Spicy frozen pizza for Christmas dinner. A 4AM taxi pickup to Heathrow on Boxing Day. London-Paris-Salt Lake City. Drinking Melissa Tea. It was my favourite tea when I lived in Poland. I have finished The Fertility Show (formally Nerve Movie). Sent it off to a publisher or two. Will have to wait a few months.
The Fertility Show takes it cue from Phillip Whalen's idea of a nerve movie and Bernadette Mayer (esp Midwinters Day). Written during my daily 3 hour commute on the London underground. It is a poetics of everything. Inside and outside. Biographical, narrative, expansive poetics, compact lyrics, NY School send offs, homophonic translations of Polish and German from overheard conversations on the Piccadilly Line etc. etc.
A poetics that attempts to narrow the gap between art and life. I don't see any other point.
Another Godzenie (with many many more strategies, modes, attempts to reconcile). A practice in mindfulness.
The poems are written on the tube in London but "take place" in Poland, Turkey, London, Milton Keynes, Las Vegas, North Carolina, Bellingham/Seattle.
A continuous nerve movie.
The other manuscript Smashing Time is also finished.
Now I will continue part two of a manuscript I started last time I was in America. It is called Spanish Fork.
My poetics is a travel poetics. But not in any narrow sense of the genre of travel writing. Orally based But not bardic.
It lives much more off the page than on (methinks). The rhythm of everyday speech is very central.
hm . . . . and the slippery mind . . . quicksilver . . .
I dabbled heavily in flarf in 2004. I dabbled heavily in conceptual poetics as well. Surrealism and political poetry were the entry points into writing poetry.
Now it is many many things. But mindfulness is especially central. And an expansive (rather than constricted) sense of the self and the world.
25 December 2011
21 December 2011
20 December 2011
New "Kent Johnson" book (BlazeVOX Press)
These various pieces, initially published in journals by Craig Dworkin under the name of “Kent Johnson” (with exception of the tour de force Afterword, presented here for the first time), follow from his call, in the Introductory essay to Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (Northwestern UP, 2010)
13 December 2011
immigrating back to where you come from . . .
Cold toes and cold hands in Wood Green. Trying to save on heating.
Smashing Time is done and needs to find a home. I am 60 pages into Nerve Movie (poems written during my commute on the underground from Wood Green to Hammersmith then Hammersmith to Richmond).
When I first came to London in 2008 I had high expectations. Expectations of home. Expectations of coming back to the world of poetry. It was tough year. I had to adjust my expectations. I had lived too long in North America to expect to find a sense of home. Something about coming back to where you come from and finding it is not the same place at all. My mind creating narratives and images of Northern Ireland and the U.K. Childhood. No matter if we stay in the same place all our lives we still travel. Childhood.
On my second return to my country of origin (in December 2010) I had less expectations. I wanted to re-connect with the poetry world. I wanted to do readings. I wanted to settle down and get more comfortable and re-start my library. I missed having a library in my world travels. I missed having a sense of place. At the end of six years of world traveling and living very feebly at times out of one suitcase, I wanted to just allow myself to feel some of the comforts of a more settled life.
So here I am. One year into my second go at London. I lived in London when I was seven or so. First in a homeless hostel. Later in Elephant and Castle. This was the 80's. It wasn't a good time to have a Northern Irish accent.
This time I have found some good friends. I have found what I love about writing and poetry. Call it a world view. An epistemology? Kenneth Koch, Philip Whalen, Bernadette Mayer, Tim Atkins, Lisa Jarnot, Jeff Hilson, Cathy Wagner, Peter Jaeger, Steven Fowler (especially Minimum Security Prison Dentistry and his Maintenant Series of collaborations and readings of U.K. and European poets).
These are a few of the writers and artists that matter most in terms of living my life. Their work is intimately connected to how I experience life.
And writing through what I love. I have seen this especially in the work of Tim Atkins. And getting out of the way. I have seen this in the various exciting conceptual work of Peter Jaeger. And being child-like in terms of curiosity. Letting everything come in. Including the risk of humour. I have seen this in the work of Jeff Hilson and Tim Atkins. Plus the punk poetics of Cathy Wagner. And the life writing life of Bernadette Mayer. And letting in the multiplicity of voices in the work of Hannah Weiner. And the nerve movies (quicksilver moments of being) of Philip Whalen.
I am having mint tea. It is time to grade final exams. London is not really a home. Perhaps it never will be.
But then again my mindfulness practice has benefited a lot since I have been here for the last year. And I have grown much more comfortable with the North American part of my cultural background. I have learned to create my own America through exile. I thought myself an exile from Northern Ireland when I lived in America. Now I realise my choices are much wider. Much more varied.
I am from the Milky Way.
Good friendship are vital. Writing is vital. Books are vital. Love is vital. Mindfulness and compassion are vital.
And so it goes . . . .
Smashing Time is done and needs to find a home. I am 60 pages into Nerve Movie (poems written during my commute on the underground from Wood Green to Hammersmith then Hammersmith to Richmond).
When I first came to London in 2008 I had high expectations. Expectations of home. Expectations of coming back to the world of poetry. It was tough year. I had to adjust my expectations. I had lived too long in North America to expect to find a sense of home. Something about coming back to where you come from and finding it is not the same place at all. My mind creating narratives and images of Northern Ireland and the U.K. Childhood. No matter if we stay in the same place all our lives we still travel. Childhood.
On my second return to my country of origin (in December 2010) I had less expectations. I wanted to re-connect with the poetry world. I wanted to do readings. I wanted to settle down and get more comfortable and re-start my library. I missed having a library in my world travels. I missed having a sense of place. At the end of six years of world traveling and living very feebly at times out of one suitcase, I wanted to just allow myself to feel some of the comforts of a more settled life.
So here I am. One year into my second go at London. I lived in London when I was seven or so. First in a homeless hostel. Later in Elephant and Castle. This was the 80's. It wasn't a good time to have a Northern Irish accent.
This time I have found some good friends. I have found what I love about writing and poetry. Call it a world view. An epistemology? Kenneth Koch, Philip Whalen, Bernadette Mayer, Tim Atkins, Lisa Jarnot, Jeff Hilson, Cathy Wagner, Peter Jaeger, Steven Fowler (especially Minimum Security Prison Dentistry and his Maintenant Series of collaborations and readings of U.K. and European poets).
These are a few of the writers and artists that matter most in terms of living my life. Their work is intimately connected to how I experience life.
And writing through what I love. I have seen this especially in the work of Tim Atkins. And getting out of the way. I have seen this in the various exciting conceptual work of Peter Jaeger. And being child-like in terms of curiosity. Letting everything come in. Including the risk of humour. I have seen this in the work of Jeff Hilson and Tim Atkins. Plus the punk poetics of Cathy Wagner. And the life writing life of Bernadette Mayer. And letting in the multiplicity of voices in the work of Hannah Weiner. And the nerve movies (quicksilver moments of being) of Philip Whalen.
I am having mint tea. It is time to grade final exams. London is not really a home. Perhaps it never will be.
But then again my mindfulness practice has benefited a lot since I have been here for the last year. And I have grown much more comfortable with the North American part of my cultural background. I have learned to create my own America through exile. I thought myself an exile from Northern Ireland when I lived in America. Now I realise my choices are much wider. Much more varied.
I am from the Milky Way.
Good friendship are vital. Writing is vital. Books are vital. Love is vital. Mindfulness and compassion are vital.
And so it goes . . . .
8 December 2011
4 December 2011
what is poetry and what is it good for??
Every entry on this blog starts with a hyperlink called text. It is the default setting.
1 December 2011
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