through which his ideas on art education were shared with artists, art teachers and art students from all over the country, thereby spreading his philosophy.

Thubron's own artwork often comprises constructions made from various materials, often industrial in origin. In terms of art his philosophy was that art could be made from anything, but it was always a visual phenomenon and not a conceptual illustration.

In 1965 Thubron left Leeds and became Head of Fine Art in Lancaster, Lancashire, although he only held this post for three years due to increasing ill health. He still continued some teaching after this, as a part time tutor at Goldsmiths' College, London, between 1971 and 1982.

Notable students of Thubron include Stass Paraskos, who went on to establish the Cyprus College of Art, on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus using Thurbon's theories, and this institution still exists as a "Thubronite" art institution today.

Thubron has several of his artworks in Tate Britain, and regional collections in England, such as Leeds City Art Gallery.

(plaster circle)

review by Andrew Lambirth from Spectator April 2007:

At Austin/Desmond is an exhibition devoted to the work of another insufficiently recognised artist of the same generation as Clough — Harry Thubron (1915–85). Known primarily as a teacher, Thubron was also a canny maker of collages and constructions, a group of which, dating from 1972–84, is now on show. All have sold, which says something — perhaps about his cult standing. Thubron collected much material from the old drovers’ road outside his house in southern Spain, and incorporated it, sometimes unchanged, into his constructions. Perhaps the finest and most classic work here is ‘Tin’ (1973), which is simply a flattened can placed centrally on a board to work exquisitely with the marks on the wooden surface. The magic is all in the arrangement, in the juxtaposition and interval. Often made from the kind of detritus found on the floor of an abandoned warehouse, these collages deal in charred corrugated cardboard, frayed fabric and abraded paintwork, orchestrated with loquacious elegance. Rotting lino rubs shoulders with old foil containers and roofing felt; tickets, burnt matches and a fag-end make a strangely satisfying ensemble. If it all looks a bit thin and artful after Clough, the comparison is perhaps unfair. The quality of her imagination is given freer rein at the Tate than Thubron’s in this small commercial show.

information from galleries magazine about show at AUSTIN DESMOND:

Harry Thubron (1915 – 1985) was a familiar name nationally and internationally during the 50s and 60s. His radical and reconstructive work in art education was legendary and many have said that he was one of the greatest teachers this country has ever known. He was Head of Fine Art at the Art Colleges of Sunderland (1950-55), Leeds (1955-64) and Lancaster (1966-68).

As a painter, sculptor and collagist he is less well known and perhaps his own work as an artist was obscured by his commitment to his teaching practice. When Thubron's involvement with teaching was at its height in the 50s and claiming international attention for his pioneering cross-disciplinary work, his experimental courses and his close association with the 'Basic Design Course', it was difficult for his own work as an artist to take precedence over the range of his professional activities.

There have been exhibitions that have afforded glimpses of Thubron's work but the only survey undertaken was at the Serpentine in 1976 where 70 of his collages and assemblages were exhibited. The last one person show was held, shortly after Thubron died, at Goldsmiths' College in 1986, where he had taught between 1971 and 1982.

This exhibition brings together a number of collages and constructions from the 70s and 80s. It was Thubron's most creative time, when he lived between London and Andalusia. Southern Spain was a place which suited his thinking and provided much of the material for his collages and assemblages. With the help of the village children, he scoured the wide unmade road running past his house, the CAMINO REAL, for cans, wood, metal and paper. In the words of his wife Elma Thubron “these pieces picked up along the old drovers’ road had for him special qualities, vestiges and witness to countless generations of human occupation and the day to day activity of living.” Norbert Lynton describes how in Thubron’s hands these humble materials took on “an unexpected vividness of life and expression;” he put the materials "in relationship with another so that there is an aesthetic marriage in which each participant celebrates the other.” Thubron’s work is an “homage to both very simple and very hidden things”(Martin Shuttleworth).

Although interested in Kurt Schwitters and Antoni Tàpies, it was the work of Paul Klee that Thubron most admired: “no right or wrong techniques or styles, the willingness to let things grow, without prejudice, and the principle that what is used and done should continue to live in the thing made” (Norbert Lynton). Just as Thubron encouraged his students to experiment in a constructive manner, “to exercise their intuition, to explore their own sensibilities”(Jon Thompson), he described his own works as the result of “emotive and imaginative experiences.” His art served as a means of self-development and self-discovery.

