EST.
Issue1: August 2012
A POETICSMAGAZINEOFGREATSELFIMPORTANCE
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Innovation is the thing - and experimenta- tion. When T.S Eliot etherized his patient on his table modern poetry was effectively born - although others might argue with this assumption. Unfortunately the home of Eliot has not been true the Eliot’s break- throughs and experimentations;; and experi- mentation has been taken up primarily by the small presses;; and with the advent of the internet the ‘democratisation’ of poetry publishing has enabled the medium to catch up with the other arts – where the abstract and the experiment flourish.
Yip let’s have some fun. And something different.
James McLaughlin SUBMISSIONS EDITOR
Jo Langton EDITOR IN CHIEF
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Gone are those sad days when a handful individuals dictated the poetry pace and said what was good and what was bad. Un- like America, Britain still remains a bastion of poetic snobbery and prejudice – on both sides of the divide. The so called poetry wars continue today and we very much have a no mans land between. This is where the new magazine comes in. Demo- cratic, innovative, inclusive, and fun.
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i and welcome to the magazine. I recently asked Tony Frazer what he was looking for in a good po- etry book submission: ‘something different’ was the answer. Rupert Loydell amazingly said the same thing, to the same question: ‘something different’. So I’m assuming that by something different then it must be something original or an original slant on something different for, as we know there is nothing new under the sun.
CONTENTS ESTABLISHMENT
INTERVIEWS Establishment interviews Department Department interviews Jessica Pujol I Duran REVIEWS Alec Newman reviews Wayne Clements Peter Hughes reviews Stephen Rodefer Stephen Nelson reviews Bobby Parker Peter Hughes reviews Carol Watts James McLaughlin reviews Cralan Kelder ESSAY Jo Langton on the poetics of Tamarin Norwood VISPO Andrew Taylor Stephen Nelson Sarah Kelly EDITORS CHOICE
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POETRY Marcus Slease Peter Hughes Mike Ferguson Simon Marsh Michael McAloran Sophie Mayer Dylan Harris Andrew Galan John C. Goodman Rupert Loydell NEW & FORTHCOMING TITLES
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JO LANGTON INTERVIEWS RICHARD BARRETT
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Why did you chose the name Department for your publishing activities? I came round to wanting a name which gave no clue as to the kind of things going on inside the mag. So I wanted the name to be kind of civil service-y and suggestive of people with their heads down passing each other in corridors, then – BOOM! when a reader opened the mag they would be met with all this brilliant, thrilling, colourful, committed, funny poetry. The first issue actually had an image of a filing cabinet on the cover . . . and there was talk of extending that ‘office furniture theme’ over subsequent issues, however . . . possibly for the best myself and Simon ended up deciding to drop that idea. . . Another factor was that I wanted a name that could be written in different ways. So with Department there’s DEPT, maybe dpt(?) and obviously Depart – which is where we are now. I think the reason why trying to build that kind of elusiveness into the name appealed to me so much was to do with what I’d read and knew about fugitive presses of the 60s and 70s – presses which’d spring into existence seemingly from nowhere to publish either just one title or one issue of a magazine and which would then just as quickly disappear again only for the same personnel to reappear a month or so later or whatever publishing something else under a completely different name. It just seemed to me that having with Department what amounts to a multiple name would be a way of aligning Department to the particular tradition that I, well, wanted to align the mag to.
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What prompted the move from a print to a digital magazine? How has this affected/ increased your readership? We want to be able to respond to the work we’re into quicker really. Instead of accepting something and there then being several weeks delay or whatever before it appears (I mean that in as much as between accepting the first submission for an issue of the print magazine and the last and then actually getting the issue out there our experience was that there could often pass a fairly long-ish period of time), we wanted to be able to just accept a piece of work and to then put it online either later that same day or a day or two later. So just about increasing our responsiveness and generally speeding up the whole process. As far as readership goes I’m pretty sure our readership has increased – I think more people have looked at the site than would have been able to get hold of a copy of the mag. It’s just that we always had very short print runs and they’re all gone now. Maybe there’s a couple of copies of Issue one left in the room next door . . . I’ll go and have a look . . . You have recently moved into pamphlets and full-sized collections, how do you find your authors and nurture them as writers? Speaking just for myself here I don’t think I could really nurture anyone as a writer and I don’t think it’d be my job to even try. When we put a book out or, previously, when we’d put an issue of the magazine out I wanted and continue to want there to be a ‘this is something we’re all doing together’ kind of vibe about proceedings. I saw the magazines and I see the books as joint activities – that’s ‘joint’ between Simon, me and the respective poets involved. What are your ambitions for the press? For it to lead to a job for me at Faber. What are you most proud of in your activities to date? I’m very proud that we’ve published everyone who we’ve published. - INTERVIEW -
What is the best & worst thing about being an editor? Working with amazingly talented people as the best thing. The worst thing is leaving my glasses on the bus. How do you and Simon split the workload?
What do you foresee for the future of the press, have you got anything exciting in the pipelines? Well we’ve just arranged a joint reading/performance event with zimZalla Avant Objects for the end of August here in Manchester at Kraak gallery. It’s a joint launch for, from our side, Wayne Clements’ awesome new collection Archeus and, from zimZalla, Jo Langton’s equally fantastic Poetea project. Also on the bill for the night is the multidisciplinary Manchester-based artist Matt Dalby. Me and Simon are both pretty excited about this. And it’s something we hope to do more of in the future. Either joint events or things just on our own.
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We’ve never put any kind of formal structure in place determining which of us does what or whatever but, touch wood and all that, over the past two years or however long it’s been pretty much everything that’s needed to get done has got done (I think). So the split works then;; but I’d say it’s just something we arrange anew as we embark upon each new project.
In your opinion, who is the poet that the world should keep eyes on in the next few years?
What advice would you give to anyone wishing to submit to your online magazine, or to your press? Advice would just be the usual. Make yourself aware of the kind of stuff we like and submit if your stuff is like that stuff. How many book titles do you plan to put out over the next year? There’s been two already this year. We’ll be putting three more out. Thanks Richard! Buy Mercury by Ariana Reines here - INTERVIEW -
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The books that I’ve enjoyed the most this past 12 months have probably been those by US poet Ariana Reines. Last year her name seemed to keep cropping up all over the place and so I bought Mercury from Fence, which hadn’t been long published at the time. I thought it was a fantastic book. The sequence in there ‘Save The World’ in particular just stunned me. I thought it was super intelligent, funny, I thought it had real feeling, and at the same time it was engaging with a world I knew. That sequence felt like it was opening up for me a whole new way of doing poetry. I felt like it realised a huge number of new possibilities. And I found reading it for the first time a genuinely thrilling experience. Mercury itself, other than the times when I’ve lent it out to someone, has been with me pretty constantly since I bought it. And I think it’s a tremendously rich book. I’ve been threatening to write a long piece about the book for maybe the past 6 months or whatever but even now I don’t feel like I’ve got anywhere near having properly processed it all. After Mercury I went back and bought Coeur de Lion and The Cow. Both just as tremendous as Mercury. I perhaps like Coeur de Lion even more than Mercury . . . I don’t know . . .
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DEPARTMENT INTERVIEWS JESSICA PUJOL I DURAN Hi Jessica, thanks for agreeing to this interview. To get things started I was wondering if perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling readers who may be unfamiliar with it a bit about your Spanish and Catalan writing. I’m wondering is this poetry, critical work or a mixture of both? Hello Richard. Thanks for your kind interest. I write poetry in both languages. My first book has been published in English but I’ve recently finished my first full-length collection of poems in Spanish, and I am collaborating on different Catalan projects. The Spanish collection that I’ve just finished is called El neceser (‘sponge bag’ or ‘overnight bag’ in English, although in Spanish it literally reads ‘The Needs’). In this collection I felt comfortable with polymetric sonnets. It is a flexible form that allows hendecasyllables, heptasyllables and endecasyllables in assonance to create enjambed subordinates that reflect the frantic but necessary act of travelling nowadays. I am also translating Lisa Robertson’s The Weather and The men: A Lyric Book into Catalan. Following on from this somewhat I was wondering how you see your first full-length English language poetry collection Now Worry in relation to this work. Do you see it as a continuation of what has appeared before or do you see it maybe as pointing you off in an entirely new direction?
