the birds!

Recipes for Disaster

1.

Just to hear how it clankers
I left the trace of my hand in all
I set alight and left to settle.
Dishes, unashamedly gristle
Sesame, jealousy. Tap, deglaze
Using a sieve I pulverised them.
I am sad for these lukewarm
Whisk, tap, deglaze, whisk.
Once I clarify these melons
I took half the tomatoes and
And striving to pour myself
I did. I thought hard about poppies
It is all over for them.
I mixed whisky and pigeons.

2.

Get closer and rub
Stars and passing custom.
Shift the clean work surfaces
The hatches to the
Pear and stilton salad or
Or be bullied into battening
Your face in it, perhaps it
It’s nice to have walls in your
Grease spots, adapted recipes
Just to hear how it clankers.
But at the end of the night
Kitchen, for instance to cover in
And not always burn your arms
Would be nice to leave

by JW, after the recipes of AO

indexical card

dr dr - DRAFT 3

MEDICAL QUESTIONNAIRE
STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

State if you have suffered from any of the following:

Tuberculosis NO
A detached voice YES/NO
Fainting or Migraine YES/NO
Blood Coughing NO
Proper names NO
Compulsion to make up stories YES/NO
Coughing or hoarseness YES/NO
Sciatica, of long duration NO
An unholy din YES/NO
An empire of crime YES

Is any investigation pending?
If so please specify I LOST MY VISION IN A PROVINCIAL STATION AND NOW I OBSERVE IT THROUGH FIELD GLASSES. I AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

Have you suffered an injury?
If so state when and how THE ABUSE OF POWER HAS LITERALLY COST ME AN ARM AND A LEG. THIS WAS MANY YEARS AGO NOW. WITH MY WRITING HAND I STRIKE AND STRIKE OUT.

Are you at present on any form of treatment or medical advice?
If so please specify GIVE UP. DON’T GIVE UP. GIVE UP. DON’T GIVE UP. I SELF-MEDICATE BY EATING, SHITTING AND SINGING.

Have you had any specialist advice in the last two years? GET BEHIND VELVET DRAPES. STUMBLE SOFTLY FROM WALL TO WALL. MY GASTROENTOROLOGIST PREDICTED A DIRE SWING TO THE RIGHT BUT I THOUGHT HE WAS STILL JOKING.

Have you lost any time through illness or injury in the past three years?
If so, for what and for how long I HAVE LOST EVERYTHING. WHY DO YOU THINK I AM APPLYING FOR THIS JOB? DO YOU THINK IT IS FOR MY HEALTH?

Do you feel in good health? IS ELIMINATIVE MATERIALISM REALLY SUCH A DIFFICULT CONCEPT? LET ME ANSWER THAT, YES. I STRUGGLE TO FOLD DOWN WINDBLOWN MAPS , LET ALONE HUMANITY.

Have any of your relatives suffered from any of the complaints listed above?
If so, please state which and the relationship of the person to you IF BY COMPLAINT YOU MEAN COMPLICATION AND BY COMPLICATION YOU MEAN EXISTING THEN ALL OF THEM. START FROM HERE: ADRENAL HORMONES SUCH AS GLUTOCORTICOIDS INCREASE WITH STRESS AND DEPRIVATION, AND SUPPRESS NEUROGENESIS IN RATS. NOW RUIN THE TOWN HALL.

How much do you smoke per day? THAT IS A GOOD QUESTION.

Postcards

Tongue Sound Poem

I'm trying to put in a link to a sound poem I made but not sure if this will work. Try here

Canaries in Colour, the Opera. Part 1.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

PIANIST
FERNANDO NOTTEBOHM, a scientist
NARRATOR
MARTA NOTTEBOHM, Fernando’s wife
PASKO RAKIC, a scientist
ELIZABETH GOULD, a scientist
MICHAEL SPECTER, a writer for the New Yorker

ACT 1
SCENE 1

Present day, Rockefeller University’s Field Research Center. The PIANIST plays the opening of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, Part 3. FERNANDO enters with canaries balanced on his arms and dances with them. He kills them humanely and starts to examine slices of their brains.

NARRATOR: Male canaries that have reached sexual maturity can, in subsequent years, learn new song repertoires. Two telencephalic song control nuclei are, respectively, 99 and 76 percent larger in the spring, when male canaries are producing stable adult song, than in the fall, at the end of the molt and after several months of not singing. It is hypothesized that such fluctuations reflect an increase and then reduction in numbers of synapses and are related to the yearly ability to acquire new motor coordinations.

FERNANDO: 1981. I published that paper nearly 30 years ago. And I’m still fascinated by birdsong. There’s something in it that won’t let me go. (SINGS TO THE DEAD CANARIES, ACCOMPANIED BY THE PIANIST)

Primates get the glamour, and their labs get all the grants,
But chickadees and finches, you’ve warbled your way to my heart.
How do you do it and why?
Flinging new songs to the sky!
Each year it’s reborn in your neuronal cells as a totally effortless art.