Harry Thubron’s work is represented in the collections, among others, of the British Council, the Contemporary Art Society, the Fundacio Calouste Gulbenkian (Lisbon), in the Government Art Collection, the Henry Moore Institute (Leeds) and the Tate Collection (London).

An illustrated catalogue including texts by the cultural historian Jon Thompson and the art historian, critic and curator Norbert Lynton will accompany the show.

(Black Rose 1966)

From Martin Shuttleworth's essay in the catalogue accompanying Thubron's 23rd October- 21st November 1976 exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery:

"In front of me, as I write, is the collage called Black Rose. I love Black Rose; it consists of a top section through a tree with the bark still on it. On the top left, the bark is goitred and chipped. On the bottom left it is cut away. In some places the base- the section of the tree- is as much as four inches thick, at others it narrows to less than an inch. At its widest it must be nearly three feet, at its tallest it is well over two feet. The surface of the section through the tree on which the collage is built is not even. Thubron saw there his point of entry: the long escarpment from which the collage begins to climb. There's a layer of hardboard, a serpent with a curled lip who must have begun life as a bit of iron, and at the very bottom, another tree grows at right angles to the first. The squares on the bit of old lino throw the eye, recall the geometry behind things. As it reaches up it becomes a butterfly at the bottom of the sea. In its top most boughs it wears a black rose."

Harry Thubron's work in the collection of Tate.

Bernd and Hilla Becher

2011-03-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

Bernd Becher (born August 20, 1931 in Siegen; died June 22, 2007 in Rostock) and Hilla Becher, née Wobeser (born September 2, 1934 in Potsdam) were German artists working as a collaborative duo. They are best known for their extensive series of photographic images of industrial buildings.

Married in 1961, the Bechers first collaborated on photographing and documenting the disappearing German industrial architecture in 1959, and had their first gallery exhibition in 1963 at the Galerie Ruth Nohl in Siegen. They were fascinated by the similar shapes in which certain buildings were designed. In addition, they were intrigued by the fact that so many of these industrial buildings seemed to have been built with a great deal of attention toward design. Together, the Bechers went out with a large format camera and photographed these buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward "objective" point of view. The images of structures with similar functions were then displayed side by side to invite viewers to compare their forms and designs. These structures included barns, water towers, storage silos, and warehouses.

The Bechers also photographed outside of Germany, including buildings from the United States and other areas of Europe. Bernd taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and influenced students that later made a name for themselves in the photography industry. Former students of Bernd's included Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, and Candida Höfer.

They were the 2004 winners of the Hasselblad Award. The motivation for the award:

Bernd and Hilla Becher are among the most influential artists of our time. For more than forty years they have been recording the heritage of an industrial past. Their systematic photography of functionalist architecture, often organizing their pictures in grids, brought them recognition as conceptual artists as well as photographers. As the founders of what has come to be known as the ‘Becher school’ they have brought their influence in a unique way to bear on generations of documentary photographers and artists.

Interview in American Suburb X

Essay on the Bechers by Blake Stimson

2011-03-07T18:06:00.000-08:00

2011-03-07T17:12:00.001-08:00

cornwall, february 2011

2011-03-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

2011-03-03T15:31:00.001-08:00

2011-03-03T05:57:00.000-08:00

too ok now available at Small Press Distribution.

