Lots of interesting points here, Doug. Well, points.
I think of everything I do as *being in a tradition(s)
I hadn't thought of this as theatre, but i am content with that.
I write lots of stuff something like this. I have a catch all title of
_Portraits_, and this could well fit in there. It's more a portrait than a
snap but I presented is a snap to fit. it's not not a snap!
I offered a whole pile of portraits to a very innovative publisher a while
back and it rejected it because there was, i believe this is it, no
innovation. I couldn't really tell what the problem was because the
rejection letter was so incoherent. (I was interested to note that a
devoted self-proclaimed innovator could not express themselves clearly.)
There was also, I detected, some embarrassment.
I was already glad because there were a number of really infelicitous
poems there - together with lots of innovation of a quiet kind - and I had
regretted submitting it.
I suppose I'm asking questions. The starting point of the poem was that
first line which was taken unchanged from a posting on another list. In
context it was even more bizarre, and posing.
I don't know the person that well, and demoted them there and then on my
list of people to get to know. Instead, I set about portraiting (There I
go again using the language innovatively).... portraying, speculatively a
person who could say such a thing
It was a way of dealing with my anger at the person who had been posturing
politically
The only snap bit of it, truly, was done with a mouse and cut and paste on
that first line. The rest was photoshop
Lawrence
On Mon, August 29, 2011 16:00, Douglas Barbour wrote:
> a little theatre, Lawrence, narrative of a more traditional kind?
>
> or just a chance to ask those questions...?
>
> in that a snap, taken on the run, somewhere (inside?)...
>
> it's very different, it seems to me, for you, so interesting just in
> that....
>
> Doug
> (back home & able to check in each day again)
> On 2011-08-24, at 4:39 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>
>
>> “My mind is ruined with love; I back away,”
>> he says, deceitful to himself, and us, that’s me, overhearing, retelling
>> some bits. Do you mean *by love? she asks, but he’s gone
>> into another illusion that’s opening like a space; and has potential; and
>> a boss moving around everything for the good of a most jumbled plan; so
>> he doesn’t hear,
>>
>> more fey than dumb, in basements of exclamation, connecting parts of
>> speech to his genitals. “Why else are we erect if not to walk?”
>> he shouts, brandishing himself among his mates who fall into themselves
>> to be absent. “Why else are we rigid if not for talk?”
>>
>>
>> Are you ruined by love? she asks again.
>> He does not understand. He stops. “No way,”
>> he cries, -- and strides on, as if he had yelled “Make way” – “My love
>> is quite intransigent and has no need of others. It makes me weak. To
>> give it to someone else might infect the whole community with my unease.
>>
>>
>> I yield affection. It would not help me.
>> I have too much fondness; and it prevents
>> but preserves me, such is the case, from making myself vulnerable; or so
>> I thought.
>> Yet it has snide affect; and I weaken.”
>> What do you *mean by *love? ask several,
>> near, touching him, concerned; and he withdraws.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----
>> UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
>> 42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
>> Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
>> wfuk.org.uk/blog ----
>> Lawrence Upton
>> Dept of Music
>> Goldsmiths, University of London
>>
>>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
> Wednesdays'
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10
> .html
>
>
> It is natural to speak of your own weaknesses so winsomely they will seem
> strengths, as if everyone else is inadequate if they do not have your
> inadequacies.
>
> William H. Gass
>
>
-----
UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
wfuk.org.uk/blog
----
Lawrence Upton
Dept of Music
Goldsmiths, University of London
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