You can keep your rodents in mazes, and get your statistics as planned,
And gaze at your mouse in his cage, and pretend that he’s just like a man.
But I’ve a love never varies
for the songs of canaries
Their trilling is thrilling, it keeps me still willing
I’ll work on it as long as I can.

NARRATOR: But –

FERNANDO: But –

NARRATOR: But something’s bugging you. We’re back in 1981 now.

FERNANDO: Are we? You’re right, something is bugging me.

NARRATOR: Something isn’t right.

FERNANDO: No, it isn’t.

NARRATOR: Something in that paper.

FERNANDO: I thought so as I wrote it. It just doesn’t make sense. We know that adult brains don’t change.

NARRATOR: What do you mean, we know?

FERNANDO: You know, it just doesn’t happen. You’re born with all the neurons you’re ever going to have. But then synapses aren’t balloons, they don’t just swell up. (TO CANARIES) So why are your brain areas fluctuating in size? (EXIT)

Marta comes in and starts eating breakfast. Sound of showering.

NARRATOR: Fernando doesn’t sleep well that night. He’s suffering because he can’t fit what he’s seeing in the lab with what he knows ought to be seen. He’s undergoing a bad case of a Kuhnian crisis. And he’s also undergoing a shower –

The shower door slams. FERNANDO rushes in.

FERNANDO: Marta, Marta!

MARTA: What is it?

The NARRATOR hands FERNANDO a towel.

FERNANDO: They’re dying!

MARTA: Who?!

FERNANDO: They’re dying, and others are being born to replace them!

MARTA: What are you talking about?

FERNANDO: The neurons. In the canaries. Listen, it explains it completely. Every year the canaries learn new songs and forget the old ones.

version 3

If you guys give me images like this, I will photocopy them in black and white and then we can decide on colours afterwards. Eg. on this card, the text could be blue and the image green, and we could keep the inks separate using strips of foam, but we couldn't make the fingerprints a different colour from the background because they overlap.

I have left a border round the edge of the card because the printing gets a bit hit-and-miss round the perimeter (the flashbulbs don't always make the carbon fuse at the edges, so there are gaps and splodges when you ink it up.) But you could always work with this and use the randomness of lost text.

a few thoughts on postcards

Hey Abi - thanks for yr comment about the card. I like the idea of it being handled - this could either be done in production eg. put inky thumbprints over the original, then photocopy it - the prints would then be printed like the text. the alternative is to do it on each card after printing - it is then a unique 'signed' object. Do we want to embrace the mechanical or do we hanker for aura still?

we could even have a box on each of our cards where we put our thumbprint or fingerprint.

I heart typefaces. The one I've used is Garamond (you don't get a huge choice of genuinely historical fonts with Paintshop, but this is a good one) and hopefully the card might look like it's been letterpressed rather than silkscreened.

There's also a lot of opportunity to go for a zine / punk / messy look - anything that's photocopiable can be used as an original. So collage is IN, line drawings are IN, scribbles are IN. (Lots of colours are NOT SO IN).

More photos of gocco prints at the flickr group here - lots of artists using them, no poets that i know of. we are AHEAD OF OUR GAME.

I will bring the gocco machine to our meeting next week.

jx

Next meeting

Hi guys, Abi here, just to confirm that we can all meet netx Thursday in London in the afternoon.

I don't mind about where or what time.

Jamie, is it ok to bring postcard designs as drawings or do they have to be scanned into the computer.

first attempt at 'calling card' postcard

hey guys - i've made a first draft postcard. i don't think i'm really using the visual potential, and there's not much space left. perhaps a way forward would be 2 have fewer words, and get them interacting with an image (drawn or found) in an interesting way.

Jamie

Variation 4

I’d given her three backstreet cat turds to trash this

she snatched one from the carrier bag
with blank stares at the freedom movement
and the theft of fresh dandelions

(ignore this bit) sludges, blow offs, ribena, wives tales
and blue WKD are forgotten about halfway
through, with disregard

Rursus-via cattus sordes might
confound city centres to vinegar
and a crumpled dunce cap

Be trixy and let it dry up a little.
No hard pummels. Watch it desiccate
in three big ones

The stink is me, the turds are
me. Wherever the dandelions sprout up,
that is me too

Abi

Minutes etc

Our brief meeting in Luton . . .

Planning for the Blue Bus reading on the 23rd July.

We have an hour and a half to play with. We talked about the possibility of starting with some collaborative material (about 15 minutes worth) and then having the first reader followed by an interval. After the interval perhaps having the next two readers and finishing with a bit of collaborative work.

We decided to try and meet on the second Thursday in June, in London in the afternoon.

Before the meeting we agreed to email round some work, even incomplete drafts so that we can keep going with the variations and posting these onto the blog.

We also agreed to bring postcard designs to the meeting in London and to each chip in a fiver to cover the ink and paper costs. The postcards should not be in grey scale but rather, black and white or another colour on a white background. For instance, an area of green text and a separate area of red text both on white rather than a design which uses multiple colours on one area. Have I got this right Jamie?

