List members may be interested in some impressions of the above held at De
Montfort University in Leicester on Fri 8 Dec and Sat 9 Dec.

Organised by Nicholas Zurbrugg and Jane Dowson the conference sought to
examine Language Poetry, Sound poetry, Fluxus and multimedia work have
explored innovative poetic practice and performance.

Performers and speakers were: Vincent Barras, Caroline Bergvall, Charles
Bernstein, Bob Cobbing, Henri Chopin, Peter Jaeger, Chris Mann, Karen Mac
Cormack, Steve McCaffery, Enzo Minarelli, Redell Olsen, Maggie O'Sullivan,
Nagy Rashwan, Ward Tietz, Emmett Williams.

The two days followed the same format: papers and panels followed by
readings. I will try to pick out some things.

Powerful performances from Bob Cobbing, Emmett Williams - reading The Voyage
and Meditation No.1 -  and Henri Chopin playing two tape pieces made by
placing microphones in the mouth and in front of the nose. I was really
impressed by the example of the three senior poets. First, because it seems
with the all new millennium hoo-ha that the poetries and perfomativies they
represent might, according to dominant narratives of culture, have become
conveniently finished and historical whereas their performances and reading
showed that both the poetries and performativities and implications arising
are active and ongoing. Second, because they show, I think, how it is
possible to go on being active and creative and innovative at ages when
people are supposed, again according to dominant narratives, to be
'retired'and inactive.

Maggie O'Sullivan dsecribed the difficulties, challenges and rewards
involved in producing Out Of Everywhere. Charles Bernstein gave a moving and
resonant reading from a libretto in progress for an opera on the last days
of Walter Benjamin. A solo for the Angel of History was particularly fine, a
looping and incremental examination of past, present, future and memory.
Steve McCaffery performed the second half of the Toronto telephone directory
at tremendous speed in order to provide the Canadian content required, he
said, to justify funding from the Canada Council [?]. Redell Olson made a
spoken paper and slide engagement with the aesthetics around Bernadette
Mayer's 0 To 9 magazine. Emmett Williams spoke about his work with Dick
Higgins and Something Else. Allen Fisher who I'd not heard read before
impressed with two readings which conveyed complexity with great force and
concentration at quite surprising speed. Somehow neutral and dramatic all at
once.


There did seem to be some themes emerging from the two days. First, how and
where does poetry exist in place and space whether this is the page or the
performance or in one example of Ward Tietz's practice styrofoam words
floating on a pond. This was kind of glossed by the fact that the conference
venue was also home to an exhibition of word art and visual texts donated by
Francesco Conz so that delegates and guests performers/speakers were moving
through spaces containing works by among others Higgins, Lax and Gomringer.
Second, architecture. Steve Mac Caffrey and Karen Mac Cormack both described
how they are increasingly turning to architectural theory for ways to push
their work forward. This topic seemed to provoke the liveliest set of
questions and was referred back to by other speakers on several occasions.

My only criticism - albeit slight - would be that with so many practitioners
in the audience it might have been useful to have made space for an open
reading session. But that apart it is not often that I come away from a
conference or a literary festival feeling excited and inspired both to read
and to write.

Other delegates - several list members sighted and met - will no doubt have
different perceptions of the two days. I will close by trying to give a more
direct flavour via the phrases and words that I noted over the conference.

dmu 12.00
please try to control the length of your interventions poetics of the jump
context of exchange the city see what's inside different sounds at different
times in different places spaces no signal detected the aesthetic was
quasi-moribund the big O other enjoyment does not stem from unpleasure
avoided readers in the path of the symbolic repeated lists repeat and the
inverse is obvious the non-site is the centre of the system cut-up cut-in
cut-down a spillage of complexity a spillage of possibility it's out there
that probably reflects our lack of broadness oh call it something else so
all the dylan in the book is paraphrased there is work which requires me and
i hope i'm happy to be required and the rest of it is just industrial a
writer is an impatient reader philosophers as failed artists fifteen people
that day had the same issue.

[with grateful acknowledgement to the speakers/performers listed above]

cheers
David