Hi all,
Johan's audience man trying it seems to make sense of something that
couldn't be contained within 'we' for 'I's pre-existing categories; the
resistance proved too much to bear. The act of speaking out begins a
movement towards the poetry he felt was attacking him. Interestingly,
his own description afterwards of his situation, as one of being under
'attack' (the 'movement' had not been sustained, was quickly
'recovered'(("of his senses"))) is entirely consistent with the initial
need to impose grids of ordering sense upon the work - an attack in
itself upon what cannot be immediately assimilated, recreating it as a
mirror, an early consciousness-strategy. The 'we' for 'I' ditto. The
ability to create the response suggests perhaps, that he's coming near
an edge of where he's been.
Johan's work certainly presents a united front of words, alliteratively
dynamic (though not so below), often made brittle (umm...as in
harsh/fragile?) in performance because of Johan's Dutch accented
pronunciation, but the abstraction is consistently counterpointed, as
said front offers opportunities for permeation: wit, as Lawrence says,
being the medium through which the exchange can occur - at random:
WORK is now chosen as a stylish form of excitement. Surrounded by a
corrupted tonne of tiger bones the forest nearly completed its first
year as a holdall. Routinely inspected by a corpse but the skull
couldn't bear the thought. Pointless to be sitting there and sweating it
out. The match kicked off from a waterlogged and soccorblocked pitch.
During a boardroom meeting the director thanked his secretary for
merging her body with a firm decision. Within a short time the troops
were incoherent. To convert progress to technology we drain the brain.
Tight like the hand that counts its fingers
(from 'no' RWC 27 - series editor L.Upton esq.)
Often, as here, where each section is postulated as a dictionary
definition of the capitalised opening word, deliberate frames are
exploited as permission for the play that is made within them. The
pieces Johan was reading last night have titles at beginning and end:
superficially: rigid frames suggesting a narrowing reading experience
between, interestingly: entrances and exits from where you are, into new
terrain - the poem, another world than the one you left.
Just some nudges towards for those unaware - have spoken to Johan on the
phone (he's not mailed-up) and he's happy with his night's work
best to all,
rob
--
Rob Holloway
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