Kootenay School of Writing, Vancouver BC | RECENddT EVENTS Nov 18, 12 to May 17, 13

I’m In You, You’re In Me

A Kootenay School of Writing series of poets presenting poems / antipoems / language.

Spoken; visually projected.

Each poet will read one short text, followed with open discussion.

All welcome.

Scott Inniss on Dorothy Lusk

Larissa Lai on Russell Hoban

Gabriel Saloman on bill bissett

Curated by Scott Inniss

*

bill bissett. “we suspekt each othr uv knowing how to spell th word informashun.” (Sailor. Talon Books, 1978).

aftr i didnt want to see th
moovee on tv abt fall out sheltrs nd th 11
points for survival aftr nuclear attack n
we wer writing our M L A s in victoria n
ottawa

we watchd a show on th trident on channul 10
wch advocatid that th beleef b promotid that

th existence uv nuclear weapons b considerd
a crime against intrnashunal pees    ths made

sens to us until we faut abt th spelling in
th lettr    thn yu in yr room n me in mine   i

think iknow why thr ar nuclear weapons
or is it th xistence uv th weapons themselvs

that creates ths pressur    i dont want to spell
correctly    for me thats anothr tyranny    for yu

its xciting to spll th way th words ar in th
dictionary bcoz yu dont know how    so thats an

adventure for yu    for me th adventures spelling
them how they sound or feel at th time to dew

that bcoz i had correct spelling up to heer
in school n i think it causes a lot uv hed

problems n inhibishuns with xpressyun nd also
its for me too uniform    thats only what i

feel    90% uv th world dusint spell correctly
so why ar they calld illiterate   its only

anothr way to spell                              now
aftr sum yeers uv spelling so calld incorrectly

it hurts my hed to try it correctly    i really
have forgottn it    alot uv it    i can remembr

sum uv it    if i have to    but it hurts    ths
is fr sure anothr weird problem    now what

dew we dew    lets keep talking with each
othr    n get th lettr writtn ok

*

Russell Hoban. Riddley Walker. (Summit Books, 1980).

There come a man and a woman and a chyld out of a burning town they sheltert in the woodlings and foraging the bes they cud. Starveling wer what they wer doing. Dint have no weapons nor dint know how to make a snare nor nothing. Snow on the groun and a grey sky overing and the black trees rubbing ther branches in the wind. Crows calling 1 to a nother waiting for the 3 of them to drop. The man and the woman and the chyld digging thru the snow they wer eating maws and dead leaves which they vomitit up agen. Freazing col they wer nor dint have nothing to make a fire with to get warm. Starveling they wer and near come to the end of ther strength.
    The chyld said, ‘O Im so col Im afeart Im going to dy. If only we had a littl fire to get warm at.’

    The man dint have no way of making a fire he dint have no flint and steal nor nothing. Wood all roun them only there wernt no way he knowit of getting warm from it.
    The 3 of them ready for Aunty they wer ready to total and done when there come thru the woodlings a clevver looking bloak and singing a littl song to his self:

    My readings ben so hungry
    Ive groan so very thin
    Ive got a littl cook pot
    But nothing to put in

    The man and the woman said to the clevver looking bloak, ‘Do you know how to make fire?’
    The clevver looking bloak said, ‘O yes if I know any thing I know that right a nuff. Fires my middl name you myt say.”
    The man and the woman said, ‘Wud you make a littl fire then weare freazing of the col.’
    The clevver looking bloak said, ‘That for you and what for me?’
    The man and the woman said, ‘What do we have for whatfers?’ They lookit 1 to the other and boath at the chyld.
    The clevver looking bloak said, ‘Iwl tel you what Iwl do Iwl share you my fire and my cook pot if youwl share me what to put in the pot.’ He wer looking at the chyld.
    The man and the woman thot: 2 out of 3 a live is bettern 3 dead. They said, ‘Done.’
    They kilt the chyld and drunk its blood and cut up the meat for cooking.
    The clevver looking bloak said, ‘Iwl show you how to make fire plus Iwl give you flint and steal and makings nor you dont have to share me nothing of the meat only the hart.’
    Which he made the fire then and give them flint and steal and makings then he cookt the hart of the chyld and et it.
    The clevver looking bloak said, ‘Clevverness is gone now but littl by little itwl come back [...]

*

Dorothy Lusk. “Oral Tragedy.” (Oral Tragedy. Tsunami Editions, 1988).

Ordinance ‘distanced’ thus, called ‘desire’ – ‘I’ pass out eventually. Often
this caught too once smothered discord.

Your hand’s nerves cut automotivation catching each OWN clasp all
plunder all stud and stake position.

Can he finalize such fragments in said factitious bootybags? Well,
Recovery and redistribution may not comply with proprietary dictates.
OK. MORE property called pleasure.

It ever looks different if rain say hydro cuts or lightning graphs out
strikes so hands dial but like that. A final voice in an ear like a promise.

Post is delivered at all hours even weekends & vanity anticipates though
diurnally nonplussed or trust this recurrence.

SENTENCED—the guy who got stuck in a helicopter & a guy that got
stuck in the house. All hunkering while down with glanders he WILL
order others. Shiftless foci won’t observe an onus & left to OWN loss,
drawl & stick up our chins. Do make distinct then but where’s the
difference?

