Showing posts with label CR Jenson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CR Jenson. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Sunday, October 23, 2005
CAESURA
One of my prose poems is up at Dusie, too. Yes, this one is a riff*, an early morning jotting where I let the words take themselves where they would lead... and here they lead into roundnesses, stillness, pause.
*see this this post of a few months back on a distinction of Charles made between spurs and riffs.
*see this this post of a few months back on a distinction of Charles made between spurs and riffs.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
SPURS & RIFFS
A few days back Charles put up a highly engaging post about spurs to creativity -- whether our poems are spurred by events, "real causes in the world" or simply riffing on language itself. Lately he has been riffing, and after expressing some uneasiness about the authenticity of his "riff" poems, asked for others' opinions on how many of their poems were "riffs" as opposed to" spurred". Man, that man has a talent for eliciting feedback! This was my belated response, #12 of 13 in his comments box (& many of those other comments are well worth reading...):
I think when I was younger (i.e. in my 20's) specific spurs, as you call them, would inspire me and I frequently would be overcome with the urge to write about and from them.... like many I fell prey to dry periods when I became dependent on those kinds of involuntary urges to get me going and nothing else seemed a legitimate way to go about it. As I have gotten older, hate to say, a certain "seen it/done it" syndrome has reduced the frequency of those inspiring provocations. With accumulated experience, tho, I have found that riffing has definitely gotten richer -- that is, I can more consistently tap into surprising depths by simply playing with language itself. Good question, one that I still think about quite a bit. I guess I miss my once frequent rides on those mind-blowing brainwaves kicked up by groundswells of experience...
I guess his post made me feel nostalgiac and a bit sad.
Funny, though... today I went over my 50 most recent poems (or pretty fair attempts at poems), all written within the last year and a half or so, and how do they tally? 34 are definitely "spurred" by events or real circumstances, and 16 I would classify as "riffs". That's in percentage terms (easy to calculate, even for me!) 68% spurred, and 32% riff. Of course, as others pointed out there's a good deal of riffing within many spurred poems and events or actual circumstances that are drawn upon in riff poems, but mainly, we're talking point of departure here.
When I look back at earlier years, I see a lot of riffin' goin' on. In fact, my first "real poem", written when I was 16, was a riff. It was an apology about revealing somebody's secret, sort of modeled on the the WCW poem "This is Just to Say" apologizing for eating those plums from the icebox that were "so sweet and so cold". People asked me what the secret was about, and I had to admit the whole experience was made up, as it were, "by the poem". The poem later got published in Acta Victoriana, a lit mag put out by University of Toronto. I still recall it as a good one (the poem I mean, not necessarily the mag). If I find it (I'm sure I've got it somewhere) I'll post it.
There's also a whole other category of poems, dramatic monologues, a kind of riff on the spur of someone else's experience (whether literary, or "real"). I've written quite a few of those. . .
Where though did I get the impression that with age "riff poems" have somehow eclipsed "spur poems" in frequency and intensity?
I think it's because the last six poems I've written -- over the last two months -- have been very riffy, derived from automatic handwriting -- actually a couple of exercises from Behn & Twitchell's The Practice of Poetry, a very useful book, by the way, especially if you're feeling stuck. The desire to go back to those so-called "frequent rides" on the "mindblowing brainwaves from groundswells of experience" probably comes from my nostalgia for those early days where every poem seemed so ground-breaking, so momentous... along with the feeling that after six riffin' exercise poems, I already wanna get back on my spurs.
Ride 'em, cowboy!!
I think when I was younger (i.e. in my 20's) specific spurs, as you call them, would inspire me and I frequently would be overcome with the urge to write about and from them.... like many I fell prey to dry periods when I became dependent on those kinds of involuntary urges to get me going and nothing else seemed a legitimate way to go about it. As I have gotten older, hate to say, a certain "seen it/done it" syndrome has reduced the frequency of those inspiring provocations. With accumulated experience, tho, I have found that riffing has definitely gotten richer -- that is, I can more consistently tap into surprising depths by simply playing with language itself. Good question, one that I still think about quite a bit. I guess I miss my once frequent rides on those mind-blowing brainwaves kicked up by groundswells of experience...
I guess his post made me feel nostalgiac and a bit sad.
