the armchair dissident

A Key

2006-08-24T13:17:00.000-07:00

The Text's true significancelies in its consistent formal reference to and repetition of what it is about, despite continuous variations in the way it goes about saying it" - Michael Riffaterre, cited in Conte's Unending design

The necessariness of hiatus..

2006-07-15T04:49:00.000-07:00

is that it teaches you that you won't get anything done without discipline

ended february with weather haiku condensation, but started march with it, its the "placer" the signifier of which part of the year we're in.

Some lessons learned

2006-03-14T13:54:00.000-08:00

1) Really, do keep the original texts snappy, some of the transformations effected in February were tortuous.

2) Writing through heals most ills

3) Never attempt a homovocalic translation after a lipogram in e. That way madness lies.

February

2006-03-14T13:53:00.000-08:00

This February morning
he is at odds
with the sunshine
the warmth, unseasonal
is defined
in terms of space and
a punctured, occasional silence
there is to be
no smooth transition
to the afternoon where
a dissident prince
juggles, variously
with catalan
bombs with
people disappeared,
spirited
away with
a picture on a vase
anti-semitism
the failure
of sustainable
ideologies
with you, and me
and everyone we
know as
there is either
no reason for that boat
to be there or
no reason
for those houses
flat, patched red
and blue to be sat
on the livid green
where a system in
all defiance
of the shifting logic beneath
is starting
through the great sheets
right-angled out
of frames of reference
two, reclining before
small images in
a large space
and in this house
where we
are alone and part
of a larger world
the snow,
skewed in
its descent
is at the mercy
of a wind
numbing as a
pulled tooth the
bitter rawness
of a crashing moon
caught and held
above a
rush of water slaking
the earth’s thirst
alive, unwary as oil
set, icy atolls
pile up inert
elude actors that stand
in gelid sentry
file upon rank, each
awful, used
vocation as I see
there is one door,
locks as if it only
closes:
override the art epoch now
ailing new lie
uneasy iou
a fatal coil
endow their lateral, tepid fire
at a clip
as if under a
coastal shelf in
braille writing writs
hearing urgent
dour, salient items spool quiet
quick off usable
papered notes
there is neither
a reason for this wreck
to be absent or
a reason
for these ruins
lumpen, rent blue
and red to dance
below the muted pink
where flux,
complaisant
with the constant
chaos above
is stopping
through a planar flat
a sharp turn out
of your own syntax
two lying in front
of tiny sigils in a void
on this spot
no-one but you
and I
working parts
of a vast codicil
we see sleet
sleet reels
skewed descent
the zephyr
freezes the
green
see the dry, the
sleepy meet
wetness
losing structure
it peels slips
thin tension the
soil/surface
accord disrupted
a torrent
a hail
sound of violins
no violas
hone it
a keen clarity yes
we call on feel
woken early it
heaves toward day
alien sky
this cheque in lieu
of their limpid ire
at the lip
of a thunderer
most often
found citing skits
cheering resurgent
scores, at cool sites
next to wound cables
capering unseen
there’s no reason
for this absence or
for these ruins
dancing blue and red
as order returns
above
done with this
apartment its
edges its
assembled inhabitants
your own framework
deceit before nothing
on this mark
no-one but you
and I
singing harmony
making rules
blind to the sun
its stillness its
direct ascension
the motionless air
warming the indigo
blind
to water to
the wakeful
spurning the thirsty

Constraints: some thoughts as they occur

2006-03-06T14:40:00.000-08:00

Homovocalism

Homovocalic translation excites me. The mind tries to solve the problem of fitting consonants around the naked vowels and words suggest themselves which otherwise never might "He is at odds/ with the sunshine" transforms into "set, icy atolls / pile up inert." Because if this sudden, unexpected beauty it is a more thrilling translation to actually work with than more prosaic, problem-solving ones such as a lipogram in e. Does this set up an intuitive constraint / logical constraint opposition?

