Introducing Tony Cullen
Photo: Patricia Farrell. Tony Cullen, the newest recruit to the Poetry and Poetics Research Group, attending one of our meetings, minutes after hearing that he'd received a Distinction for his MA in Writig Studies at Edge Hill. The PhD beckons.
Some of his poems are due to be published in Great Works soon: check the November issue at www.greatworks.org.uk
Here are some others:
Grande Arcade
It has a cathedral quality
high roof and hush yet
somewhere someone speaks
echoes flutter against
skylight windows looking
for escape consumers on automated
glide-by wear Picasso expressions
chameleon eyes swivel
and shift with the passionless
sanction of a broken contract
lock-jawed doorways reveal
gapping throats into which
shoppers simply vanish
feminine fragrances and magic
music lure the curious
with a crooked finger
schoolgirls skittle in awe
old couples merge together
for comfort children rattle
with excitement while mothers
browse for bargains through
glass plate and plastic
a hackled mechanical spine
winds methodically toward
an upper level escarpment
where coffee clouds mass
above the Casino Café
sipping latte or mocha
Olympians examine the synthesis
below bristling with the promise
of profit drowning soul
in a redeveloped see
buried in a wooded
half-moon pelt where
the homicide of Harlem
John plays out
Tippler
Here’s George’s little sally,
embedded in the huge stone
shoulder of a cobbled bank.
On a gable opposite, a stick
rattles inside a swill bucket.
The original went for scrap
the year they exiled
Trotsky. This is a replica,
reinvented for tourists
still feeding on Eric’s
unhealthy diet served up
in the pub\restaurant they
named after his reinvention.
It’s a narrower gauge
than standard and tips
nothing more than nostalgia
and an admiration of a hardship
enacted in their comic playhouse.
Marsh Green Marsh
The sun quivers to cross
it. Not vast, but empty
and deep; it’s silent air
trimmed of alibis
and waiting.
Grasses army the surface,
gangling adolescent stalks
crowding to the river,
where rushes bull
the margins.
The ground there, three
quarters water, will
never let them go.
Things scurry
at root level,
only squeak and rustle
announce their attendance,
a splash of black water,
their shun. Tussock
grass stumps on sturdy ground,
short and sharp as teeth.
Each footstep injures moss
to weep over boot leather
and lace as the earth
gives. It’s the river,
reaching from beneath,
where clay prisons
hold tight in.
After sun-fall,
a lacy cloak
of ghosts hover there,
thickening to a nightdress
of nature’s shy cloud,
behind which, the dark
world disappears.
Chris McCabe reading at Edge Hill last year
Photo: Tim Power
Chris read in the Rose Theatre last year, and this picture seems to capture something of the charm of his performance.
Introducing Steve Van Hagen
I was appointed at Edge Hill in 2006, having previously taught at The International Study Centre, Herstmonceux Castle (Queen’s University, Canada, in the U. K.), the University of Kent, and Canterbury Christ Church University. I have taught most periods and genres within English and American literature, but have tended to specialise in eighteenth-century literature, Renaissance drama (especially Shakespeare), and modernism and post-modernism.
My edition of selections from Woodhouse’s The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus was published in 2005 (Cheltenham: The Cyder Press) and I have recently completed a book entitled The Poetry of Mary Leapor for the Focus On series published by Greenwich Exchange Press. I am currently writing an article for The Literature Compass on the life, career and reception of James Woodhouse, as well as writing The Student Guide to Jonathan Swift for Greenwich Exchange. I am also researching a critical biography of Woodhouse.
My other interests include literary representations of obsessive-compulsive disorders (and particularly in the work of the American novelist Chuck Palahniuk), and the life and career of the American eco-anarchist Edward Abbey.
Poems have appeared in a number of magazines (see links at the end of this post)
Die Sönne Scheint Noch
(with thanks to Jason Whittaker)
I
Barbarians are coming, they sing, crawling
from the East. He wears a leather skirt East
European hat, metal cross
draped over his bare chest. Aryan, Wagnerian
ice maidens who study postgraduate
English in their spare time sing
harmonies wearing black vests, blonde
pigtails tumbling from their fezes. Banners
depict a thick cross within a cog though no
White Rose. Seeming swastikas that know not
seems adorn album covers passed round, sleeve
notes by Žižek, film projectors
beam streams of images. The crowd
chant in tandem “Tanz
mit Laibach”, singing of American
friends and German comrades dancing
in Baghdad.
II
Most likely this was not what
Sophie and Hans and Christoph went
to the steel blade for but you never know
what you’re living or dying for till
later as they’ve told Tomasz as
they look down, unlike him, bemused. Dropping leaflets
from University stairs can be for some
what a concert and exhibition at the House
of the Workers is for others. It is many years
since the threesome took that last
unprecedented cigarette, but Sophie is a nation’s
heroine. At least the website says
Tomasz’s influence lives on.