We also discussed the possibility of using the 'name games' idea somehow on the postcards.

Anything I missed out guys?



I've had an idea for our next gig, see below . . .

Variation 3 (strawberries)

It took him 3 alpine strawberries
to write this

he selected varieties from a catalogue
with opinions on a boundary dispute
and the replacement of old cultivars

N.B. jams, sauces, liqueurs, cosmetics
and herbal teas are referenced halfway
through, with nostalgia

Fragaria vesca semperflorens can’t
translate woodland edges to sweetness
and multiple crowns in a cluster

Simply water down generously
with a fine spray and leave to soak
for thirty minutes

The leaves aren’t me, the fruit isn’t
me. Wherever the seedlings appear,
that isn’t me either

(JW)

intro variations 2

it took me 3 wax crayons
to write this
I wore them to melted stubs

after I read an article on the rise
of the far right that implicated
my name. There are several words

in the final lines
that might resonate if you were born
after 1976, and speak a language

The title needs a little help – only
not from me, not from you.
Let it suffice to say that

Articulation
swings both ways and
rarely how you want it.

When I say “James Wilkes” later
on I open up a carpet bag and
stare in it, put myself in it.

(JW)

something like an inventory and Routes Through

points of interest

II

Moments requiring explanation

III

successes and failures

I

turning point 

I

(a) refrain

XII

photo opportunity

I

accidently confessional or self-let-slip

II

Apologies - Corrections - Words/of/Thanks

M

alternative version

it took her three weeks to write this

after an incident that changed

her view on past-participles and 

a local mayoral election

Please note that the French phrase 

in the final verse

refers to a festival of meat 

attended as a child

The title needs little explanation - only

that it has no literal 

translation.

Let it suffice to say that

The dryer you are when you hear 

it, the wetter you'll be 

later on.

Teh voice of the piece is not me.

I am in it but only partially

as a guest appearance, later on,

whenever it stutters, is where I am.

Excercises in style

Hey poemries,





Oblog here. I have an idea. What about doing a communal poem type thing based on small narrative repeated in loads of different styles just like Queneau's Excercises in style.





I thought our initial text could be an introduction to a poem and then we repeat the same intro in a different stlye. Some examples from exercises in style include . . . .





reported speech, passive, exclamations, onomatapea's (I know I didn't spell that right, you know what I meant), haiku, mathematical . . . .the possibilities are endless and it would be quite funny to play around with the whole ridiculously long intro to a peom thing that we all do from time to time.

I could post up a 80 word starter and we could each reproduce the text in a few different styles. For performance maybe we play around with reading over each other a bit or reading some bits together? I don't know?





What do you guys think?

Check out this comic version based on the same idea

making postcards

Hey guys - I have a little home printing machine called a print gocco which we can use to make postcard poems specially for the reading. It's cheap, so we could give them away to people as mementos. There's a flickr group here which shows the sort of thing you can produce, so we could incorporate words and pictures.

We can even accomplish this at a distance, if you have access to a computer: you just use a programme like paintshop to make a postcard-sized image (eg. 14x10cm), then email it to me as a jpeg or pdf file. I can print it out and photocopy it at the print shop up the road, and then use the photocopy to make the postcards.

You've both seen my DeTour postcards I think - I made them with the Gocco. The only restriction is that it's quite hard to get different colours bordering each other, unless you use multiple screens.

What do you think? We could work on designs and post them up here. In fact, I'm going to add one now, an old postcard I made (by hand, not by Gocco):





Ideas: souvenirs, mementos, calling cards, poetry readings, Luton(?).

Jamie

Emcees

What we need to read our names: List of words (please add to using a dictionary). I think about 16 for each, and one person can read forward from each list, the other backwards. The letters are enough to spell out A-B-I-O-B-O-R-N-E, H-O-L-L-Y-P-E-S-T-E-R and J-A-M-E-S-W-I-L-K-E-S.

• A - abbreviated, abdominal, abetting, abhored, abject, ablative, ablaze, abnormal, abolished, abortive, above, abrasive, abrupt, absolute, abstracted, absurd.
• A - amateur, amatory, ambassadorial, ambidextrous, ambient, ambiguous, ambitious, ambulatory, amenable, amiable, amidships, amiss, amnesiac, amoral, amphibious, amplified.
• B - bathing, batik, bats, bawdy, beachcombing, beady, beamy, beanpole, bearded, bearing, beastly, beaten, beatific, beatnik, beavering, becalmed.
• B - blockheaded, bloodless, blotchy, blotto, blowy, blue, bluffing,
• E -
• E -
• E -
• E -
• E -
• H -
• I -
• I -
• J -
• K -
• L -
• L -
• L -
• M -
• N -
• O -
• O -
• O -
• P -
• R -
• R -
• S -
• S -
• S -
• T -
• W -
• Y -

It's a lot of work to copy out all the words (unless someone knows an online dictionary that can be cut and pasted?) so first maybe we should discuss if it's a good idea. I think it's an OK idea, but it could be better. How could it be improved?

Jamie