Monday, December 26, 2005
inklings of linkings
Adding links was tricky as they weren't already part of my default template, and I'm slightly blogtarded... anyway, please check out the sidebar! Neat lit peeps and friends within, long overdue.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
It's been suggested one should make odd rules and follow them in an attempt to create experimental poetry. Can you posit a keycode?
(Or starting line from which - ? )
.
e
le.
. ble.
l. k able. e
ll. 't ck r eable.. ve
! all y n u. n't ack ur zeable g. t. ave
H! mall ay an ou. an't rack our izeable gg I. at. ave
HO! small gay man you. can't crack your sizeable egg I. A hat. have
II.
.tah a evaH .gge elbaezis ruoy kcarc t'nac I .nam yag llams uoy !HO
tah vaH gge lbaezis uoy carc 'nac nam ag lams oy HO
ah aH ge baezis oy arc 'ac am g ams y O
h H e aezis y rc 'c m ms
ezis c s
zis
is
s
.
e
le.
. ble.
l. k able. e
ll. 't ck r eable.. ve
! all y n u. n't ack ur zeable g. t. ave
H! mall ay an ou. an't rack our izeable gg I. at. ave
HO! small gay man you. can't crack your sizeable egg I. A hat. have
II.
.tah a evaH .gge elbaezis ruoy kcarc t'nac I .nam yag llams uoy !HO
tah vaH gge lbaezis uoy carc 'nac nam ag lams oy HO
ah aH ge baezis oy arc 'ac am g ams y O
h H e aezis y rc 'c m ms
ezis c s
zis
is
s
Shittr! Alfred Jarry on Wikipedia
Have heard online encyclopedia Wikipedia is full of shite; have also read it's found to be as accurate as others, which is also scary when amongst 'others' cited sits Britannica. Is this the real Alfred Jarry? Either way, it's amusing! This, lifted from Wikipedia:
Alfred Jarry (September 8, 1873 – November 1, 1907) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side, a fact which would have a profound impact on some of his writings.
Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the theatre of the absurd, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature. Sometimes grotesque or misunderstood (i.e. the opening line in his play Ubu Roi, "Merdre!", ably translated into English by Barbara Wright as "Shittr!"), he invented a science called 'pataphysics.
Biography and works
A precociously brilliant student, Jarry enthralled his classmates with a gift for pranks and troublemaking.
At the lycée in Rennes when he was 15, he led of a group of boys who devoted much time and energy to poking fun at their well-meaning, obese and incompetent physics teacher, a man named Hébert. Jarry and classmate Charles Morin wrote a play they called Les Polonais and performed it with marionettes in the home of one of their friends. The main character, Père Heb, was a blunderer with a huge belly; three teeth (one of stone, one of iron, and one of wood); a single, retractable ear; and a mishapen body. In Jarry's later work Ubu Roi, Père Heb would develop into Ubu, one of the most monstrous and astonishing characters in French literature.
At 17, Jarry passed his baccalauréat and moved to Paris to prepare for admission to the École Normale Supérieure. Though he was not admitted, he soon gained attention for his original poems and prose-poems. A collection of his work, Les minutes de sable mémorial, was published in 1893.
That same year, both his parents died, leaving him a small inheritance which he quickly spent.
Jarry had meantime discovered the pleasures of alcohol, which he called "my sacred herb" or, when referring to absinthe, the "green goddess". A story is told that he once painted his face green and rode through town on his bicycle in its honour (and possibly under its influence).
Drafted into the army in 1894, his gift for turning notions upside down defeated attempts to instill military discipline. The sight of the small man in a uniform much too large for his less than 5-foot frame—the army did not issue uniforms small enough—was so disruptively funny that he was excused from parades and marching drills. Eventually the army discharged him for medical reasons. His military experience eventually inspired the novel, Days and Nights.
Jarry returned to Paris and applied himself to drinking, writing, and the company of friends who appreciated his witty, sweet-tempered, and unpredictable conversation.
The spring of 1896 saw the publication, in Paul Fort's review Le Livre d'art, of Jarry's 5-act play Ubu Roi—the rewritten and expanded Les Polonais of his school days. Ubu Roi's savage humor and monstrous absurdity, unlike anything thus far performed in French theater, seemed unlikely to ever actually be performed on stage. However, impetuous theater director Aurélien-Marie Lugné-Poe took the risk, producing the play at his Théâtre de l'Oeuvre.
