tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38033221005615013812024-02-07T23:55:02.103+13:00A Pelt, a shrub, a soil sampleA Poetics Blog. Noise, Comment, Theory.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.comBlogger203125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-25805209505781611252013-10-23T16:41:00.002+13:002013-10-29T14:38:19.020+13:00New WritingI wrote a piece about the critical response to Eleanor's Booker Prize winning novel The Luminaries for<a href="http://pantograph-punch.com/catton-criticism-and-the-great-cringe/"> The Pantograph Punch</a>. Which reminded me that there are two pieces of mine over at Montevidayo as well, <a href="http://www.montevidayo.com/ross-brighton-on-guyotat/">one Pierre Guyotat</a>, and<a href="http://www.montevidayo.com/ross-brighton-responds-to-corean-music/"> in response to Johannes Göransson</a>'s <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/08/corean-music-part-2-ambient-violence/">blogging </a>for The Poetry Foundation. Thought I should stick them here. This is kind of a depository.<br />
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Also my new chapbook<a href="http://solarluxuriance.com/obelisk.html"> MEMORY AS VOID</a> is now available from Solar Luxuriance, and<a href="http://psmalmo.com/?p=55"> beck: nothing to be done</a> from Publication Studio M<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">ä</span>lmo. You can also still purchase my Dusie Kolektiv chap from <a href="http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.co.nz/2011/03/new-from-aboveground-press-ross.html">above/ground press</a>.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-6092677719118190962013-02-06T17:17:00.000+13:002013-02-06T17:17:47.784+13:00Ok, so I haven't posted here in a <i>long</i> time, as I've pretty much migrated all my activity to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ross.brighton">Facebook </a>and <a href="http://rrossselavy.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>. But I thought I might as well at least keep things here up to date, so I've updated the links to writings online in the sidebar. Have a look. I also encourage anyone to have a look at my Tumblr, at the very least you'll probably find it confusing and/or amusing. I've been doing some stuff that I think it <a href="http://rrossselavy.tumblr.com/post/31856675824">quite </a><a href="http://rrossselavy.tumblr.com/tagged/beyonce">interesting</a>.<br />Have a look.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-73261377829687814882011-07-14T21:00:00.000+12:002011-07-14T21:01:55.972+12:00First question of my crowsourced interview.<div><br /></div><div>Aindriu Macfehin </div><div>Why are artists afraid of making political work?</div><div>Thanks Aindriu - that's an awesome question.</div><div><br /></div><div>I think this question is going to explode into several directions, but I need to interrogate it (as that is, in a way, what answering a question is): Firstly, in the question, there is the assumption that (some) artists don’t make political work, and then there is the idea that art can be apolitical. From my asking about these you can probably gather that I consider my work political, though it is not, on its face, overtly so - in the "realist" sense of, say, post-beat slam poetry or Brechtian social realism....</div><div><br /></div><div>May I ask what you mean by "polictical"? It is a slippery term - I follow Guy Debord in believing that "every speech act is a political act", and treat the social and ethical - and art is, at its core, a social practice - as political; but many would dispute this - the common usage of "political" is tied to ideas of governmentality and large-scale social issues.</div><div><br /></div><div>In a sense, my politicality (or that of my work - to conflate "me" and what I produce would be an error) stems from what I think of as the "avant-garde impulse" (though I know that many have issues with the term, for example Lyn Hejinian, who is wary of the military metaphor -and I can understand that) which is, in my case, directly tied to socio-political radicalism. Radicalism in one field goes hand in hand with that in another, and the boundaries become blurred. </div><div><br /></div><div>Until quite recently radical artistic work was largely driven by politics, or had a very large political component - one need only look as far as dada, surrealism, fluxus, the Franco-African poets of negritude... language writing was/is based on (post-)Marxist/radical socialist theory (see Bruce Andrews' "Writing as Social Work and Political Practice").