It was a buried in books day. Here's what I read:
Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian poets under the influence. Ed. Stuart Ross.
In his introduction, Ross aptly clarifies that the text is not authentic surrealism, though all of the writers have been 'influenced' -- in a nebulous, speculative way -- by modernist surrealism (which he defines as a kind of antidote to Dadaism). This book, unlike the very serious psychological experimentation of the surrealists and automatistes, breaks from modernist tautology for play. Oftentimes, it is play pure and simple, word games, puns (good and bad), and seriously considered nonsense: giddy emancipations from the confines of reason.
Beatriz Hausner's "Rider" includes the image:
The Maple Laugh Forever. Edited by Douglas Barbour and Stephen Scobie.
I paused on this book, which I've seen and ignored at hundreds of book sales, and finally picked it up (I'm at the library now) because it struck me as a possible forerunner to the Surreal Estate anthology. After reading it, I would stand by that, but add that in many respects, The Maple Laugh is even more aggressively disruptive with language than the post-surrealists or whatever you want to call them. From Lionel Kearns' visual poem-pun on the prospect of Quebec's separation to Steve McCaffery's repesentational pattern poem of sheep in a field, there are many moments of radical language disintegration the likes of which the post-surrealists never quite managed. Of course, the mantle of humour allows for more freedom, irreverence, and almost necessitates ribaldry.
Artie Gold's piece fulfills the latter:
Plush. Edited by Lynn Crosbie and Michael Holmes.
The intention of this anthology was less clear and prescriptive than the other two, but, as it turns out, the poems were more similar and of like kind than either of the others. They chose 5 poets and gave them enough space to suit their voice. The selection method explains the common tone of all the poems in the collection: "We first encountered each of these writers at readings." Which means they all travelled in a similar geography (which, judging from the bios, might be as broad as -- urban North American), a similar demographic, and a similar social milieu. The similarity of the poems suggest, at the least, some kind of extra-literary connection to the writers. Furthermore, though the collection is only a decade old, the poems also confirm the difference that has already emerged between writing now and then. It was the age of stand-up comedy, of AIDS, and the emergence of PRIDE. The poems in this collection swarm these obsessions, internalize them and ooze them in turn into near every line of every poem in the book. The poems are funny, witty, and often provocatively offensive in a deliberately politically (and sexually) challenging way -- smart that is, while dirty.
As Sky Gilbert writes:
Finally, as I descended down into the incult bowels of smutty vulgarians, it seemed an opportune time to pick up and bring down
Daniel Jones' The Brave Never Write Poetry.
These are punk poems that demonstrate their disregard for the world by the constant demonstration of self-destruction the author enacts upon himself. There are deliriously funny poems -- his 'what i've put up my ass' piece comes to mind, and fighting an aged Morley Callaghan was also rebellious and cleverly disrespectful. Pointedly inelegant, the poems read more like haphazard journal entries than crafted works -- fast napkin poetry after an all-out booze-up. The vibrancy of the character behind the words, though, was enough that I bought his novel 1978 on the way home. I also bought
a discord of flags: Canadian Poets write about the Persian Gulf War. Edited by Steven Heighten, Peter Ormshaw, and Michael Redhill. Toronto 1992.
Most of the poems in this selection are flat, occasional, and ranty as can be expected -- that was probably their function at the time; I wasn't around, but I can imagine them being handed out or sold at protests, or, at the least, many of the poems being written for and read at similar events. Many of the topical references passed me by: I have vague memories of my Social Studies teacher in high school showing images of American Generals mother-of-all-battling Saddam Hussein. Still, a number of the poems stand up without the immediate context.
George Elliott Clarke's piece, for instance, writes of
Surreal Estate: 13 Canadian poets under the influence. Ed. Stuart Ross.
In his introduction, Ross aptly clarifies that the text is not authentic surrealism, though all of the writers have been 'influenced' -- in a nebulous, speculative way -- by modernist surrealism (which he defines as a kind of antidote to Dadaism). This book, unlike the very serious psychological experimentation of the surrealists and automatistes, breaks from modernist tautology for play. Oftentimes, it is play pure and simple, word games, puns (good and bad), and seriously considered nonsense: giddy emancipations from the confines of reason.
Beatriz Hausner's "Rider" includes the image:
The eye of the storm watchesLillian Necakov, whose work I am not familiar with, writes as if she were staging a protest against the nefarious constraints of logic:
from the window: I have
his tongue caught in my mouth.
what we demonstrate againstHer protest reminded me of Sheila Watson's Double Hook lamp in the daylight imagery - of the dead mother protesting against the infertility of the land. It set me thinking about the previous title to Brooker's novel Think of the Earth, plundered from a line by Keats, which was in fact A Candle in Sunshine, plundered from a line by Blake. I went searching off to explore the connections further -- surrealism to Blake, that is -- when, instead, I picked up and read
is the part of us that once made us whole
the tiny speck of complacency once allowed
The Maple Laugh Forever. Edited by Douglas Barbour and Stephen Scobie.
I paused on this book, which I've seen and ignored at hundreds of book sales, and finally picked it up (I'm at the library now) because it struck me as a possible forerunner to the Surreal Estate anthology. After reading it, I would stand by that, but add that in many respects, The Maple Laugh is even more aggressively disruptive with language than the post-surrealists or whatever you want to call them. From Lionel Kearns' visual poem-pun on the prospect of Quebec's separation to Steve McCaffery's repesentational pattern poem of sheep in a field, there are many moments of radical language disintegration the likes of which the post-surrealists never quite managed. Of course, the mantle of humour allows for more freedom, irreverence, and almost necessitates ribaldry.
