Sunday, December 20, 2009

AWP event this April!

Preparations for the 2010 AWP Conference are already underway here in the States, even though April is a few months away. If you want to get a look at the panel I will be part of, on bilingual writing, involving discussion and sharing of texts in multiple languages (Spanish, French, English, Russian & more), see the facebook event invite (and feel free to rsvp and invite your friends, too) It was put up by panel organizer Katerina Stoykova-Klemer

Event: AWP Panel: Writing in More than one Language
Start Time: Thusday, April 8th at 4:30 to 5:45pm
Where: Denver, Colorado. Room 207 Colorado Convention Center, USA

Or see the AWP Conference program for Thursday afternoon where the event is listed, at: http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2010schedThurs.php

Panel with 6 authors:
Jennifer K. Dick
Simon Ortiz
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
Pablo Medina
Luisa Rossina Villani

Ewa Chrusciel

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Discours de soutenance...

Today, I passed by l'Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris III for the last time on a student-related errand: to pick up my PhD diploma. And there it was, that building I had entered for the first time in the spring of 1995 when inquiring into options to study here in France. I passed by today the Amphi A where I took my first exam, the one that would allow me to be admitted to Paris III in Licence studies.

Between then and now, I have done a U-turn, returning to the States for my MFA and to experience America as an adult (of a sort!) before resettling here in 1999. The return to Paris III came a little later, when I decided to pursue a DEA then the PhD. It was a long, rocky, crazy road. But now, as I finish up the last touches on my dossier de candidature à la qualification aux fonctions de MdC, hoping that I will not blunder in some unexpected way, that I will be deemed suitable, etc. I thought I would share one of those documents that just goes back into the ether--the speech I gave at my dissertation defense.

So, for whatever reason, sentimentality, amusement, here it was, the thing I said to start of this process towards closing the tall, heavy door of academia behind me, the passage from student to post-studentdom, my speech:

Discours de Soutenance de Jennifer K Dick, prononcé le 4 juin 2009:

J’aimerais tout d’abord remercier les membres de mon jury d’avoir accepté de participer à cette soutenance, et Monsieur Stéphane Michaud de m’avoir dirigé vers cette thèse à travers mes premiers cours de licence ainsi que mon DEA. Je remercie tout particulièrement mon directeur de thèse, Monsieur Jean Bessière, pour son soutien, sa patience et son optimisme, sans lesquels ce projet n’aurait jamais vu le jour.

Pendant les dernières années de ce travail, lorsque je corrigeais et retravaillais les pages de ma thèse, je gardais en face de moi le manuscrit et les épreuves d’Un Coup de Dés de Stéphane Mallarmé dans l’édition de Françoise Morel. Et c’était comme si je traçais une ligne, un arc, entre moi, ici et maintenant en France, lisant la poésie contemporaine de Myung Mi Kim, de Susan Howe et d’Anne-Marie Albiach, et Mallarmé en mille huit cent quatre vingt sept et mille huit cent quatre vingt huit (1897-1898) quand il corrigeait ses épreuves avec ses crayons bleu et orange. Je n’étais plus, à ce stade de mon travail, à la recherche d’« une clé ou des clés », comme Joseph Benhamou l’écrit sur la première page de cette collection d’épreuves, « mais de nombreux chemins, parfois de traverse, des carrefours, peut-être avant tout une rencontre, une ouverture, un horizon ».

Je conçois le livre comme un entre-deux, une étude comme un dialogue, comme une voix posée à laquelle fait écho la réflexion d’autrui. Ainsi, cette thèse pose des questions et ouvre des réflexions et des lectures sur un siècle et demi d’écrivains, de plasticiens et d’un certain nombre de théoriciens, de scientifiques et de philosophes. Cette thèse laisse aussi entendre ma propre voix. Ici, ma propre voix (voie) commence…

J’aimerais bien croire que cette thèse s’appréhende comme les œuvres étudiées, qu’elle exige l’engagement tout entier du lecteur et sollicite également le regard, la capacité d’écoute et la pensée ; qu’elle demande une lecture à plusieurs niveaux — ou regards distanciés — une première lecture qui serait proche de l’œuvre — de la thèse — et une autre qui la regarderait ou la rappellerait de loin. Ainsi, je ne conçois pas ce travail, qui fut accompli au cours de ces six années d’études doctorales, comme un exercice purement universitaire, poursuivi dans la simple idée d’obtenir un diplôme. Comme la lecture de thèses et d’œuvres critiques qui éveillent en moi une excitation intellectuelle jubilatoire, ceci est un travail très intime. Il est le fruit de trente-huit années de vie dont au moins vingt-cinq passées à lire la poésie, à l’écouter, à la voir se développer à travers les siècles depuis les origines de la langue et la littérature anglaise — avec Beowulf — jusqu’aux expérimentations formelles visuelles radicales qui la dominent depuis la fin du XIXe siècle.

Pour ces raisons, mon premier défi était de trouver et de définir ce corpus, et d’y définir ma place en tant que critique. Mises à part les œuvres de Mallarmé, d’Apollinaire et des poètes des mouvements concret, surréaliste, dadaïste, futuriste et autres, cette thèse trouve ses racines dans le travail du DEA qui fut accompli sous la direction de M. Stéphane Michaud, ici présent. Pourtant, j’ai abandonné trois des quatre auteurs de ce travail d’origine de 170 pages — Claude Royet-Journoud, Maurice Roche et Lisa Jarnot — en ne gardant que Susan Howe. Bien que le regard posé sur les œuvres de Royet-Journoud, de Roche et de Jarnot fournissent à cette thèse d’innombrables références et réflexions, l’œuvre riche d’allusions littéraires, historiques et critiques de Howe est devenue un nouveau point de départ.

Je suis partie de cette œuvre complexe, plurilinguistique et qui n’est pas encore suffisamment bien étudiée (du moins elle ne l’était pas il y a 6 ans, en particulier sous son aspect visuel) pour finalement sélectionner deux autres auteurs parmi la masse d’ouvrages que j’ai lus. L’œuvre de Myung Mi Kim apportait à cette étude la possibilité d’orienter mes explorations vers les questions multiculturelles, politiques et plurilinguistiques déjà présentes à un moindre degré dans les écrits de Howe. Ayant remarqué que l’œuvre de Royet-Journoud était souvent privilégiée par les critiques, j’ai donc choisi d’explorer celle d’Albiach, pour ses parallèles avec les notions déjà mentionnées ainsi que la densité de son écriture dans l’espace raréfié de la page. De plus, Albiach emploie un français imprégné d’une sensibilité aussi bien française qu’enracinée dans la poésie américaine, en particulier celle des objectivistes.

Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Dickinson, Zukofsky, Oppen, Olson, Joyce, Baudelaire, Pound, Rimbaud, Stein, Shakespeare, Dante, Ovide : ces trois poètes partagent un vocabulaire poétique riche et qui traverse l’océan qui sépare l’Europe et les Etats-Unis. L’aller-retour incessant de ces œuvres est également reflété dans le parcours de vie des auteurs (Kim qui, en tant que réfugiée, a émigré aux Etats-Unis de la Corée, Howe qui faisait — avec sa mère — des voyages en Irlande quand elle était enfant, et Albiach qui a vécu en Angleterre dans les années soixante, de l’autre côté de la manche, où elle avait commencé à lire des objectivistes américains). Au lieu de sélectionner des auteurs déjà canonisés, ma curiosité personnelle m’a guidée vers trois poètes qui, tout comme moi, étrangère en France écrivant une thèse dans une langue que j’ai apprise adulte afin de pouvoir lire Un Coup de Dés de Mallarmé, ressentaient le besoin d’exprimer l’illisible et l’indicible justement parce que tout ne peut pas être dit, en particulier dans la langue d’un autre pays. Les choses qu’on veut dire doivent parfois être montrées, par exemple par le dicible et l’utilisation de la dimension visuelle de l’écriture — comme on le voit chez ces trois auteurs.

De plus, Kim, Albiach et Howe écrivent des œuvres plurielles. Le choix du corpus s’est donc fait également dans un souci de cohérence et de parallélismes thématiques. Ces trois auteurs traitent de thèmes comme l’histoire, l’être effacé, les migrations partagées et perdues, et chacune suit des fils de la mémoire qui n’aboutissent qu’à un vide. Ces œuvres explorent des voyages de soi vers l’autre, dans le temps, à travers des pays ou des langues, mais également des voyages vers l’autre contenu en Soi. Dans les trois œuvres, le « je » est pluriel, à la fois universel et singulier. L’un des aspects clé, qui relie la pratique de ces trois auteurs, est qu’elles captent le caractère multiple et métamorphique de l’identité, et elles font et défont les genres (mot qui peut être pris ici dans son sens littéraire mais aussi identitaire). Les textes sont ainsi riches de références à la fois personnelles et universelles, culturelles, littéraires, historiques, linguistiques, politiques inouïes. Préciser, exposer, retracer toutes ces références, et les liens entre elles, a alors été pour moi le deuxième défi. Trouver un moyen d’écrire une thèse ‘logique’ sur une écriture, un flux de sens multiple, qui, de par sa nature, est — selon Howe — un refus de la « raison raisonnante », fut l’une des plus grandes difficultés pour moi. J’ai dû prendre conscience que « comprendre » n’était pas l’objectif ultime du critique. Faire une archéologie de ces évocations était en effet impossible. Face à des textes qui encouragent à une telle multiplicité de lectures et qui ouvrent des perspectives au lieu d’achever une clôture du sens, c’était à moi de m’introduire dans l’un des dialogues présentés par ces œuvres, et d’y prendre une place. J’ai donc choisi de privilégier l’aspect formel comme révélateur des autres aspects de ces œuvres. La réception des textes atypiques, aux genres multiples, qui défient les notions d’écriture et d’art visuel, des textes où le sens reste énigmatique, complexe, obscur et voilé nous impose de nouvelles façons de lire. Cette nouvelle lecture nous contraint à regarder, à laisser le texte s’approcher ou s’éloigner de nous. C’est ce qui a dicté la forme et l’organisation de ma thèse qui commence par une étude très rapprochée des textes, par la lecture des lettres, vers et strophes, et se clôt par un regard éloigné des pages, par des lectures plurielles des composants.

En effet, cette thèse a été construite en quatre grandes parties, que je rappelle très brièvement : tout d’abord un traitement en trois parties des typologies du fragment dans les œuvres de chaque auteur. L’étude de la pratique particulière du fragment par Howe, par Albiach et finalement par Kim est suivie d’une dernière grande partie consacrée aux aspects visuels « macroscopiques » de ces œuvres.

Les trois premières parties ont pris une envergure imprévue. Le traitement et la définition du fragment étaient initialement prévus comme un dernier développement de l’introduction de la thèse, avec la mise en contexte du travail visuel des œuvres étudiées. Cependant, le fragment, un mot d’usage courant, s’est révélé porteur de plusieurs sens et significations à explorer. Il m’a obligé à élargir mon champ d’étude. Au-delà d’un siècle de manifestes poétiques et d’essais par les poètes du monde entier, j’ai dû m’appuyer sur les lectures philosophiques, (notamment Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Jean-Luc Nancy et Nietzsche) ainsi que des lectures scientifiques (la physique quantique, Heisenberg) et d’autres textes théoriques (Barthes, Alain Badiou, Krzysztof Ziarek, Spatola, Marjorie Perloff, Claude Ber, Johanna Drucker) pour essayer de formuler des explications sur le fonctionnement du fragment dans les œuvres de ces trois écrivains ; pour me demander comment ces poésies réfléchissent, signifient et questionnent le monde en déconstruisant et re-construisant la langue.

Dans les trois premiers chapitres, le regard s’appuie ainsi sur les textes mêmes, sur ce que chaque lettre, syntagme, vers, strophe peut dire par sa façon d’assigner visuellement, par l’appui qu’il prend sur l’ouïe et par ce qu’il révèle de la réflexion et de la vie de l’auteur. J’ai dû chercher, en particulier chez des critiques et des poètes français des années soixante-dix jusqu’à aujourd’hui, un vocabulaire pour parler de l’intervention du blanc, sa façon de déployer un espace corollaire au dire, un espace qui montre et figure visuellement ce qui reste en dehors de la langue.

Ma pratique comparatiste dans ces trois parties consiste à tisser des liens entre ces trois poésies, d’en dégager des parallèles formels et culturels (par exemple des façons de concevoir le monde, la manière de traiter le sujet de la guerre), ainsi que des parallèles liés aux pratiques langagières. Dans ces trois parties je m’appuie sur des écrits critiques. Je ne vois pas mon propre rôle comme étant celui qui dit quelque chose de définitif. Je suis celle qui est là pour orchestrer un dialogue entre des penseurs qui n’ont pas encore été présentés les uns aux autres. Je suis la tisseuse de liens. Pourtant, j’ajoute à cela de nombreuses microlectures des strophes et des fragments de chaque auteur. De plus, je tente de faire reconnaître, de mettre en évidence, de partager avec mes lecteurs des parallèles que j’établis entre ces pratiques poétiques liées à la construction des sens, au pluriel, et les pensées philosophiques et scientifiques élaborées au cours du XXe siècle.

Ceci dit, dans ces premières 246 pages, on remarque à quel point le texte peut être peu substantiel, et, par conséquent, que la page, support de la langue, est puissante—ce que j’élabore dans la quatrième et dernière partie de ma thèse, celle qui est la plus conséquente. Ce dernier chapitre reprend comme point de départ les influences de Mallarmé et d’Apollinaire — déjà très étudiées à l’étranger comme en France — pour enfin synthétiser une exploration du travail visuel « macroscopique » de ces œuvres. On recule. On regarde la page de loin. On ne lit pas des mots, mais des taches, des lignes, des typographies, on considère même les pages comme des tableaux. Le regard posé sur la page ne recherche plus les détails infimes du texte. Les microlectures sont abandonnées pour laisser place aux analyses plus distanciées, de l’utilisation du collage, du montage, de l’image, de l’importation (de photos, de citations, d’objets), des dispositions variables du texte, du Ready-Made et des techniques souvent liées à la publicité, à la langue comme symbole, à l’image sur la page comme iconographie.

