camberwell (2009)

trained it to camberwell same journey looped over years & years until landscape no longer unzips / late model hunter-gatherer’s tatty green bags lugging foodstuffs from supermarket a muchness of foot traffic kerb-trade all this is just hairdressing / trees bow to the powerlines as they should to avert skyshow this auspicious horizon evening city advertises itself blue white red

*

arrive safely home spoilers evaded in time to catch leftover epiphanies the new set top box’s signal sometimes shy of colour / ensconced in a comfort suburb pushing boundaries like bending spoons on late-night special / m.j.’s death gets uri geller back into primetime like broadcasts are mere real estate don’t forget it camberwell boy such sagacity can seed a career

snow/shy (2009)

she wants to get off xanax / gets
prescribed valium / to soften the tiles

black snow / work-shy

she asks something like ‘how many days
longer / must this night go on?’

mattness / queasy ride

‘don’t worry something / will come’
(i actually said / such crap?)

black snow / work-shy

our phone pact / to stay interested
both left waiting / to deserve


Note: 'for how many days longer must this night go on' = Walter Billeter

café date (2009)

coffee kicks

your date
talks your arm off

you yet another
imitation audience

such expertise in
appearing unconfused

even when your attention swings
to the drizzle of words
out on the street

& how do you like
these café clientele

glazed cakes &
tarts under glass

sincere unimpressed looks
that say, “I hope
you are not the future”

do they not realise
the number of errors
can only increase?

you drop a twenty
on the table,
slip out alone

Counterexample Poetics

One of my poems, 'unfinished liquid', has found a home at Counterexample Poetics.

Thanks to Felino Soriano for playing host!

There's some great work on the site if you take the time to have a read.

Retreat (2009)

Friday afternoon
we arrive, meet
our fellow meditators,
talk for hours
about the prospect
of no conversation
for the next ten days

*

every morning
the gong waking us
into 4:30am darkness

*

for the first three days
we watch the breath

*

feel the breath entering
& leaving the nostrils,
channels of breath
gently brushing
the upper lip

*

stripped of speech
& gesture
how we still keep
a polite distance,
how I am careful
not to slurp at my tea
in the dining hall

*

writing is not allowed;
‘there is no need
to take notes’

*

no reading either
except signs & notices;
a makeshift sign
on the border of the property reads
‘do not go beyond this point’

*

every day after breakfast
taking a walk around the field;
around its perimeter
the long grass has been trampled
into a narrow path;
my toes,
exposed through sandals,
sprayed with dew;
grasshoppers leaping
away from each step

*

perhaps a sleepmurmur
is all that has exited
my mouth for days –
other than a cough
or froth of toothpaste

*

three times a day
a ‘sitting of determination’:
to stay still
for an hour,
observing the pain
in my shoulders and back
as it arises

*

towards the end
of each arduous hour
the coughing starts up
amongst the men
meditating around me
(this being their subtle way
of expressing discomfort)

*

remembered songs drop by,
wash uninvited through
the meditating mind

*

what is that sound?
two percussive blocks
knocked together
or a restless frog
in the dawn?

*

4:30am
New Year’s Day:
close to forty degrees;
moths, mosquitoes & others
drunken in the heat
party around the nightlight
outside our dorm,
& the thought arrives:
any other year,
I’d be joining them

*

some afternoons
it must be 45 degrees
in the meditation hall;
I leave a pool of sweat
on the mat

*

I break my vow of silence
to inform the ‘male manager’
that the first toilet on the left
has a blockage

*

men & women are segregated,
have separate facilities,
though we all meditate
in the same hall –
men on the left,
women on the right

*

everyone is asked to dress ‘modestly’
to minimise distractions

*

meditating in the hall
at dusk,
intermittent mooing
of a distant cow

*

a spider on the door
of our dorm room...
is it? – yes, it is
on the inside of the glass

*

on white porcelain sinks
in the male washroom,
mosquitoes & beetles:
a growing collection of corpses

*

anicca:
everything arises,
passes away


Note: This poem is based on my experiences during a ten-day Vipassana meditation retreat in December/January 2007-08.

Recurring Poem #6

C.P. Cavafy : 'Dangerous Thoughts'

Said Myrtias (a Syrian student
in Alexandria during the reign
of the Emperor Konstans and the Emperor Konstantios;
in part a heathen, in part christianized):
"Strengthened by meditation and study,
I won't fear my passions like a coward;
I'll give my body to sensual pleasures,
to enjoyments I've dreamed of,
to the most audacious erotic desires,
to the lascivious impulses of my blood,
without being at all afraid, because when I wish -
and I'll have the will-power, strengthened
as I shall be by meditation and study -
when I wish, at critical moments I'll recover
my ascetic spirit as it was before. "

(Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard)

Below: portrait of Cavafy by Panagiotis Gravallos

Why I am not a poet (2009)