Funny, though... today I went over my 50 most recent poems (or pretty fair attempts at poems), all written within the last year and a half or so, and how do they tally? 34 are definitely "spurred" by events or real circumstances, and 16 I would classify as "riffs". That's in percentage terms (easy to calculate, even for me!) 68% spurred, and 32% riff. Of course, as others pointed out there's a good deal of riffing within many spurred poems and events or actual circumstances that are drawn upon in riff poems, but mainly, we're talking point of departure here.
When I look back at earlier years, I see a lot of riffin' goin' on. In fact, my first "real poem", written when I was 16, was a riff. It was an apology about revealing somebody's secret, sort of modeled on the the WCW poem "This is Just to Say" apologizing for eating those plums from the icebox that were "so sweet and so cold". People asked me what the secret was about, and I had to admit the whole experience was made up, as it were, "by the poem". The poem later got published in Acta Victoriana, a lit mag put out by University of Toronto. I still recall it as a good one (the poem I mean, not necessarily the mag). If I find it (I'm sure I've got it somewhere) I'll post it.
There's also a whole other category of poems, dramatic monologues, a kind of riff on the spur of someone else's experience (whether literary, or "real"). I've written quite a few of those. . .
Where though did I get the impression that with age "riff poems" have somehow eclipsed "spur poems" in frequency and intensity?
I think it's because the last six poems I've written -- over the last two months -- have been very riffy, derived from automatic handwriting -- actually a couple of exercises from Behn & Twitchell's The Practice of Poetry, a very useful book, by the way, especially if you're feeling stuck. The desire to go back to those so-called "frequent rides" on the "mindblowing brainwaves from groundswells of experience" probably comes from my nostalgia for those early days where every poem seemed so ground-breaking, so momentous... along with the feeling that after six riffin' exercise poems, I already wanna get back on my spurs.
Ride 'em, cowboy!!
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Pronouns/Amateur Nouns and SHARING
Today had a marvellous day. Got together with some fellow poets from last Fall's workshop, caught up on each other's news and read/critiqued each other's poetry, over wine, dip, crackers. A lot of the work read and shared was very good, definitely "publishable" or nearly so. Would it have been as good to me had I run across it in a literary magazine, and didn't know the living, breathing poet who wrote it? If the poet hadn't been there providing context and commentary, his or her reading voice and body and personality and living self providing itself a kind of context and commentary? Who knows? But I felt privileged to be part of a poetic event which may never have further record than this. And it reaffirmed an old realization, of which at times, it seems, I need to be reminded, especially when I haven't participated for a while in a get-together like this: that poetry is so intimate a medium, that it makes such demands on its readers, that it is best appreciated in an intimate context like this, and so resists the kind of commercial dissemination that goes much beyond this kind of personal, one-to-one or small group sharing.
To kick off our reading, I shared with my friends Charles's wonderful post on risk, which inspired a couple of us to share some risky poems, work which ventured into the arbitrary, solipsitic, or socially reprehensible (or at least, heavily confessional). Charles, your liberating influence spreads across the globe!
One good spinoff of the experience for me at least is that I got a critical tuneup for one of my poems, the write~~~dance thing I quoted about a couple of weeks back, and which I'll have to submit soon to the dance company. Here are the first few lines (it runs over a hundred, so this is just a taste):
One of the poets there pointed out that several of pronouns (+ one connective) were kind of unneccessary, that the poem would be lighter on its feet without them. And I think he's likely right. Hence:
Pronouns become amateur nouns when they take up too much space. N'est pas?
To kick off our reading, I shared with my friends Charles's wonderful post on risk, which inspired a couple of us to share some risky poems, work which ventured into the arbitrary, solipsitic, or socially reprehensible (or at least, heavily confessional). Charles, your liberating influence spreads across the globe!