Ce chapitre examine des applications de ce que je délimite comme deux grandes voies dans l’utilisation visuelle de la page et du livre. L’une est héritée des techniques « iconiques » et figuratives qui ressortent du travail des Calligrammes d’Apollinaire, et l’autre est héritée des techniques mallarméennes qui étendent la lecture sur plusieurs pages en recherchant une écriture en trois dimensions. Il me semble que personne n’a encore essayé de schématiser ou de définir de cette façon, en France comme aux Etats-Unis, des typographies du travail visuel de la page dans la poésie. Ceci dit, cette perspective puise ses origines dans les écrits d’Antoine Coron et de poètes-critiques comme Johanna Drucker, Cole Swensen et Kathleen Fraser aux États-Unis, Adriano Spatola en Italie, Heraldo De Campos et Augusto de Campos au Brésil, et Jean-Michel Espitallier et Philippe Castellin en France. Une telle perspective, peu délimitée de cette façon, a priori, dans les études européennes et américaines m’a incité à écrire cette longue partie hors des sentiers battus qui présuppose aussi un regard touffu, incertain, avec toutes les imperfections qu’induit un tel exercice. Je présente ainsi la dimension visuelle de la page dans la poésie contemporaine à l’égal d’autres techniques poétiques, comme la construction du son et du rythme par le mètre, l’assonance, la rime… Ce chapitre pose une première pierre en proposant un schéma potentiel pour définir, différencier et parler de ces techniques. Mon corpus poétique s’élargit dans cette dernière partie pour inclure des comparaisons entre les œuvres des trois auteurs principalement étudiées et les écrits de beaucoup d’autres écrivains du XXe et maintenant du XXIe siècle en France, aux Etats-Unis, en Russie, au Mexique, en Australie, en Irak, au Brésil et en Europe en général. Ceci afin de montrer comment Howe, Albiach et Kim emploient à la fois des techniques héritées d’Apollinaire, comme l’usage du mot et de la lettre en tant que signe à l’instar des poètes concrets, dadaïstes et surréalistes, et des techniques spatiales et polyphoniques (héritées de Mallarmé) qui sont les bases des poésies sonores, spatialistes, surréalistes (encore), oulipiennes et objectivistes. Il est vrai que cette partie aurait pu être enrichie par une connaissance plus exhaustive de la philosophie esthétique, et du vocabulaire actuellement appliqué aux études cinématographiques. Un vocabulaire qui tente de cerner les expressions langagières pour parler de l’image, des images en mouvement m’aurait en effet aidé à exprimer ce que je vois dans ces œuvres qui sans cesse échappent par leur caractère ambigu à la fois fixe sur la page et en mouvement.

À l’instar des œuvres de Kim, d’Albiach et de Howe étudiées, on retrouve dans les poésies contemporaines une accumulation de toutes les techniques visuelles et langagières fournies par un siècle riche d’explorations poétiques. Cette dernière partie de ma thèse servira ainsi à des explorations critiques ultérieures, à des études que j’ai encore à commencer sur d’autres poètes travaillant dans la lignée de ces écrivains, et je l’espère, en y ajoutant un plus grand vocabulaire emprunté à d’autres disciplines.

En somme, au-delà de leur aspect visuel, ces œuvres permettent de réfléchir à des questions cruciales, de repenser la poésie, l’art visuel, la sémantique, de mettre en question le statut du langage et du langage poétique. On conclut néanmoins que les poètes contemporains comme Howe, Kim et Albiach utilisent ces techniques verbo-visuelles afin de construire une poésie qui laisse place à l’indicible en favorisant l’assignation visuelle du sens, et qui reste toutefois une écriture à lire. C’est l’idée de Mallarmé qui m’avait été présentée par un professeur, Clive Scott, un après midi à l’université de East Anglia à Norwich en Angleterre pendant une lecture ouverte il y a 18 ans. : « La poésie est entièrement là avant qu’on l’écrive, reste ensuite la difficulté à l’exprimer ». Cette phrase m’a encouragée à apprendre le français pour que je puisse lire et voir Un Coup de Dés, elle m’a conduite en France pour que j’y fasse mes propres explorations d’un langage poétique où s’exprime cette force intérieure de l’indicible, cette chose mystérieuse, ressentie qui est avant la langue, préverbale.

Bref, ma thèse termine par un regard posé sur les pages de poèmes sériels pour découvrir qu’une lecture sémantique et visuelle de la page et de la suite de pages relie les techniques hybrides de ces œuvres. Une telle lecture sollicite à la fois l’œil, l’ouïe et la pensée, et dévoile les multiples sens des œuvres. J’admets que la réflexion de ces poètes est parfois incroyablement hermétique, mais elle met toujours à notre disposition une série de liens, de pistes à suivre et grâce auxquels on peut tout de même affirmer qu’il y a des sens. De la même manière, cette étude ébauche, débute, ouvre l’espace — une voie — encore inexploré par les thèses en France en tentant de réunir sous une optique critique formelle privilégiant la dimension visuelle d’une œuvre les aspects critiques souvent abordés séparément : la musique, la forme et le dire du poème et du poète. Sans avoir l’illusion d’en faire une étude exhaustive, cette étude interroge les multiples voies qui s’offrent à un écrivain désireux d’exploiter l’espace de la page, et propose des points de départ pour des études ultérieures—à la fois de textes sur papier ou sur d’autres supports (par exemple des supports numériques, des murs, des tableaux ou des néons).

J’ai vécu cette thèse comme une aventure dans des pays sauvages et étrangers. Pour reprendre la formulation de Susan Howe, lire, écrire, poursuivre un texte, le chasser à travers des champs de réflexion, voir tous ses aspects, ses pluralités, ses ambiguïtés : cette expérience est un événement qui est comparable à la conquête du nouveau monde ou à une déambulation dans une forêt. Mais en fin de compte, le monde n’est pas conquis. Il est. Je suis. Vous —madame et messieurs du jury, lecteurs de ce travail de thèse — êtes encore et toujours là, entiers. La question reste, est-ce que l’exploration de ces œuvres par la lecture par l’œil, l’ouïe et les sens nous a fournit quelque chose ? Dans mon cas, la réponse est oui, absolument. J’ai été richement récompensée par ces années de déambulation dans les livres, ces années de recherche dans les bibliothèques françaises et américaines, dans des collections spéciales de livres, par exemple à l’Université de Iowa où j’ai pu lire la maîtrise de Myung Mi Kim, et dans des archives possédant des livres particulièrement beaux et complexes. J’ai été ravie de pouvoir travailler sur les écrits de poètes et de critiques encore en vie. Je suis particulièrement touchée par le contact réel et humain que j’ai pu avoir avec eux, surtout au cours des entretiens qu’ils m’ont accordé en personne, par téléphone et par courrier électronique. J’ai été enrichie par les heures passées à lire, à réfléchir et à discuter avec des poètes cités et qui sont en partie présents parmi nous aujourd’hui, et des professeurs comme mon directeur de thèse que je remercie tout particulièrement pour la très grande qualité du dialogue, pour son exigence et sa confiance. Ma relation avec la langue, les langues française et anglaise, a été fortifiée par cette étude. Le parcours intellectuel que cette thèse m’a donnée à suivre est une initiation à la fois stimulante et exigeante à la recherche. Je vois cette thèse comme une première étape dans une longue exploration à faire, une voix qui prend la parole pour la toute première fois mais qui est impatiente déjà de voir la suite.

