Said Like Reeds or Things

Change of address

2006-07-25T22:24:00.000-04:00

A while back I tried to set up a WordPress blog but gave up because I'm such a loser when it comes to computers. Imperfect Offering's migration prompted me to check WP out again, and it's much more user-friendly now. So, I've moved. (I still plan to set something more sophisticated up, but that will probably have to wait until mid-September or so.) Please visit!

2006-07-23T19:07:00.000-04:00

Some videos.

2006-07-23T19:04:00.000-04:00

A performance:

2006-07-23T14:27:00.000-04:00

We at Said Like Reeds or Things make every effort to remain within the bounds of the socially acceptable and productive (yes, we too see warning flags on both counts, yet we sincerely prefer to play nice). We also try to keep things fresh, so we occasionally introduce new flavours. With this in mind, stay tuned for a possible series of speculative and exploratory posts under the title "What Would the Community Think? (Kill Yr Ideals)."

In the meantime, a blast-from-the-past treat:

P.S. Kill yr ideas, too. You likely already have too many.

2006-07-21T23:33:00.000-04:00

Today I said "wrong" when I meant "being logically inconsistent."

Geddy watch

2006-07-21T22:31:00.000-04:00

Tonight Geddy had his hair in a ponytail and was wearing a stupid bucket hat.

The paparazzi have nothing on me.

2006-07-20T21:00:00.000-04:00

If you get Sportsnet, turn on the Blue Jay game. Geddy Lee is sitting behind the plate.

2006-07-13T20:45:00.000-04:00

I don't know, Rob. You might have a point. I think, though, that a titleless poem, especially if it's positioned near the centre of the page, asks the reader to imagine an uninflected space or silence around it (or, as you say, the poem produces "the feeling of nothing happening before you enter"), much as most books ask the reader to shut out extraneous thoughts or noise, at least momentarily. Of course performing this act of shutting out is artificial and likely an ideal that is never actually attained. And we don't have to do what we're asked.

And of course this request on the part of the poem and the conventions on which it is based are fair game for challenge or critique.

But I think it's possible.

2006-07-13T20:40:00.000-04:00

Dear Mississauga workshop participants:

Here is a conventional English translation of the Lorca poem. It's by Greg Simon and Steven F. White:

AFTER A WALK

Cut down by the sky.
Between shapes moving toward the serpent
and crystal-craving shapes,
I'll let my hair grow.

With the amputated tree that doesn't sing
and the child with the blank face of an egg.

With the little animals whose skulls are cracked
and the water, dressed in rags, but with dry feet.

With all the bone-tired, deaf-and-dumb things
and a butterfly drowned in the inkwell.

Bumping into my own face, different each day.
Cut down by the sky!

2006-07-07T09:38:00.000-04:00

No time to blog lately, which is a shame because there's much to blog about. If you see me, ask me, and we can chat about what might appear here.

More soon. Maybe better-digested stuff than would have come together otherwise.

2006-06-26T16:48:00.000-04:00

Interesting to be working on poems without titles. I really like titles and the various spins they can put on a piece, so much so that I feel it's a good idea to jettison them for a while and see how poems move and shake without them.

Tracy Hamon once blogged nicely about titles.

Last Lex

2006-06-21T13:34:00.000-04:00

As is fitting, there was little in the way of closure to Lex last night (though I did have to leave early, so I may have missed something that had this effect). It was all a little messy, with young poet Alixandra Bamford (a potential member of the Lex community if there ever was one) taking part in the open michelle for the first and last time, and a number of people who seemed to be there as a stop on the open mic circuit doing their thing, and Lex regulars and irregulars saying goodbye and thanks. I think Lex was a site more than some kind of show or forum for presentation (though it was of course a little of each of those too). I know that's how I experienced it when I, a disillusioned lyric poet, happened upon it in February 2002. Lex was a series where you could show up for the first time, hang out in the background for a few months, find yourself recognized and greeted by the hosts within that period, try a few things out on the open michelle a little later, get to know others around you and strike up friendships, be a featured reader, and then feel like a crusty and entirely comfortable oldtimer, all within a span of four years. Lex was the place where I found a community of writers and readers to teach and challenge me. Lex was as close as anything I've found to a third place writing-wise.

Angela and Bill also had the uncanny ability to know when and how to renew the series. There were monthly featured collaborations, guest curators, and theme nights. They tended the series like a garden, and it grew. They also, I think, knew when the growing season was coming to a close and made a difficult but wise decision to call it quits. I'm not sure what changed, but I noticed that while most of the readers late in the series were great, there was a certain energy missing this past while. Bill and Angela were likely tired, and I suspect that the community Lex nurtured had changed.

There are many cases where I, individual I am, would have made different decisions from Angela and Bill's, and I didn't love everything about Lex, but I loved a hell of a lot of it and I think it's difficult to deny the contribution to the community that it has made. (I think, by the way, that community is a problematic term when used as if it has inherently positive value, but more on that later.) Bill and Angela set up their tent and invited everyone to stop in and stay a while. Some left and went on, some dropped in from time to time on their journeys elsewhere, and some hung around. But it was a good place to be. It could be a kind of home if you wanted. Congrats, guys. And thank you. And thanks to everyone who showed up. You are bright stars.