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It is both a continuation and a new direction. I think that my work is strictly related to what I am experiencing at the moment thus Now Worry is a product of my life in Brighton and London. However, it has also meant taking a new direction because I allowed more freedom in my poetry, somehow parodying the rigidity I was falling into with my previous Catalan collection. In this case, for instance, I took up a contrainte of 7.5cm, and I applied it to the poems including the cover picture of the book. From what I think is the most recent biography of yours it says you are currently living between Gaziantep (Turkey) and London (UK), though [your] home is Mataró in tropical Maresme. From this I’d like to ask how travel has informed Now Worry? And I guess I mean that question with regards to both the subject matter and styles you have used in that book. Yes, we call our ‘comarca’ (county) ‘lliure i tropical’ (free and tropical). We haven’t achieved independence yet but it is quite an exotic place to live. I am happy that you ask me this question as recently I realised that travelling influenced the collection more than I expected, mainly for two factors. One of them is obvious as travelling was constantly happening while I was writing Now Worry. I wrote it in six months, starting it in Amsterdam in a conference on Anti-Poetics I attended with R.T.A. Parker, Jeff Hilson and Robert Sheppard among others, and finishing it in Austin (Texas) on a research trip. The other factor is probably as obvious as the first but I was unaware of its importance until a friend of mine pointed it out. There are a few poems that allude to ‘exile’, of being unsettled and nomadic. I can relate to it but I don’t think it is just personal;; many of us today feel a physical and psychological directionlessness. Even if our ideas are clearer than ever our means of action have been lacerated to the extent that we feel obliged to become nomad thinkers and nomad workers. As William Rowe puts it, ‘there’s more not knowing here’. I hoped that the spaces between the words of the poem would allow a rest, a stop of the frantic succession of travelling impressions. - INTERVIEW -
The specifics of writing poetry interest me – I mean in terms of how one goes about doing it. In my own case, usually, I’m sat at a small fold-away table with an A4 refill pad and a pen trying to scratch stuff out longhand before I then go onto type it up. That typewritten draft then being subject to numerous revisions. Could you talk a little bit about your own method in this sense please? Do you do something similar or are you a straight onto the screen type of person?
In regards to the editing, I usually rewrite and revise the poems although sometimes there are some exceptions and I leave the poem as it comes. I normally tend to delete words and entire verses therefore shrinking the piece. One thing I always respect –or purposely break- is the poem’s internal rhythm.
ESTABLISHMENT
Every writer develops personal habits. I am working on Cortázar’s manuscripts at the moment and I admire how meticulous and neat he was when it came to his own editing. Sometimes I think that this methodical writing will come with age, but I could be naïve. I have to admit that I haven’t developed yet any habit that lasts long. The only thing that lasts is the writing itself. I write on my notebook, on a random paper, on a book corner – damaging the book, of course-, and even once I wrote on a toilet roll. Lately I am using more my computer, but I also use my phone when I am away from home.
Could you tell us something of the poetic influences that fed into Now Worry? Sometimes influences were not strictly poetical. Apart from the cities and the travelling, Calvino’s Cosmicomics and T Zero as well as Cortázar’s short stories had a say in the writing of Now Worry. However, a collection I think was important was Vicente Huidobro’s Altazor. Also my beloved Nicanor Parra, whose humourful anti-poems have always been an inspiration and a necessary contrast to my connatural Spanish ‘depth’. The verses are constrained to be 7.5cm long but it is an arbitrary rule, following Queneau’s Hundred thousand Billion Poems. Could you perhaps share your thoughts on the contemporary innovative poetry scene and how you would say Now Worry stands in relation to it?
There are poets that I read with joy like Jeff Hilson, Tim Atkins, Amy De’Ath, Sean Bonney, R.T.A. Parker, Frances Kruk and so on. I feel comfortable with their poetry because they conceive of form as a malleable artefact that can be stretched and squeezed at their will. They do not do it carelessly and their choice is conscious, but their approach is usually tinted with a mixture of irony and profound gravity that I find inspiring. Some of these poets are more politically involved than others but reading each of them acts as a constant reminder that politics is not just a play of words but a way of understanding life that cannot be disentangled from poetry. There is among them a poignant need to denounce late Capitalism but they also care about love, tradition and the quotidian, perhaps because these are not separable spheres anymore. I respect the poet that shows this completeness and doesn’t limit his experience to a closed jargon. I believe that it is not about forcing one’s voice but to let that voice speak with a critical eye. The British scene has broadened my poetic experience and I am thankful for their kind welcome and friendship, but I also come from a different tradition and I am sure that a concoction of Latin American, Spanish and Catalan readings is equally spread through these poems. - INTERVIEW -
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Before writing Now Worry I was battling with Catalan decasyllabic verses. I got frustrated because I was not able to adjust my voice to that pattern but I kept trying because I wanted to internalise it, to understand it. I think I succeeded but it cost me ruining the entire book. After that experience I needed to do something different and enlivening to which the British poetry scene contributed a great deal.
ESTABLISHMENT
Besides your other activities I know that you also edit a magazine called Alba Londres, a magazine of Spanish/English/Latin American culture and poetry in translation, could you tell readers who might be unfamiliar with that publication a bit about it please? In London we publish pieces written by transauthors: authors that cohabitate or have a strong connection between two or more cultures and languages. The same happens in Paris, Berlin, Cochabamba, Buenos Aires and Beijing. Alba is a project that is spreading out and growing rapidly. You can find more on our website: www.albalondres.com. I have a few questions/comments to make about specific aspects of Now Worry but before I move on to do that could you tell us what you’re working on at the moment – what can we expect to see next from you? I have already mentioned my Spanish project El neceser, which I am about to send to some Spanish publishers;; some Catalan poems are going to appear in the anthology Les donzelles de l’any 2000 in November;; and I am about to end a series of sonnets in English called ‘Every Bit of Light’. I read some of these at Xing the Line in April and I am happy about how the poems are coming together. Okay then, first of all could you tell me what the title Now Worry means to you? For me the poems in the collection seem to shift from a mood of I guess I would say wistfulness for time passed to a mood of celebrating the moment and valuing whatever it is that’s happening right now. I think Now Worry captures this flitting back-and-forth between states perfectly. What are your thoughts on this?
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Now Worry as a title does not mean much. It might be as arbitrary as the form of the poems. But I think you are right, there is a combination of nostalgia and savoir-vivre. There is, on the one hand, the impossibility of living in both Spain and England at the same time, of not having my Catalan friends, family, books and meaningful objects with me everywhere. In fact I often find myself longing for someone, a place or a shapeless entity. On the other hand, I take just ‘the needs’ and travel with a stone, a chain, some book, a towel, and so on that make present endurable and have its same synthetic capacity. Regarding the form you’ve presented your poems in in the book: I’m reminded of canvases, or photographs;; with the left and right side of each poem presented as, pretty much, straight lines with the text and space quite evenly matched inside – how did you happen upon this form? Is it something you’ve been using a while? Is it still useful as far as the poetry you’re writing now goes? It occurred to me that instead of using a rhythmical metrical pattern like, for instance, the Catalan decasyllable, I could use instead a space metre, like a stave where I could write the notes. The words/notes are spread though this stave according to its internal rhythm. The spaces in between are pauses or windows on which I would like the reader to lean. I guess you are right too;; they can be regarded as canvases, as every word is collocated on a space. I never thought about that. I am playing with sonnets at the moment but, even if it is possible that I come back to this form in the future, I am sure that it won’t be exactly the same idea because I enjoy coming up with whatever shape adjusts best to the purposes of the new project. I’m interested in the genesis of Now Worry. I would guess that you began by writing just discrete poems without initially thinking of them forming a collection? Is that right? The book nevertheless feels remarkably sustained to me though. My question then is, if my guess above is right, at what point did you realise the poems you were writing would come together in the way we can see in the book? - INTERVIEW -
In Citizen Laura we find the lines ‘just yesterday we heard a flute / whistle whistle (twice) / and saw the mice marching down / Whitehall’. I love these lines. And I think in their lightness of touch they could be said to be representative of much of the rest of Now Worry. I’m curious about your editing (and more generally writing) processes;; how much is disregarded before the poem reaches its final form? Sure, as I mentioned above my editing is based on deleting. I wrote Citizen Laura after seeing the film Citizen Ruth on TV. Ruth is Laura Dern (it was from there that I used Laura) and the film ends with her going away with the money, careless about abortion and antiabortion radical groups who are trying to persuade her. I liked the end and it wasn’t long after that we were marching down from Trafalgar Square to Millbank, as the August riots were going on. I guess that a combination of those elements trigged the poem.