Je vous remercie de votre attention.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

A little News: reading, publication, editing...

THANKS!--
It was very exciting to hear from Bob Bishop that this, my personal blog, as well as the Paris Listings one appeared in the Paris Voice site's article "Our Favorite Paris Blogs". Read the article by CLICKING HERE (or cut and paste the link: http://www.parisvoice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=170&Itemid=52

BOOKS RECEIVED:
Minireview of of a good "READ"
(1913 & Tamaas, 2009)
I was thrilled to be handed a copy of READ (A journal of inter-translation, 2007) by Sarah Riggs. READ is like an exciting little black book--or, well, fairly big, in fact black book! This bilingual volume contains the results of the 3rd annual Tamaas-sponsored exciting week of cross-translation, cross-fertilization, play on and between languages, the Read seminar that took place at Reid Hall in Paris, and which concluded with a June reading. This volume, also entitled READ, includes the resulting texts & translations by Pierre Joris, Habib Tengour, Marie Borel, Sarah Riggs, Jean-Jacques Poucel, Frederic Forte, Vincent Broqua and Charles Alexander. And not to say you should really get your hands on this, or well, to say you really MUST get your hands round this, I think the tail end of Pierre Joris' poem Restitution, about stealing a comic book, puts it most accurately:

"...sneak it secretly

into the candy jar
the caramel steal

I never thought of
stealing so did not need

to think of restitution but
the book I'll keep the book" (READ, p 24).

Yes, so shall I (keep this book)! And should you get your hands on a copy of READ via http://www.spdbooks.org/ or else through http://www.journal1913.org/ or http://www.tamaas.org/, you will also want to hold on tight to these pages and read, reread, treasure "the book I'ill keep the book".

Announcing My New & Forthcoming Publications:

Watch for the new issue of ELEKSOGRAPHIA, soon forthcoming (read the current and past issues online at http://ekleksographia.ahadadabooks.com/). In this new issue, guest edited by American poet Alexander Dickow, many of the Paris and the American-Parisian authors you know and love will have works. I am thrilled to be included among them, and in multiple ways:

1) There well be a selection of a few of my own poems from the continuation of the book Enclosure in this issue. (These poems are from the third section of that manuscript still in progress, the first section is what makes up the ebook Enclosures from Blazevox Books available as free pdf).

2) as well as a nice series of translations of Albane Gellé's
Un bruit de verre en elle (the sound of glass inside her, inventaire/invention) In fact, almost all of the translations of this book will have now appeared in print or online!

3) and finally a review of Claude Royet-Journoud's chapbook Kardia (published by
Eric Pesty Editeur, 2009). The review for Eleksographia is in English, although the chapbook is in French.

Action Yes! is an exciting online quarterly magazine linked to the fabulous small press Action Books. This fall they had a call for work and I sent on translations of
Jean-Michel Espitallier's work "58 propositions" which will be appearing at the end of Dec 2009 or in early Jan 2010.

Just finished the next column for Tears in The Fence: so please watch for issue 51, out this winter, including my text: Of Tradition & Experiment III : « Sound Forms in Time », a personal monologue about anthologizing poetic practices of writing lyrically. If you have not had the opportunity to read Tears in the Fence great anniversary issue 50, I am pleased to say that my column "Of Tradition and experiment" that time on "the objet" is included among a really exciting array of other critical and creative work, including poetry by
Todd Swift who has a hilarious image to go with his blogpost about issue 50!

Thinking about my own article in TITF issue 50, entitled Of Tradition & Experiment 2 : The Object in the Poem, it made me think this week about an intriguing new book I saw was just out from Ugly Duckling Presse, Notes on Conceptualisms. Because on Ugly Duckling's publicity page for this most intriguing sounding book by Vanessa Place and Rob Fitterman, Marjorie Perloff is quoted as responding to the authors saying:
"“The problem facing contemporary innovative writing is that having gotten out of the cult of the author, we’re left with either the cult of the performer or the cult of the object, and the object, in order not to be secretly authorial, must be mass-made . . . and the cult of the author is finally and fully replaced by the cult of the authority.” What to do? In their delightful and wise Notes on Conceptualisms, Vanessa Place and Robert Fitterman sketch out some exciting “conceptualist” alternatives, all of them having to do with creation—which is what art is all about..."
This certainly makes me want to give it a read. But of course that is entirely tangential to my trying to do some self-publicity here (so, perhaps buy their book & get a copy of TITF issue 50? To see whether there are any parallel lines? Or don't, but I will!)

I am still waiting to see the next issue of Paris-based magazine, now edited by Barbara Beck, Upstairs at Duroc, in which a few of my translations of Jérôme Mauche will be appearing. Upstairs has been going through the WICE move, and so it has book its old website still out there, but is also attached to WICE at its NEW WEBSITE for Upstairs at Duroc. As you can see, it is still catching up with itself--with samples of writing from issue 1, edited and founded by Dawn Michelle Baude, then issues 2-6, which I edited and sometimes coedited with partners such as Stephanie Condas, then starting with issue 7 Barbara Beck became editor. Samples of work extend through issue 8 for now, but watch for 9-10 issue samples soon. It is Upstairs at Duroc issue 11 which will hit the newsstands in January 2010, and we are all looking forward to another exciting issue of the magazine.

Other forthcoming in a farther off future are translations, which include a series of new prose poems by French poet Albane Gellé (read some of her books: Un bruit de verre en elle or Quelques from Inventaire/invention, or Je, Cheval from éditions Jacques Bremond, 2007) The translations I am doing are of new, as-of-yet unpublished works written for a photography catalogue & show. The photographers will be including recordings of those poems around the artworks, perhaps also placing texts on the walls alongside the work, and all of which will appear in a catalogue due out in the Fall of 2010 (more specifics on that when they are ready!).

Guest editing galore!
It is exciting to read works by others, to delve into all the varied various multifaceted ways in which people write, read, reflect, bring language together. So this fall, as I move a bit out of the PhD phase into wherever it is I am going next, editing for journals has been a huge thrill.

As you know: working with VERSAL Magazine out of Amsterdam, so if you have not sent in work yet, do get cracking as we are barrelling down on the deadling.

Also, I am thrilled to be a tiny part, a cog, in the exciting vast new project which is the "innovative poetry" magazine entitled
CLEAVES JOURNAL. The unique move Manchester author Harry Godwin is making with this journal is having tons of mini-editor selections from various and varied regions around the UK, Europe, & perhaps soon the universe! I kid, there, but it is an interesting idea: he invites editors, and each editor supplies 3-5 pages of poetry from 1-3 authors in their part of the world, then they also select the next "guest editor" who will then select work form that area of the world for the next issue. I am guesting for Paris, and you will all have to watch the review emerge this December to see both who I selected as authors, and who will be representing Paris next! But also, I think we will be seeing, through this process, a really wide range of work from very different sub-areas, esp in the UK. So keep your eye on CLEAVES JOURNAL, and their site (still under construction): http://www.cleavesjournal.com/