</div><div><br /></div><div>Though there have been debates surrounding the efficacy of such, it isn’t really until the 70s, and the birth of minimalism and conceptual art that the politicality gets overshadowed or swept away (there could well be a political element to such work, but I don’t see it… I’ve got holes in my knowledge of art history). In the 80s through the 90s you have work like that of the pictures generation, hyperminimalists/post-minimalism (I still don’t know exactly what that is!), post-pop-art, the YBAs (with the notable exception of Tracy Emin), where much of it seems to be meant as a reflection or comment on the reality of living under capitalism, but there’s a kind of schizoid joy to it, a reveling in that depthless isolation and commodification – expemplified by the massive amount of money made by people like Jeff Koons and the like. </div><div><br /></div><div>You’ve also then got the birth of ‘hipster irony’ and the growing marginalisation of sincerity – which is one of my personal pet peeves… this particular brand of irony holds little purpose, compared to dramatic irony or the ironic distancing of someone like Joyce in Portrait – it seems to me like little more than an excuse for people to not invest anything in their work, to shelter themselves emotionally. All you’re left with is a mirror that, rather than reflecting the real, reflects capitalist realism, the world as constructed by the apparatus of capital. </div><div><br /></div><div>I suppose this is where the answer to your question comes in – capitalism has become the only imaginable ‘reality’. It is, so often, uncontested, because an alternative is unimaginable. There is the quote attributed to both Slavoj Zizek and Frederick Jameson that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. And it’s easier to report ‘reality’ or our experience than it is to contest it, challenge it, or try and do something different. </div><div><br /></div><div>This leads to the difficulty though – is change possible, and what role does art play in this? I have to say that I honestly don’t know. I just know that capitalism treats people badly, and cannot in good conscience support that. So I make art that I hope opens lines of flight, or spaces in which things opperate (I hope) differently to the current hegemony. This may or may not be successful/effective, but it is, I think, worth while (and not the only thing that I do). I think, for instance, that “/k/” has some interesting things to say about ‘madness’, language, and the experiences and power relations that relate to these. </div><div><br /></div><div>People can (and do) level critiques at my work saying that it is ineffective, elitist, too fringe etc… but I think that there is (or should be) a space for such. It’s worth remembering the debates between Adorno and Lukacs on similar points, Adorno arguing for the political efficacy of Kafka, and Lukacs disagreeing, and proposing Brecht as a more effective alternative. It seems history has proved Adorno right, in the effectiveness of Kafka’s anti-realism as an effective means of both describing and problematising the dehumanising experience of capitalist oppression.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, everything may be futile, but I’d rather not give up. And art is an enjoyable means of subversion as well – and in a way that’s where people like Beckett come in – the horrible absurdity of the situation – you have to laugh, and do something, or else it’s too much to bear.</div><div><br /></div><div>A caveat though – I want to say that my writing isn’t solely a political project. It is obviously an aesthetic one, and is also deeply personal (one of the reasons for working with Artaud’s work…). Alan Loney has said that he writes “in order to keep the world from falling apart”, and I feel the same – or more to stop myself from falling apart. If I stopped I’d fall into a hole that I don’t know I could get out of.</div><div><br /></div>Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-36916229890394264212011-04-11T13:11:00.003+12:002011-04-11T13:52:35.482+12:00Information as Material, Theory as PracticeSo, I've been thinking about some things. I am working on a series of pieces largely dealing with duration - with the experience of differing levels of (dis)interest and expenditure while forcing one's reader-self through longform, largely a-significant texts (think much of Beckett's work, Kenny Goldsmith's No. <a href="http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/goldsmith/111/">111 2.7.92-10.20.96</a> Tan Lin's <a href="http://ignoretheventriloquists.blogspot.com/2009/06/some-thoughts-on-tan-lins-blipsoak01.html">BLIPSOAK01</a>, Jackson Mac Low, Bruce Andrews' longer works, etc). I was also talking to my therapist this morning about the (normative) dichotomy between 'emotion' and 'intellect' - how most people divide their experience or understanding into these two poles (cf. Nietzsche's romantic construct, opposing Dyonisus and Apollo) - this also seems to correlate to the Platonic oposition between information and material, and between theory and practice. This is one of the things I really like about the Toronto Research Group's work (the TRG being Steve McCaffery and bpNichol). In the introduction to the Collected Reports, wonderfully title Rational Geomancy, McCaffery outlines the project as fundamentally <span style="font-style: italic;">practical</span> - that the work is about doing and exploring as a means to the end of explaining, or as explaining <span style="font-style: italic;">in action</span>. Such processes are also intrinsic to the work of Susan Howe, Leslie Scalapino (who is sorely missed), Antonin Artaud, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, William Blake, Bruce Russell, and Cecil Taylor.