III
Outside in the Trbovlje evening, where Tomasz
ended twenty three years before, the audience files
out, waves passports in the air that helped some
escape Sarajevo. The Kum mountain lodge houses
some as the NSK philosopher declaims, and they drink
Laibach wine, deep into tomorrow until
the sun comes up.
Der Papierene
the streets of Favoriten are quiet
now, a suburb of a city
of shadows, secrets, whispers, though they
weren’t quiet that day in January ’39
when they laid you to rest some say
twenty thousand thronged the streets
whisperers whisper still
about you; you were a jew, a
nazi, a gambler, when you were found
with Camilla in the Anagasse
they whispered too: you were
murdered, committed suicide, Camilla
killed you, politics
killed you
there is no memorial, even the cafe
you bought from Drill is gone,
demolished, “they did not want it there
as a reminder of him”, they told me,
when I asked
I look for you, I find you only
in the memories of the reunification
derby, the pride of
Osterreich, not Ostmark, waltzing
around grinning before the box
full of dignitaries, at full time
grainy images on You Tube
narrated in Spanish
are the only sight I find but
it is not a bad epitaph: “the new club
president has forbidden us to talk
to you, but I will always
speak to you, Herr Doktor.”
Emily warned me it would be like this
There is only one truly philosophical problem
wrote Albert, a problem I solved
one winter’s afternoon
At the last there was the little
not so much
the King in the room
as the mundane in the gloom
It ended
not so much with a whimper
as with an unavoidable bang
or two, on the head
As fumes swirled, the thoughts:
did I feed the cat?
did I turn on the gas (enough)?
the taciturnity of amorous encounters
i don’t bring you flowers
we meet in hotels
i don’t bring you chocolates
we mouth neither hellos nor farewells
we pass the same anonymous receptionists and bellboys
this month room twenty six next month ninety four
after, i trace the outline of your nose
in my mind as you lie
face up turned away on sweat-soaked sheets
perhaps one day we might speak
Links to poetry:
www.anonpoetry.co.uk/anon1.html
www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/svh1.html
www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/svh2.html
www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/svh3.html
www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/svh4.html
www.nthposition.com/analienisforlife.php
www.nthposition.com/author.php?authid=940
Two North West Events
TWO WEDNESDAY EVENTS
1
Cliff Yates Reading at The Rose Theatre at Edge Hill, Ormskirk on Wednesday 11th November 2009; 7.30, £3.50.
The launch of Frank Freeman’s Dancing School:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844715039.htm
his new Salt book.
Cliff Yates is the author of Henry’s Clock (Smith/Doorstop) which won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Poetry Business competition, and Jumpstart Poetry in the Secondary School (Poetry Society). He teaches at Maharishi School, where his students are renowned for winning poetry competitions, and runs courses and workshops in the UK and abroad. His latest collection is Frank Freeman’s Dancing School (Salt).
www.cliffyates.co.uk
(This is part of the GOING PUBLIC series at Edge Hill: see www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com for details.)
2
Following the popularity of the Birkbeck launch in October, Gylphi Limited is pleased to announce:
The launch of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry
Ed. Robert Sheppard (Edge Hill) and Scott Thurston (Salford)
at the University of Salford with guest speakers Christine Kennedy, Allen Fisher and Ian Davidson (Wednesday 9 December at 4 pm)
There will be speeches and discussion of the journal, as well as an opportunity for readers and contributors to the journal to meet with editorial board members.
Speakers:
Christine Kennedy, Leeds Trinity & All Saints
Allen Fisher, Manchester Metropolitan University
Ian Davidson, University of Wales at Bangor
Followed by discussion and drinks.
All Welcome. Free entry.
Directions here: http://www.salford.ac.uk/travel
To register for this event on Facebook, please visit:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169385893578
You can also become a fan of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry at:
http://www.facebook.com/innovativepoetry
To receive your copy of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry before the launch subscribe online: http://www.gylphi.co.uk/poetry
Talks: Daniele Pantano and Michael Egan
(photo courtesy of Patricia Farrell)
A game of two halves last night: Daniele Pantano (left) and Michael Egan (right) answering questions after their presentation. (Who's your smiley friend, guys?)
Dan spoke to the title 'Living in Translation: A Discussion of Exile, Translingualism, and Writing Your Way Home'. Home might or might not be Switzerland, in Dan's case, and he explored the polylingual background of Switzerland, his sojorn in the United States, his writing in English and his translating from the German. He quoted Richard Kearney on Ricoeur's On Translation: 'The idealist romantic self, sovereign master of itself and all it surveys, is replaced by an engaged self which only finds itself after it has traversed the field of foreignness and returned to itself again, this time altered and enlarged, "othered".'