Orchestrating is more what I am doing, since French author and performer Anne Kawala gave me "carte blanche" for a
RoToR. I will end up inviting through specific directioning 5 texts and 5 images, by 5 authors but only 1 artist, for the RoToR. More on that as it emerges, but it will be entirely en français!!!! Thus Anne &RoToR are really giving me an opportunity to feel something I am desperately searching for at this stage: a deeper integration into the French creative world, one I play hostess to with Michelle Noteboom and Ivy writers, and one I enjoy as spectator, or write about as critic. But this will be a new kind of involvement, one that is closer, and where I can see how my selections of authors work and work through each other. I am really delighted!!! See RoToR 1 online, and the exchange as the text-words rotated through these authors: http://corner.as.corner.free.fr/rotor1.html

And lastly, I have continued to enjoy doing

My part for writing collaboratives:
First, as part of the rewords blog, now into its 3rd year! My most recent poempost on Rewords is Inhalation Wavelets. It is up at http://rewords.blogspot.com/2009/11/inhalation-wavelets-by-jennifer-k-dick.html

I also participated last month in the exciting
350 poems project. 350 Poems: "The poem is the cry of its occasion". http://350poems.blogspot.com/ This project posting by 24 Oct 2009 (international climate day) 350 poems for the max safe upper limit of 350 CO2 level parts per million in the atmosphere was part of, as they say "over 5200 events in 181 countries, [making] the 24th...the most widespread day of political action in history." My poem is number 178. It was inspired originally, or in some deep rooted way, by writings that used a lot of nature images and which were written by Nate Pritts. He is the editor of the exciting, innovative online magazine H_NGM_N Thanks, Nate, for your poetry!

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Talking about the pages we love...

Sometimes it seems that the words of writers that have come before us LOOM. There is something larger than life, untouchable about certain texts or their authors. For me, this applies to Dante, about whom I cannot write critical work because I feel overshadowed by the accomplishment of the original, daunted, humbled. For others, it is the work of Shakespeare, Joyce, Stein, Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Mallarmé, Baudelaire, Homer, Ovid, Olson--and the list could go on and on--which they are unable to write about.

Thinking of this reminds me of a moment at Mount Holyoke College where I was studying the poetry of Zinnaida Gippius, battling with it. I wrestled with all of the mysteries of it which I felt unable to grapple, to peel open, to see into even enough to write the term paper I was struggling with. I fell into a deep sleep and there she was, in a smokey haze, wearing a tux, leaning back on a wooden barstool, peering at me--as if to say, "Go ahead, ask" And as I shrieked "I just don't understand you!" over and over, one of my hallmates rushed into my room and shook me awake saying I had been yelling that aloud. Who knows, perhaps I did manage in the end to write about the enticing world of Gippius' poems for Joseph Brodsky to scoff at my young reflections on, but more importantly, for me, this was the first in a long series of strangely delightful battles. The work did not deliver itself openly to me. It had to be pried out, re-read, re-examined, questioned, interrogated, slept with.

That reminds me of Harryette Mullen's fabulous title Sleeping With the Dictionary. Doesn't every author, in a way, go to bed with one ear on the massive tome of their thesaurus, their dictionary, their real or imagined OED? As Susan Howe and Dominique Fourcade talked about Emily Dickinson's fascicles in Paris this weekend, they also spoke of her Dictionary. We have an intimate relationship with words as authors, their corporeal being, our desire to give them more physical stature than perhaps others do. As in the photos of Howe here, where it seems that she is reaching not up at a screen to point something out, but back through time to an enlarged version of Johnathan Edwards' manuscripts. She is reaching towards Edwards' time-tattered, world-worn scribbles, into the textured spaces of the paper itself, past projected powerpoint image, colored light, past now, back to the center of some space between two handwritten letters. Can we touch the other, there, between the print?

Is that not, in a way, what reading is about somehow? Contact. Word and space and ourselves not fixed in time but carried through it, forward and back, infinite?

It sometimes feels as if, to me, we can touch the other, the author, there, between their scribbled syllables. Consonant. Vowel. Dashed-off punctuation. We spend so much time reading the words that eventually they blurr, we drift off with them, they carry us out over a seascape, dreamscape, closer and farther to them. Things as we study them, both as scholars and as authors, peel out, open, as if to core, text, to stand before its center, to listen to it so closely that our hearing seems augmented and all sound comes in and then, where there was only confusion, only incapacity to reach the text, there is suddenly a moment, as of a chill rising up our spine, when it seems the entire poem, book, author gives itself to us. Sure, this is illusive. It is temporary, perhaps illusion. But it is like the phrase by Paul Valéry selected to accompany Saturday's talk by Howe and Fourcade at Le Petit Palais: "Une oeuvre d'art devrait toujours nous apprendre que nous n'avions pas vu ce que nous voyons."

I pull out and peruse my notes from the various talks I heard Friday at l'institut du Charles V, caught by the phrases I jotted down: "The flux of drawings challenging the fixity of text" (Antoine Cazé, from 'Susan Howe: TransParencies')"Disruptive energies of this radicalism" and "textual brokenness becomes a motif" (Will Montgomery, 'Susan Howe's Later Lyric'), "Move in closer to the enclosure of words...boundaries/known reference points begin to disappear." and "Explode the book into a space." (Redell Olsen, 'Book parks: scripted enclosures and Susan Howe's spatial poetics')

I left feeling that the material-ness, the material of, the materialism of physical nature of the world--and my, our, these selves--is in flux. The body that is me at one moment is solid. Granite. And then there is a breeze passing through a muslin shift. What of the me, us, solid, remains in that second instant? This, too, is reading--the passing from what I know, see, hear, feel at this moment of reading, to the moment after, when the knowing, seeing, hearing, feeling has shifted. I let go, I point towards. I enter the flow of the gaps which carry me, buoyant, to and fro in these, my languages.

We readers/writers are perhaps in the destruction/construction of history. At least this is something I feel I have learned after many years reading and studying the works of Susan Howe, Myung Mi Kim, Anne-Marie Albiach and Stéphane Mallarmé. I came here for him, and as I worked at the end of my PhD, I--like these accidentally-intriguing pictures I took of Howe--felt I was reaching towards those manuscript pages of Un coup de Dès propped on my desk to an explanation for what connected us as much as to understand the work itself. I was reaching towards the unnammable, unknowable first instant, the second before the sound became, the poem spoke.

But I suppose I should leave off here with some of the phrases from Saturday's talk. Perhaps in a language you speak, perhaps in a language which remains a series of glyphs and signs to be sounded out towards meaning: from the programme of "Autour d'Emily Dickinson. Avec Susan Howe et Dominique Fourcade":

"Les artistes ne perçoivent pas immédiatement toutes les relations au sein d'une oeuvre: ils les sentent.

Là où une pensée se surprendrait au moment de voir.
Là où une pensée s'entendrait voir.

Ces fragments et brouillons à la limite du dessin sont suggestifs, nullement statiques.

Sensation qui se replie sur soi pour rester à sa propre hauteur."
(programme du Petit Palais, le 31 Octobre 2009)

Friday, October 23, 2009

In reverse chronological order...

...the
past
weeks
in
p
h
o
t
o
s.



Last night, to celebrate the exciting publication of Moonlight in Odessa (Bloomsbury, 2009) by Janet Skeslien Charles (pictured here below, right), someone who took my novel/nonfiction workshop a few years back when it was held in the cozy home of Vivienne Vermes, near Montparnasse--Vivienne who is the author of Sand Woman (Rebus, 2000), Metamorphoses (L’Harmattan, 2003) & Passages (L’Harmattan, 2005 in bilingual English-French with co-author Anne Mounic). As for Janet, her first book of fiction is having such exciting success, I couldn't be more thrilled. It goes to show that hard work does pay off!!!