2011-03-02T16:35:00.000-08:00

2011-02-28T01:22:00.000-08:00

please come tonight.

i'm rehearsing in my hotel room, watching videos of ron padgett, gary sullivan, listening to recordings of john wieners and helen adam on pennsound.

a selection of recent things i've done

2011-02-25T09:17:00.000-08:00

for 3:AM Magazine Buzzwords blog, my top five poetry books from 1981

for aesthetica magazine blog, a review of jean-marc bustamante at fruitmarket gallery

for the skinny, a review of liz niven's the shard box

How To 3

2011-02-17T21:34:00.000-08:00

How To 2

2011-02-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

How To

2011-02-17T21:32:00.001-08:00

Review: Yolanda Tudor-Bloch's The Woman, DEPT#2

2011-02-16T17:32:00.000-08:00

Department 2
The Woman
Yolanda Tudor-Bloch
2010

The second issue of Richard Barrett and Simon Howard’s exciting new poetry magazine Department is a special issue devoted to a 52-page poem or suite of poems by Yolanda Tudor-Bloch, entitled ‘The Woman’. It comes with an inlaid editorial essay by Francis Crot: ‘The Middle Englander Gender and the Utopian Islanders’. Francis Crot, whose previous publications include The Cuntomatic (YT Communication, 2007), The Seven Curses (Critical Documents, 2008) and Pressure in Cheshire (Veer, 2008) is one of numerous pseudonyms adopted by the poet Joseph Walton, formerly known as Jow Lindsay, a list of pseudonyms to which the name Yolanda Tudor-Bloch can also be added. So before even opening the pages of ‘The Woman’, the reader has to untangle a network of uncertain identities and confront the distancingly loose-leaf editorial, as though the glue of the binding wasn’t holding right. Joseph Walton, incidentally, is itself a resonantly pseudonymous name, since it was one of the names employed by filmmaker Joseph Losey during his Hollywood-blacklisted period, so that he could make films in Britain without damaging the Hollywood-prospects of his actors, at a time when the power of the state was strictly and violently aligned with the power-centre of the most popular art-form. Joseph Walton’s use of pseudonyms operates slightly differently, though it retains an antagonistic stance towards the state, an overt denial of the notion of individuality and selfhood rather than a covert denial of the specific self. Walton openly and voluminously plagiarizes the work of others, and collaborates frequently, in works that emphasize the social relations and power relations in poetic and political language communities. It feels, for example, important not to erase Tudor-Bloch as the author of the poem in favour of Joseph Walton, Francis Crot or anyone else. Tudor-Bloch’s right to be indentified as the writer of the piece, however pseudonymous, feels paramount.

Francis Crot’s editorial begins by quoting the famous opening of Max Weber’s lecture ‘Politics as a Vocation’, made during the 1918-1919 German revolution. The quotation is printed in German but the translation is: “This lecture, which I give at your request, will necessarily disappoint you in a number of ways.” Crot is preparing the reader for the lack of a coherent meaning-analysis or introductory interpretation to the poem: he later writes, “I don’t know whether the poems in The Woman really have an argument or a proposal or anything like that”. But he’s also introducing the context of Weber’s lecture, in which Weber importantly and influentially defines the state as that which is able to maintain a ‘monopoly on violence’, in order to enforce its system and its values. Weber’s lecture is a particularly relevant document since the bulk of its analyses focus on what we often disparagingly hear called today the career-politician, the professional politician, rather than the ‘avocational’ politician, which Weber argues we all are if/when we voice an opinion, attend a protest or cast our votes. Crot playfully, sort of calculatedly in spite of himself, further contextualizes The Woman with reference to other thinkers: “The philosophical-sounding parts are mostly out of Frankfurt School guys, but the real theoretical background is liberal atomism, especially as it is construed by certain 80s critics like Charles Taylor & Carol Pateman.” In spite of the comic vagueness and generalization, the capitalized Frankfurt School (like a form of branding) and the “certain 80s critics” tag used to define Taylor and Pateman, both of whom began publishing and continue to publish outside that decade, the works of these theorists are important touchstones for readings of The Woman. In particular, Pateman’s influential book from 1988, The Sexual Contract, which powerfully underlines the sexual politics that underpin the idealized notion of the Social Contract and exemplifies patriarchal dominance in relation to a number of sexual contracts including, marriage, surrogate pregnancy and prostitution.