On opening night (December 11, 1896), with traditionalists and the avant-garde in the audience, King Ubu (played by Firmin Gémier) stepped forward and intoned the opening word, "Merdre!" ("Shittr!"). A quarter of an hour of pandemonium ensued: outraged cries, booing, and whistling by the offended parties, countered by cheers and applause by the more forward-thinking contingent. Such interruptions continued through the evening. At the time, only the dress rehearsal and opening night performance were held, and the play was not revived until 1907.
The play brought fame to the 23-year-old Jarry, and he immersed himself in the fiction he had created. Gémier had modeled his portrayal of Ubu on Jarry's own staccato, nasal vocal delivery, which emphasized each syllable (even the silent ones). From then on, Jarry would always speak in this style. He adopted Ubu's ridiculous and pedantic figures of speech; for example, he referred to himself using the royal we, and called the wind "that which blows" and the bicycle he rode everywhere "that which rolls".
Jarry moved into a flat which the landlord had made by horizontally dividing one flat into two. He could just manage to stand up in the place, but guests had to bend or crouch. Jarry took to carrying a loaded pistol. In response to a neighbor's complaint that his target shooting endangered her children, he replied, "If that should ever happen, ma-da-me, we should ourselves be happy to get new ones with you" (though he was not at all inclined to engage with females in the manner implied).
Living in worsening poverty, neglecting his health, and drinking excessively, Jarry went on to write the novel, The Supermale, which is partly a satire on the Symbolist ideal of self-transcendence.
Unpublished until after his death, his fiction Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician (Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien) describes the exploits and teachings of a sort of antiphilosopher who, born at age 63, travels through a hallucinatory Paris in a sieve and subscribes to the tenets of 'pataphysics. 'Pataphysics deals with "the laws which govern exceptions and will explain the universe supplementary to this one". In 'pataphysics, every event in the universe is accepted as an extraordinary event.
Jarry once wrote, expressing some of the bizarre logic of 'pataphysics, "If you let a coin fall and it falls, the next time it is just by an infinite coincidence that it will fall again the same way; hundreds of other coins on other hands will follow this pattern in an infinitely unimaginable fashion".
In his final years, he was a legendary and heroic figure to some of the young writers and artists in Paris. Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, and Max Jacob sought him out in his truncated apartment. After his death, Pablo Picasso, fascinated with Jarry, acquired his pistol and wore it on his nocturnal expeditions in Paris, and later bought many of his manuscripts as well as executing a fine drawing of him.
Jarry lived in his 'pataphysical world until his death in Paris on November 1, 1907 of tuberculosis, aggravated by drug and alcohol use. It is recorded that his last request was for a toothpick. He was interred in the Cimetière de Bagneux, near Paris.
Alfred Jarry (September 8, 1873 – November 1, 1907) was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side, a fact which would have a profound impact on some of his writings.
Best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896), which is often cited as a forerunner to the theatre of the absurd, Jarry wrote in a variety of genres and styles. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative journalism. His texts present some pioneering work in the field of absurdist literature. Sometimes grotesque or misunderstood (i.e. the opening line in his play Ubu Roi, "Merdre!", ably translated into English by Barbara Wright as "Shittr!"), he invented a science called 'pataphysics.
Biography and works
A precociously brilliant student, Jarry enthralled his classmates with a gift for pranks and troublemaking.
At the lycée in Rennes when he was 15, he led of a group of boys who devoted much time and energy to poking fun at their well-meaning, obese and incompetent physics teacher, a man named Hébert. Jarry and classmate Charles Morin wrote a play they called Les Polonais and performed it with marionettes in the home of one of their friends. The main character, Père Heb, was a blunderer with a huge belly; three teeth (one of stone, one of iron, and one of wood); a single, retractable ear; and a mishapen body. In Jarry's later work Ubu Roi, Père Heb would develop into Ubu, one of the most monstrous and astonishing characters in French literature.
At 17, Jarry passed his baccalauréat and moved to Paris to prepare for admission to the École Normale Supérieure. Though he was not admitted, he soon gained attention for his original poems and prose-poems. A collection of his work, Les minutes de sable mémorial, was published in 1893.
That same year, both his parents died, leaving him a small inheritance which he quickly spent.