Year in a poem, further definition of working practices

2006-03-06T14:15:00.000-08:00

1) Initial texts to be simple and uncluttered - otherwise mutation via constraint and structural processes will only serve to overcomplicate the already complicated. February so far involves one variation on January's basic structure in that one of the initial texts comes from a lexical rather than visual source. So I can conclude that:

2) These working practices are to remain fluid and dynamic. It is a year long experiment. What works to my purposes stays. What doesn't, doesn't.

3) Writing through is essential. Though the texts are altered I am taking a stance in opposition to entirely random methods. It is imperative that the end text flow and communicate to the reader (this is a clarification of the last post), otherwise it is merely constraint for constraint's sake.

The year in a poem: working practices

2006-02-22T13:15:00.000-08:00

I submitted a longish poem called "January" for the poetry and poetics research group on monday. The poem was constructed of four initial sections relating to news items or photgraphs from the month, plus one constructed of seasonal haiku which were then run together and edited into the simple form the other four took. The intention behind this was to have five uncluttered and simple source texts to then evolve or mutate the poem according to various practices (be it anagram, antonymy, lipogram or some of my own devising which I have no intention to give away just yet). The poem consists of three "files" or levels of mutation. File one being the orginal texts (though this was to some extent already mediated by initial editing), file two being the first treatments and file three consisting of further treatments applied to file two. The final results were then written through; so although the initial treatments adhered to strict constraints, these were to some extent smoothed out by the process of writing through (e.g. a text mutated by lipogram in e may have been intruded upon by one which didn't adhere to that particular). I propose applying these procedures to each month of the year this year, thus having a poetic record of the year (though as will be seen, the final product may well bear little recognitive value as regards actual events. I think you'll just have to file that under poetic license, and lump it). The first poem of the year is, obviously:

January

Four figures lined and
sat looking at ground to
the side from
under blue peaks
eyes narrowed at
an outline
no detail the
tree-line phased
sun dips below
too-close horizon
the idea
of a rifle keeping
close watch on
this cat that is
heading right for us
head low to the road
coming out
of the picture
coming right out of the picture
there has been
an imposition, a
disturbance the
route interrupted and
all that’s left are shapes
a polygon a
yellow-jacketed man
dissolving in sympathy
a window with
dimmer light
promising everything
the lack
of mammalian noise
a blockage of
inanimate air an
intimation of bones
the quartered numbers
scored and
tested seem
somehow to be powdered
as a group
from the filthy highs
they look, constantly
this morphine myth
is in a sense retail, he
opined, raising
a gun, stopping
the flow
of her gossipy
morose orisons
he told her
baby the ingestion’s
just a trifle
a sleeping-dose botched,
so you’ve won
and that dog was disappearing
tail high
going into the picture
going
right into the picture
towards an
escapologist tree-line
there could be a conjunction but
here was there
a slight opinion all
bifurcated
a cold, used item rued
an awl, a clear escape
poor man
he only asked her what
is original
a door of bright depth
withholding nothing?
a surfeit
of mineral commotion?
and then the pathways are cleared
of animate, jigging wind and
the impossibility of
the quire,
the retired numb roses
the sacred node
a test, do some
to be pawed, to be raided
the self-same repeated hewing
so grip it
firm it up
ok? can you not see that
the myth about
morphine is that
it’s retail
he stopped her
gossip told her
scansion
was trifling, enough
to send him to sleep
of death, thinking
that that dog
was vanishing
tail high
going into the photo
going right
into the photo towards a stand of Houdini-oak
possibly a junction but
we smile, here he rates
light, lain a loop
a cut fibre a
decryption, an arcing
dhow hails aloud,
a demarcation asks,
pleads hear
we are one

Not another blog

2006-02-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

Yes, another blog, though this is perhaps designed for a somewhat more esoteric audience than Coastalblog. The purpose of TAD is to provide an online document of my work on poetry and in the field of my own personal poetics. Coastalblog, what with the nigh on constant stream of bad jokes and occasional commentary on the banal is perhaps not the best forum to go discussing poetry and my working practices thereof, so I'm hiving them off here. Hopefully it will become a forum for productive discussion, even if not that then it will serve to provide me with an invaluable resource to track the evolution of my poetics. So here we go then. Another blog. Welcome.