The Woman is divided into an opening prologue-poem entitled ‘Proem’ and numbered sections called ‘Needs’. There is heavy but sporadic capitalization, as though the poem were an acrostic, though I can’t make out a message or system based on the letters capitalized. Neither does it seem to be a guide for vocal or performance emphasis. I might be missing something but the effect feels more randomly generated, a disruptive surface embellishment, literally realizing a tense and violent textural dynamic of “Capital” that sometimes but not always throws inflection upon constituent words and phrases, such as “STI”, “oWn” and “He” below:

‘Need 3

in aNOTHER world I am wearing a dress
oncE YOU Think about pRice
of thaT / you cld massACre yr oWn oNe you may
as Well anD there’’s Issues around Plant
wEApons on their bodies / / make them appear as though & there’’s
issues around couvade Aubade / / tHe edge OF a sophiSTIcated
activiST&& it’’s being twisted oFf&& LoADing up…’

In some ways The Woman wears the dominance of its position consciously, is almost desperately overt about it: that dramatically subjective, singular and categorizing title. It is a text purportedly by a woman about a (it seems) female character that is in fact written by a man: a ‘couvade Aubade’ that stresses the potential hierarchy in both those notions- the sympathy-pregnancy and the generic poem for lovers separating at daybreak. But by adopting this on-its-sleeve man-embodying-woman perspective, Tudor-Bloch’s poem unfastens stable gender positions and contracts, blending patriarchal sexual contracts on the blade-edge of ‘sophisticated activism’ until they’re fluid, changeable, solidifying again and in-flux. In ‘Need 21’, for example, there’s this image, seemingly seminal fluid: “I’’m the one Who has to illiquid comes/ to glues&&”.

In ‘Need 6’, Tudor-Bloch asserts

“You are all more confusing than I am.
Categorically.
I mean what I say&& I muST. Since When Did Some
One mean What they hear&&? What ice / a touch
of sugar absolutely does not get the message across only
juST Teen a Cradle oF / DoWnY IcE revealed key bone flenfluramine/…”

‘Flenfluramine’ is an infamous appetite suppressant, removed from circulation by the FDA following tests revealing it can cause heart disease. It sits here in contrast and tension to the ‘touch of sugar’, i.e. a sweetener used to aid digestion of unpleasant medicine or truth. In the proceeding lines, the ‘touch of sugar’ could refer to the plainness of the textual surface (no grammatically ‘unwarranted’ capitals), a catchy, easy-to-latch-on-to phrase. Flenfluramine suggests a program of suppressed appetite for easy, sweetened understanding, with potentially dangerous, revealing side-effects. The counter-intuitive assertion that the reader is more confusing than the writer of such a disruptive text focuses attention not only on the power-relation of reader and writer but also the easy potential for (sweetened) language control through the adoption of ideas and philosophies heard and overheard, as in the potently small-case ‘mean’ in: “Since When Did Some/ One mean What they hear&&?”.

This is as politically committed and ambitious as contemporary poetry gets, a book of poetry that positions itself within a whole network of real and pseudonymous poetry, theory and poetics, clattering and raking through the stuff of contemporary experience from ‘Segway’ to, well, more segues. By the end of the text (according to Crot’s introduction, this is part of a larger whole named Dog Puke, with a second installment entitled Hax), the numbered ‘Needs’ unravel and are de-organized. A long “Need 21” is followed by “Need 23”, which is then followed by “Need 6.” and “Need 5.”, then “Need (5)” and “Need 4.” The sense is of a system being unsettled, abandoned and reshuffled.

2011-02-16T15:01:00.000-08:00

A loveable, or at the very least likeable!, review of my chapbook 'like', by (the superb writer) James Davies at The Other Room. Thanks James!

Monday 28th

2011-02-14T09:37:00.000-08:00

In London at 7pm on Monday 28th February? You could come to this.

Gay's The Word Bookshop
Marchmont Street
London
WC1N 1AB
(near Russell Square Tube)

shop window display carnage

2011-02-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

princes street, edinburgh, january 2011

2011-02-12T22:49:00.000-08:00

Review of Michael Peverett's 'The Littlest Feeling' at 3:AM Magazine.

northberwick-o-rama

2011-02-10T15:44:00.000-08:00

archerfield, near north berwick, january 2011

2011-02-09T17:58:00.000-08:00

2011-02-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

my review of Rosemarie Trockel at Talbot Rice Gallery is now up at Aesthetica Blog

2011-02-07T20:56:00.001-08:00

2011-02-07T20:50:00.000-08:00

2011-02-07T17:23:00.001-08:00

Felix Gonzalez-Torres & Ross Bleckner (BOMB Magazine 51 1995)

2011-02-03T17:57:00.000-08:00

FGT I like flea markets, their sense of mystery; I always wonder, always make a fantasy about who owned it, who lived with this thing. As you know, I collect things: I collect props and toys.