Everyone became famous 15 minutes ago.
We are all together in one big tent.
Kittens raised in the dark will never develop normal vision.
When enough of them are wrong, they’re right.
Children taught the wrong words for everything.
Try pointing towards the undefined.
Suggestible students tend to believe they have whatever disorder they’re currently studying.
‘Beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud.’
Final week of the semester: a thinly attended, token lecture on poetry.
When bored, the monkeys would just masturbate all day.
Losing the ability to say ‘I’.
I have always been a wretched speaker.
This tapped fuelsource may not prove relocatable.
Like a philosopher, placing everything in inverted commas.
I’m not a fucking mindreader.
Laughter as the ‘false-alarm call’, revoking the need for assistance.
‘If you’re not reading this for pleasure, you’re reading it wrong.’
Dropping dead from lack of contact.
Window-glass flexed by the wind.
Palm resting on the hump of the mouse.
Going without for months.
Holding pattern.
Short course on how to say ‘No’.
Thinks you’re cute, feels he’s getting warm, looks for an entrance.
Primates will signal the location of food.
Overly-generic comforting gestures trivialise the extent of the other’s sadness.
Bullshit detector.
‘Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.’
Yay, urban-life technologies warp the psyche in unexpected ways.
The simplest phrases have their difficulties.
Such gadgets and tripwires seem the preserves of a younger man.
At one time considered entering a monastery, but was above all desirous of information.
‘The technologist produces a poem, whereas the poet trashes a machine.’
I have never been drunk in my life.
Come on you little shit, everyone’s waiting for you.
The first drawing ever produced by an ape was a drawing of the bars of its cage.
Those hoodied block-boys shouting, “To hell with being awake!”
No one blames them.
Genuine discussion beginning to brew.
Sleep deprivation disinhibits.
Seriously, how free can the market be?
The technology ticking flawlessly.
Rampant hyper-deference.
Sub-par finishing proved the difference.
Let nothing go unreplied.
(Editing > writing.)


Below: Michael Goldberg, 'Sardines' (as immortalised in Frank O'Hara's 'Why I Am Not a Painter')

Wordsalad

The latest Wordsalad podcast features words written/spoken by Amanda Stewart, Annie Burie, Craig Hill, Elizabeth Willis, Janet Kuypers, John Ashbery, Nico Vassilakis, Olga Broumas, Rachel Zucker, Richard Martel, Robert Archambeau, Robin Chapman, and some guy called Stu Hatton. All interspersed with music by Merzbow.

Thanks to Paul Alan for another great show, and for squeezing in a couple of my poems. And special thanks to Chris Andrews for helping out with the recordings.

necessary for you

"In order for you to like something it is necessary for you to have seen and understood it a long time ago, you bunch of idiots"

- attributed to Francis Picabia / written on a sandwich board worn by André Breton at the Festival Dada in Paris, 1920.

Image: Francis Picabia, 'I See Again in Memory My Dear Udnie' (1914)

videopoem #5

Tom Konyves : Sign Language

As discussed on Silliman's Blog. (I'm glad to see the likes of Silliman talking about videopoetry; I believe it has the potential to rejuvenate poetry as an artform and open up new frontiers.)

My literary space at LiteraryMinded

In the lead up to the Emerging Writers' Festival, Angela Meyer is featuring the 'literary spaces' of writers who'll be appearing at the festival on her excellent blog LiteraryMinded.

My literary space is the latest to be featured. I was asked to respond to the question 'Where do you write?' and basically mused on from there. It's an honest account.

In case you missed my earlier post, I'll be taking part in 'The Best Ways Forward' panel on Sunday 31st May, within the Melbourne Town Hall program at the festival. Looking forward to it...

Snorkel #9

As we like to say over at dumbfoundry, Snorkel #9 'is now fresh'.

This issue features poems by Nicholas Messenger, Adrian Wiggins, Aleksandra Lane, Kerrin P. Sharpe, Louise Wallace, Sarah Anderson, Cameron Griffiths, Elizabeth Allen, Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle, Joan Fleming, Jule Treneer, Mary Cresswell and Ingrid Horrocks.

My poem repackaging 'evil' is also in there, along with a note on how the poem came into being.

Thanks to Cath Vidler for letting my poem tag along for the ride.

Poetry Idol 2009 : Heat 3

Heat 3 of Poetry Idol will be happening at Mornington Library (Vancouver Street - Melway 104 D10) on Saturday the 16th of May. Poetic and musical goodness kicks off from 11am.

The two judges will be myself and Melissa Delaney, a practising electronic artist who also works as Arts Coordinator with RMIT Union Arts. Previously Melissa was Artistic Director at Express Media (producers of Voiceworks).

As with all the heats, the judges will pick two winners, and the audience gets to vote for a further two poets, making four poets who'll go through to the final.