One good spinoff of the experience for me at least is that I got a critical tuneup for one of my poems, the write~~~dance thing I quoted about a couple of weeks back, and which I'll have to submit soon to the dance company. Here are the first few lines (it runs over a hundred, so this is just a taste):
here
in this circle
of light
i'm alone
teasing the air
torsion contortion
limbs lunging out
into the blackness
flesh glowing pink
round
fingers
that flicker
flight out of spotlight
flight out of sight
i'm dying
but spinning
in circle of
light
One of the poets there pointed out that several of pronouns (+ one connective) were kind of unneccessary, that the poem would be lighter on its feet without them. And I think he's likely right. Hence:
here
in this circle
of light
alone
teasing the air
torsion contortion
limbs lunging out
into the blackness
flesh glowing pink
round
fingers
that flicker
flight out of spotlight
flight out of sight
dying
spinning
in circle of
lightPronouns become amateur nouns when they take up too much space. N'est pas?
Sunday, February 20, 2005
SOME NOTES
GC Waldrep makes a balanced and illuminating contribution to ongoing aesthetic discussions -- some call them the Poetics Wars ("Organic/Non-organic", although he doesn't use those terms; "experimental/traditional" etc.), over at Writer's Block. I have to agree with his views on Houlihan, which I must admit are both more informed and nuanced than those I expressed earlier. He also introduced me to a term I had never heard before: Gongorism. It's well worth reading the whole string there. (Thanks to Whimsy Speaks for pointing out the Waldrep posts...)
Waldrep in turn points us to Rubarb is Susan, a blog written by "a fellow from New Jersey" that consists of subtle and candid reviews of poems found online and elsewhere. This will soon be on my blogroll, as will be the Penn Central achives, an impressive source of readings of single poems.
Speaking of poetics discussions, though, CR Jenson writes a brilliant post on risk-taking in poetry. Risk is an energizer. So is his post!
Waldrep in turn points us to Rubarb is Susan, a blog written by "a fellow from New Jersey" that consists of subtle and candid reviews of poems found online and elsewhere. This will soon be on my blogroll, as will be the Penn Central achives, an impressive source of readings of single poems.
Speaking of poetics discussions, though, CR Jenson writes a brilliant post on risk-taking in poetry. Risk is an energizer. So is his post!
Sunday, October 24, 2004
ONE ART, TWO ARTS, THREE ARTS, FOUR...
Some of my most interesting writing online has come in the form of responses to blogs by others. Generally, I prefer dialoguing to monologuing. Yesterday, CR Jenson wrote on his blog something I couldn't resist responding to -- despite my self-imposed limitation on time online.
ONE ART, OR NOT SO MUCH?
Over the past two years, I've been teaching myself how to play acoustic guitar in my "spare" time. It's something I've really come to enjoy about my day-making a space for music. I've been pretty musical my whole life-I used to tinker around with a keyboard when I was little, then I started playing the trumpet and later took piano lessons. I was also in my high school choir and the musicals each year.
Now I pull out the guitar whenever I'm in the office and I need a break, or if I'm about to spend some time writing but am having trouble with whatever I'm working on. I strum for a while, warble along, and then get down to the task of writing (or grading).
Do many of you have a "second" or even "third" art that you're involved in? Do you paint on the side? Take photographs? Etc.? I'll admit that for many of my teenage years, my dreams were not to be a poet-I wanted, on the surface, to be a filmmaker and, secretly, to be the lead singer of a rock band.
I stuck with poetry because I figured no matter what else I was doing, I could always find a way or reason to write without giving it "special" attention in my life.
So how about it? Any graphic designers out there? Sculptors? Etc? Let's hear about the other arts.
This is what I wrote back (with some revisions):
Naturally I can relate to your tale of needing a second focus. Between, say, 22 and 34, I defined myself (artistically at least) as a poet; from about 26 on, I took up fingerstyle guitar as a kind of a hobby and got pretty damned good at it, playing people like John Renbourne, Mississippi John Hurt, and Bert Jansch. Then, after a long period of poetic "blockage" songs came out, in all about 50 or so. Later a cassette and a fully orchestrated CD. After running up against the typical roadblocks facing independent musicians these days, I've turned back to poetry in a major way. I love the pure creativity of the act of writing poetry, the lack of production time and costs, the intelligence of the audience, "worthy but few". It suits my intellectual nature, my actually (as it turns out) not-so-outgoing temperament. Lit mags -- even the stuffiest ones -- are far more interesting than your typically abhorrent music publications. And the promotion of poetry, compared to music, is child's play -- that is, still monstrously tedious and frustrating, but actually doable by one person.