Jarry had meantime discovered the pleasures of alcohol, which he called "my sacred herb" or, when referring to absinthe, the "green goddess". A story is told that he once painted his face green and rode through town on his bicycle in its honour (and possibly under its influence).
Drafted into the army in 1894, his gift for turning notions upside down defeated attempts to instill military discipline. The sight of the small man in a uniform much too large for his less than 5-foot frame—the army did not issue uniforms small enough—was so disruptively funny that he was excused from parades and marching drills. Eventually the army discharged him for medical reasons. His military experience eventually inspired the novel, Days and Nights.
Jarry returned to Paris and applied himself to drinking, writing, and the company of friends who appreciated his witty, sweet-tempered, and unpredictable conversation.
The spring of 1896 saw the publication, in Paul Fort's review Le Livre d'art, of Jarry's 5-act play Ubu Roi—the rewritten and expanded Les Polonais of his school days. Ubu Roi's savage humor and monstrous absurdity, unlike anything thus far performed in French theater, seemed unlikely to ever actually be performed on stage. However, impetuous theater director Aurélien-Marie Lugné-Poe took the risk, producing the play at his Théâtre de l'Oeuvre.
On opening night (December 11, 1896), with traditionalists and the avant-garde in the audience, King Ubu (played by Firmin Gémier) stepped forward and intoned the opening word, "Merdre!" ("Shittr!"). A quarter of an hour of pandemonium ensued: outraged cries, booing, and whistling by the offended parties, countered by cheers and applause by the more forward-thinking contingent. Such interruptions continued through the evening. At the time, only the dress rehearsal and opening night performance were held, and the play was not revived until 1907.
The play brought fame to the 23-year-old Jarry, and he immersed himself in the fiction he had created. Gémier had modeled his portrayal of Ubu on Jarry's own staccato, nasal vocal delivery, which emphasized each syllable (even the silent ones). From then on, Jarry would always speak in this style. He adopted Ubu's ridiculous and pedantic figures of speech; for example, he referred to himself using the royal we, and called the wind "that which blows" and the bicycle he rode everywhere "that which rolls".
Jarry moved into a flat which the landlord had made by horizontally dividing one flat into two. He could just manage to stand up in the place, but guests had to bend or crouch. Jarry took to carrying a loaded pistol. In response to a neighbor's complaint that his target shooting endangered her children, he replied, "If that should ever happen, ma-da-me, we should ourselves be happy to get new ones with you" (though he was not at all inclined to engage with females in the manner implied).
Living in worsening poverty, neglecting his health, and drinking excessively, Jarry went on to write the novel, The Supermale, which is partly a satire on the Symbolist ideal of self-transcendence.
Unpublished until after his death, his fiction Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, pataphysician (Gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll, pataphysicien) describes the exploits and teachings of a sort of antiphilosopher who, born at age 63, travels through a hallucinatory Paris in a sieve and subscribes to the tenets of 'pataphysics. 'Pataphysics deals with "the laws which govern exceptions and will explain the universe supplementary to this one". In 'pataphysics, every event in the universe is accepted as an extraordinary event.
Jarry once wrote, expressing some of the bizarre logic of 'pataphysics, "If you let a coin fall and it falls, the next time it is just by an infinite coincidence that it will fall again the same way; hundreds of other coins on other hands will follow this pattern in an infinitely unimaginable fashion".
In his final years, he was a legendary and heroic figure to some of the young writers and artists in Paris. Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, and Max Jacob sought him out in his truncated apartment. After his death, Pablo Picasso, fascinated with Jarry, acquired his pistol and wore it on his nocturnal expeditions in Paris, and later bought many of his manuscripts as well as executing a fine drawing of him.
Jarry lived in his 'pataphysical world until his death in Paris on November 1, 1907 of tuberculosis, aggravated by drug and alcohol use. It is recorded that his last request was for a toothpick. He was interred in the Cimetière de Bagneux, near Paris.