Hope to see you there!

leashed (2009)

again broke up with yourself
as in flexed those vows of asceticism
left you ghosting gutter-desirous that countergirl
with sky-blue specs at the pharmacy
all you could manage was wanting
to spell her backwards to clap her hands for her
can such natured intent ever be masked
under gush of cosmetic lighting what with
frou-frou fragrances flocking
over from storefront real heady
& she health-white uniformed amply precocious
intuits your what-a-man gaze but
rather than pursue this pipe
go fossick for words back home
cook some text on the theme
this how you fight off urge
to crash/wash out illicit
& instead sedate another hour
so much visual stim steams the mirror
“wtf, bestial technologies?”
rudeboys giggle across the block
what might they download for laughs
whatever, unserious ain’t your look
you’re far too cursèd certainly
& check how you blush
sure could’ve ended worse
just grabbed your prescription
& zoomed lucky you

you are morally outraged (2009)

these boys is it such a pity be fucked up & in sum cannot meet gazes unlikely they seek you out charming! unless offered close- up with hand-eye coordinates smeared significance of smile
________________________________________hell knows this undone gen many have been seriously torn from something is it such a pity
________________despite emergent debauched sense of humour or wired near-omniscience may not observe ‘how to love’ doubt hormones ever leapt to such jaded heights
____________________________________heh does god know flesh so de-sensed succumbing easy to & seriously what their eye hasn’t seen can only be off-tap

fled (2009)

the hell out of there sheer necessity knew no future as another exploitee / where to store your head when not on display no talk of illness injury being firewalled topics staff assistance program sap a click away / each day a parade so much sanity well-groomed from birth better cage that impulse to bark back across mute walls chafing entire floors of employed passivity rewarded recognised surely someone has to bite such suicide-proof furniture / what’s that you’re writing don’t tell me poetry so you’re the one with idiot dostoyevsky wallpaper ‘isolative’ scrawled on your file / maintain your desk ocd-neat sure pin your family to cubicle partition why not a soft toy as juju of joy childhood spent on that other planet unsuspicious & you won’t be reaching for such cuteness your first social drink with us the ropes show we’re all friends here / so what’re the gel-caps you’re sneaking each break too long in the loo praying for firedrill better yet fire / are you the one reading proust poor thing / you really ought to be secure here why tempt anything rash we’ve come to realise let yourself be valued it’s such a womb we’re one big crippled family & trust any expressed desire to leave evidences your need to stay

maladjusted

"Poets who cling to a 'dark-horse' romantic investment in their own maladjusted anti-sociality ... and complain bitterly about nepotist publishing practices, cliquishness, etc. often seem to be longing for a poetic universe in which each poet is one omnipotent god complete unto him-/herself, and somehow the whole cosmos of solipsists is supposed to integrate magically into a heaven of objective purity, uncontaminated by things like friendship, desire, ambition, flattery, and other human diseases."
- K. Silem Mohammad, in an interview with Tom Beckett for e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e-v-a-l-u-e-s

Now Showing: Sein und Werden 'cinematique'

The latest edition of Manchester-based literary mag Sein und Werden has just been released, with the theme being 'cinematique'.

As Rachel Kendall says in her editorial, 'Within this issue you will find an exceptional collection of material that celebrates and creatively imitates the masters of cinema and their genre, and in so doing, brings about a whole new expression of film literature.'

My poem 'Forkhead' (based on David Lynch's Lost Highway) is in the online edition, while 'desist' (based on Stan Brakhage's desistfilm) has been published in the print edition.

Congratulations to Rachel on the birth of her daughter Violet, to whom this issue is dedicated.

necessary, but not

"I have read - binged on - poetry since I was a very small child, but must admit that I have rarely felt passionate about more than two or three individual poems in any one publication. I 'love' poetry, in the abstract. I don't 'love' most poems, to be quite honest. Even among my most admired - say, Gwen Harwood, John Donne, TS Eliot - there is only a handful that I feel absolutely must exist if the world is to continue to function. The rest, I think, are practice: necessary, but not necessarily for public consumption."

- Jen Webb, 'Poetry in Australia and the John Leonard Press', Text Journal, Vol 12 No 2, October 2008.

Emerging Writers' Festival 2009

I'm excited to announce that I'll be participating in a panel discussion at this year's Emerging Writers' Festival.

Here are the details:


The Best Ways Forward

Looking at the merits of the various avenues for helping get your words out into the real world being it tertiary study, short courses, mentors or just sitting down and writing.

With Steven Amsterdam, Rijn Collins, Stu Hatton & Pooja Mittal

Hosted by Tim Sinclair

3pm Sunday the 31st of May

Yarra Room, Melbourne Town Hall


I'll be talking about my Australian Society of Authors mentorship, plus my experience of tertiary study (as student and teacher) and the impact these learning experiences have had on me as a writer. Having done a number of short courses, seminars and workshops over the years, I'll probably throw in my two cents on those too.

A number of questions and uncertainties arise from my experiences with these 'avenues to writing', namely: have these learning experiences made me a 'better' writer, or perhaps a more disciplined one? What did I find most (or least) valuable? To what extent can creative writing be taught? Why not just go it alone and remain 'wild'?