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Yes, the poems initially were intended as just a secondary experiment. English is not my first language and even now I feel quite humble about the whole project. I wrote the first poem in Amsterdam with unusual carelessness because I just wanted to have fun. But then I felt like writing another one and another one. I don’t know what got into me. I showed some of these poems to Jonty Tiplady and Amy De’Ath and they both cheered me and insisted that I should do something with them. Then I decided I would send them to someone I have never met before (I couldn’t believe that they were worth publishing). It was when you, Richard, answered my email saying that you would like to publish the whole collection when I felt I hadn’t finished it yet that I realised Now Worry was a book and that I had more to say.
When I was asking above about the title of the book I mentioned what seems to me to be the mood of the work. Possibly this mood could be summed up with ‘don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened’. How happy are you with this summation? I could state that I agree but I would be lying. I think there is a fluctuation of moods as you refer to, yes. There is always sadness and joy. But I wouldn’t like to give the impression that I got to any conclusion other than a synthesis of both. Finally, I said above that the poems in Now Worry remind me of photos or canvases and there are as well, I think, a couple of places where artists are actually namechecked within the work so I’m just interested to know if you would say visual art was any kind of influence at all on Now Worry?
Okay then Jessica – thanks very much! Visit Department Publications & purchase Now Worry here
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Definitely! Citizen Laura comes from a movie, some poems come from pieces of news, one is about an art poster, another draws on a river walk, and so on. Beyond the strictly visual element though there is also a will to let the words be pictorial. I wanted to catch an impression like taking a picture, even if this picture has fantastic elements and impossible scenography. We are immersed in a visual culture. I think that my second English collection will explore this even further.
ARCHEUS WAYNE CLEMENTS ESTABLISHMENT
Department Press, (2012) 80pp. £9.00
This is from a new book by Wayne Clements called Archeus. I think it’s a cracking piece of poetry, and each poem is accompanied by an illustration. If you look carefully, you will notice that the illustration is actually the poem written out by hand and then shaded in:
The Leaves green-o so green-o the leaves so among the leaves remain among she may remain now she may she is now! she is!
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she is now she is she is now she may/she is now she may remain now she may remain among – she may remain among the leaves remain among the leaves so among the leaves so green-o the leaves so green-o green-o so green-o
Alec Newman Buy this book here
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VILLON, by Jean Calais STEPHEN RODEFER Call it Thought: Selected Poems, Carcanet Press, (2008) 193pp. £17.05
His versions of Villon are not for the purist but then again neither was Villon.
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One of my favorite books (for years now) is Stephen Rodefer’s “Villon, by Jean Calais”, bits of which are assembled in his “Call it Thought: Selected Poems” from Carcanet. Another wonderful book which is represented there is “Four Lectures”. Stephen, who lives in Paris, rides on all that buoyancy which flowed forth from New York, swamped a few college cellars in the U.K. and helped wash away several non-metric tons of bullshit. His work continues to delight those of a robust constitution.
Car Elle Sans Moy Fuck she makes it elsewhere all the time but I don’t get heated up behind it - how could I? Anyway things used to be a whole lot worse before;; plus I’m not the stick man I used to be. You got to step aside sooner or later for all those up and coming younger fuckers who gather reputation in the neighborhood
Peter Hughes Buy this book here
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quickly enough, prized for love and fatally hung, making it in the aisles at church, supple and sincere.
COMBERTON BOBBY PARKER ESTABLISHMENT
The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, (2012) 150pp. £7.00 Some questions for you to ponder, or ignore, whichever you prefer: Why are we born into the circumstances we are born into, given the parents we are given, brought up in one particular time or place as opposed to another? How can we deal with those circumstances, however difficult, in a way that allows us to make sense of them, make sense of ourselves? How can we emerge from these circumstances with a genuine and intact sense of Self, a truth and honesty in our Being which allows us to accept them and transcend them and find, well, a serious slice of inner contentment? Maybe these questions aren’t important to you. Maybe the mere act of survival is enough. Maybe you just want to get from the cradle to the grave relatively unscathed. Or maybe you just want to escape these pesky circumstances, surround yourself with nice things and respectable people, wealth, learning, in a bid to protect yourself from the crazy filthy mess of the crazy filthy world. Fine. Lovely. But for me, and I’m guessing for someone like Bobby Parker, that just isn’t enough, because to ignore these questions doesn’t chime with a sense of who we actually are. Even in the midst of the crack blown shitstorm, Bobby says:
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I lived to score. It gave my life meaning. Simple. To the point. In actual fact, Bobby writes the way I thought I might like to write when I first started writing. I have a few early short stories which wander into Bobby Parker territory, but they don’t quite cut it, probably because the crazy filthy world they explore was only at the edge of my experience until my late teens, when I drifted into it in order to “find something other”, sheltered as I was in a happy homey Christian dream bubble (which I’m entirely grateful for now, btw). For Parker, however, this world has been internalised since day one, crystallised in a sensitive, honest mind, and poured out in some of the cleanest writing out there. Clean? GIRLS WHO DROVE ME CRAZY BOYS WHO SHOWED ME THEIR COCKS This, handwritten on a dirty post it note. It’s the honesty that’s clean, the straight-to-thepoint directness. There’s no judgement. This is the world as it is without frill or pretty cover up. It’s like the Hindu tantrics who break all kinds of social and sexual taboos to find liberation. Parker and the characters who populate his prose poems and handwritten miniatures simply accept, even embrace, their vice, perversion, habit, addiction, squalor, - REVIEW -
and by doing so, gain some control over their lives. Like Stabby Jim, who steals and wears soiled undergarments before masturbating into them, or Bob and his friend who enjoy sparking up matches, because: Every strike seemed to make sense, the flare and stink of them. Flicking them still lit into rubbish bins to start little fires. Something we could control.
It seems that Liam’s crying filled my childhood just as much as much as the sound of church bells or ice cream vans. Or, sometimes, refuge from the pain: Until Gemma’s cool hands closed over my knuckles. Until her warm mouth touched my runny nose and called me sugar in the dark. Occasionally however, this sense of liberation becomes complete, reaching spiritual heights or moments of heightened consciousness, as in the post it note poem, scrawled and scored out before the declaration that:
ESTABLISHMENT
Acceptance is a form of liberation, a way of making meaning, sense. At other times the characters offer a poignant memory which gives life meaning:
GOD IS THAT FEELING I GET SOMETIMES. I love how the “SOMETIMES” hangs at the end here before a final scrawled out word, this after harrowing prose poems about mental breakdown and an orgy involving his sisters-inlaw. Parker isn’t using lyrical breaks in the down n dirty prose to evoke transcendence;; it’s the handwritten scrawl, the score-out, the cartoon doodle portraying the shame, fear and humiliation of this existence that do so;; emotions which become so heightened, so all consuming, that they themselves lead to moments of altered awareness, ecstasy even. For the first time since we moved here, I noticed how loud the fan on the bathroom ceiling was. How much it sounded like a voice.
