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Thanks, Jim for your encouraging words. There are some recurrent themes, I think, in the book overall despite the stylistic changes. The last and quite recent piece, 'Thanatron" is certainly a direction to the dead end, in a different context. Have you heard the audio version at: http://www.culturecourt.com/Audio/CCaudio20.htm I recorded the vocal for this at the blind college in Hereford where I used to work and Lawrence Russell did the soundscaping in his home studio at Willis Point. The UBC station (CYVR as it was then) was actually well equipped for the time - better than downtown CBC as it had only just been built. We used to record my CBC R&B show there until the CBC technicians objected. CYVR also recorded a whole series of readings by Canadian poets from the West Coast -"Writers in Action" - I don't know what became of the tapes. Last time I was in Vancouver (2006) I took a brief peek at East Hastings and didn't hang about either... You can get the book via the Book Depository - UK based but they do free shipping to Canada: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Gestaltbunker-Paul-Green/9781848611931 or via Amazon.com or .ca or Barnes & Noble, apparently. On 2/4/12 20:15, "Jim Andrews" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > For folks on the list, if you haven't heard Paul's Directions to the Dead > End, it's toward the bottom of the page at > http://www.culturecourt.com/Audio/PG/PGaudio.htm . Audio poetry from 1971 > that has aged very well indeed. This is also true of his audio poem The > Gestalt Bunker, which is also at the above URL. Truly outstanding work, > Paul. The timbres/textures of these works are distinctive. So is the > production, for the time, and also Paul's performative voice. But, also, the > content is brilliant. In The Gestalt Bunker, also from the early 70's, the > speaker's situation in his bunker will be familiar to all experimental > writers of what's left of the avant garde. It's also quite prescient as > media poetry and in its concentration on the involvement of writing in > communications technology. In that piece and also in Directions to the Dead > End, the ecological concerns are also, well, solidly futuristic and sound > ominously relevant then as now. And, interestingly, these pieces don't > actually represent literary or artistic dead ends. Instead, they are > landmark works for generations of media poets who follow. > > I didn't know that the original recordings for those two pieces were done at > UBC student radio, Paul. CITR-FM? There's also the community station > CFRO-FM. Which, by the way, I saw a couple of weeks ago. My poet friend > Kedrick James announced a gig as happening at an address that turned out to > be beside CFRO on East Hastings St. Unfortunately, the building at the gig's > address had been totally demolished. Quite a while ago. And it's not a > corner you want to hang around at, really. It's in the most squalid, > drug-addled part of downtown Vancouver. Turns out that while Kedrick gave me > the address as 115a East Hastings, it was supposed to be 1115a. These were > directions to a dead end, certainly. > > Pretty amazing that you did those recordings in real time without > multi-tracking. > > The texts in the audio pieces I've linked to are utterly different from the > texts in your new book, aren't they? Or at least that's true of > 'Directions'. But your below note about the genesis of 'Directions' gives > some indication of part of the reason, perhaps, why it has aged quite well. > > Best wishes with The Gestaltbunker - Selected Poems 1965-2010, Paul. I will > try to get myself a copy. > > ja > http://vispo.com > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Paul Green" <[log in to unmask]> > To: <[log in to unmask]> > Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 10:05 AM > Subject: Re: Welcome to the Gestaltbunker > > > Thanks, Jim. I think the connections and inter-textual patterns around > 'Directions' have evolved over time, as I've written new work and/or > revised earlier work and finally selected and sequenced it for the book. > > 'Directions' began as a probe into notions of cosmology and expanded > consciousness, focussed by a phrase in an review of Kubrick's 2001, which I > hadn't even seen at that stage, although I knew the Arthur Clarke story, > 'The Sentinel" which was the basis for the film script. I was also heavily > immersed in Andre Breton, particularly the Second Manifesto of 1930 where he > posits a kind of aleph/omega point where all perceptions fuse, 'a certain > point of the mind ... in which the real and imagined, past and future cease > to be perceived as contradictions.' So the poem becomes a voyage - > sometimes bizarre and absurdist - towards this vanishing point in the void - > where the mystery remains unresolved. > > There's a similar voyage pattern in 'Timeship' whereas Gestaltbunker, which > I think is more timely than ever - at least that's what people tell me - > relates more explicitly to political and ecological issues, as do 'Oxidised > Desert' and 'Destruction of Large Cities'. > > That's a rather fuzzy answer, I'm afraid. Oddly enough, I made Facebook > contact today, after many years, with Gyorgy Porkolab, who was involved in > the original 'Directions' and 'Gestaltbunker' recordings in the UBC student > radio studios. It was all done without multi-tracking in real time - and in > analogue, of course. I think we were inspired to use feedback by the Who... > > Thanks again for your interest in my work > > Paul > > On 2/4/12 11:38, "Jim Andrews" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> Dear Paul, >> >> Fantastic. Congratulations. >> >> I have listened to your audio poem Directions to the Dead End many many >> times. So I'm curious what the relation of that poem/object is to the >> chapter of poems in your book with that title. >> >> ja >> http://vispo.com >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Paul Green" <[log in to unmask]> >> To: <[log in to unmask]> >> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 2:56 AM >> Subject: Welcome to the Gestaltbunker >> >> >> Brother Paul is happy to announce his latest publication The >> Gestaltbunker - >> Selected Poems 1965-2010: >> >> http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2012/green.html >> >> The Gestaltbunker encapsulates the range of Paul A Green's output. His >> briefings on nuclear apocalypse, global melt-down and the excesses of >> media >> landscaping are transmitted through surreal inscapes and an intensifying >> torsion of language. He moves from mid-life probes into the basement of a >> psyche to domestic praise-songs and celebrations. The riddles of time and >> consciousness continue to pre-occupy him, whether encountered through >> magick, music or the mysteries of the city. >> >> ³Thrillingly dystopian...² John Goodby >> >> ³From his cloister, Brother Paul emerges, jazzed & weaponized. As raw as a >> Delta Blues in a sharecropper's shack, yet as sinister as Flash Gordon >> playing Faustus on the Mongo fault-line abyss.² Lawrence Russell >> >> "His interests have coaxed him deep into the occult, surrealism and pop >> culture; his investigations meld and come into outstanding idiom...² J. >> Michael Yates. >> >> Available directly from Shearsman, as above, or via Amazon in UK and North >> America. >> >> A video is in production and there will be launch readings in London and >> elsewhere later in the year. Meanwhile, the Bunker is open for inspection. >> >> Some of you may have had this information via other channels. If so, >> apologies for flyposting your screens