Hope to see you at the festival, which runs from Friday 22nd May until Sunday 31st May. I attended in 2006 and 2007, and can assure you that whatever you write, and whatever stage you're at as a writer, you're sure to find something unmissable in the program. The full 2009 program will be released later this month.

videopoem #4

Narrated by the author
Director: Tim Webb in collaboration with Janice Biggs

More info on the short film here.

monetise (2009)

“... became an artist to experiment on money” tired of sitting in chairs you are an empire death-haunted like beckett demanding frisson the derrière-garde who decides what you can see can’t stand the sight (such a bourgeois phrasing can you even spell bourgeois?) then the application crashes through tubes & tunnels crumbles without fiction to prop fill us with lighting “we’re all made in china” the derrière-garde tired of sitting in chairs to experiment on money like beckett who decides what you can see you even spell bourgeois boojwah then we’re toast the application crashes without fiction what you can see can’t stand became an artist to show off your fans to prop death-haunted video stills attest a last chance to a disproved theory “we’re all made in china” you are an empire phrasing the ultimate compliment became an artist to ward us off


Notes:
“u became an artist to experiment on money” – Donna Kuhn, from ‘formaldehyde snakes’

“boojwah” suggested by Paul Squires.

difficult to take

"If you want art to be like Ovaltine, then clearly some artists are not for you; but art has always struck me most when it was to do with coping with things, often hard things, things that are difficult to take."
- Peter Reading

Image: Peter Reading, Poet by Peter Edwards

Sharps (Warding Remix) (2009)

Nathan Moore : 'Sharps', remixed by Stu Hatton


There’s a booklet called Patient Rights which no one has read. Ceiling-mounted cameras raise conversation from its natural pitch by a semitone. Count the kinds of innocuous: white walls; a small set of lies played back to placate. For some of us the timetable remains mysterious, opaque; it approaches the divine. Fluorescent tube flashes code; spasmodic pain. Clipboards held towards white coats, shieldlike. Conspiring to dull us; that’s my theory. Ticking off the codeine. The sharps (syringe, paper clips, knife) stored in tiny lockers. Some inmates bemoan the lack of music. Keys carried by orderlies provide semi-regular percussion. Padded footfalls. The door’s alarmed; red pulsing bulb. When a car pulls up outside we set our foreheads on the glass. We ogle with the sincerity of children. The muscled orderlies arriving to move us on, their strides replicated on the monitors. Such incidents are all we have. Sometimes manhandled, sometimes a needle pierces.


Process Notes:

I visited Nathan's old blog, Exhaust fumes and french fries, to choose a poem to remix as part of our remix exchange. The first poem I came across was 'Sharps', and immediately I felt drawn to it - the atmosphere it creates, the moods of the ward, the emphasis on safety precautions, the way the inner lives of the inmates are evoked in the poem. I read through 'Sharps' a number of times. I selected key phrases - phrases I felt were auspicious, which I could perhaps reshape or re-contextualise in an interesting way. A number of those phrases survive in the remix, altered to differing degrees. I'm not sure how I decided that the remix would be a prose poem. Prose has more or less become my 'default' form, unless I'm specifically aiming to create something that's more rhythmic and/or fragmentary - which isn't to say that rhythm and fragmentation can't be accommodated in a prose poem.

I felt the phrases I'd selected didn't constitute enough material to work with - I needed to draw material from elsewhere to make the remix 'my own'. So I messed around with Googlism, and happened upon some other interesting phrases by running a search for 'sharps' and a couple of other words which seemed relevant to my purpose. Then I began assembling sentences by expanding upon the phrases I had, twisting them around and free-associating.

I worked at the remix sporadically, usually spending no more than half an hour on it at a time, adding a sentence or two per sitting, and tweaking what I already had. Several sentences didn't make the final cut, and a number of the phrases I'd gathered weren't used, but the majority were. I swapped a few sentences around as part of the editing process, but mostly the flow established itself without too much interference.

I figure I've kept pretty close to the thrust of Nathan's original, so that this isn't a 'wholesale' remix (the face of the original is still very recognisable in it). Probably my favourite part of Nathan's poem is the reference to seeing the crotches of people in cars from the vantage of the second floor, but this hasn't made its way into the remix. In Nathan's poem this image was unexpected, startling, but struck me as completely authentic. There's an honesty to it that I admire; for me it opens up questions about the 'innocence' of the gaze (can a gaze ever be innocent?), and the assumptions we make about the gaze of the other, especially when we perceive the other as 'childlike'. This aspect found its way into my remix in the line 'We ogle with the sincerity of children.'

Arboretum (Remix of 'Oh?') (2009)

'Arboretum' by Nathan Moore
(a remix of the Stu Hatton poem 'Oh?')


Our golden dream:
the trees have been taught to enter text.

The trees are confused
by our mixed messages.

The city’s trees are radioactive. The wind
in their branches sounds like techno.