Friday, December 09, 2005
filling Station
Check out this website to see what's appearing in the latest issue... good stuff!!
http://fillingstation.ca/
http://fillingstation.ca/
Two Short Reviews: Bateman & Wilson
Dearst whomever,
Here are a couple of reviews as published in Calgary's local street weekly, Fast Forward. While both are intended to be positive on the whole, I've gotten quite a bit of flack from a certain local poetess who felt my review just wasn't glowing enough. (Yes, Sheri-D, not Bateman - sheesh! :) ) Good thing I didn't write what I was originally going to, or she might have sent someone to break my legs! I haven't been condescended to so badly since I was five and rode my bicycle into a lady by accident. Well, sorry to both of you ladies I've either literally or figuratively crashed into. Still, these were written for a certain audience, a mainly young, Fast Forward-reading, mostly non-poet audience, which perhaps ought to be considered. No matter who's reading, though, I stand by the fact that Wilson's poems on the page, for me at least, couldn't stand on their own at all until I heard her read. But after hearing Wilson read, one can at least tell what she's trying to do, whether one likes the results or not. 'Nough said. And, I also assert again that both book and CD are certainly worth checking out if you're into spoken word, thus encouraging people to buy both.
Anyhow, those reviews:
Invisible Foreground by
David Bateman
ISBN 1-897181-78-7
Frontenac House 2005
Poet, playwright, and bona fide Doctor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary, multi-talented David Bateman recently won over The New Gallery at his excellent one-man-show Lotus Blossom Special. A glorious chameleon on page or stage, he tries on as many styles and forms of poetry in Invisible Foreground as he does costumes in his individualized spoof of Madame Butterfly.
Invisible Foreground is as balanced as a practiced set of gams in highheels. You laugh, you cry, you console yourself with Haagen Das. Different line lengths, stanza sizes, concepts, and a terrific instinct for line rhythm in both performance poems as well as page poems, all pieces complement one another rather than clash. Bateman’s creative works, through self-representation, lovingly address the similar joys and difficulties of an entire generation of closet outcomers who, if they dared so much as rattle hangers, faced even more homophobia years back than today.
Still, Bateman rarely makes specific cases for political action. Instead, he bravely opens himself up, through his art, to hurled flak or flowers, confessional and earnest as hell but with the dark protective edges of one whose very subject matter has prepared him to defend the publication of it.
In Storey and a Half, Bateman shows how to blueprint the ephemeral sense of one’s life between lines of the actual. Try applying today’s insight to memory’s cue images: “I lost my mind in these tyrannous locations / there was a white leatherette rocker / furniture was like countries to me then”.
Then Bateman launches into a humourous take on Elvis / Elvis paraphernalia sightings so we know it won’t all be heavy, but are still assured he might return to weightier subject matter. Order of presentation in a classic book can be as important as order of presentation in a classic album, setting reader’s expectation how Patsy Cline sets listener’s mood. We are thus prepared for Bateman’s poetry to dance between lighthearted observation and depth as different types of lover’s touches for the mind: Calgary airport begins “I like to go to the airport / check into Swiss Chalet…” and goes into one of Bateman’s spirited, magic interpretations of the usual commonplace.
In a poem like Terrain, however, Bateman reaches beneath the ribcage for startling observations on hard experiences. Of going to the funeral of a former lover, he writes, “…the big stone parlour, / like a large suburban home / imperfect, glistening, strange”. In Stark insane voice on some liminal horizon, the poet posits that experiences varying in depth affect one’s capacity of love.
Irony and synecdoche, or symbolism, are Bateman’s light and dark sinewy threads for sewing together narrative voice into a radiant living scarf, fabric as liable to choke you up as to feel you up. A poetry of extreme originality, intense muscle, dropdead honesty, tender titillation and gorgeous eclectic imagery, it will linger on the skin of all your senses til it sinks in for good.
-----------
-----------
Re:view: Re: Zoom by Sheri-D Wilson
ISBN 1-897181-77-9
Frontenac House 2005
Saying that Sheri-D Wilson is better with music is like saying her friend and consistent backer, Jann Arden, is better with music. What do you mean, you ask; after all, Jann IS music. Well, same applies to Sheri-D. Listening to her excellent CD of five years previous, Sweet Taste of Lightning, you can’t help but wonder where the disc is for her latest book, Re:Zoom. Wilson virgins reading her verse accompanied by page silence is like finding the liner notes for music you’ve never heard – and, if you’re not familiar with it, not even knowing what genre you’re looking at, since the booklet’s shaped like a travel brochure or some other misleadingly familiar shape. (Such is spoken word poetry in page-poetry book form). Or it’s listening to television, seeing radio, smelling film. Okay, enough, I made my point; Sheri-D on paper alone just doesn’t feel right
Not having heard Sheri-D aloud, she may seem too rhymey without reason in book form. Lightning-sweetness sours, Between Lovers stays in the bedroom, Bull’s Whip and Lamb’s Wool to miss targets of thigh and eyeball, Swerve hits a curb and Girl’s Guide to Giving Head, well, good thing instinct instructs. Why have critics dubbed Sheri-D the high priestess of performance, the Mama of Dada, and Susan Ellis called her the post-hippie pre-Gen-X “action poet with roots in improvisational theatre”, practicing “jazzoetry style and poem-o-logue form”? These all jive like buzzwords when the page doesn’t ring.
