Poem Project: Day 2 (Take Two)

I have to admit that despite my interest in the poem as process, I feel quite anxious posting this today. My thought process is made translucent, but so are my lapses in judgment, my misgivings, my uncertainties, my mistakes.

I have 2 sets of 7 lines to write for today. I have five sets written to choose from. I may choose a couple from this set as the first set and write second sets in response to those. Numbering the lines before writing is an interesting way to write, and the following sets gain momentum from what came before them. With the first set, the words in brackets were taken from the first word bank and arbitrarily plopped into the lines before I actually filled them with the rest of the word. It wasn't altogether successful, so I didn't finish the second line, but I did use what I wrote there to guide the writing of the second set.


It's hard to write without a specific idea in mind, so a lot of this was just trying to discover what I wanted to pursue, using the image as a point of departure. I imagine that after writing all 7 sections, I may decide to reorder to allow for new narratives to form and go from there.

I think I will not actually post the typed sections here until the 7th day. I'll probably make another word bank today, and perhaps write another set in response to that. So much in selection.

Text

fig. 1: Response to the beginning of an essay about Caroline Bergvall by Nathan Brown

fig. 2: poem

Poem Project and Marginalia

A few friends and I are participating in a writing challenge. 7 lines per day, 7 days, 1 poem. As a way to focus the poems, we are all choosing an image from which we can cull a word-bank. I've decided to draw new words from the image every day of the challenge, as I learn to see it more clearly. This first day my word bank points to the recording of shapes, marks, images, but not the idea of the thing.



My image is by Matthew Barney, a drawing with vinyl, graphite, and petroleum jelly in a self-lubricating frame (I have seen this in person and I am still not sure what that means or does). The image is titled "TRANSEXUALIS incline (manual)." I love the use of caps, italics, and parenthesis in the title. Though I think it relates more to the installation it would help shape, I like thinking of the text itself and how such an economical title can still incorporate such particular facets of punctuation and (type setting?).

As I start this seven day project, I think I will use this space to record the residuals of the process here: the actual word banks, the bank itself with the words cut out, to see if it amounts to anything. (For the poem or other projects or my own amusement.)

words removed

day 1 word bank

Collaborative writing prompts allow for access to writing that writers scarcely allow. We share the initial writing, the moments before polishing. The raw sketch of it. I have always been interested in the idea that writers are so protective of and private about their process, whereas artists in other fields may not be. It is perfectly acceptable for an artist to include initial sketches as part of a greater exhibition (as Matthew Barney did for the show this drawing appears in, All in the Present Must Be Transformed). If a visual artist can exhibit this vulnerability, and appreciate that the spark of the idea is as noble as the polished and transformed things, can writers do the same? What about a reading that consists of all the various drafts of a piece (get on this, Kenneth Goldsmith), encompassing both minor changes and complete re-visions?

Maybe I ought to share all of it here--not just the residuals as I previously mentioned, but the initial text too, perhaps handwritten with words crossed out or erased, lines struck through and added in--an experiment to see what it can amount to.

So keep the day job...

Enjoyed this post on etsy about being creative in an everyday working environment. Summer Pierre maintains that you can have an everyday job and enjoy it too. I'm not sure what I'll do when I am done here at BGSU, but I know that as long as I can be creative, I will feel content. Though I am not sure if I am made for those 9-5 shifts...

to free up the hand

Today I wanted to hold words, slice them free from their origin, let them act as material. I have a new Moleskine with comic panels that I decided would be perfect for small daily "acts of liberation" (as the artist Nancy Spero describes appropriation in a segment of the Protest episode of Art:21). Collage has a unique immediacy and physicality that makes quick trysts of making so exhilarating. Using limited means such as paper scraps, photo copies, and only scotch tape for adhesion creates constraints that have the ability to surprise. Collage is gritty and oh so satisfying.