I nodded through the fear and held out my cartoon hands for the sunshine. Occasionally, the supernatural breaks through the fear and shame altogether, like the poem where Parker’s anxiety about his daughter’s birth is calmed by a ragged stranger with “eyes like snow globes” and a bus driver called Gabriel. Make no mistake, the humiliation and guilt flattens him “like the consequences of a terrible lie”, he feels “like a clown with a virus”;; but it’s precisely this humiliation and guilt, disappointment even, which, when it hits fever pitch, breaks into moments of complete realisation and transcendence: We stopped in the middle of our game and took turns blowing cigarette smoke into the sunbeam. Ghosts in the gold light. ‘Fucking beautiful . . .’ I whispered. Just like the tantrics.
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Or consider the poem where an intense emotional breakdown leads to the poignancy and heightened sentiment of intimate contact with his daughter:
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I’m a big fan of Stanislav Grof’s perinatal theories, where he postulates that the child’s journey from the womb through the birth canal into the world forms a blueprint or frame of reference for our psychological journey through life. Don’t worry, I’m not going to psychoanalyse Bobby, and there’s a lot more to the theory than I can explain here, but I do see the experiences Parker describes as analogous to the traumatic journey to new birth. The book finishes with a dramatic explosion of light as our eyes see who we are or what we can really be: WE ARE LIGHTS. Before this however we are faced with the emotional appeal: TOUCH ME. I’m not sure where Bobby is in his journey and whether or not he’s heading out of the darkness towards the light. Something of his writing speaks to the fear in all of us, and by confronting the fear, writing about it, suggests a way into something more precious. Wherever he is, I’m just glad to be his companion along the way.
Stephen Nelson
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Buy this book here
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OCCASIONALS CAROL WATTS Reality Street, (2011) 88pp. £8.50
Peter Hughes
Buy this book here - REVIEW -
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So sit down with your green tea as if this was your last day, leave the ledgers unfinished and overdue, and tell me what you take with you, now, the sounds of instruments ringing on pavements, a crow mulling over trails of aeroplanes, everyone out in the town, and sirens going. Not enough to take that flickered. Light and the lift of it. Spiders hang in mating season, gorged bodies weighted there, still, not washed out by the rain, these last three days. Hydrangeas shoot pale green flowers at the end of the season as before it. You could turn it on its head. Think it does not end here. Steam blows and unfurls, without the cold to catch it. Your tongue will burn. In the kitchen something rolls around, the engine starts and creeps out across the block. I see my hands are like hers, but older. The fly zubs at the window. You will be fined for lateness, need to clear things. Stacking, the blue late September, and filaments shining between the glazing. Waiting for replacement, by someone else, words.
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Sixty-eight poems of twenty-eight lines each are assembled into four sections: ‘autumncuts’, ‘wintercuts’, ‘springcuts’ and ‘summercuts’. Each poem is dated. The linguistic environment of the day is monitored, collaged, reflected upon. Thoughts are punctuated by overheard phrases or other thoughts. Natural processes, anticipations, flits of panic, full stops. The poems surf the bitty experience of thinking, and thinking about thinking, and wondering how much of this can be gathered, harnessed, or simply enjoyed, attended to. Someone said “verbal sonata” but it may have been a car going past the radio and me just about to write something else when suddenly.
GIVE SOME WORD CRALAN KELDER
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Shearsman Books, (2012) 94pp. £8.95 Love this poem on page 12: The Job I arrive at my place of employment and immediately get busy with nothing. On my lunch break I go outside and keep up the good work. A clever poem: reminds me somehow of Philip Larkin in content and style, as many of the poems in this Shearsman classic do: then no one operates in a vacuum these days and intertextuality is the existential life blood of the creative process. There does not seem to be any big manifestos or themes in this book and to be honest I get a bit bored with big themes and big projects, as they tend to disappear up themselves into a sort of post-modernist bollocks fest. Flaps palms to face as if drying fingernails just painted. Not so keen of the moralizing in this book – which I have been guilty of myself and have been brought to justice on;; for example:
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(Page 15) What kind of creature drinks gasoline and not just a shot or two but gallons and gallons and what kind of creatures are we that drive these creatures to all this drinking. Someone once said art should delight not lecture. It’s like pop stars that become politicians. Usually no one takes them seriously because they are kinda abusing their fame and using it as a tool. To be avoided at all cost as no one wants to become a cliché. No stick to the daffodils and the lakes I say and keep the register high till the eyebrows meets the back passage. Off the soap box and back to the book. Some cracking lines in here: (Page 26) raspberry tea is hot water poured over frozen raspberries to thaw for breakfast in winter… - REVIEW -
and on page 33 shades of Laurie Lee: Lemon Red
This book is value for money at 94 pages of good to very good poetry and is very readable. Poetry of place perhaps;; poetry of nature. A love of words and an eye for colour and in- stinct. Existential as always from Shearsman and a good acquisition.
James McLaughlin
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the fragrant lemon slightly smallish and slightly lime sits in the darkly green…
Buy this book here
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ON THE POETICS OF TAMARIN NORWOOD Derrida frequently refers to the difficulty of arriving at exact meaning and that ’there are only contexts without any absolute centre of anchorage’ (Margins 3201). Jacques Derrida, a twentieth century French philosopher, has written many seminal texts, some of which will be deciphered within the body of this essay: this critical material will further enlighten the reading, viewing and performance of the artist and writer Tamarin Norwood. Derrida is noted for his coining of the term, and exploration into the idea of deconstruction, which he first introduces in Of Grammatology in 1967. ‘Deconstruction’ as a concept is widely explored and expanded by Derrida in many of his texts, and is one of sheer complexity. In order to decipher the intricacies of Derridean thinking, we turn to Jacques himself, when interviewed, saying: “To deconstruct the opposition is first, at a given moment, to overthrow the hierarchy.” (Derrida, Houdebine & Scarpett: 36). Most significantly within this statement, Derrida enforces the idea of the ‘opposition’. This relates broadly to the binary oppositions within language, paradox and hierarchy that, through social repetition, have saturated our conceptual abilities. The application of this mode of philosophical thought can be applied in equal quantities to both the creative process, and the process of interpreting any given text. Within the depths of this method of deconstructionism are certain discernible technicalities of arriving in this state of opposition against accepted modes of thinking, writing, creating and most significantly: meaning. In order to further understand how Derrida strives and urges us to reach and release a plateau of hierarchical deconstruction it is important to introduce the idea of ‘différance’, as coined by Derrida, under a chapter heading of the same name, in Margins of Philosophy: The order which resists this opposition, and resists it because it transports it, is announced in a movement of différance (with an a) between two differences or two letters, a différance which belongs neither to the voice nor to writing in the usual sense, and which is located, as the strange space that will keep us together here for an hour, between speech and writing, and beyond the tranquil familiarity which links us to one. (Derrida, 1982: 5) Here, Derrida’s insistence on the difference between ‘difference’ and ‘différance’ is paramount to a fundamental understanding of deconstruction. Derrida suggests that the connective tissue between written communication and spoken language is the essence of thinking through hierarchy towards deconstructionism, of breaking down our socio-linguistic contexts and connotations in an attempt to dwell in this ‘strange space’ that forces both the interpreter and the creator to, “rupture with its past, its origin, and its cause”, the fundamental proposition of Derrida’s essay ‘Structure Sign and Play’ in Writing and Difference (1978:368). In order to comprehend the methodology of a ‘rupture’ from proceeding modes of interpretation, it is first important to explore Derrida’s presentation of language as historically logocentric, and understand how this ‘old-way’ of interpretation is formed, in order for it to be deconstructed. From Derrida’s position, it is vital to see that: “the book appears only as a mode or instance of discourse (logos) namely, stilled, silent, internal discourse […] internalized speech.” (Derrida, 2004: 198). It is therefore, Derrida’s presentation of the stoic and rigid nature of written text and its’ non-relationship to spoken language that illuminates an opposition within the accepted hierarchy of meaning. “What I then hold is still a discourse, but it is soundless, aphonic, private – which also means - ESSAY -
Every sign, linguistic or nonlinguistic, spoken or written (in the usual sense of his opposition), as a small or large unity, can be cited, put between quotation marks;; thereby it can break with every given context, and engender infinitely new contexts in an absolutely nonsaturable fashion. (This does not suppose that the mark is valid outside its context, but on the contrary that there are only contexts without any center of absolute anchoring. (Derrida 1982: 320)