Michael introduced us to the tenets of 'Motivism', a style of poetry (or a schema for generating a long sequence of poems), based around a verse form of 1/3/3/1 lines and a series of guiding principles for each stanza: initial image, wandering, connection, and return.
This is final talk in the series but Cliff Yates (supported by the team of 'talkers') will read at the Rose Theatre, at Edge Hill University on Wednesday 11th November at 7.30: tickets £3.50 for the launch of his book Frank Freeman's Dancing School (Salt).
Introducing Daniele Pantano (as translator): Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl (1887-1914) is commonly seen as the most prominent figure of Austro-German literary Expressionism.
IN RED LEAVES FULL OF GUITARS . . .
In red leaves full of guitars
The yellow tresses of girls flutter
By the fence where sunflowers grow.
A golden tumbrel wheels through the clouds.
The elders in a peace of brown shade
Become silent and hug each other like fools.
Orphans sing sweetly at vespers.
Flies buzz in yellow palls.
At the stream the women still wash.
Hanging linens sail.
The girlchild I long fell for
Comes again through the evening gray.
Sparrows plunge from balmy skies
Into green voids filled with rot.
A bread smell and pungent spice
Cheats the hungry one of recovery.
Translated from the German by Daniele Pantano
TRUMPETS
Beneath mutilated willows, where brown children play
And leaves drift, trumpets blare. A graveyard shudder.
Scarlet banners plunge through the maple’s grief
Horsemen along fields of rye, empty mills.
Or shepherds sing at night and stags enter
Into the circle of their fires, the grove’s ancient sorrow,
Dancers rise from a black wall;
Scarlet banners, laughter, madness, trumpets.
Translated from the German by Daniele Pantano
Introducing Daniele Pantano (as poet)
(photo courtesty D. Pantano)
What I enjoy about chaos is the guarantee of creation
The rapid unexpected
EVERY MOMENT OCCURS AFTER A SEQUENCE OF LOOKS
1.
Anticipate the whipping beauty of these southern women
Accustomed to euphoria within the word.
2.
Inform them that they’re unable to solicit the final embalming.
3.
Language consists of minute fractures near each climax.
4.
Confirm the impossible: to fully comprehend any experience.
5.
We can die at once and laugh about it.
6.
Proclaim days are dominated by sex, verbs, red paint.
7.
Witness the death of a praying mantis as her black hair finally settles.
BEYOND THE STOP SIGN: SWISS LANDSCAPE
Fictitious. This green. Like no other. This blue. Conscious.
Spectators. We agree. Language at birth. The rush. At once.
Forever. Scourged by origins and locutions. We find ourselves.
Back to it. The octagon. Its base. Like a senate of fatidic ants.
Ready. For the scouts. To move. From red. To white. To red.
Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, translator, critic, and editor born of Sicilian and German parentage in Langenthal (Canton of Berne). His individual poems, essays, and reviews, as well as his translations from the German by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Georg Trakl (see next posting) and Robert Walser, have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, including
Absinthe: New European Writing, ARCH,
The Baltimore Review,
The Cortland Review,
Gradiva: International Journal of Italian Poetry,
Italian Americana,
The Mailer Review, and 3
2 Poems Magazine.
His next books,
The Oldest Hands in the World (a collection of poems), and the translations
The Possible Is Monstrous: Selected Poems by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and
The Collected Works of Georg Trakl, are forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press, New York. He teaches at Edge Hill University.
For more information, please visit his website at
http://www.danielepantano.ch/.
Dee McMahon and Robert Sheppard
Photos courtesy Scott Thurston and Andrew Taylor
A sanp of part of the audience, plus Dee McMahon and Robert Sheppard answering questions after their presentations to the Poetry and Poetics Research Group meeting in the GOING PUBLIC series. Dee was talking about her sequence of prose pieces that springboard from quotations 'Stories of a Line', in which - Klee-like - she takes a 'line' for a walk. Robert was talking about his latest sequence, the poems of Rene Van Valckenborch, and the double fictional poetics by which they are permitted.
Next week the last in the series: Daniele Pantano and Michael Egan.
Robert Sheppard: Sudley House
Here are two shots – the bottom one by Andrew Taylor and the top one by Tim Power – of Robert Sheppard performing his ambulatory/site-specific text
Sudley House at Sudley House in November 2004. The text may be read at:
http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/sh/rs1.htmlClick at the top from the page you find here to
Preamble to
Instructions before you reach the
First Room (and continue until the
Ninth). Then read the
Notes.
