the Russian week is absolutely my favorite poem...
:-)

On 4/15/07, mairead byrne <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Tilla,
>
> This is very apt for me this morning.  The conference was disciplined by
> time rather than word-count.  The proceedings however will be totally
> disciplined by word-count: 5,000 words for keynote papers; 4,500 for plenary
> papers, and 2,500 for parallel papers.  For the conference, because I
> worked with time and speed (!), I was able to present 4,100 words in a
> little over 20 mins.  One can always trim but probably not reduce by 40%
> without extensive rewriting, which is also vetoed.  So it's a conundrum.
> Structure is necessary and it was a beautifully-organized conference.  Yet
> hierarchy, rigidity, and standardization also have their dangers.  It's
> interesting that as the papers migrate into a book, the issues of time &
> timing are shaved away.
>
> I also interested in what you say about stress.  I don't enjoy going
> anywhere unless I'm working.  Or, to put it another way, I feel more
> alienated when I'm not engaged with a place through work.  I think some of
> this has to do with being an emigrant, and the horrible Rip Van Winkle
> feeling of returning home.  Poetry and scholarship make it bearable for me
> to go back.  That said, it probably is a pity that stress is built-in to the
> deal.  I was certainly *extremely* nervous in Plymouth, knowing very few
> people.  When I think back to what I said before: about how giving a hug to
> a stranger (a woman) in the empty room after my talk was my reward, I can
> see how laughable that may seem.  Yet it's as good a reward as any I've got,
> and I've been around a long time.
>
> I am getting more impatient with spaces which don't include (actually)
> people of different ages and circumstances.  Difficult as negotiating
> professional life is, with children, I am growing more and more impatient of
> professionalism which requires their absence.  It's a tension, because I
> myself like nothing more than to go places, alone, with poetry.  Even that
> has its downside.  Children can have an enormously isolating effect on one's
> professional life, just as they sew one more closely into  a local community
> (or at least more closely than I, for one, would be without them).  If you
> are the sole caregiver for someone, child or otherwise, liberation often
> means going somewhere alone.  Going somewhere with other adults, on a poetry
> tour, to a residency, etc is a step beyond all that, maybe unattainable for
> another decade.
>
> Time, for me, is the great discipliner, not word count.  I was a journalist
> for nearly 10 years so I know all about the discipline of word count, poetry
> continues that discipline.  But word count is not salient in the way that
> time & timing are, for me.  Time is the live issue.  Maybe a poem might
> explain my point better.  Forgive me if I've sent it before.
>
> Mairead
>
>
>
> THE RUSSIAN WEEK
>
> Inside this week is another week & inside that week is another week & inside
> that week is another week & inside that week is another week & inside that
> week is another week & inside that week is another week so that instead of 7
> days each week is actually composed of 7 weeks each one a little smaller
> than its container week but still workable & with rosy cheeks. This
> arrangement is necessary. If a week were only a week aka a standard 7-day
> week it would not be possible to get things done. Therefore voila: The
> Russian Week. As soon as it becomes apparent that everything cannot get done
> in the albeit larger, more commodious week, one can simply crack open the
> inside week, only slightly less commodious in size. Then, when things pile
> up as they are wont to do, one proceeds to the inside-inside week, its size
> only slightly less commodious again. And so it goes. I will not go through
> the process in tedious detail. For that it would be necessary to have an
> inside-inside-inside-inside-inside-inside-inside week,
> i.e., 8 weeks in all and obviously that is impossible. There may be some
> future in developing a system whereby each of the 7 weeks which constitute
> the week would in turn contain 7 weeks, giving 49 weeks in all inside one
> week, and indeed the prospect of an ad infinitum progression. But this
> proposal lacks the calm symmetry of the established model. It is knobby &
> hectic where the other is smooth, rounded, generous, economical—and natural.
> Thank God for the Russian week.
>
>
>
>
> On 4/15/07, Tilla Brading < [log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > As a female-gendered participant at the conference in Plymouth, I saw
> quite a percentage of other women there who, maybe, like me, were working,
> moving, caring for others etc etc so weren't able to present a paper on this
> occasion. It was great to participate without the 'stress' anyway. Further,
> would I dare to call the conference preponderance of 'page/text-based'
> writing often within mathematical parameters to have a more male appeal?
> ....  as in mathematical=boundary setting ....??
> > ????
> > Tilla
> >
> >
>
>