RB I saw a picture of your toy collection. Lots and lots of toys.

FGT Hundreds. Plastic and rubber toys with big eyes. And things that have been left unplayed with by kids.

RB You like big eyes?

FGT Big, buggy eyes. Because I have terrible problems with insomnia.

RB Why don’t you take a sleeping pill?

FGT I was telling you this story, because 1990 and 1991 were very rotten years for me. I went to a flea market during this time and was looking through a bag of toys, and the woman said—I was looking at a Mickey Mouse—”You can have them all for five bucks.” I brought them home, and they made me feel very good. So I figured if I had more, I’d feel better. It didn’t really work that way.

RB It usually does work that way, when you find something that makes you feel good. It’s like drugs. People take drugs to feel good. If drugs didn’t work, people wouldn’t take them.

FGT I took drugs, and I liked them. But not anymore.

RB Me neither. But they still work. Anyway, why were you so upset, so miserable in 1991?

FGT I was very lost. It was the end. The world was just closing in. And I was taking sleeping pills the way you take candy. Not just at night.

RB Why?

FGT I wanted to sleep for five days, six months, a year. I just wanted to sleep.

RB Before I knew you I saw something… You know what I’m going to say?

FGT I dedicated a piece to Ross.

RB Exactly. I thought, this is so sweet, I want to meet him. He dedicated this thing to me and I don’t even know him. (laughter) It put me in the best mood. And then someone said to me, “You idiot, why would he dedicate something to you? It’s his boyfriend.”

FGT (laughter) There’s not too many people with that name, Ross. Where does it come from?

RB Me? It comes from my grandmother whose name was Rose. Where did it come from for your Ross? What was his last name?

FGT Laycock.

RB How long were you together?

FGT Eight years.

RB What did he do?

FGT He was a sommelier. He was about to finish his B.S. in Biochemistry with a minor in English Lit. He did everything; he was a Renaissance man. And gorgeous too, really gorgeous. Fucking hot! But intimidating, the first time around.

RB Obviously you grew more comfortable, hopefully, in six or seven years…

FGT Like he said once to me, I’m a strange bird—I guess he liked that. He had these boyfriends who were Calvin Klein models and stuff like that.

RB Calvin Klein models? (laughter)

FGT Yeah, the boyfriend before me was one of the biggest models…

RB It’s nice that people get bored with those kind of guys and go for strange birds, isn’t it? Artistic types, if you know what I mean.

FGT I saw a picture of this guy and I said, “Oh my God! Do I have to compete with that?” I look like a fucking snot with a jacket next to him. He was gorgeous.

RB What did you think you looked like? A knot?

FGT S-N-O-T…

RB (laughter) Felix, you’re funny!

FGT I always tell my friends, I feel like a snot walking down the street with a jacket on. I’m very insecure when it comes to looks.

RB Well, a lot of people are… Listen, anything can work to your advantage or to your disadvantage. You have to make these feelings work to your advantage.

FGT That’s how I always work: take your limitations…

RB And make them your strengths.

2011-02-01T07:31:00.000-08:00

My latest 3:AM review is of Lawrence Rinder and Colter Jacobsen's collaborative book featuring text and photos, Tuleyome (Publication Studio 2011)

Ulay & Abramović "AAA AAA" [1978]

2011-01-30T02:23:00.000-08:00

Wojciech Bruszewski's Yyaa 1973

2011-01-30T02:22:00.001-08:00

2011-01-29T05:56:00.000-08:00

i've a couple of poems from a longer sequence called 'garage' in the new issue of streetcake. it's a very cool issue, so click.