The trees can’t tell girls from boys. They need
a handbook.

When the weather’s warm we get unruly
in the rooms between the trees.

Oh, I knew this would happen. That cranky tree
bit me and broke my arm.

The tree on the tram is a tourist.

Imagine this request: be my endless resource.

Along the bald coast, among the poisoned bays, the last blue
pine shudders with fatigue.

When the trees come back they’ll be digital and they’ll
rule the planet by force.

I have difficulty forgetting
what trees look like.

Must we fail? Must we soak in sap? Hold a knife
to the living throat?

Now we raid the commons. Now we are alone.
Now it’s just us and the gods staring awkwardly at each other.

Consider optics. Consider perspective. Consider the horizon
without that tree.

* * *

Nathan's Process Notes:

Like Dana, I couldn’t keep away from Stu Hatton’s proposal to remix poems on his blog. Although Stu is open to different methods regarding the remix exchange, I gave myself the task of using every word in his poem, “Oh?” I love the way thoughts like “we fall awake” surface and submerge in this work.

I read “Oh?” twice then waited a few days to let it stew in my brain. Like Dana, I made a Wordle image out of it. The image is a cloud of words from a given text. Word size is determined by the frequency of the word in the original text. In this case, “tree” was the most frequently used word, so I decided to make that the core of the poem thematically and in terms of its appearance in each line. Because I wanted to use Stu’s every word, my poem ended up twice as long as it is now. Dana and I agreed, though, that the second half seemed unnecessary after the line that begins “Consider optics …”

About Nathan

Nathan is a father, poet and painter from Columbus, Ohio. His work has appeared in Saggio Poetry Journal, Asphalt Sky and ouroboros review. Together with Dana Guthrie Martin he edited the 'mutating the signature' issue of qarrtsiluni. He and Dana also co-maintain an excellent blog.

Note from Stu

I really admire what Nathan's managed to do with my poem, which itself is still very much a work in progress. I think it's a terrific remix, and that's not just because I'm a lover of trees. It reminds me a little of Wallace Stevens' 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird'. Nathan's meditations and manipulations have the effect of making trees seem 'as strange as they are'.

I'm considering remixing Nathan's remix(!), but first I'll keep up my end of the 'remix exchange' bargain, with a remix of Nathan's poem 'Sharps'. I'll post it on here as soon as it's ready.

Inspirations at the Dan O'Connell 7/3

Last Saturday there was no feature poet at the Dan; it was an all-open-mic affair, with the theme of 'Inspirations', i.e. which poets/poems have inspired you, or what have they inspired you to write?

I chose to recite William Blake's 'London', which would have been one of the first poems to deliver a cold spinal shock while I was a teenager. In my view it still stands as one of the great city poems, along with the likes of Lorca's 'New York: Office and Denunciation', which I featured as one of the recurring poems on this blog.

Next up I read Pam Brown's 'At the wall', from Dear Deliria: New and Selected Poems. As I said (with a wry smile) on the day, I hope this poem inspires someone to do something other than write poetry. It's a serious punch in the guts - the kind we need.

Finally I read the final (88th) sonnet from Ted Berrigan's The Sonnets. Every hair on my body was standing to attention for those last few lines, ending with 'It is 5:15am ___________ Dear Chris, hello'. I would've first read bits of Berrigan more than ten years ago, but more recently, after reading The Sonnets in full, and hearing Berrigan read them more or less in their entirety after downloading an mp3 from UbuWeb, they've become a central text for me. They're a freaky construction of repetitions, appropriations, interrelations, shifting textures and tones.

It was fun listening to other poets' inspirations, and the fruits thereof. Ledong Qui took the theme laterally, and surprised a few people by pulling out a thesaurus and flicking at random, sampling words from it. Berrigan would've approved.

Below: Reciting 'London' (photo by Michael Reynolds).

sunday (2009)

nothing connects

walk a weak street / no longer optioned

how we want out

this smooth wastage what belongs to us

caught in so much daylight
(plainclothesman's funnel)

skin warmed by the eye
ignored by the hand

limp handshaking all that bridges us
(else sunday cough)

analog clock semaphores
(calc the time left)

maybe a side reality that sleep deletes
will be recovered, regeared for travel

pool of glass
under blue light

& were you on an illicit?
your pupils played bent little notes

all the pixels spilled...

last night city
a dirty epic
held words
(the poem i needed)

now that city is missing

First two remixes from Remix Exchange

Below (in the previous two posts) you'll see the first fruits of the Remix Exchange: a remix by Dana Guthrie Martin of my mini-sequence of poems First Seven Sevens, and my remix of her poem 'Suite'. Each remix also includes process notes written by the remixer.

I love what Dana's done with the Sevens. She mostly restricted herself to the vocabulary of the original, but she's really made it her own. There's an uncanny element of seeing 'my' words remixed in this way. And there are echoes of the original also in the use of enjambment and short, somewhat arcane sentences. I like how she's chosen a significant word to repeat from each stanza to the next, thereby forging a thematic link.