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deprived: of its mouthpiece, its voice.” (Derrida, 2004: 199). It is the ‘différance’ revealing itself ‘between’ these two modes of communication, the written (internalized) and the spoken (externalized), that furthers our understanding of deconstruction, and points in a vague direction of how to arrive there, by cementing that fundamentally: “Derrida’s programme requires an undifferentiated logocentric tradition to be superseded by an Age of Deconstruction.” (Harwood: 51). To understand this logocentric tradition is to understand that written text as a sign, the word as a signifier, that has, regardless of possible phonetic connections, a wholly contextual meaning(s) that guide, and limit, the readers interpretation through the perpetual and historical shaping of language. In acknowledging that that written word is a signifier, then the signified meaning is constrained by its’ (con)textual surroundings:
Then, to transport, to evolve, to graft, to repeat, to iterate the signifier within a multiplicity of new contexts, Derrida proposes that, “domain or play of signification henceforth has no limit”, (1978: 354), and thus interpretive meaning is expanded and ruptured infinitely through a duplicity of deconstruction and dissemination. Derrida suggests that: This iterability (iter, once again, comes from itara, other in Sanskrit, and everything that follows may be read as the exploitation of the logic which links repetition to alterity), structures the mark of writing itself, and does so moreover for no matter what type of writing (pictographic, hieroglyphic, ideographic, phonetic, alphabetic, to use the old categories). (1982: 315)
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It is clear, therefore, that the ‘iterability’ of writing, and of language equally, its’ ability to be transported into new contexts to provide new meaning, interpretations and possible misinterpretations is in fact, “the very condition of linguistic possibility ". (Norris: 63). The abilities of communication are stifled by an archaic mode of interpretation that limits rather than promotes understanding. Derrida’s understanding of writing encompasses more than the simplicity of written text on the page, and extends to all means of visual communication, seemingly in order to pose the question of where text ends and where art begins. Here, the breadth of communicative methods cements our understanding of meaning being found in a variety of contexts, as Derrida’s philosophical thinking surrounding deconstruction ricochets through every possible context, from art to literature, to music, and beyond: his thoughts therefore both embody and advocate the notion of ‘iterability’. As Derrida reinforces: “Deconstruction cannot limit itself or proceed immediately to a neutralization: it must, by means of a double gesture, a double science, a double writing, practice an overturning of the classical opposition and a general displacement of the system”. (Derrida, 1982: 329). The core of deconstruction then, is one of limitless possibilities. Tamarin Norwood, poet and artist, explores the possibilities of deconstruction and enforces new modes of interpretation through her work. For both Derrida and Norwood, the supposed question of the lines between ‘art’ and ‘poetry’ are irrelevant, as these signifiers can be taken out of their prison of individual contextual meanings, and furthered, as the between-ness of poetry and artwork is explored, the stoic black and white of the traditional signifier is deconstructed to a new and abrupt shade of greyscale. In accordance with Derridean thinking, Norwood’s work poses referential difficulties through its application to a variety of contexts. ‘Doing Things with Words’ was first commissioned as part of the London Word Festival 2011. It then appeared as part of the I AM NOT A POET Festival
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under the guise of ‘These Are Not Poems’, which will be the title by which to refer to this work (and in doing so conform to a hierarchical mode of interpreting the work). Finally, a selection of images documenting the project to date formed the visual element to ‘They think it’s a combination’ as part of Maintenant: the Camarade project, a collaborative reading series in London which was followed by an accompanying chapbook of the same title published by The Red Ceiling Press (2011). Derrida explores the positioning of the title in ‘The Double Session’ in Dissemination “the title […] carries its head high, speaks in too high a voice, both because it raises its voice and drowns out the ensuing text, and because it is found high up on the page, the top of the page becoming the eminent center”. (Derrida, 2004: 192-3). ‘The Double Session’ had no title by way of deconstructing the hierarchy of conventional form, and, through a process of différance, Norwood furthers this inversion of a tradition of understanding by providing her work with a variety of titles. The title in itself actually becomes the main body of the text, and a piece of artwork in the process:
Here, Norwood deconstructs the hierarchical positioning of the title through both the irony of content and the typographical context. The title can be removed from its given context as the header of this work, and in doing so becomes the body of the text within another piece of work, illuminating its ‘iterablity’, and enacting deconstruction as although in this image the title does indeed become the “eminent center”, it no longer presides over a typographically less-significant ‘body’ of the text. In essence, both the title and the body become one, as the content of the title simultaneously works to undermine the formerly constructed positioning of itself. Norwood introduces her work ‘These Are Not Poems’ as part of the I AM NOT A POET Festival in Edinburgh: “I am not a poet: these are not poems. They are things lined up on shelves. Domestic interiors reading left to right, sometimes with a rhyme at the end. This is a room and not a book of poems.” (VerySmallKitchen). Here, it can be said that Norwood embodies deconstruction as an: “overturning and displacing a conceptual order, as well as the non-conceptual order with which the conceptual order is articulated.” (Derrida 1982: 329). These poems have been formed as part of a collaborative project including a signer of British Sign Language (BSL), which is fascinating in the understanding of the word as a signifier. That is to say, that in BSL the word literally becomes a performance of the sign, taken out of its former context both on the page and through the ear: “What I call text is also what "in practice" inscribes and extends beyond the limits of such a discourse. […] This general text, to be sure, is not limited, as one might have initially understood, to written marks on a page.” (Derrida, Houdebine & Scarpett: 43). Norwood furthers this rupture of the conceptual order of text, realizing a sense of limitless freedom in textual play, exhibiting Derridean methods of process in her creative practice by deconstructing simultaneously both the page and the canvas, exploring the limitless possibilities beyond the text, disseminating the written, oral and aural properties of language, and residing in the between-ness of ‘art’ and ‘poetry’: - ESSAY -
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These two images are part of six that represent the exhibition of ‘Doing things with Words’. Norwood again undermines the positioning of the title, as although these pieces are headed with a textual, typographically dominating statement, the “words” that follow it is, to the viewer, paramount to the notion of “title”: The title thus becomes a performative statement to all that follows. Looking further into the processes of deconstruction, it is crucial to note the absence of both the page and the canvass in the original intentions of this work, as Norwood exhibits these pieces directly onto shelves on the wall of the gallery: “That is to say: how far does it go along with the idea of deconstruction as a species of unlimited textual "freeplay," a break with all the rules and protocols that have so far governed the activity of interpretation?” (Norris: 61). Furthering this reconfiguration of the page and its re-examining through a new process of interpretation, Norwood deconstructs the word as signifier. This exploration beyond the page, beyond the text, enhances an understanding of the physicality of language, in the sense that the two-dimensional stoicism of written text is lifted off, and detached from, the page and becomes three-dimensional, rupturing from its usual context. It is as though a continuous line of text, ink, or in this case wire has been stretched from both ends to form a literal line. In doing this Norwood breaks from the typicality’s of textual representation and embarks on a journey of limitless “freeplay”. Within these two poems, the wire movements become both the signifier and the signified, bridging the différance: “If one erases the radical différance between signifier and signified, it is the word "signifier" itself which must be abandoned as a metaphysical concept.” (Derrida 1978: 355). Here, it can also be said, that through this process Norwood draws a parallel between the limitations of the dominant, logocentric, discourse that has governed interpretation, and the constraints that being deaf also has on one’s ability to achieve effective communication. As in BSL, the movement becomes signifier and the text is signified. Through this pairing, Norwood invents a new mode of interpretation that disseminates the constant barrier of tension that surrounds communication as a whole. It is therefore an exploration of the différance between the inability to articulate orally, for the deaf, and the equal ineffectiveness of oral communication to provide semantic realism for those of hearing. To further understand how the page is deconstructed, it is important to refer to Derrida’s concept of the frame: “We can nevertheless mark out, in a few rough strokes, a certain number or motifs. These strokes might be seen as a sort of frame, the enclosure or borders of a history that would be precisely that of a certain play between literature and