A Certain Ratio- Don't you worry about a thing

2011-01-28T13:33:00.001-08:00

Two Skip Arnold videos from youtube

2011-01-26T19:12:00.000-08:00

go here for a lot more

2011-01-26T04:43:00.000-08:00

i love these Elaine Equi poems from Shampoo 38

B S Johnson's 'Paradigm' 1969

2011-01-25T12:52:00.001-08:00

2011-01-24T15:31:00.000-08:00

2011-01-24T15:27:00.000-08:00

my review of 'further adventures in the restless universe' by dawn raffel at 3:am magazine

2011-01-12T06:35:00.000-08:00

My review of Simon Morris's book Getting Inside Jack Kerouac's Head at 3 AM.

2011-01-11T02:33:00.000-08:00

My review for Aesthetica blog of Gill Russell's piece 'UAMH' showing now at Royal Scottish Academy until 31st January.

2011-01-10T03:37:00.000-08:00

My review for 3:am of Andrej Blatnik's 'You Do Understand' is now up.

2011-01-07T08:34:00.001-08:00

2011-01-06T02:20:00.000-08:00

2011-01-03T01:33:00.001-08:00

Harrison and Wood

2011-01-03T01:11:00.000-08:00

John Wood & Paul Harrison: There or Thereabouts / Von Bartha Garage, Basel
Uploaded by vernissagetv. - Independent web videos.

2011-01-02T10:46:00.000-08:00

My latest review for 3:AM is of Jeremy Reed's collection 'Piccadilly Bongo', which comes with a c.d. by Marc Almond.

2010-12-31T14:50:00.000-08:00

2010-12-26T10:56:00.001-08:00

I love the Transductions blog.

2010-12-26T09:09:00.000-08:00

gorgeous poems by aase berg and gorgeous interview with her in s.j.fowler's maintenant series at 3:AM.

2010-12-24T19:23:00.001-08:00

2010-12-24T19:21:00.001-08:00

2010-12-22T11:47:00.000-08:00

At Aesthetica Blog, my review of Garry Fabian Miller and Susan Derges at Ingleby Gallery

2010-12-21T04:55:00.001-08:00

Review of Tristan Garcia's Hate: A Romance at 3:AM Magazine

2010-12-20T11:56:00.000-08:00

See my nominations, and others, at the 3:AM Awards Long-list.

2010-12-18T08:23:00.001-08:00

2010-12-18T08:08:00.001-08:00

giant chess

2010-12-17T18:38:00.001-08:00

Review of 'Flylyght' by Stephen Nelson

2010-12-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

Flylyght
by Stephen Nelson

The Knives Forks and Spoons Press
2010

As a physical object, Stephen Nelson’s new collection Flylyght from the Knives Forks and Spoons Press is sort of unmanageable; sized A4 (always an awkward shape to slot neatly into a bookshelf) it feels sort of enlarged, like a book viewed under a microscope, or one of those giant chess-sets you sometimes see in parks. It’s an appropriate if somewhat counterintuitive sensation that carries through to the poems in the book, all of which are no more than a handful of words long, and many just one or two. Their ‘amplified-as-if-through-a-microscope’ quality comes from the increased focus and attention the relation between individual letters and words demands when presented so minimally. Take the title of the collection as the first specimen. A poem in its own right, ‘Flylyght’ recalls Aram Saroyan’s famous one-word poem ‘lighght’. Nelson exquisitely fuses the archaic (‘lyght’ for ‘light’) with the breezily modern (‘fly’ as ‘cool’, or its adverb ‘flyly’). It also reads as something of a manifesto or motto for minimalist poetry: “fly lyght”. I’m tempted to read this poem imagistically, depicting a fly hovering in the light, so that the fly and the light merge. In counterpoint, the archaic spelling of ‘lyght’ and the repeated ‘ly’ give the poem an ornate, unsettling, hovering quality, undermining any reductively singular reading.