And Clydette & Charles de Groot, longtime friends of Janet's, shared their excitement with the Paris writing & book community by inviting many people over to their gorgeous home to be spoiled silly, drinking champagne in the yellow glow of the base of the Eiffel Tower, gorging ourselves on great conversation in a delightful setting.

Some of those present included Sylvia Whitman from Shakespeare & Co bookstore, who has done so much for Paris and visiting writers over these past years by revamping the bookstore & getting more excellent authors in to read--& where Janet has so generously been teaching a writing workshop (the Evening Writing Workshop) at bargain prices to future book authors for the past few years.
Then novelist & nonfiction author, Jake Lamar, & his wife, Dorli Lamar, a performer/ singer (pictured at right here, with Pamela Shandel in between them) were there, to share stories of other books, out and still forthcoming (Jake has written the memoir Bourgeois Blues & 5 novels: The Last Integrationist, Close to the Bone, If Six Were Nine, Rendezvous Eighteenth & most recently Ghosts of Saint-Michel).

Janet's fellow writing group attendees and writing partners such as Christopher Vanier (another person who took my nonfiction/novel workshop, & therefore who I am really excited will also have a first book Carribean Chemistry: Tales from St Kitts this fall--it is already available for preorder & forthcoming in Dec from Kingston UP. Cozying up deep in conversation were workshop member & alumn Mary Ellen Gallagher & Marie Houzelle as well (pictured below at left here), & Janet's writing partner, Anca Metiu (pictured at top, right, with me in the reflection of the mantel on which Janet's books are sitting). Janet's family members & more friends & fellow authors were also to be spotted lounging about, or chatting with Geneva Writers' Conference organizer, author of 3 memoirs & a book on writing, Susan Tiberghien.

Laurel Zuckerman (author of Rêves barbares du professeur Collie & of Sorbonne Confidential) & Heather Heartley (whose first collection of poetry, Knock, Knock, is forthcoming in 2010 with Carnegie Mellon Press) (pictured above at right with grande piano behind her) were also spotted sipping the bubbly and catching up with old friends, or meeting new ones such as Pamela Shandel (pictured between Jake & Dorli Lamar above right) or Mary R Duncan (author of the memoir Henry Miller is Under My Bed), & who I had just started to get to talk to when the evening began to wind down and we all toppled back out into the cool, autumn night--having missed being rained on, in fact, so that the air was wonderfully crisp, cool & refreshing as we tottered home to--in my case--the opposite end of Paris.

But my week was also spend in much more intimate social settings: such as the delightful dinner by the fireplace at Agnès Vannouvong's with Pascale. Fire-roasted sweet potatoes & steaks with heavy winter wines & bubbly conversation were followed by a nice tropical pineapple for desert.

We talked financing conferences, work, play, books, loved ones, & travel, so swept up in our words I missed the metro and had to catch a cab home, which felt divine, in fact, all winter-comfy, the plush leather of the mercedes. Am I the only one who really enjoys cab rides? "Home, Charles!" :) For me, it is the spoiled sense of just being able to be taken from one place to another, no train rumble and overwhite fluorescent bulbs or that smell of piss which lines the metro corridors in winter, accompanied by the long, rattling coughs of all the smokers now infected with bronchitis. Ah, falling into winter!

But last weekend, too, included a wonderful eve out: to hear Christophe Marchand-Kiss & Anne Kawala read for the first in a series of "Cabaret" Saturdays at a little 18th arrondissement local bar situated at 90 rue Marcadet (the next evening will be 14th Nov--so mark your calendars. Plus, Christophe will be reading with Beverley Bie Brahic for Ivy Writers Paris on the 17th of Nov 2009 at Le Next, 17 rue Tiquetonne, 75002 Paris: so don't miss that, either!).
Both authors performed some of their own work then pieces they do in unison.

After, we sat around with big glasses of Leffe on the thick leather sofas, rotating every once in awhile so that everyone present got to meet & talk to everyone else--from audience members who had made the reading, to some who just joined in later for a drink & chat (such as French & American poets Vannina Maestri, Jacques Sivan, & Jonathan Regier).

The week before that was all recovery from the previous weekend's events in Amsterdam (my workshop & Versal Editors lunch) & Salon des Mots in Utrecht.

Voici, pour terminer, quelques photos de mon weekend au pays-bas!: At right, Me (Jennifer K Dick) reading from Fluorescence and then new work, followed by Rufo Quintavalle shocking my socks off with his long poem which is built off or rather within the first and last letters of the lines of Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, & then a little half of the jazz duo on drums: John Betsch, as well as the duo itself, with Jobic LeMasson on piano. A beautiful night in Utrecht, thanks, as I have said before, to Anna Arov--the hostess, MC, graceful organizer & orchestrator of this splendid night out!!!!

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Proud to be part of Versal Magazine

It has been a wonderful experience this fall to be part of Versal magazine, to be involved, as I currently am, in reading submissions for issue 8, submerged in the reading of poems by writers all over the globe. And to be part of a wonderful group. It was great to go to Amsterdam in Holland last spring and read at the Sugar Factory, and then to return last week to Amsterdam and then to Utrecht to read with the great group of authors and musicians pictured at the left here: me (top left), rufo quintavalle (top right), jobic(next step down, left), anna arov (our fearless MC and organisatrice of Salon des Mots, at right), john betsch (next step down left), amy hollowell (at his right), unknown blonde (sorry, we chatted, but I forget her name, does it start with an M?, and she wasn't performing!!! bottom left) and arturo from Aruba (bottom right). We had a great night of poetry, prose, jazz, wine, conversation, laughter.

It is not easy to make people work together. And when it comes to art, the way people's brains shoot roots out every which way can make teamwork even more difficult. So that is why Versal is surprising me, too--for the group is vey tightly knit, thanks to the efforts of Megan Garr, and the lines of dialogue are open.

I think it is for this reason Versal keeps finding itself lauded for its accomplishments and on its past issues (I know, I was not part of the staff for these, but I am the proud contributor of translations of poems by Albane Gellé in Versal 7). For example, this fall Versal has not only been awarded a Best Of Amsterdam prize, but was just reviewed online at New Pages. Check out what others have to say about the magazine! http://www.newpages.com/magazinestand/litmags/#Versal

Oh, and if you have not yet submitted, you still have a chance. So get on that!!!! (Dust off the ol' manuscripts on the shelf and fling some pages our way!)

We're (and I am) looking forward to reading you!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Evening Time is Reading Time... Utrecht, Holland

My favorite photo from this past weekend's trek to Amsterdam and Utrecht is the one of 2 twin signs along a small road in Utrecht. Attached to...? It appeared to just be a house. And don't we all agree with the inhabitant's message?

It made me feel like getting out an old lantern and curling up on a warm comfy chair with a blanket over me and a big, old, bound book whose spine would creak just a little when I opened it.

Monday, October 05, 2009

The newest Paris readings listing is UP online now, CLICK HERE go directly to the readings Blog. Now with featured prose and poets per month, RSS feed options and more to come as I figure things out.

