That's a new one Ian. I remember Joan Armatrading's "Some days the
bear eats you, some days you eat the bear." That dates me I know. I
interviewed her when that album came out. That dates me further. The
word "album" says it all.

I'm reading Cralan Kelder's LEMON RED, a wonderful chapbook, the last
poem in which reads:

*

This poem made possible
by a generous grant from today


I'm also reading Clere Parsons' EIGHT POEMS. His "The Winter Sunlight
Splashes With Pale Gold" makes me feel like I've discovered a fellow
spirit.
I just hope he's real. Dead I can take. Just let him be real.

Also I BUILD MY TIME (gorgeous red book, very respectable looking,
mellow fat pages): "a collage built on texts by Kurt Schwitters").
Well I can't tell you how much I like this. Except to say I'm
toppling off my chair just flicking through it.

I am the bak,
I chissel lak,
I griffel taaler,
I am the Maaler.

You are the feudinn,
You chissel tinn,
You griffel turkey
You are the purkey.

I also have Anna Moeglin-Decroix's LITTLE BOOKS & OTHER LITTLE
PUBLICATIONS (short essay), Tim Robinson's OLWEN FOUÉRÉ IN 'THE BULL'S
WALL' (a long time ago, around the time I interviewed Joan
Armatrading, Olwen Fouére was in a play of mine at the Project Arts
Centre in Dublin, she's a performer hard to describe as I now discover
trying to describe her: molten, smoky, incandescent, unique, rigorous,
courageously self-disciplined -- Tim Robinson says "An actress known
for the mysterious gift of
presence") Robinson's film, which I haven't seen, derived from an
invitation "to provide a text for a performance by Olwen Fouére on
some theme to do with Artaud's visit to the Aran Islands."

I also have FIVE POEMS by Hamish MacLaren, which has thick sturdy
pages almost like board.

All these books are from Coracle Press, Simon Cutts' and Erika Van
Horn's amazing enterprise based in Ballybeg, Co. Tipperary. I got
them in return for some books of mine Simon sold at the SoundEye/Vinyl
Festivals in Cork:
yet another glorious offshoot of that glorious week.

Good luck in Hamburg: http://www.art-errorist.de/fiestaval_2005. If
you get finished in time, I'm reading in Smithfield, Rhode Island (at
the Stone & Plank House!) later that day.

I also like listening to things I don't understand, especially at low
volume. I worked as an English editor for a Korean computer scientist
on and off for about 4 years. Working with those papers was like
drinking gin & tonics that never made you drunk: a real brillo-pad for
the brain. Robert Frost, whom I ordinarily wouldn't quote, wrote
about "the sound of sense": I understood it as the inherent sounds of
a conversation, outside the door say, where the combination of tones
conveyed the sense of what was being said, even if the wods could not
be heard.

My sunglasses are my substitute mother. I had to move to America to
get enough mothering.

Hey Ian, the Avantgarde Fiesta looks wild-- let us know how it goes,
I'd love to hear about it. I don't know Steven Stapleton (English
Irish) and Raphael F. Byrne, listed as Irish participants. All news
of Irish & British participation, and all else, gladly welcomed.

Mairead

On 9/3/05, ian davidson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> or as Tony Frazer might have said about arts councils, but didn't.
>
> You hug the bear, the bear hugs back.
>
> Really wanted to get that in.
>
> What poetry are people reading?
>
> I'm still reading and re-reading lee harwood's collected as an endless
> source of interest, amusment and emotion. I've begun dipping in to Alan
> Halsey's Marginalien which is awesome. Just bought a raft of books by Cathy
> Wagner full of poetry that is quick, clever and always unexpected. If you
> get a chance to see her read go along. Allen Fisher's Place is sitting
> threateningly on the shelf but that'll have to wait for the nights to draw
> in (nothing to do with the book or Allen's poetry it's simply that I can
> only cope with so many big books at any one time).
>
> It's sunny here in Wales and i just spent a week walking in the mountains.
> It was pleasant but exposure to the extremes of weather, even in August, was
> a little ageing.
>
> If anyone is near hamburg in Germany in a couple of weeks (Sept 16 i think)
> then I'm reading with zoe skoulding at an 'avant garde' festival organised
> by Faust. details at
>
> http://www.art-errorist.de/fiestaval_2005
>
> do come along. we're reading at midnight on friday according to the last
> schedule but that could change. how cool is that? i don't think my age or
> even the appearance of it will count against me there.
>
> by the way, i kind of like it when people say things i barely understand.
> makes me think i might learn something. i remember as a child one of my
> greatest pleasures was sitting still and unnoticed in order to listen in on
> my mother talking to her friends about things whose context and meaning i
> could only guess at.
>
> mind you most of the poetry i read makes me feel like that.
>
> one for my therapist i think. experimental poetry as substitute mother. off
> to tea now with the real one.
>
> love to all
>
> ian
>