Re:rejoice in blue hat bill, a cute tribute to poet bill bissett, carries its own on the page. Re:Connecting the Dots shows Wilson can communicate true honesty and tenderness, sans insulating humour and sexualized pouncing, to treat a personal story about meeting a Spanish boy when she was a girl traveling through Spain. Re:The Crime Fighter and the Lover is the best example of a jazz poem in this collection, paying homage to her schooldaze in Naropa, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Still, it’s Bertolucci perfume.
But wait! Pick up a copy of Wilson’s CD, Sweet Taste of Lightning, or get out to one of her live shows. With her voice in your head, undulating supernaturally up and down a fretboard towards spectrum ends like accompanying electric guitar, becoming electric guitar, Re:Zoom sings, rather than reads, in a whole new octave. One can respect more than the occasional interesting metaphor, as per “May spring bring / sundial on rotary phone”, (from Re:call Five Old Biddies On a Fifty) or “Wrought iron shapes / cast their shadow / a filigree dress / across her skin” (from Re:visionist Balcony). Suddenly the phrasing’s casing makes sense as framing, bass and drums that beat ba-dum the song along ka-plong and keep beep beep together.
Speaking of casing, I got a case of that Sheri-D onomatopoeic naming, punnified Dada-Mamafied rhymeword-gaming. Gotta go but let’s not miss the show: Sheri-D Wilson hosts her Spoken Word Festival this season, you know.
Here are a couple of reviews as published in Calgary's local street weekly, Fast Forward. While both are intended to be positive on the whole, I've gotten quite a bit of flack from a certain local poetess who felt my review just wasn't glowing enough. (Yes, Sheri-D, not Bateman - sheesh! :) ) Good thing I didn't write what I was originally going to, or she might have sent someone to break my legs! I haven't been condescended to so badly since I was five and rode my bicycle into a lady by accident. Well, sorry to both of you ladies I've either literally or figuratively crashed into. Still, these were written for a certain audience, a mainly young, Fast Forward-reading, mostly non-poet audience, which perhaps ought to be considered. No matter who's reading, though, I stand by the fact that Wilson's poems on the page, for me at least, couldn't stand on their own at all until I heard her read. But after hearing Wilson read, one can at least tell what she's trying to do, whether one likes the results or not. 'Nough said. And, I also assert again that both book and CD are certainly worth checking out if you're into spoken word, thus encouraging people to buy both.
Anyhow, those reviews:
Invisible Foreground by
David Bateman
ISBN 1-897181-78-7
Frontenac House 2005
Poet, playwright, and bona fide Doctor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary, multi-talented David Bateman recently won over The New Gallery at his excellent one-man-show Lotus Blossom Special. A glorious chameleon on page or stage, he tries on as many styles and forms of poetry in Invisible Foreground as he does costumes in his individualized spoof of Madame Butterfly.
Invisible Foreground is as balanced as a practiced set of gams in highheels. You laugh, you cry, you console yourself with Haagen Das. Different line lengths, stanza sizes, concepts, and a terrific instinct for line rhythm in both performance poems as well as page poems, all pieces complement one another rather than clash. Bateman’s creative works, through self-representation, lovingly address the similar joys and difficulties of an entire generation of closet outcomers who, if they dared so much as rattle hangers, faced even more homophobia years back than today.
Still, Bateman rarely makes specific cases for political action. Instead, he bravely opens himself up, through his art, to hurled flak or flowers, confessional and earnest as hell but with the dark protective edges of one whose very subject matter has prepared him to defend the publication of it.
In Storey and a Half, Bateman shows how to blueprint the ephemeral sense of one’s life between lines of the actual. Try applying today’s insight to memory’s cue images: “I lost my mind in these tyrannous locations / there was a white leatherette rocker / furniture was like countries to me then”.
