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beautiful snapshot Chris, thanks for that. what about publications. did the workshop do any publishing or did folks bring their latest to spread around? & it also seems to me in the fix of this larger discussion, that WF workshops steered clear of alot of the workshop conventions that make them so suspect. ~mIEKAL On Aug 17, 2009, at 7:47 PM, cris cheek wrote: > hi miekal, well this is my xp from the mid to l8 1970s. it changed > over the years driven by different waves of participants. here's a > bit of fluff on the WF workshop at that time (Bill Griffiths, Allen > Fisher, Lawrence Upton, Jeremy Adler, PC Fencott, Sean O'Huigin, > Ulli Freer, Paige Mitchell, Pierre Joris?, Maggie O'Sullivan, Alaric > Sumner . . . help i don't want to get into attempting a > comprehensive list and either include nor exclude for portrait > purposes . . . that kind of lot though, maybe Eric Mottram . . . > Geraldine . . . ?? i know was around but not in London so less > frequently . . . Robert Sheppard, Adrian Clarke . . . Gilbert > Adair . . . it was a fun crowd) > > > > Writing was frequently (although far from always) read by more than > voice, two or three voices (or more), reading in close interaction, > with syncopation, with overlapping stresses, with partial erasure, > foreground and background scripting, staccato narrative assemblages > and dialogistic interjection. The workshop sat more or less in a > circle. Texts were sometimes arraigned across the floor or cascading > from the ceiling or fluttering loose in the hand. Listening with > attentive vision was at a premium. Spatial placement of sound became > an area of investigation and spatiality of paginated notations, both > placement of pages in the room and spatialisation of writings on the > page, were consequent. Some quite extraordinary musicians attended > from time to time. There were international visitors too. Bill > Bissett, Jerome Rothenberg come to mind. Interruption and > distraction of both the scripted and the unscripted were qualities > considered delicious rather than screened out; I referred at that > time to such displacements and noise in a performance of writing as > exquisite interference. Consequently attention was full on and wide > open. In workshop presentations a dynamic interchange ‘between’ > improvisation and composition often presented itself. The potential > live performance of a piece of writing often gave rise to > consecutive versions in which two or three different possibilities > were offered. In other words the same poem might be tried in a > number of different ways, either during one workshop or in > consecutive workshops. Writings were thereby explored through out- > loud readings as being subjects for revision, a direct result of > having been aired. A performance of writing, in the majority of > these cases intended to be in conversation with the possibilities > for the poem, was an occasion of a moment. One occurring ‘between’ > the body of giver and the body of receiver, belonging to neither one > nor the other, a signal, even secretion, of mobilised liminal > exchange. Also ‘between’ the writing on the page and the writing off > the page, projected through the bodies of its temporary operators as > sonic orientation and propulsive gesture. > > This workshop, which had the qualities of a research group, was a > seedbed for emergent collaborations; indeed collaboration was > encouraged by dint of the enquiries conducted as already mentioned. > Many of its participants helped each other to contest the boundaries > of their poems. The workshop would be held in an upstairs room of a > public house; in a meeting house; in a private house; in a theater > workshop space . . . Bob would usually start things off by simply > asking who wanted to go first. I never witnessed much by way of > detailed feedback neither for nor against a poem. There would simply > be the acknowledgment by those there that something had been put > into the pot. > > > just a snapshot > > xx > > > > cris