sorry trevor, yes, careless me; this was intended for everyone

ive knocked out the >>> before my responses to, I hope, aid reading

L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Trevor Joyce" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 14, 2004 12:16 AM
Subject: Re: Offsets - observations (was Fw: Offsets: Nodes for round 22)


 Lawrence: just wondering whether you intended this to go f/c, and
 whether you sent it so. To keep the pot on the boil . . .


 >Offsets - observations (was Fw: Offsets: Nodes for round 2Dear Trevor
 >
 >>Well, it was a productive rut, for others as well as yourself. Your node
 >51, for example, holds the record (along with Matthew Geden's node 28) for
 >the most responses - four. And that wasn't a fluke. I'm trying to figure a
 >way of automating a count to see patterns in responses (not for nothing
did
 >I waste my middle years on statistics), but I'm pretty sure you'd come
high
 >on the list of 'those most likely to get responded to.' I'm still trying
to
 >figure how you produce that effect.
 >
*I don't know. Maybe it *is a fluke.
> >
 >>I genuinely hadn't though that players might be following their own
 >preoccupations to such an extent here. That'd be really good, if other
 >bodies of writing came out of it, however indirectly.
 >
I had recently started the series I have been writing within and without
offsets and yet I couldnt at the time get on with it. I had a few things on
my mind. Had things been otherwise, I'd have been out and walking, hoping to
meet new poems. As it was, I used the offsets.

I didnt go into it with that in mind though. I was bouncy when I went into
it, and viewed it as another thing to be doing; but, now staggered at
Alison's twenty minutes, I found it took so much of my time, there had to be
some compromise. I suppose!

 >>Yes, I saw you were up to something like that, and tried, unsuccessfully,
 >to thwart you.

>You'll stop weeds in a garden first when I am in such a mood

 >>I'd be interested to know whether you (and others) took some time to
settle
 >on a way of writing your contributions.
 >
Yes
> >
 >> Were you surprised, thrown to any extent, by what the larger overall
 >structure did to your expectations.
> >
No. Jonah in the whale, in Orwell's take.
> >
I saw the size of it rising above me, but I just headed for the aphids on
the other side of the leaf
> >
> >>Also, since I wanted there to be as much diversity as possible alongside
> >the predictable continuities, I tried to contribute as wide a range of
stuff
> >as possible. Not caring so much about 'quality' in the usual sense, as
> >wondering how much of what I was doing might work directly or indirectly
to
> >fan out the range of possibilities. Your approach, once i saw what you
were
> >at, gave me a useful way of having lexical and thematic traces survive,
even
> >after my nodes were long dead.
> >
It's as well that people have found something to respond to in my writing
for offsets because Ive honestly not been that collaborative in the broader
sense. Ive tried to twist off at an angle each time and I have tried to
write around the original target; but that's following rules rather than
advancing them
> >
I think the photo was the last time I was thinking heavily about the
overview; and now I look back at it I find it odd that, having done that, I
followed a rut.
> >
There is an autobiographical explanation; but it could have been otherwise
> >
& I am very attracted by the idea of having the poems in offsets and maybe
edited / rewritten versions in another context
> >
> >
L
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.soundeye.org/trevorjoyce
>