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truth.” (Derrida, 2004: 198). This statement seems to define the crux of Derrida’s motivation for creative freedom through the understanding that the dominant discourse has limited writing to a tension between “literature” and “truth”. For Derrida, there need not be any such limitation. The frame in ‘These Are Not Poems’ is determined by the gallery in which they were first displayed. This widening, shifting and general re-appropriation of the conceptualization of the frame which surrounds any given piece of work comes into play here as Norwood breaks through the linear framework of the page. It can be seen that this literary framework is represented through the solid, black, horizontal shelving on which the wire stands. It is, therefore, as though the shelves, a metaphor for the lines of the page, are emblematic of a historical frame of rigidity, the straightjacket of the page which contains text. The curvaceous fluidity of the wire acts as if irrelevant to its frame, whilst simultaneously balancing on its structural foundation. It is as though the textual “freeplay” within is grounded by its constructed former, but breaks away from the dominant logos by running off and out and over the lines that have the potential to imprison its movement. It is important to note, that in the body of this essay, ‘These Are Not Poems’ are re-framed, photographically, in order to conform to the dominant means of communication and reproduction of such pieces of artwork, and thus, in true Derridean thinking, there is a tension between the “iterability” of this work in a new context and the threat of a limiting, unauthorized duplication. Consequently, through its iteration, the contextual frame is shifted, from the gallery to wall and back to the page. It is as though by reproducing and critiquing Norwood’s work one attempts to reconstruct the deconstructed. ‘These Are Not Poems’ respond to the philosophical thinking of J L Austin in his seminal text, How to Do Things with Words (1955). It can therefore be understood that “Do [ing] Things with Words” fissures from its original context and develops a new context in the work of Norwood’s “Doing Things With Words2. This limitlessness extends to the breaking from context, and the multiplicities of interpretation that this enables are also demonstrated through Derrida, as he responds to How to Do Things with Words in ‘Signature Event Context’. The epigraph, prologue, or title to this essay is a direct reference to Austin: “Still confining ourselves, for simplicity, to spoken utterance. (Austin: 113n.2)” (Derrida 1982: 309). The etymology of the word “prologue” is most significant here: from Latin origin, “pro” meaning before, and “logos” meaning word of discourse. By typographically placing this reference at the fore of the body of the text, Derrida undermines Austen’s limited thinking as it precedes his own more historically and typographically significant discourse. This reference further works to undermine the hierarchical domination of the title, as Derrida advances his argument by deconstructing, through iteration, the words of Austin. By using this technique, Austin’s text becomes the transported: his work is thus ‘iterable’ and reinvigorated in the new contextual deconstruction, primarily by Derrida and then again by Norwood. This shows how context is never fully formed, and in addition how it can be reformed infinitely. The iteration demonstrated in this work continues further to the collaborative performance, “They Think it is a Combination” (15/10/2011), between Tamarin Norwood and Emily Critchley, commissioned as part of Maintenant: the Camarade project, 2011. Here, ‘These Are Not Poems’ break with their own intended context for the second time, forming a third new context. During this performance the images ‘These Are Not Poems’ were projected whilst pre-recorded spoken text was played. The structure of this spoken performance enacts a rupture as Norwood and Critchley talk over one another, enacting a repetitive abruptness of beginning through their perpetual insertion of one voice over the others’ rolling dialogue. The constant bombardment of language interrupts the linguistic context resonating through the words by Norwood and Critchley’s performance pace and force of tone. This textual overlap, therefore, interrupts the semantic flow for the addressee in a move of différance in the fracture between the two poets in order to deconstruct the before in a new contextual interpretation of ‘These Are Not Poems’. Derrida explores the différance between writer and reader in the gap between the act of writing and the act of reading: By definition, a written signature implies the actual or empirical nonpresence of the signer. But, it will be said, it also marks and retains his having-been present in a past now, which will remain a - ESSAY -
future now, and therefore in a now in general, in the transcendental form of nowness(maintenance). (Derrida 1982: 328)
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Jo Langton
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This “nonpresence” is explored by Norwood and Critchley, in the différance between the structure of speech and speaker: the performance is pre-recorded, therefore, by implication, the verbal signature, as iterated through technology, alludes to the beforepresence of the speakers. The construction of the performance text breaks from the timeframe by which it is received by its intended audience. Therefore, it is possible to discern that the given “signer” of text is ever present, and this awareness of presence is fundamental to the iterability of their “written signature”. It is interesting to note that, in Bass’ translation of Derrida that the original French is provided in parenthesis. The linguistic connection between “maintainance” here, and its relative, “maintenent”, the title for S J Fowlers’ collaborative project, which demonstrates a further embodiment a Derridean mode of iterability in a future now. It is therefore the “combination” that explores further into “différance” and “maintenance” in duplicity of semantic deconstruction, as these writers break with their own contexts and form both new and now. As Derrida says, it is important to discern why, “a context is never absolutely determinable, or rather in what way its determination is never certain or saturated” (1982: 310). It is thus through the extensive referential possibilities that any given work, and in this instance, the work of Tamarin Norwood, cannot determine the context(s) of its origin. It is due to this notion of infinity in regard to textual freedom that it can be seen that both “writing” and “artwork” can rupture, in order that they, “could no longer, henceforth, be includedin the category of communication, at least if communication is understood in the restricted sense of the transmission of meaning.” (Derrida 1982: 310). It is then, a call to arms to deconstruct the chains of interpretation of language, one which Norwood answers by opening up new possibilities and exploring the différance between “poetry” and “art”. Derrida enforces that, because of its very nature, dissemination cannot be summarised, restricted or contained, due to, “the force and the form of its disruption break through the semantic horizon.” (Derrida, Houdebine & Scarpett: 37) Fundamentally, it is the absolute strength of the deconstruction of the textual hierarchy within Norwood’s work that provides a sense of meaning that the predominant mode of communication, language, fails to describe. Meaning is therefore not tethered to any one context, and, in the work of Norwood, it can be said that if one has arrived at any concrete sense of meaning through interpretation it is only that her work transcends the concept of “meaning” in a logocentric tradition, fulfilling Derrida’s philosophical prophecy that: “The representative character of written communication—writing as picture, reproduction, imitation of its content will be the invariable trait of all the progress to come.” (Derrida, 1982: 312).
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Bibliography Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words: The William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. The Oxford University Press: 1962. Derrida, Jacques, trans. Bass, Alan. Writing and Difference. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd: 1978. Derrida, Jacques, trans. Bass, Alan. Margins of Philosophy.The Harvester Press: 1982. Derrida, J., Scarpetta, G. & Houdebine, J. L. Positions. Interview: Jacques Derrida. The John Hopkins University Press. Diacritics: Vol. 2, No. 4 (Winter, 1972), pp. 35-43. Derrida, Jacques, trans. Johnson, Barbara. Dissemination. Continuum International Publishing Group: 2004. Harwood, John, Elliot to Derrida, Macmillan: 1995. Norris, Christopher. Deconstruction against itself: Derrida and Nietzsche. The John Hopkins University Press. Diacritics: Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter, 1986), pp. 59-69. Norwood, Tamarin. “These Are Not Poems”. Various. I AM NOT A POET: A FESTIVAL AT THE TOTALKUNST GALLERY, EDINBURGH. VerySmallKitchen. 28/07/2011. <http:// verysmallkitchen.com/2011/07/28/i-am-not-a-poet/> Norwood, Tamarin. “These Are Not Poems”. Artwork & Writing. Tamarin Norwood.17/08/2011. <http://www.tamarinnorwood.co.uk>
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Norwood, Tamarin & Critchley, Emily. “They Think it is a Combination”. Various. Maintenant: the Camarade project. The Red Ceilings Press: 2011. Norwood, Tamarin & Critchley, Emily. “They think it’s a combination”. Maintenant: the Camarade Project. FowlerPoetry. 16/10/2011..<http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=1iLIhIefnRY>
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ANDREW TAYLOR
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STEPHEN NELSON
Split Infinitum Est. 1
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Split Infinitum Est. 2
Split Infinitum Est. 3
SARAH KELLY
how do i make of myself 1
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how do i make of myself 2
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EST. EDITORS CHOICE (if you only buy one book you must buy this book)
ESTABLISHMENT ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012 The Knives Forks and Spoons Press, (2012) 22pp. £5.00 OUT NOW. PURCHASE HERE.