Thanks so much to Dana for collaborating on this; it was a great pleasure to remix her poem and have mine remixed in return. The buzz I got out of the whole process has made me even more keen to enter into remix exchanges with other poets/writers/artists. If you're interested, feel free to get in touch, or post a comment here.

Here's a little bit about Dana:

"Dana Guthrie Martin lives in the Seattle area and writes wherever writing will have her. She shares her home with her husband, her pet hamster and her robot, Feldman. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Blood Orange Review, Blossombones, Boxcar Poetry Review, Fence and qarrtsiluni. Most of the time, she and poetry hobble along in a sort of three-legged race where there is no finish line."

I can also tell you that she's recently been accepted into a Master of Fine Arts program at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I wish her every success with that. She's also a prolific collaborator. I recommend following the mutating the signature blog, which Dana co-maintains with Nathan Moore. You should also definitely check out the 'mutating the signature' issue of qarrtsiluni, which Dana and Nathan co-edited. The entire issue is dedicated to collaborative works.

Suite (Sour Remix) (2009)

Dana Guthrie Martin : 'Suite', remixed by Stu Hatton

At your question eyes :: sped away in guilt no :: I hadn’t been thinking of :: you I’d been thinking about what :: I think about why :: would I do otherwise?

(what does inertia)

You ask :: what does inertia :: mean I say this :: suspended game board overrun :: with dice

(keep erasing)

We think in untouchable :: substances :: you vapour I :: dust I’ve been :: thinking whatever comes :: too easily knotting :: frequencies been through :: opportunities all these cold :: currencies flood :: your speaking :: mouth

(until you have)

You ask :: what does silence :: mean I say a shell :: aluminium :: egg that will not :: hatch

(what you need)

The last dream we :: sit in a café noise :: of china, knives and :: the too-loud :: music and rival :: talk at other :: tables you place :: your cup over :: your mouth as :: a semi-mask :: I fence my :: eyes with a :: napkin and :: the waiter softly :: asking us to leave

(what does silence)

Overgrown :: with silence I cannot :: listen my ears :: shrivelled buds cannot :: respond my bloodless :: tongue the skin :: a snake sheds


Process Notes:

My remix began as a reply to 'Suite', with a male voice replying to the female voice of Dana's poem. I've aimed for a kind of symmetry with the original, and retained some formal elements, such as the use of short phrases broken up with double-colons. I retained a couple of phrases from the original also.

The last part I added was the 'dream sequence' stanza set in the café. I opted for more fragmentation of the phrases in this stanza to evoke the dream-state's fluidity of association. Then I decided to apply the same fragmentation to the rest of the remix, which basically involved adjusting where the breaks (double-colons) between phrases occurred. This meant that the 'heads' and 'tails' of discrete phrases were pruned and grafted on to adjacent phrases. The result was a greater sense of discontinuity, meaning that the reader probably has to make more of an effort to follow the flow of the poem. The parenthetical phrases between stanzas were the final elements to be added.

I found the remixing process very interesting indeed. I felt I was taking on someone else's voice, which I guess is something I've done a few times in my work, but I don't think I've channeled this kind of voice before. It's a male voice, but I'd say there's a feminine edge to the imagery it projects.

Dana's notes on this remix can be found here.

First Seven Sevens (Remix) (2009)

First Seven Sevens, remixed by Dana Guthrie Martin

#1

There are no meds.
Another lucid moment.
Inside words hunger dries.
Paranoia’s ear comes loose,
howls through fields
remembers what it means
to drown.

#2

Another constellate goodbye.
Another tearful bedpan.
I like what you’ve done
with your forehead.
Inside the drowned,
at least one photograph:
heads thrown back.

#3

People felt things.
Edges. Needles. Casings.
Scratch & Sniff descriptions
of goodbyes often
belong on film.
Go read something
untoward.

#4

The computers are down.
Composes turns into compasses.
Bodies spin
like dime store tops.
Spiritualize all you want,
even a cave is full of sky.
Just sniff.

#5

They are revising deserts
into test sites again.
Dualistic thinking
brought us
sign and symbol,
hemorrhage and clog.
The sky never gets any credit.

#6

Moving symbols
conversant in slow-dancing
lend tranquilized
reassurance to droids.
Don’t forget
the enemies of glad:
Kick blood free.

#7

Keep tending your ego.
Dessert the color of night
skirts dazed magpies.
Awareness wears a hood,
dries in fragments.
Replicants prefer a belly
full of reassurances: We are one.


Dana's Process Notes:

The process I used was to strip all of Stu’s words out of his poem, “Sevens,” and jumble them up in a wordle. My initial plan was to remix the piece by using his words and only his words. But as with all plans, things changed. I started inserting some of my own words here and there as images came to me that I couldn’t shake and couldn’t create without using words that weren’t in the original piece.