Artie Gold's piece fulfills the latter:
you have never seen a man fuck a chicken(Has anybody seen Super Troopers? I pictured this poem read by Farva). The libidinal and scatological gaming of such a piece is pretty obvious, and the dirtiness of the language and its potential offence pretty much frames the impact of the poem. Many of the poems in the pieces in the book are similarly obvious (though only a few are so graphic). As I flipped through the authors included, however, I was astonished by the strength and breadth of the contributors: F.R. Scott, Dorothy Livesay, Steve McCaffery, bill bissett, Al Purdy, P.K. Page, Bronwen Wallace, Michael Ondaatje, and Margaret Atwood to name just a few. With a list like this, it is well to be expected that many of the poems are less funny than witty or brain-twisting in an amusing if disturbing fashion. They included a now rather famous Atwood poem that I personally wouldn't have expected in a humour anthology -- however, the context definitely changed my impression of the piece:
till you have seen the current pope of rome
fuck a chicken
now there is a guy
who knows what chicken-fucking's all about.
one rainy easter,
I happened to catch his act.
you fit into mewhich I've always read so seriously, I missed Atwood's sly and dark humour. I was stuck in the anthology section so I picked up
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye
Plush. Edited by Lynn Crosbie and Michael Holmes.
The intention of this anthology was less clear and prescriptive than the other two, but, as it turns out, the poems were more similar and of like kind than either of the others. They chose 5 poets and gave them enough space to suit their voice. The selection method explains the common tone of all the poems in the collection: "We first encountered each of these writers at readings." Which means they all travelled in a similar geography (which, judging from the bios, might be as broad as -- urban North American), a similar demographic, and a similar social milieu. The similarity of the poems suggest, at the least, some kind of extra-literary connection to the writers. Furthermore, though the collection is only a decade old, the poems also confirm the difference that has already emerged between writing now and then. It was the age of stand-up comedy, of AIDS, and the emergence of PRIDE. The poems in this collection swarm these obsessions, internalize them and ooze them in turn into near every line of every poem in the book. The poems are funny, witty, and often provocatively offensive in a deliberately politically (and sexually) challenging way -- smart that is, while dirty.
As Sky Gilbert writes:
I like angelsLike Artie Gold's piece above, the humour comes from the perversion of the familiar. Unlike Gold's context, however, this is one of the tamer pieces in the book. After reading through repeated AIDS references, unsafe sex jokes, more than half a dozen poems on anal sex alone, and the constant name-dropping of American places and people, it began to feel like Allen Ginsberg had become the source text for an evening out at Yuk Yuks. I think Mark Breslan would enjoy an evening performance of the poems in this book, even in order. But, like an evening of amateur stand-up comedy, there was far too much reliance on shock and not enough diversity -- although Courtnay McFarlane's work stood out, highlighted by his intriguing use of slashes:
Also.
I like to see them going at it.
You know.
I like to see angels fucking.
They don't look so goddamn cherubic then.
A history of conquerorsHis poems demonstrated the highest degree of consciousness of their existence outside of the performance and on the page -- with, as these lines indicate, a further awareness of how self and identity are constructed and constricted by language. I would like to read more of McFarlane's work.
helped me slip easily / out of my skin
My skin / lubricated by exclusion
Finally, as I descended down into the incult bowels of smutty vulgarians, it seemed an opportune time to pick up and bring down
Daniel Jones' The Brave Never Write Poetry.
These are punk poems that demonstrate their disregard for the world by the constant demonstration of self-destruction the author enacts upon himself. There are deliriously funny poems -- his 'what i've put up my ass' piece comes to mind, and fighting an aged Morley Callaghan was also rebellious and cleverly disrespectful. Pointedly inelegant, the poems read more like haphazard journal entries than crafted works -- fast napkin poetry after an all-out booze-up. The vibrancy of the character behind the words, though, was enough that I bought his novel 1978 on the way home. I also bought
a discord of flags: Canadian Poets write about the Persian Gulf War. Edited by Steven Heighten, Peter Ormshaw, and Michael Redhill. Toronto 1992.
Most of the poems in this selection are flat, occasional, and ranty as can be expected -- that was probably their function at the time; I wasn't around, but I can imagine them being handed out or sold at protests, or, at the least, many of the poems being written for and read at similar events. Many of the topical references passed me by: I have vague memories of my Social Studies teacher in high school showing images of American Generals mother-of-all-battling Saddam Hussein. Still, a number of the poems stand up without the immediate context.
George Elliott Clarke's piece, for instance, writes of
children, invented for death, slouch to school ...Victor Coleman has a great sonnet from 1968, and Gerry Gilbert's "The Phoney War" is also original and voice-ful:
Now, the sad heavens smell of orange blossoms,
Petrol, for her long body fuses flowers
And fire, and chars to incense for Shiva
Politics sticksOther noteworthy contributions come from David Helwig, Maggie Helwig, Ralph Gustafson, and Erin Moure. I realize now that I left the book at a coffee shop, gone, so I don't know where I got these lines from, but it is from this book, and it seems to summarize the guilt of being a poet during war time:
kills to make the world safe for cars
the phoney peace
grief grease ...
let women have the only vote on war
lionizedI also bought and read Hans Jewinski's Poet Cop (1975) but it is too weird to say anything about yet. I'm going to have to re-read this thing and perhaps even try and figure out if Hans is a pseudonym (Margaret Laurence's archives claim to have information on Hans' book, but it needs some explaining). Very strange little book of poetry, and a mass-produced paperback as well. Weird! (one explanation here suggests that Hans was a gimmick tested and quickly dropped by Simon and Schuster, which might explain things. Might. Always looking for the back-story.)
in
the bowels of Bacchic apathy
posted by functional nomad at 11:01 PM
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