You are left with what you get and
Your love is dross
Well you remain whose world is none of mine
I who lov’st well remain left.

& shall interference come between me? Jar down mine own gritty polish
& wonder when saliva segues patina. You get what you are left. While
distinctions make pleasures own device or fucking doesn’t—hitched to
mine caboose maraud or don’t.

Appears far greater than all machinery yet always misses affecting more
than a few monthes or paragraphs. Not usually called tragedy [...]

A Light Character

It's

to give back

kindness

strangers, gifts

If kids see pleasure they are pleased

A white horse with wings

children’s songs

A sequence required

no mistakes. It’s too late to stop. The day

is late. Power as in skill etc. old saws.

The typing book says:

If you keep your back straight and your feet

on the ground you will succeed.

Death, she looks like.

A fool rattles his bones.

A mind requires answers.

Reading my mind home from the marina

Regionalism, desire.

Necessity stylized utterance.

A true romance.

Meanwhile time passes, some people, those people

They all know

The yellow, canary colour showed

a light character

He knew how to tell a real story

His lips were full of a story she wanted to

be in. She touched his lips but the story

eluded her. She didn’t want to steal but

she wanted to open what was in him.

- Judith Copithorne

from The Maddening of Connections

The madman does not notice that he is changing subjects. He grasps a piece of shining yellow straw and shouts that he is holding the sun.”1 Denis Diderot makes this observation to his beloved Sophie Volland in a letter dated October 20, 1760. That was more than 250 years ago. If anything were to last forever it would have to exist in a universe entirely invulnerable to temporal blows. I can hear the sound of the wind sweeping across the walls of the building, a distant dispiriting helicopter, a sequence of unpromising phrases running through my mind. I label myself discouraged, ebullient, angry, satisfied—or perhaps dissatisfied; I’m defiant, excited, tired, eager to understand (or, more likely, eager to unburden myself of) my feelings. The self-involvement of intellectuals of my social background is its own kind of madness. I tell myself I only have the machine, I’ll only halve the machine, I’ve only half the machine. Everyday life is going on pretty much as usual. But there are vagaries of context and sometimes turmoil, even sometimes states of perpetual upheaval. It’s not only art that can intensify everyday life. In my opinion, we are currently living under siege, but the situation is so pervasive that it has come to feel natural, as do the forces by which we are besieged. Nonetheless, their pressure is increasing. We can apply an allegorical supplement to the situation. It can appear in the form of a caption—whether or not it is visibly present as an inscription, as a title, legend, heading, name, or as an interpretive or critical thought, a mental addendum. We want it to point to a way out of the situation. The beholder declares to herself or to her companion, O, it isn’t just a poem about a girl petting a swan, it’s a picture of innocence—remember what it was like before we knew what exploitation was? A good reader will, in time, open a poem to de-allegorization: O, she will say, this isn’t an allegory, it’s a poem about a girl running her fingers down the surprisingly warm—almost hot—and thorny soft breast feathers of a real swan. The good reader continues, distributing (and sometimes dispensing with) her intentions. Literary language can’t escape reality, it’s vivaciously additive, and it is with an addition of language that an object, image, or situation becomes allegorical and also still real.

- Lyn Hejinian

gustave morin is a writer, artist, performer, publisher and small time filmmaker who has been making concrete, found, collage, lettriste, zaum and typewriter poetries ("a few poetry" is how he's chosen to describe it) for over 20 years. He is the "author" of eleven (or seventeen?) volumes of such material, most recently A Psychowestern (2010, Media City Editions) and Small Fry (Stained Paper Archive, 2012). His hat is hung in politically remote Windsor, Ontario where he also runs an art gallery called Common Ground, works for The City, and most recently, works as a roadie for monolithic stadium acts rolling through town.

gustave morin's transparent concrete slideshow
=======================================

YOU are cordially invited to attend an informed yet informal survey of 20 plus years of the spoils of my not-so-fruitless toil in the ghetto of concrete; featuring representative examples of texts, acts, poems, pieces, polemics and provocations drawn from a cross section of several of my books, replete with tabletalk, sidebar anecdotes, slices of life and many (rarely seen) noteworthy failures which canvass my own lifelong struggle to survive the gangplank of life whilst slowly building up a body of work too solid to be routinely dismissed, ignored or otherwise marginalized (as is concrete's customary fate ever since a narrow (albeit widespread) 60's kneejerk appraisal relegated it to the status of a has-been fad gadget).

While not exactly fun for the whole family, this engagement makes the attempt to explore and present "difficult" works, in as honest and forthright a manner possible; an approach sure to stimulate thoughtful discussion and lend an air of much-needed legitimacy to several oft-misunderstood strains of literary activity, including (but not limited to): lettrisme, graphisme, found, collaged & cut-up text, typewriter poetry, paper films, sui generis artist books, zaum and zen cartoons.

* As a bonus, this KSW presentation is also being made to double as the official launch of gustave morin's newest book, Zoot Suitcase: 13 concrete poems from South Detroit -- so hot off the press it does not yet exist as of this writing... (!)

Don't care about recondite text(s), alternative writing strategies, radical aesthetics, literary pranks or the future of either small press publishing or its historical avant garde? Then stay at home: something suitably mediocre and right up your alley oughta be on the telly.