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MARCUS SLEASE
Song. Sermon. Song. SONG: the gospel shakes toughest place meanest dang imagination mothers i must admit this spit was hot we must gather round gather round the fireside please please we need more rattlesnakes more chickensnakes more bellies for the beasts my brethren run in broad shoes my breath inhales nostalgia and exhales passion’s armada.
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SERMON: no. this is not yr mother’s milkshake yr uncle’s saliva each wall is a universe and behold god once darkened skin of those who let go of the iron rod but now it is no longer PC to have wives or darken skin for evil ways SONG: my eyes will break, have broken into the old sockets, the old golden plates, chopping heads off for righteousness ah ha um hum please keep running me over with your soft wheels
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our father ping pong and Donkey Kong in moonlight our father red winged and a tiny disco in hot chicken light our father all things and all things shaped like light our father the doves the clotheslines and the dog light our father the paperclips paperclips and frog light our father the pug of leisure in Milton Keynes light our father the jumbo prawn in New Orleans light our father newly wed in sober light our father clubbing fish in giant light our father the tiny screen the giant squirrels and the dove of light our father inside a neon bungalow with the telemarketers of light our father the sound of tools and the sounds of light our father inside cloud cover over the sea and what is light
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Our Father
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PETER HUGHES
from Site Guide (for Heine & the Caravan Club)
site 1
roll up for the paragliding donkeys or synchronised three-legged dogging but first perform a one-man mexican wave to yawn greet dawn appease the demons in the clifftop maze which points to itself eventually the floor of the caravan dries then we heave the whole box clockwise 35 degrees to follow the sun & so on if what we know is wrong suspended in a sea of ignorance & cack (leave space) suggest-abilities raise seal heads submerge again without apparently inhaling shopping results for the tibetan book of the dead your cart is currently empty it has become necessary to imagine these companions & their fleeting theme tunes this one blending tallis & the shithouse lilies is norman wisdom dead yet if not why not head circus parade talk to me until sometimes I stand so still the rats come out to wash in peace
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the moon’s inexplicably abandoned in a different night of strangers devoid of pewter or cinnamon tunes or those of hawthorn straw or fennel larkspur / curlew she said when I end this line I’ll count to three & you’ll awake forget this ever happened 1 2 you can smell tcp for up to three weeks after you die we opted for an hour or two of music luigi tenco megamix a bit of dr loco a transfer deal involving several pet shop boys with a neighbour’s plastic suitcase she left in the rain before dawn in her I fucked leonard cohen t-shirt the wrong registration number etched on the caravan window there is nothing in the field except this empty grapefruit half two slugs nestling in the brilliantly white soft bottom
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site 3
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MIKE FERGUSON
Juror The jury is out one juror to cogitate in her forensic catechism of serendipity: acquiesce or postpone? It is a voluntary reign over decision now on hold, amber suspending any headline loquacity.
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Rotary Goose Are we receptive to the collocation of rotary goose? If it turns and burns maybe some applejack to freckle the sides? How this language shambles avoids constraint.
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SIMON MARSH
you flounced in water child half bird half fish a mermaid’s dreams one tail slap away you mulled the sea till clear felt settled salt soften in your pores threw back your sodden shank of hair it hit the surface rock-thud beat the rumbling sea drum summoned whales lost salmon & the Giant Starfish plucked from waterless heaven its trail turned cold so very long ago
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Onda
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MICHAEL McALORAN
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limbs- disfigured limbs of the sky I ask (I have forgotten) all’s to the redeem of ghost-limbed into the longing scattered/ obsolete I alone and the nothing of the eyes torn out in laughter
theatre- theatre of silt (dread stirs closed fist)
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a scattering of toothen light till the unlocking of silenced beneath asked of I-rock-a-bye and the dregs I weeping no less nor absentee till retrace and bite the wind’s ache breaking apart the skull/ …
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what will- the night’s claim sudden of restless death in fields of shattered glass and the rot of air lest shadow be/ I asked of the cadaver mist of silences absences claimed yes or no I take from the dogs what will/ what will feeding/ feeding fucking the life from the idle light’s indifference
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SOPHIE MAYER
‘Sleep is a skin’ Sleep is a skin, holding. It is a limit of the mind and eye, inward-turned and -turning. Unceasing cessation, unsensed, a test of sensation, a density weightless in the chest. It’s the liquid centre of bone, yes did you know? oh, bones truffle us, decadent and wet forming a state, stilled, of glasslike frenzy) and it’s the marrowness that wants: both to sleep and to run. I say fucking is both (this) other (and one), the loss and the gift, which never stops moving, as sleep doesn’t. As sleep is in time – as it does not suspend time – but dilates it. Porosity. Gaseous exchange across membranes. Selective. The secret of how it holds unseen.
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ANDREW GALAN
White & flat & blue-lined, the A-four lies on the desk surface. Letters begin to file in. Within its geometry the paper ripples. Once entered the characters hold to guides. Stripped, one to another to costume they submerge, they wobble. I squint, aim focus on each black print — recover each roman form. They bathe. I recognise individuals;; familiar to one another all appear to be friends. The lanes full;; they cavort, but I do not, do not feel the portrait party. I follow laps, look away look back, consider each ink spray, each ink stroke, from gutter to gutter in circuit they wash, cool themselves. Wet, each does not wear much. There is a buzz, the lanes fall way;; flail latin. I shut my eyes, open, find the script swim patterns. They justify to my left, twitch in marine synchronicity, each is the correct size, each holds a position, my face heats. The set to right, against hidden anchors, ply unjustified backstroke. Motioning;; not to me. Then entire anatomies rise in simulacra, choreographed deep within the oblong they commence
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It’s a poor sort of memory
counterclockwise rim spin clockwise radial twirl sinistral bullseye whirl.
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I sweat;; my vision fogs then crystallizes. The A-four, white & flat & blue-lined is inscribed.