In terms of structure, I wanted to keep the seven, seven-line stanzas because that form seemed essential to the remix. I noticed that I’d repeated certain important words in more than one stanza, and I decided that the repetitions should have some structure as well, so I placed the repeated words in adjacent stanzas as a way of threading them together.

I read Stu’s piece several times a few weeks before I started writing. But during the process, I didn’t revisit Stu’s piece at all. I wanted the words to take me somewhere without being swayed by how Stu had used them. I just went back and looked at the piece again today, and it’s amazing to read both sets of “Sevens” together. They read like a conversation. Even though most of the words are the same, there’s still a sense of different voices using those words, infusing them with meaning through tone and context.

I also just realized that I managed to leave the word “magpie” out of my version. I love magpies, and there’s no excuse for having left that word out. I just revised the last stanza to include the word “magpies.” Did you know that pies used to be made by placing a hollow ceramic magpie in the middle that would allow the heat from the pie to escape from its beak? I decided that my magpies belonged in my line about desserts. They fit right in there.

Frame Lines #7 now available

Issue #7 of Frame Lines is now available. There's some stunningly beautiful visual art inside, plus plenty of superb poetry, fiction and non-fiction. My poem pollen is also in there.

I'd recommend subscribing to receive the magazine as a PDF. This won't cost you anything, and all you have to supply is an email address!

Alternatively you can thumb through or download the magazine via Issuu, which presents documents as virtually-flickable objects (you'll see what I mean if you click on the document I've embedded below).

Many thanks to the Frame Lines editors - I'm thrilled to have my work included in such a stunning publication.

hybrid (2009)

birds siren across hard water. where the girls were to be used knowledge is. our business the best protection. product of australia your hedge against disaster scenarios. eye warns thinking again about. the stress state at the mid there’s someone out there using some. don’t look at what i’m wirebonded. bring your tools and screen-glitch. all comes when it’s not meant variation on this design. as if text chopped of different fonts. a sampler knowledge is to take place at. remixed a realism render trees again as strange as they are. under stress a sexual placement of pollen upon the stigma. whatsoever lean times don't have money to be asking questions.

what happens if you redefine

"Under certain conditions any language event can be poetry. The question thus becomes one of what are these conditions."

"The historical attraction of the arts to madness is a question of what happens if you redefine the language."

- Ron Silliman, from 'The Chinese Notebook' in The Age of Huts (compleat).

want (2009)

will not be pinned or nailed unless we choose a name in the margin ~ sanctify a saint who can be edgecutter too ~ a rat on rat patrol radar on ~ i’m a business cannot assist i feel so oh no master of none milky tea on my fingers ~ think i’ve found the real stuff needs doing hired a hand but it couldn’t hold ~ the use? ~ slob readerships for mediated ~ taped mouths ~ taped mouths ~ theft can be pretty? they’re your words not mine what’s to write home? ~ don’t interfere with mating plants ~ guns stick to your easily think i’ve figured how to read these secured the bridge flee the inward we shit so much repressed breath ~ pocketed another face for later quit sleep take up night fled the junk party room with its pinked haze ~ you want her nametag though & so many buildings your table not content

Below: Andreas Gursky, '99 Cent'

Gigs - February '09

First up was the launch of Unusual Work #7 at Uptown Jazz Cafe on the 6th of Feb. Great atmosphere and an appreciative audience for outer-limits poetry and art - what more could you ask for? Loved Sean O'Callaghan's reading with video/slideshow, and to hear Maxine Clarke perform her West Indian patois poems was something else! What a voice! And great to witness Paul Fearne do his first 'public' reading of his work. I love Amelia Walker's 'Norwegian' piece in UW#7 - you should check it out if you haven't already. In the words of PiO: 'small magazines: the life blood of a great literature... MAKE AN EFFORT!'

Then there was Passionate Tongues on Monday the 16th. Tiggy Johnson and Alex Skovron - couldn't have picked two more different poets really - both gave inspired readings. Plenty of quality and good humour in the open mic too. I read two of my WA Notebook poems, coastal and The day writes itself.

Today I made it down to the Dan O'Connell, where Carmen Main was the feature. She rocks... what can I say?! Open mic was fun today too. I read two more from the WA Notebook, development and Waterfront.

That's probably it for this month - I'll be trying to knuckle down to some serious work before March rears its head.