I still play the guitar, do the very occasional show, and am thankful for the emotional release and personal enrichment it brings. Proud though I am of my album (I wouldn't change a single note of it, and lately it's even gotten a couple of good but belated reviews) too bad some in the poetry establishment will see me as a flake for having engaged so heavily in an art as "low brow" as song writing. (See that recent quote in Victoria Chang's blog of advice to "young poet" against revealing ancillary artistic activities like performing music.) As a poet, I realize I have some catching up - de-rusting -- to do... but I'm catching up pretty darned fast. All the arts relate and inform each other. Said Goethe: "Architecture is frozen music. Symmetry is rhythm standing still." Cheers, and keep riffing in the office!
ONE ART, OR NOT SO MUCH?
Over the past two years, I've been teaching myself how to play acoustic guitar in my "spare" time. It's something I've really come to enjoy about my day-making a space for music. I've been pretty musical my whole life-I used to tinker around with a keyboard when I was little, then I started playing the trumpet and later took piano lessons. I was also in my high school choir and the musicals each year.
Now I pull out the guitar whenever I'm in the office and I need a break, or if I'm about to spend some time writing but am having trouble with whatever I'm working on. I strum for a while, warble along, and then get down to the task of writing (or grading).
Do many of you have a "second" or even "third" art that you're involved in? Do you paint on the side? Take photographs? Etc.? I'll admit that for many of my teenage years, my dreams were not to be a poet-I wanted, on the surface, to be a filmmaker and, secretly, to be the lead singer of a rock band.
I stuck with poetry because I figured no matter what else I was doing, I could always find a way or reason to write without giving it "special" attention in my life.
So how about it? Any graphic designers out there? Sculptors? Etc? Let's hear about the other arts.
This is what I wrote back (with some revisions):
Naturally I can relate to your tale of needing a second focus. Between, say, 22 and 34, I defined myself (artistically at least) as a poet; from about 26 on, I took up fingerstyle guitar as a kind of a hobby and got pretty damned good at it, playing people like John Renbourne, Mississippi John Hurt, and Bert Jansch. Then, after a long period of poetic "blockage" songs came out, in all about 50 or so. Later a cassette and a fully orchestrated CD. After running up against the typical roadblocks facing independent musicians these days, I've turned back to poetry in a major way. I love the pure creativity of the act of writing poetry, the lack of production time and costs, the intelligence of the audience, "worthy but few". It suits my intellectual nature, my actually (as it turns out) not-so-outgoing temperament. Lit mags -- even the stuffiest ones -- are far more interesting than your typically abhorrent music publications. And the promotion of poetry, compared to music, is child's play -- that is, still monstrously tedious and frustrating, but actually doable by one person.
I still play the guitar, do the very occasional show, and am thankful for the emotional release and personal enrichment it brings. Proud though I am of my album (I wouldn't change a single note of it, and lately it's even gotten a couple of good but belated reviews) too bad some in the poetry establishment will see me as a flake for having engaged so heavily in an art as "low brow" as song writing. (See that recent quote in Victoria Chang's blog of advice to "young poet" against revealing ancillary artistic activities like performing music.) As a poet, I realize I have some catching up - de-rusting -- to do... but I'm catching up pretty darned fast. All the arts relate and inform each other. Said Goethe: "Architecture is frozen music. Symmetry is rhythm standing still." Cheers, and keep riffing in the office!
Friday, October 22, 2004
RETHINKING THE BLOG THING
Well, folks -- or rather folk, since I've only had one consistent vistor on this fledgling blogspot site, and we both who know he is! -- I've decided to rethink this blog thing. Basically, my girlfriend has accused me of being an internet addict -- and I think she may be right. I haven't been writing with the amazing energy of a Victoria Chang, but I've been reading a lot, spending many, many hours with my eyes glued to a screen, keeping up with two blog communities, etc. So, basically I've decided to limit my online activity for the next few weeks (two hours a week? four hours a week max?), just to see if I have withdrawl symptoms. Maybe I'll do little one-liners like one million footnotes or Lyn Hejinian, blogrolled to the left....check them out, they're fascinating!!! (CR Jenson pointed them out. If you want to see his excellent blog, go through my links at http://www.briancampbell.blog-city.com... or his comment posted below)
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