Whereas Aram Saroyan’s minimalist poems usually sit smack in the centre of the page, solidly and even exhibitionist, Stephen Nelson’s poems shyly hug the left hand side, sometimes even seeming to slip down the spiny crease of the book like a coin down the back of a sofa. It’s an effect that adds to the ungraspable quality of many of these poems, where Nelson’s subtle interventions in words whose meaning we might think is stable gives them an odd, uncanny and fascinating sheen. This is particularly the case with the poems in which Nelson uses colour to alter our perceptions and responses. For example, one poem reads:

a bird
a bud
a buddha

In one sense this might be a simple garden scene: a bird, the bud of a flower and perhaps a garden ornament of a Buddha. The words themselves form a sweet little consonantal grouping of ‘b’s and ‘d’s. The vowel-sounds are a little more tricky, with ‘bird’ and ‘bud’ sounding almost identical but ‘buddha’ distinctly different. Highlighting the indefinite article before each word brings out their ephemeral, conceptual qualities.

The longest piece in the book is ‘silverlightminimalism’, a sequence of four shorter pieces in which the colour of letters is used to both sketch a scene and smudgily complicate its clarity, as in the use of pastels or chalk.

(water)

water

(light)

light

( )

-body-

[note: line-breaks not as they are in the book]

The interplay of textual effects beautifully mimics the complex interplay of light and reflection of a waterside moonlit scene. Empty parentheses stand in for the gradually sanded-away, shadowy words and notions, while the layout on the page suggests a lapping tide and a waxing moon.

Nelson also uses typographical effects to make words eerily unfamiliar, to cast them as it were, in a new light, as in this poem from early in the collection:

qhost

where the first letter of the word ‘ghost’ is replaced with a phantasmic ‘q’, to reveal the word ‘host’. I’m maybe getting carried away but it makes me think of ‘q’ as in ‘question’, and from there it’s just a short nudge before I can’t get the image of a spectral quiz show host out of my head. Hm. I think I probably am getting carried away, but that’s the sort of playful semantic jumps that Stephen Nelson’s surprising, delicate, deft and haunting poems drive you to. Stephen Nelson is a poet who deserves attention.

TraVerses

2010-12-14T02:43:00.000-08:00

TraVerses is a new poetry night at the bar of the Traverse Theatre that showcases "poetry for multiple voices, poetry in collaboration and poetry that is brave enough to enter into and have a dialogue with other forms." It's organized (and dazzlingly compered) by the wonderful poet J L Williams, my absolute favourite kind of poet, (i.e. one who will dare not only to wear a shiny gold dress, but pair it with matching shiny gold shoes too). I missed the first one of these, back in November I think, or it could have been October. I was determined not to make the same mistake again.

First up was Trio Verso, a new take on the jazz-poetry trio, with vocals by poet Brian Johnstone, double bass by Louise Major and various wind instruments by Richard Ingham. Their first number was called 'Storm Breaker', a rhythmic & rumbling piece about a tornado. The piece worked marvellously on so many levels: Major percussively battered her double bass with a pair of soft-headed drumsticks- the sort I think you call Timpani mallets- which felt appropriately makeshift. Johnstone's voice manages to be both softly-spoken and enviably powerful. Ingham does things with wind-intsruments and what looks like the rubbery end of a toilet-plunger, the result: thrillingly trilling moans, sometimes like an ambulance siren and sometimes like a bunch of really piercing screams. Trio Verso seemed to personify the spirit of the night- inventive cross-disciplinary collaboration- so it was nice that they performed at various times throughout the night, spliced in between the wackily varied selection of artists performing; every time the trio came on, it felt like a wayward thesis returning to its central point, and gloriously hammering it home.

Next up was the first of four short films by the poet/filmmaker/artist Alastair Cook. Called "Emily Melting", it's based on a poem by the actor Gérard Rudolf. I have to confess, I hadn't heard of Gerard before, but I was so impressed by his deep, blue, low voice that I did a bit of google stalking when I got home. It turns out he's been written about in the great Michael Kimball 'writes your life story (on a postcard)' project. Alastair Cook's film is short (1.55) but very very sweet. Little hillocks of tall wispy golden grass and bluer than blue sky roll quickly past, as if shot from a car-window, so that the landscape is changing all the time, but not really changing at all because it blurs and slurs into one. Seemingly from within the landscape, (merging the inner landscape with the outer one or something I guess) we see glimpses of a woman, blissful, summery and nonchalant, maybe smoking- it's hard to tell- but her fingers are at her lips anyway. You can watch the film here, and I'd advise it with all my heart. Oh, and check out Gerard Rudolf's collection from Red Squirrel. You can see all of Alastair Cook's films at his vimeo. The rest he showed last night were awesome too.