Then Bateman launches into a humourous take on Elvis / Elvis paraphernalia sightings so we know it won’t all be heavy, but are still assured he might return to weightier subject matter. Order of presentation in a classic book can be as important as order of presentation in a classic album, setting reader’s expectation how Patsy Cline sets listener’s mood. We are thus prepared for Bateman’s poetry to dance between lighthearted observation and depth as different types of lover’s touches for the mind: Calgary airport begins “I like to go to the airport / check into Swiss Chalet…” and goes into one of Bateman’s spirited, magic interpretations of the usual commonplace.
In a poem like Terrain, however, Bateman reaches beneath the ribcage for startling observations on hard experiences. Of going to the funeral of a former lover, he writes, “…the big stone parlour, / like a large suburban home / imperfect, glistening, strange”. In Stark insane voice on some liminal horizon, the poet posits that experiences varying in depth affect one’s capacity of love.
Irony and synecdoche, or symbolism, are Bateman’s light and dark sinewy threads for sewing together narrative voice into a radiant living scarf, fabric as liable to choke you up as to feel you up. A poetry of extreme originality, intense muscle, dropdead honesty, tender titillation and gorgeous eclectic imagery, it will linger on the skin of all your senses til it sinks in for good.
-----------
-----------
Re:view: Re: Zoom by Sheri-D Wilson
ISBN 1-897181-77-9
Frontenac House 2005
Saying that Sheri-D Wilson is better with music is like saying her friend and consistent backer, Jann Arden, is better with music. What do you mean, you ask; after all, Jann IS music. Well, same applies to Sheri-D. Listening to her excellent CD of five years previous, Sweet Taste of Lightning, you can’t help but wonder where the disc is for her latest book, Re:Zoom. Wilson virgins reading her verse accompanied by page silence is like finding the liner notes for music you’ve never heard – and, if you’re not familiar with it, not even knowing what genre you’re looking at, since the booklet’s shaped like a travel brochure or some other misleadingly familiar shape. (Such is spoken word poetry in page-poetry book form). Or it’s listening to television, seeing radio, smelling film. Okay, enough, I made my point; Sheri-D on paper alone just doesn’t feel right
Not having heard Sheri-D aloud, she may seem too rhymey without reason in book form. Lightning-sweetness sours, Between Lovers stays in the bedroom, Bull’s Whip and Lamb’s Wool to miss targets of thigh and eyeball, Swerve hits a curb and Girl’s Guide to Giving Head, well, good thing instinct instructs. Why have critics dubbed Sheri-D the high priestess of performance, the Mama of Dada, and Susan Ellis called her the post-hippie pre-Gen-X “action poet with roots in improvisational theatre”, practicing “jazzoetry style and poem-o-logue form”? These all jive like buzzwords when the page doesn’t ring.
Re:rejoice in blue hat bill, a cute tribute to poet bill bissett, carries its own on the page. Re:Connecting the Dots shows Wilson can communicate true honesty and tenderness, sans insulating humour and sexualized pouncing, to treat a personal story about meeting a Spanish boy when she was a girl traveling through Spain. Re:The Crime Fighter and the Lover is the best example of a jazz poem in this collection, paying homage to her schooldaze in Naropa, the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Still, it’s Bertolucci perfume.
But wait! Pick up a copy of Wilson’s CD, Sweet Taste of Lightning, or get out to one of her live shows. With her voice in your head, undulating supernaturally up and down a fretboard towards spectrum ends like accompanying electric guitar, becoming electric guitar, Re:Zoom sings, rather than reads, in a whole new octave. One can respect more than the occasional interesting metaphor, as per “May spring bring / sundial on rotary phone”, (from Re:call Five Old Biddies On a Fifty) or “Wrought iron shapes / cast their shadow / a filigree dress / across her skin” (from Re:visionist Balcony). Suddenly the phrasing’s casing makes sense as framing, bass and drums that beat ba-dum the song along ka-plong and keep beep beep together.
Speaking of casing, I got a case of that Sheri-D onomatopoeic naming, punnified Dada-Mamafied rhymeword-gaming. Gotta go but let’s not miss the show: Sheri-D Wilson hosts her Spoken Word Festival this season, you know.
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