Below: at the Dan O'Connell 21/2/09 (photo by Michael Reynolds)

haze (2009)

Forecast for Melbourne, February 17, 2009:
31 degrees, smoke
_____________– Bureau of Meteorology

1.

clouded suburbs

smoke haze from the fires

recall Black Saturday
_______________crush of heat

& refuge in numb privacy

justify a cigarette, bottle, joint, TV…
______________________network news lunging for pathos


2.

veins of light through the blinds

her body whispers in the linen

don’t want to say but will
________________ (so much energy fed to honesty)

animating these lips, alone

“why put away things you know you’ll take out again?”

rehearsing the encounter,
_______________trying it on the tongue

“why leave things lying around
_____________when they can be taken out when needed?”

but notice how everything fits?
_______________meditation brings cadence

& in the dreaming-throat
______________ignites small fires

reminds how this static zone of afternoon
______________________shadowless
______________________________recurs over & over


3.

the recognition

beneath the as-normal laughter
______________fixing drinks inside airconned apartment

haze will lift

heat subside

quarrel resume

anicca

recurring poem #5

Samuel Wagan Watson : cold storage

bussed it into Mitchell
from out of nowhere
and found it on ice

to the horizon line
a smothering layer of cold political rhetoric
the hopeless arguments of history palpitating
__-gently into the cracks
__-of stoneware earth

hurting is the season here in the bush
and winter is the additive that comes with it,
the storm shutters are up -
every second store closed or having a closing-down sale

the hunger pains of the city end here
the spirits are being sucked away into this gas-pipeline
as the Beast just keeps taking ... taking ... taking ...

black and white struggle to reconcile
slashing their own bloodlines
the kids packed off to the Big Smoke
where all the opportunities now manifest

a rainbow-serpent dormant on cryogenic dreams
chiling over into the landscape
while a secret war is fueld on urban innuendo
as a country-town loses another generation of its young
to the lust of the city

a main street void
____________-of the laughter of its children


Below: Sam Wagan Watson at the Brisbane Writers Festival

Second Seven Sevens (2008)

(following on from the First Seven Sevens)


#7

Numberless hells
recently reopened.
These under lands, the vast
three-way streets
withholding orphan data,
brains meshed in wire.
This is not 2009.


#11

‘To love your mother
tongue is to love all mother tongues.’
Today,
what language contorts to depict.
Mangled jokes & mating calls.
Silence is a rhythm too,
resists being thought.


‘To love your own mother tongue is to love all mother tongues’ – Anjan Sen


#12

come on now, talk
about your family: sister’s cursed
before all coordinates
have even been sown down

every man father
every woman mother

No, screw you, Oedipus.


‘come on now, tell me about your family, your sister’s cursed...’ = Pavement, ‘Silence Kit’


#13

facile curious
he had all ports open,
a bloodless coup.
tomorrow sees him
flesh-mining for
extremer, extremer.
(words wilt/fail).


#14

They mistake words for things.
Won’t say ‘I’ any more –
how could you?
An artist wants a world
different from how she finds it.
Those who profit by their careful errors.
An exhibition of picture frames.


#15

this is our address:
morning fed on a seemingly low subject:
“Drink me,” male voice requests
– static dream moment –

the nauseating businesslike tones
employed to recruit her
have slid through my mind.


#16

targets, alphabets, numerals & flags
the presentation so literal
flat & given.

searchlights skyward!

morse flashes & flares
hastily deployed.

the winking light that terminates.


Below: 'Seven sevens' by bricolage.108

Sein und Werden : cinematique

I'm told that two of my poems (desist and Forkhead) will be featured in the upcoming 'cinematique' edition of Sein und Werden ('Being and Becoming'), which promotes itself as 'a literary magazine of experimental prose, poetry and artwork that seeks to merge and modernise the ideas behind Expressionism, Surrealism and Existentialism.'

desist is a poetic response to Stan Brakhage's experimental short desistfilm, and should feature in the print edition of the mag, while Forkhead, based on David Lynch's Lost Highway, will be freely available online.

Thanks go to editor Rachel Kendall for offering to publish my poems in the UK for the first time.

Poetry Idol heat 1 / Paradise Anthology launch

Last Sunday Nick Whittock and I acted as judges for the first heat of Poetry Idol 2009, which was held at St Kilda Library along with the launch of the second Paradise Anthology.

Nick and I eventually picked out Marc Testart and Ozlem Baro to go through to the final, while the audience voted for Sharona Radovsky and Duanne Clarke. The encouragement award went to Corrine Phillips. All were worthy winners.

The two former Poetry Idol winners, Geoff Lemon and Ezra Bix, gave energised performances of poems and promoted their respective books. The publication of Ezra's had been part of his prize, while Geoff's is published by Picaro.

Aside from judging on the day, in November I ran a workshop with several Paradise Anthology poets to prepare their poems for publication. I was also asked to pick out what I thought were the three best poems in the anthology. The poems I chose were written by Kai Jensen, Emma Kerrin and Fiona Stuart, who were all awarded prizes at the launch.

It was a great day of poetry and music, and a treat to see Chris Wilson perform live again. I also enjoyed Trish Anderson & Michael Crane's duet of Leonard Cohen's Who By Fire.

Thanks to Michael, Odette & Sally for all the support and encouragement. And kudos to all the poets, musicians, organisers, and everyone involved in The Paradise Anthology for pulling off another well-attended and fun event.

The Poetry Idol 2009 final will be held at Federation Square as part of the Age Melbourne Writers Festival. Chances are I'll be judging another heat or two before then. The next heat will be at South Yarra / Toorak library on Monday the 6th of April.