Next up was certainly the most surreal act of the evening: A.P & Swedo. Not least, they looked splendid. I don't know which is which frankly, but one had a large flowing tartan gown and bonnet, the other, with a britpop hairstyle, wore an outrageous zebra-patterned shirt and dashing slim-fit white jacket. When people come on stage dressed like that, I always know I'm going to love it or hate it, or love parts of it and hate other parts, which turned out to be the case. Since I sort of love to love-hate things, I guess I can say I loved it; it charmed me in spite of itself, you could say, a bit like the effect I feel when watching Michael Cera. A.P and Swedo read a number of poems about the moon, during which they inflated a dull-silver-coloured balloon and batted it into the audience for us all to try and keep aloft. It was mildly amusing when it bopped unexpecting people on the head, and filled me with panic and terror should it come anywhere near me. The balloon was kind of a metaphor for the poems themselves, which sometimes sailed off-beat humorous rhyming into the sky, and other times fell a little flat, which I think was part of its overall charm and success- they were unafraid to run the tightrope between the sublime and the ridiculous and determined to get right back up, whichever side they fell on. So, at one point, they breathily exhaled into the mic and it was extraordinary, bizarre and moving but at another, one of them picked up an accordian and played, giving me uncontrollable flashbacks to an Italian restaurant I used to frequent. "La Luna" or something, it was called. Both A.P and Swedo are tremendous readers of their work, with great voices and on-stage presence.

The final act of the first-half was a collaboration between poets Anna Dickie, Anne Connolly and drummer Erick Mauricia. Connolly and Dickie weaved together individually composed sections of a long poem about their experiences at different stages of their lives: earliest memory/age 7/ 14/ 28/ 56. I understand the formal dynamics of the number-progression, but I would have maybe liked an extra section somehwere between 14 and 28 if I'm honest. If they publish it as a chapbook or something- they should have that section as an outtake, or director's cut, or something. Their assured and beautifully understated reading of the poem was woven together on the loom of Mauricia's relentless fist-tapping drum-beat, a drum beat that convincingly seemed to signify different things at different stages of the poem: a heart-beat, often, sometimes a train or a clock, and other times a kind of undercurrent sinister beat that you can't put your finger on what it is. As part of the poem, Connolly whistled into the mic stand and it was warbly, delicate and beautiful.

In the second half, after more exquisite pieces from Trio Verso and Alastair Cook, it was the turn of the fabulous Anita Govan, teamed up with the intriguingly named Dr Rhythm and his Magic Box. I'm a big fan of Anita Govan, and had the pleasure to read in the same lineup as her at TROPIXTUALITIES in the summer. Last night, she read a mixture of new material, and the classic poems her devotees expect, like 'Here I' and 'Digital Generation'. Even without technological aid, Govan treats language and her voice like pliable dough, stretching it and kneading it rhythmically and inventively. Accompanied by Dr Rhythm's magic box and her own vocal-effects pedal, she added another element to her performance, like something otherworldly and vaguely robotic had infected her vocal chords so that you had to sort of strain and use your imagination to retune in to the distinctive individuality and personality in her voice. It was really something.

The next performance was a poem for multiple voices composed by Dorothy Baird and performed by three actors, Lisa Nicoll, Catherine Gillard and Liza Shackleton, and directed by David Betz-Heinemann. Called 'Timepieces', it was told from the point of view of a woman at three different stages in her life, a young mother, a woman on the verge of 50 whose son is leaving home and a woman in her eighties convinced she's shortly going to die. Downbeat in places, Baird's poem is witty too, and avoids cliche throughout. The staging was minimal, which focussed attention squarely on the voices of the readers and the intricacies of the poem itself.

The evening was rounded out by a communal poem, composed throughout the evening by people on twitter, and gathered together and recited by Mairi Sharratt.

I think TraVerses hopes to continue next year, and I sure hope so.

2010-12-12T16:49:00.001-08:00

Craig Kaufman

2010-12-12T16:34:00.001-08:00

2010-12-12T16:30:00.000-08:00