In response to cris's request:
Here's some impressions with no claim to being comprehensive.
Friday
Arrived about halfway through Trevor Joyce's reading due to lack of signs -
apparently not allowed - but in time to hear him read 'Syzygy' which just
seems more impressive on every reading/hearing.
Next was E A Markham. Markham is a practised performer: the old showman who
asks us to admire his showmanship. Nolan's intro built him up as a kind of
socio-linguistic critic but this didn't seem to be borne out in the poems he
read. He was also very pleased with himself for having impersonated a woman
poet. All a bit uncomfortable really but the crowds seemed pleased.
Next was Fabienne Courtade who read in French, mumbling interminably and
largely inaudibly from behind a peekaboo blonde fringe. She was translated
by Nolan and A.N. Other. A rather curious experience: the poems were full of
words like love, universe, stars, flowers and garden but read by Nolan in a
discursive, rather off-hand way. Couldn't tell whether he was translating
impromptu or reading prepared versions. Her reading raised an important and
awkward question about poetry from other cultures: do we only prize it
because it allows us to have things we would dismiss in our own language? To
put it another way, if a British woman poet was writing like this it might
be called romantic tosh or second-hand Jacottet.
Saturday - early session
Colin Simms - Bunting meets science? I'd not connected with his work when
reading it in Other but here it suddenly came alive. Impressive reading.
Rhythmically interesting: angular, crunchy. Sometimes expert vocab like
'spraints' mixed up with dialect. Rounded diction. Rich, 'old-fashioned
radio' voice. Very funny impromptu doggerel - 'I thought of it in the bath
this morning' - about all the big names - Heaney - 'what a meanie'-, Larkin
etc - who'd told him to stop writing or reviewed him badly.
Sophie Levy. Introduced by Rod Mengham as a bright hope for the future.
Afraid to say Levy's poetry didn't leave much of an impression so can't
really comment. My notes say 'witty' which isn't much help altho there was
an intriguing prose piece about having an alien baby, which got my
attention. I'm not sure I agree with Nate's comments already posted: the
problem is that Levy was given an intro by Rod Mengham that would've been
difficult for anyone to live up to, let alone someone who's just publishing
their first collection. In fact, the intros were a problem throughout the
weekend: either effusive and over-enthusiastic and not borne out by what the
poets chose to read; or somehow managing to sound a bit patronising. Notable
exception to this was Allen Fisher's intro for Rob Holloway which said some
provocative things about the vulnerability of the reader/performer and
therefore framed the work beautifully.
Saturday - 2pm
Yves di Mannio with translations by Nolan. Extracts from a long poem about
war. Grim and bloody.
Nicholas Johnson. Extracts from a long narrative about the foot and mouth
epidemic and a long piece about independence struggles somewhere in the
South Pacific. Some lovely atmospheric writing here and the ambition
impressed. My notes say: if the mainstream is largely anecdote then is the
parallel tradition largely apocalypse and dystopia?
Kate Lilley then read from her new Salt book 'Versary' in which a kind of
Tranteresque PoMo came up against something at once more sensual and more
sceptical. Some great lines: 'How late can modernism get?'
Saturday - 4pm
To see Che Qianzi at Gonville and Caius, intro by Prynne. Senior Parlour
packed to the gunnels. A lot of people had clearly come for a glimpse of the
great white whale as the crowd halved in the interval. Btw, the jacket is
black corduroy not velvet. Anyway, this event one of the highspots for me.
A large square table with a bowl of water front centre holding down a length
of opaque paper hanging to the floor. Pages of calligraphy running up each
side with objects on top of them: eg: an apple, some money. Che Qianzi began
by donning a white towelling dressing gown like a boxer and sitting
cross-legged in the centre of the table. Begins chanting in Chinese - did I
hear some English in there too? - and putting the objects in the bowl and
then mixing them all together. Followed by: splashing water onto the
dangling paper to reveal calligraphy underneath; calligraphy using flowers
as brushes; readings of poetry - concrete and non- - with translations
provided by Jeff Twichell[?] who refused nobly to rise to the concrete
Cobbing-like challenges offered by Che Qianzi's Chinese, despite
encouragement from Prynne - 'Go on Jeff' - and others: 'you know you want to
'. Whole thing ending with more calligraphy on paper which was then wrapped
round the poet's head and he stuck his tongue and mouth through while
shouting. Brilliant. Beautiful. Moving. More please. A measure of the
impression made is that people were trying to get bits of the paper as
souvenirs!