Also, REWORDS is 2 years old!!! Celebrate with us by posting a poem as a member or as a comment to one of the poems currently up at the site!!! http://rewords.blogspot.com/


I am off to Amsterdam and Utrecht this coming weekend. Hope that you will join me for my Words in Here workshop, or for Lunch, or for the reading and Performance in Utrecht as part of Salon des Mots!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Reading with Salon des Mots, Utrecht, 10 October

Salon des Mots – Saturday, October 10th 2009
at 20h

Atelier de Werkvloer
Brigittenstraat 7
Utrecht, Netherlands

Free entry!
http://www.wordsinhere.com
http://www.atelierdewerkvloer.nl

Salon des Mots is gearing up for the new poetry season at a new location in the heart of Utrecht, Atelier de Werkvloer. Get back to the roots of Salon des Mots, which began 5 years ago in an Oudegracht atelier with poets, performance artists, musicians and guests mingling in the intimate setting of candles, sculptures and paintings! Our new gallery location is the perfect venue for different cultures, languages and genres to mesh resulting in a totally unique poetry show.

First Salon des Mots show is on Saturday, October 10th 2009 and it has a strong Paris presence, with
jazz pianist Jobic Le Masson (FR)
and
percussionist John Betsch (US)
as well as resident poets
Jennifer K. Dick (US/FR),
Amy Hollowell (US/FR),
Rufo Quintavalle (UK/FR)
and
Arubian/Argentinean writer, Arturo Desimone (AW).

Salon des Mots bereidt zich voor op het nieuwe gedichtenseizoen. Om te beginnen hebben we een nieuwe lokatie in het hart van Utrecht, Atelier de Werkvloer! Terug naar de oorsprong van Salon des Mots, vijf jaar geleden begonnen in een atelier aan de Oude Gracht, waar dichters, performers, muzikanten en gasten zich bij kaarslicht verzamelden in een ruimte met beelden en schilderijen. Deze nieuwe galerie is de perfecte locatie waar verschillende culturen, talen en genres samen een unieke voorstelling worden. Onze eerste avond , zaterdag 10 oktober, heeft een sterke ‘presence parisienne’, met jazz pianist Jobic Le Masson (FR), en percussionist John Betsch (US), de dichters Jennifer K Dick (US), Amy Hollowell (US), Rufo Quintavalle (UK) en de Arubaans/Argentijnse schrijver Arturo Desimone (AW).

BIOS:

John Betsch (US) studied percussion at the Berkeley School of Music in Boston and the University of Massachusetts under Max Roach and Archie Shepp. In 1975 he moved to New York City where he played with Roland Alexander, Dewey Redman, Paul Jeffrey Octet, vocalists Jeanne Lee, Abbey Lincoln and the Ted Daniel big band. He toured with Max Roach, Kalaparusha, Abdullah Ibrahim, the Klaus Konig Orchestra and Steve Lacy. Based in Europe since 1985, he participated in recordings and tours with saxophonists Mike Ellis, Hal Singer and Jim Pepper, vocalists Ozay, Jeanne Lee and Annette Lowman, pianists Mal Waldron, Alain Jean-Marie, Claudine Francois, Jobic le Masson and Kirk Lightsey. He has toured Japan with Steve Lacy, Max Waldron, Eric Watson and Michel Sardaby.

Arturo Desimone (1984), a son of refugees, born on the island Aruba but of Argentinean nationality, will recite some poems and snippets of prose. He writes about, among other things, life on Aruba and in Latin America, childhood, memory, liberation struggle and identity. He left school at the age of fifteen but in early adulthood was able to take writing courses at the New School of New York and later on studied world mythology. He has recently emigrated to the Netherlands and has led a nomadic existence.

Jennifer K Dick (US) the author of Fluorescence, Retina/Rétine and ENCLOSURES. A long time resident of France, she is the co-founder of the IVY Writers series and is central to the expatriate literary movement in Paris. She writes regular columns for Tears in the Fence in the UK (on poetry) and EyePreterParis (on artists working in Paris). Jennifer is a diverse poet and a fantastic performer. During her stay in Holland she will be giving a poetry workshop for wordsinhere in Amsterdam. http://jenniferkdick.blogspot.com/

Amy Hollowell is an American poet, essayist, journalist and Zen teacher who lives in Paris. The author of Peneloping (2005) and Down to the Wire: Giacomettrics (2008), her writing has appeared in a number of publications in Europe and the United States, with new work forthcoming in Interim and Lavenderia. She is a former editor of the Paris-based review Pharos and in 2004 she founded the Wild Flower Zen community. Her writing and teaching can be found on the Web at zenscribe.ovh.org.

One of the most exciting new jazz pianists and composers to come out of Paris, Jobic Le Masson (FR), recently released his third album Jobic Le Masson Trio on the prestigious jazz label Enja. Jobic studied and played in the Boston area in the 1980s before returning to Paris. The album is dedicated to the late Andrew Hill who was a great influence along with Thelonious Monk in Jobic’s life and music. John Betsch (drums) and Peter Giron (bass), fellow American expatriates in Paris, are both seasoned musicians. Jobic has strong roots, tons of musicianship and a vision that goes far beyond the prevalent fads. http://jobic.lemasson.free.fr/trioenglish/homeng.html

Rufo Quintavalle was born in London in 1978, studied at Oxford and the University of Iowa and now lives in Paris where he helps edit the literary magazine, Upstairs at Duroc. His work has appeared in The London Magazine, The Wolf, Barrow Street, nthposition and elimae. His chapbook, Make Nothing Happen, is published by Oystercatcher Press.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Artseen: Fahd El Jaoudi's show "Collision"

It is exciting to return to Paris and begin writing on art shows taking place here.

In particular, to discover not only a new, dynamic gallery I was not aware of, e.l Bannwarth, but also a young artist worth watching: Fahd El Jaoudi. Check out the Paris Artseen Fahd El Jaoudi article (number X in the Paris Artseen series, and the first of the 2009-2010 schoolyear season!) which is up online at EyePreferParis:


or


The picture posted here is a detail from the piece entitled "le diable n'apparait qu'à celui qui le craint" (2009). Fahd El Jaoudi's current show, "Collision", continues until 18 Oct 2009.
At: Galerie e.l Bannwarth / 68 rue Julien Lacroix, 20th arr. Métro: Belleville or Couronnes (Ring the bell to be let in through the red gate). Open Tues-Saturday, 14h-19h or by appointment Tel: +33 (0)1 40 33 60 17 http://www.galeriebannwarth.com/

There is a great forthcoming article by Julie Estève on El Jaoudi which will appear in French in Morocco in October in the magazine Diptyk (n°2, to come out mid-Oct)

To read my older Paris Artseen articles (N°s I-IX), go to: http://www.ipreferparis.net/paris-artseen/ and scroll down the page to read them in reverse chronological print order.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Versal is OPEN for submissions!!!

Versal magazine's official call for submissions for issue 8 has gone out! I am very proud to be joining the Versal poetry staff in Amsterdam this year, along with Matthew Saddler in NYC. We will be two of many readers who will peruse your poems! There are also an exciting handful of careful, excited fiction readers impatiently awaiting YOUR texts! So, if you have slaved away this summer, it was not for naught--check out the guidelines and send your work into Versal:

Versal wants your poetry, prose, and art for its eighth issue due out in May 2010. Internationally acclaimed literary annual published in Amsterdam, bringing together the world's urgent, involved & unexpected.