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ESTABLISHMENT
THIS IS A RELIGIOUS POEM ABOUT CLONES YEH-AH —you like the Italian revolver the Mateba Model 6 Unica it looks to have been held by the cold fish Rick Deckard But— YEH-AH —when confronted in your cubicle by seven skin-jobs and [in Yoda’s voice] “you will be” know that the semi-automatic does carry only six rounds YEH-AH —and you will be challenged and those who believe the twin towers shot from the grassy knoll will say “you too are the skin-job” But— YEH-AH —with the handgun your will will have deadly accuracy for as the rounds fly they fly not from twelve o’clock but six meaning less recoil and know that the memorable one-liner will be used, yeh-ah and know that the Jayne Cobb did use this weapon, yeh-ah! and know that the extra replicant having never heard of the firearm nor recognising the gun’s Roman lines will through social osmosis perceive it does stand against the Crew of the Serenity— YEH-AH (before Joss W hedon was allowed to make too many seasons) and so the replicant will not put the 'Rutger Hauer Noire Beat-Down' upon you nor whine about being a slave (no) NO —instead, it will flee. YEH-AH —you wish the Judge Dredd was your father astride his Lawmaster, with his summary detentions, followed by trial, sentence and execution all without remorse, yeh-ah all in the future, yeh-ah! all without Sylvester Stallone— YEH-AH all in 2000AD But know (know) that while the Dredd did win the Apocalypse War with the porcelain Hershey who held the Lawgiver - POETRY -
and had the straight cut black bob [DANCE FOR FIVE SECONDS LIKE UMA THURMAN IN PULP FICTION] YEH-AH —know that the war did cost the Mega City One dearly
When the George made the Luke scream you did despair, yeh-ah for where there had been pre-edit welcome release in 1997, as the Skywalker did plummet left-handed the Son of Vader now screamed like Emperor Palpatine: “GNEEEEEAAAAAYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHH HEEEEEEYYYYEEEAAAAHHHHEEEEYYYY”
So know, know that you can [in Gold Five’s voice] “Stay – on – target” if you do copy your copy of the original Episode IV— YEH-AH [in Gold Five’s voice] “Stay – on – target” if you do copy your copy of the original Empire Strikes Back— YEH-AH [in Gold Five’s voice] “Stay – on – target” But! do not copy from a copy using VHS (no) digitise and share (yeh-ah) because that banging in the darkness is an ewok drum. - POETRY -
ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012
But know, know now, that not with the Star Wars remake into New Hope did the Lucas fall to the gloom [look where Luke fell, shake your head] no, it was long long before it was when fur was formed into cuddly spear wielding teddy bears, yeh-ah instead of the massive claw bearing cousins of Chewbacca— yea-ah! ripping the heads off clones— YEH-AH and chewing the spit roasted limbs— YEH-AH! to quote Chewbacca, “Roar arr rarr” to quote C-3PO, “Let the wookie win”
ESTABLISHMENT
But with the force of the Judge’s DNA at all times will you wear the helmet, yeh-ah even in the bathtub, yeh-ah! you will have the helmet on your head— YEH-AH and none shall ridicule nor call you surely crazy.
ESTABLISHMENT
The Machingeon
Each Čapek stretch this cast-iron dog clockwork scratches ear licks crotch stains for oil I wish I was cymbal rivet copper sax ophone key snare shell beat an' didge' bop
ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012
hummed measure in cobbled townsquare overlooked by gristle woman who waves exclamation marks from balcony throws a pot flowered sun that fills the sky with whole mellow notes.
- POETRY -
DYLAN HARRIS plein [A]
sometime i’m—just stared i presume—resemble—i just stared
ESTABLISHMENT
(i) i imagine—in—watching heads i don’t know why—watching heads kind of life—what is his role and where—what is his kind of life—what is his how does he—kind of life what is his
people watching when you’re—watched—watched the wrong side—watched lens—wrong side watched it’s ok—i’m not going—not pottying it’s a babychild learning people learning behaviour watch
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(ii) that’s my job bright roads know where to go that’s my job polish ’em cats’ eyes there’s those i missed gaps in the lines not serious some bastard car too fast i had to jump then there’s the cats’ eyes still used - POETRY -
ESTABLISHMENT
i polish ’em too so you can see ’em cats like it after a year end up queueing they do but though i polish ’em though you saw ’em cats get gutted still too bloody fast they are cars what i don’t tell better poem to this said to me itself dark no write it was last night driven home seeing cats’ eyes i was still
ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012
(iii) dog’s hind leg in pose you know a month to check mister computer so why now conductor’s gavel unfallen orchestra judge one hour mister computer eighty one percent month of me no do the train holds nose outside the platform - POETRY -
dog short the signal red (iv) “progress a nasty thought” the tree of legs
ESTABLISHMENT
“life longer stronger how horrible sweetness to ken how horrible grow from build on how horrible” (v) her skin shone the moon so these last few nights my closed eyes at sleep ’bin shining her (vi) white wings look up imagine the it’s a white wing cloud of
ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012
not the lid the metro saucepan white wing lid the city press revolution to to steal i need the green the focus to unsee white wings for white wings cloud of a lid
- POETRY -
JOHN C. GOODMAN
ESTABLISHMENT
Lament for the souls lost at sea
After the rain came the mist, white and curling, entwining. Sing to us, the dead called, ease our tormented hours. To sing is to become a vision of the deep, an intricate being in a life that flows and sways without trouble or remorse. Sing to us, come and join the dead. The souls of the drowned walked the unsettled stones, murmuring to each other, chanting in rhythm with the rolling surf. We will tell you our secrets, the secrets of lost souls. The first is that time is nothing but a spider’s web, a sticky net for minds, and those who are caught in it can never see eternity, only the dead can see the infinite. The wind rose and died, by turns comforting and sadistic. A mad wind, full of the hate of the dead, full of disappointment, full of the anguish of the living. The second secret of the dead is that pain is a function of being. To suffer is to exist. Even happiness is a pain of different kind, an aspect of suffering. We, the dead, suffer as we walk, the way the wind whines its pain through the star-stippled night and the waves breathe their hurt to the aching shore.
ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012
The dead wandered the shivering shore, whispering among the rocks, beseeching, begging. Let there be no pain. The third secret is that the dead fear love. It takes courage to give love and even greater courage to receive it. Only the living can love. The dead merely watch and wish that love would set them free. From the waves the drowned sailors rose, eyes eaten away by crabs, skin the colour of mouldy bread. Why did you not save us? they called. Why did you not save us? The fourth secret is that there is no Truth. Truth is a connection made in the mind;; it does not exist outside the associations of human need. There are no facts or certainties without the conviction of the heart. The dead have no truth, we are lost.
- POETRY -
lost rain
(a concealment that is not a concealment) (secrecy that is not a secrecy) in the narrow time between the eye and the lid the watchful ocean seethes overcoming the vision of perception of experience
ESTABLISHMENT
out of the transparent silence
Tuesday morning greets you like a gun contradictions ambiguities imperfections resolutions pain is as fresh today as it once was when the honeysuckle played over the railing and the rain was lost
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gradual incrementations travel into the truth of things known as sensation the pages of life curling like a burning book
- POETRY -
RUPERT LOYDELL
ESTABLISHMENT
FRAMES & ECHOES/THE FANTASY OF RETURN 'All I yearn for is in that place' - Laura Oldfield Ford, Savage Messiah
collaboration & communication away from the hubbub seasonal transformations transitory tourism a hypnotist an illusionist an astrologer a photographer handstands on the grass embraces by a tree a crossword puzzle with our picnic somewhere to walk the dog
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prescribed historical gestures the day's progress & passing
At a certain time the light clicks on at a certain time the leaf falls from the tree we had not noticed until she framed it there (the abbreviating touch of her editing eye) focus on tempo & phrasing - POETRY -
grassed lit benched pathed & planted we learnt to love here
ESTABLISHMENT
football frisbee skipping rope
shadow of shadow of a child children on a swing on the swings compression of the leg as ball is set in motion
socked feet of the girls busy climbing trees
clock & crane in the distance
the fantasy of return another perfect day cut short
- POETRY -
ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012
and then the mist came down the view out to sea was gone
NEW & FORTHCOMING TITLES ESTABLISHMENT
The Red Ceilings Press Ollie Evans. Dash Booked a Builder. £3.50 Steven Fowler. Recipes. £8
Penned in the Margins Ross Sutherland. Emergency Window. 10 August 2012. £8.99 Luke Kennard. Holophin. 1 September 2012. £12.99
Department Publications Andy Spragg. Cut Out. SJ Fowler & Marcus Slease. Elephanche. David Grundy. Austerity Measures.
ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012
zimZalla Avant Objects j/j hastain. Female Versions of Christ. Illuminations with accompanying text.
Shearsman Books Alan Wall. Raven. Summer 2012. £6.50 Mark Goodwin. Layers of Un. Summer 2012. £6.50 Kit Fryatt. Rain Down Can. Summer 2012. £6.50 Michael Zand. Wire, The, & Other Poems. Summer 2012. £6.50 Shira Dentz. Leaf Weather. Summer 2012. £6.95
ESTABLISHMENT
ISSUE 1: AUGUST 2012