By the way, ditto on Angela's call for a series for Alixandra and Lisa.

2006-06-13T13:56:00.000-04:00

A couple quotes that have been sticking in my mind:

"Aesthetics and ethics are one." (Wittgenstein)

"When the man [writing] is frightened by a word, he may have started." (George Oppen as quoted in Rosmarie Waldrop's Dissonance (if you are interested))

2006-06-09T14:06:00.000-04:00

On the paucity of posts lately: I seem to be very much in mull mode these days. Maybe I'll have something to say before long.

How's it going with you?

2006-06-03T13:30:00.000-04:00

Best song lyrics ever?

2006-06-01T21:12:00.000-04:00

Sound files are up.

The new ontology

2006-05-31T15:18:00.000-04:00

I guess, now that I've discovered RSS feeds and the like, there's the possibility of sending ghost messages. What I mean is that, presumably, if I post something here and quickly take it down, it will still show up on news aggregators.

What fun!

In other news: So far, I think public aggregators are a mistake.

2006-05-25T21:55:00.000-04:00

Responses to last night here, here, and here.

Later: Here too.

2006-05-21T11:06:00.000-04:00

I'm not usually one to get excited about technology, but this thing is cool in a nice, routine-changing way.

Notice I use "cool" to mean "it's useful to me" or "I like it" as opposed to "it's slightly dangerous and countercultural and maybe even practises questionable hygiene," and thereby find myself unintentionally in the dominant current of early twenty-first century North American usage.

This month's Test

2006-05-19T16:14:00.000-04:00

Please come to the third installment of the Test Reading Series

STEPHEN CAIN and LISA ROBERTSON
a launch for Lisa Robertson's The Men: A Lyric Book (BookThug)

24 May 2006, 6:00 p.m. (readings will begin promptly at 6:30)
Mercer Union, a Centre for Contemporary Art
37 Lisgar Street, Toronto
pwyc ($5 recommended, all of which goes to the readers)

Please visit the Test site for more information, including biographies, poetry samples, poets' notes, recordings of previous readings, and a map to Mercer Union.

(Stephen Cain's info will be up soon.)

UPDATE: Stephen's stuff is up.

2006-05-03T11:51:00.000-04:00

In case people are anxiously awaiting the sound files from the last Test: I'm having a little trouble posting one of them on the hosting site. The site, an altruistic operation likely with limited resources and likely doing the best it can, seems to get a bit boggged down at times.

2006-05-02T15:34:00.000-04:00

Thanks to everyone who came out last night. Good readings (excellent readings, including one of Susan Kernohan's first, which was incredible, and an especially good one by Derek McCormack even by his standards), good intros, good music, and good conversation. I think it lived up to its billing (see below).

Adventure of the day: three orphaned baby squirrels delivered to the Humane Society, where they will be cared for until they're big enough to fend for themselves. They were very cute but covered in mites.

Later: Yes, courting "is kind to small animals" designation. I promise to watch some violent sports soon.

The literary event of the century

2006-04-30T20:35:00.000-04:00

"How can you even know that?" you ask.

I just do, okay. Check it out:

The launch of Lisa Heggum's anthology of stories for teens, All Sleek and Skimming, featuring readings by Gil Adamson, Diana Aspin, Gary Barwin, Susan Kernohan, Derek McCormack, Stuart Ross, and Ania Szado and music by Carmen Elle and the Whoremoans.

Monday, May 1, 8:00 p.m.
Gladstone Hotel Ballroom
1214 Queen Street West
Toronto

I'm making a playlist. I think I'll include some Sly and the Family Stone. Definitely some P-funk. Some Bikini Kill too.

Be there. We'd love to see you.

2006-04-28T14:58:00.000-04:00

Stunning photos of the first installment of Test by Sharon Harris.

2006-04-27T12:21:00.000-04:00

I think Test was beautiful last night. The highlight for me was an extended and engaging Q & A in which Margaret and Brian discussed, among other things, the need for closeness (a degree of sincerity?) when working with found text (I think Brian's soundbite quote was "there's no detail at a distance") and Brian and audience-member Darren O'Donnell riffed on their reasons for working among multiple disciplines. Margaret's easy manner and tendency to respond thoughtfully to questions and then ask her own of Brian or the audience pulled the entire room into the discussion, which at one point gave rise to a polyvocal swell of talk about the possibilities and challenges of cross-disciplinary fertilization. During the readings, Margaret treated us to a substantial bit of new work (including the riveting and playful "GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS"), and Brian spoke about his corpus in light of his practice of "stealing" (not to be confused with appropriation), read excerpts of Portable Altamont and an essay on the cassette tape, and played a clip from Voice-Over.

And all of this took place under the Evening Canopy and the Sunset Hour.

Points for me to keep in mind for next time: Keep extra chairs near the door for latecomers. Start on time, because this is likely the best way to be fair to the entire audience (from the punctual-arrivers-soon-to-be-fidgety-watch-checkers all the way to the unreformed stragglers).

I hope others enjoyed it as much as I did (for that is the goal). Sound files to come.

Also, stay tuned for the possible announcement of a special edition summertime Test. Please start studying for the May edition (that's the last dumb joke of this kind you'll hear from me).