In the evening, back to Winstanley to hear Ciaran Carson and his flute.
Carson's subjects haven't really changed much since Belfast Confetti. He's
still writing about history and making his huge lists of gear and stuff but
his poems are sharper and sparser and shorter. And he showed us some: the
long C. K. Williams-derived lines gone in favour of short ones, the poems
straggling down the page, what someone once called an artesian form I
believe. Carson's reading style very measured, very rhythmic and theatrical.
A fine 'aisling' sonnet and a long poem about Lucknow were stand-outs.
Ulrike Draesner - a featured poet in the forthcoming Andrew Duncan/Tony
Frazer co-edited Chicago Review New German writing special - then read in
German with Frazer [?] reading the translations. Broad range of material.
Urban scenes with concrete/performance type inventions and repetitions and
strange dream narratives of a miscarriage. Made a real effort to get across
the language barrier by doing some poems in English herself. Encouraged me
to check the CR special out.
Tonno Oosterhoff, Dutch poet, next with Stephen Rodefer reading the
translations. Rodefer's ironic, detached delivery seemed to mimic the tone
of the Dutch - as far as I could tell. A long narrative about a fraudulent
[?] doctor on trial stuck in the mind.
Then back at 10.30 for a session of generally dire videos. At least when
people were working in Super 8, the length of the film cartridge meant the
stuff was relatively short - now it just goes on for hours. Or seems to. A
couple of standout pieces but have mislaid the listing so can't say which.
However, there was some funky cello from someone whose name I didn't write
down.
Sunday [11 am]
Geraldine Mackenzie. I'd like to be able to say what the poems were about
but I can't because she mumbled and only addressed one side of the
auditorium. Reading styles throughout the weekend often poor - too many
people sitting down and mumbling into their texts. Guys: stand up! Breathe!
Project! Ironic, because Mackenzie was standing and was one of the few to
recite from memory. My notes say: where are the British women poets? Where
are the British women poets? Where are the British women poets?
Simon Smith. Richard Price has posted something from Reverdy Road so people
will already have an idea of what this looks/reads/sounds like. Smith seemed
to be one of the few people who was actually enjoying himself. His fast
jump-cut style came across really well.
Sunday [2pm]
Rob Holloway. Intro'd by Allen Fisher - see above. Large paper square on the
stage made up of A4 sheets with several spaces for foot positions. Holloway
standing in the square and moving around the outside of it and then back in,
reading from Permit as if he'd only just encountered it for the first time.
Cut-up in action. Various strands surfaced and returned to the deeps and
resurfaced: politics, coming to articulation, conventionally 'poetic'
language. Would've wished his reading tone not to be so flat but this partly
due to him being bent over, reading the stuff. Would've also liked to know a
bit more about Permit 'cos there were some of us in the audience who've
never heard of it and don't know. But, all in all, another highspot.
Cecilia Vicuna. From my notes: Apparently a major international artist who
'needs no introduction'. Yep, they really said that. Begins by joining
members of the audience to each other and herself with Barbie-pink wool.
Sing-song little girl voice. ''Gramma' in my language means scratch.' 'I see
all these people writing in their notebooks but they are not writing what
the poets are actually saying, they are writing what they think they are
hearing and I think perhaps everyone is writing the same big poem.' Oh, like
wow, you mean like it's still 1969 and, like, everything really is
everything, man? 'Writing and performing are like weaving, the warp and the
woof.' Is this meant to be a parody? Worse: some politically vacuous stuff
about Sept 11th. Ends with a description of seeing a fluffy pink cloud that
looked just like an eye. Dreadful.
I've gone to the trouble of describing it because it makes such a marked
contrast with the Che Qianzi and Rob Holloway performances.
And then we had to leave because getting a train back north out of Cambridge
on a Sunday is like an episode of The Prisoner.
To sum up: glad to see/hear so much poetry and performance that was new to
me. Stimulating and irritating in equal measure. Wonder whether the whole
thing should be less of a rattle bag and have some themes around which the
poetry can be oriented?
cheers
David
----- Original Message -----
From: "cris cheek" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 6:48 PM
Subject: CCCP
> any reports on the past weekend?
>
> looking forward 2 hearing
>
> love and love
> cris
>
>
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