See website for guidelines and to submit:
http://versal.wordsinhere.com

Inquiries (only) can be directed to:
versal@wordsinhere.com

Deadline: January 15, 2010



Please feel free to forward & post this call into your networks. Versal looks forward to reading your work!

For the love of translation II...

Roy Lisker passed this one on! From Monet's garden:

Saturday, September 12, 2009

A break for pop culture..."Vampire Diaries" reviewed

"NEXT!!!!!" --That is what I would have yelled out till my lungs turned blue, and with a roll of my eyes, had The Vampire Diaries, the new CWtv show vampire fans have been awaiting with baited breath, been someone auditioning for a key part in a new play. In Vampire Diaries episode one, a Gossip-girls vacuity and prettiness are paired with even worse acting. Sure, they're eyecandy when sitting still, but their bodies have a stiffness and their faces an expressionlessness that's without mystery or any sensuality.

This is perhaps not entirely their fault, as I get the sense that those behind the camera are leading this frenzied bag of badness with a tight grip. The bizarre forced camera cuts are almost a comic echo of the jerky movement between storyscenes. Unlike Trueblood's masterfull baiting of the viewer, this program establishes all the bases for what is to come, leaving us little to chase after or think about on our own. And the journal fluff, especially that oh so reading in tandem? I might suppose this show is striving to look like some after school special for vampires who will behave! Finally, as if to cover up the bad acting, characters, and narrative choices, a dominating soundtrack deafened this pilot episode. Was there a behind-the-scenes debate going on about whether the idea was to make a series of linked rock videos or a TV show?

And I write this review when I am the ideal candidate for loving this program: A vampire junkie since reading Bram Stoker way back when in high school. A Buffy adorator--and though I should not admit this, I even own the entire, cheesier, Angel series: fun to rewatch on lonely winter nights. I read all the Stephanie Meyer books (despite the terrible editing job on such a bestseller) before seeing Twilight on opening day here in Paris (with every teen out of school that afternoon!). But when it comes to TV vampire drama, even the quickly cut from production Moonlight had more excitement.

In short, this first episode of Vampire Diaries left me sadly disappointed. What's more, many other reviews strike me as peculiarly undemanding of the show, and have startled me with their flattery. Don't be fooled, even if "everyone" feels like they should say they like this 9021-OH-Vamp show, the hype is goning to fade fast. After all, make-up runs in ugly streaks under heat like the one that will be needed to keep up a facade of greatness when there is no substance behind the curtain.


On a positive point, this new show's vamp teeth choice. Nice special effect work there! Solid, animal, natural looking fangs one could expect to bite deeply into our awaiting necks. Alas, my neck is exposed but their the fangs just aren't able to get close enough for me to get my heart flip-flopping as I await next week. If I am out and miss episide two, well, tant pis.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Forthcoming Writing Workshop in Amsterdam

I will be off to Amsterdam again with the Words In Here folks this October! If you are interested in signing up for one of their "master classes" workshops, or the one I am going to teach, the full program is online at http://www.wordsinhere.com/ and below is info on my workshop in particular. Sign up now to get a spot!!!

Registration deadline: Wednesday, September 16 2009
Open house to find out more this weekend at:
The English Bookshop,
Lauriergracht 71
Amsterdam
3 MASTER CLASSES are offered this fall as part of the program "WORKSHOP: Practical tools for mastering your craft".
Program & Registration Fall 2009:
I) Poetry: A Work in Progress with Kate Foley
II) Writing Memory: Into the Poem, Flash Fiction or Multi-Genre Works with Jennifer K Dick
III) Short Fiction Putting on the Polish with Michele Hutchinson
These workshops have been developed specifically for the writer who is ready to hone and develop his/her skills further, or who is on the verge of submitting work for publication. All of our teachers are dedicated to creating an open, relaxed atmosphere to explore the possibilities of your work and the opportunities that await it. Cost: €150, €135 (CJP/students/65+)
All workshops are spread over two days .
My course:

Writing Memory: Into the Poem, Flash Fiction or Multi-Genre works
Friday, 9 October, 19h00 – 22h00; and Sunday, 11 October, 12h00 – 17h30
This workshop will explore the variegated ways of putting our selves as re-membered onto the page—that is, not just our memories but how the formal (be that collaged, rhythmed, or as a tale) ways we put memories into writing reaches beyond us, remakes us, and our imagined alter-egos, in the writing. We will make use of old letters/emails/blog entries, journals, scrapbooks (if you desire), photos, and the memories we often hide. Exercises will focus first on exploring narrative (aspects of storytelling in poetry and short prose and how line break plays into that), then on formal meter and prose rhythm as a way to reflect and echo sounds and thus pasts. Finally, we will move into an exploration of more radical forms of collaged, postmodern even mixed genre work. In our 3 short days together, you will end up writing a series of small memoir works in either poetry or prose, and perhaps work towards or even complete a longer piece. You will certainly leave with a handful of tools, ideas and techniques you can maneuver in your own ways when you return to work on your prose or poetry after this workshop. Writers we’ll look at include Michael Oondaatje, Claudia Rankine, Eleni Sikilianos, Marilyn Hacker, Joan Retallack, Lyn Hejinian, Truong Tran, Laura Mullen, Czeslaw Milosz, Bhanu Kapil, Susan Howe, Arthur Sze, Myung Mi Kim, Brenda Hillman, Douglas Oliver, Alice Notley and a variety of texts from the Chain magazine Memoir and Letters issues. I hope you will all enjoy trying out some new methods for tackling old experiences. Please bring either a few old letters/emails, a journal/set of blog posts or scrapbook as base materials to the first course. This workshop is aimed at all writers, writing at any level, but is especially useful for those midway through a first or second book, or those who feel stuck and like they need to stretch their perspectives of what they can do in language at this point. This workshop is led by Jennifer K. Dick.

HOW TO REGISTER
Complete the form at The English Bookshop at Lauriergracht 71, 1016 RH Amsterdam before Wednesday, September 16.
OR register online at:
www.wordsinhere.com/register.html
Payment can be made at The English Bookshop through cash or PIN, or can be made by bank transfer.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

For the love of translation...


This was one of only a few zillion of my favorites... from Skala Eressos, a village on the coast of Lesbos island in Greece.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Back to Paris... things happening:


Jeudi 17 septembre à 20h
Soirée de lancement
http://poete-public.blogspot.com/

"Frédéric Forte vous présentera son travail
et le projet que nous avons imaginé ensemble.
La soirée se terminera autour d’un verre
comme il se doit au Comptoir des mots !"
-- Librairie Le Comptoir des mots
239, rue des Pyrénées
75020 Paris - M°Gambetta
01 47 97 65 40 -
librairie@lecomptoirdesmots.fr


I plan to be there to celebrate Fred's new résidence and the exciting series of dialogues between authors and editors which he will be mediating monthly on the final Weds of each month at the bookstore Les Comptoir des Mots, starting with an event the 30th of this month! See the listings at http://parisreadingsmonthlylisting.blogspot.com/ for more on that and other events. See you the 17th?