<br />This conversation arose out of a discussion of "work". I seem to have a similar problem with my work as Paul Celan did with his - he thought of his poems as accessable, and could not understand those who didn't, inscribing a volume to his English translater Michael Hamberger "nicht <span id="result_box" class="short_text" lang="de"><span title="Click for alternate translations" class="hps">hermetisch". Similarly I sent a copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">A Pelt</span> to a relatively prominant NZ poet, who described it as "too intelectual" (aside -another writer explained this in the following terms:<br />"whenever someone in New Zealand describes your work as "too" something, what they mean is what they say, but without the "too"), just as a girl who had been in a creative writing class with me drunkenly lectured me at a party about how I should "stop thinking about things so much" and "not be afraid to just write what I feel". I consider that book to be pretty close to the traditional lyric, and primarily 'emotional' - very much a work in which 'feeling is first' - although not quite, as, at least to the reader, the word is first, as ink on paper. This is something that many people forget, and which I find myself unable to.</span></span> In this way I would find verse that reports the internal thoughts and feelings of the poet as "too intelectual": the poet would then be paying attention to, and thinking about, and carefully manipulating language as a code, as a means to an end, rather than as an object that is beautiful in and of itself.<br />All of this makes me think about information, and language, as existant prior to my engagement with them. Kenny G, riffing on Douglas Huebler: "The world is full of texts, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more". What we as writers do is intercept and alter the flows of desiring-production that are active in language, aggregating, manipulating, filtering, altering, deforming. This is probably why I'm more active on Facebook these days then I am here - it is the perfect medium for tapping this vein of hypersemiotic <span style="font-style: italic;">joissance</span>: the divertion of links, sedementation of information, manipulation/appropriation/deformance of image and sound - something which my former flatmate, Matthew Ward, knows all about. <a href="http://www.none.org.nz/matt-ward">He's got a show, "The Ghost / They can speak for themselves" coming up at None Gallery in Dunedin</a> - if you're anywhere near there, you should check it out.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-73880142164340673352011-03-29T00:54:00.002+13:002011-03-29T01:15:41.806+13:00A Return of Sorts. Questions. The DurationalHello.... If there is anyone out there... I'm returning, kind of, in a way. With some questions, but first announcements. Last year I managed to complete my BA(hons), with 1st Class hons., and am now undertaking a Masters in Creative Writing, also at UOA.<br />I've got a self-published chapbook out, <span style="font-style: italic;">A Draft from </span>BIRDS, wich is the inaugeral publication of my micropress, &then&then, which will aso be publishing a chap by the great rob mclennan and launching a website very soon. There are also some very, very exciting names who want to / have agreed /have been bulied into participate in this venture, and I'm very excited.<br />I'm also teaching, which is really cool. I'm tutoring an introductory English/Writing Studies paper, and it's great, and I think a lot of my students are more on to it than I was in 1st year!<br /><br />But down to the nitty-gritty - the masters project(s)..... here's the connundrum. I was planning on /trying to mash up various strands of my practice into some kind of agrogate, but it wasn't working. And my ad<span style="font-family: georgia;">visor was talk</span>ing about lack of cohesion, or an affective center.... it was largely turning into a mushy blob.... but then I'm not sure of (or comfortable with) the parts as seperate.... and the idea of something happening <span style="font-style: italic;">in </span>a poem seems strange to me... the point comes down I thin to this:<br /><br />I'm a little bit worryed that my "taste" in things my be developing in such an absurd direction I'll lose connection with any kind of meta-discourse, or audience, or community.... things are getting kind of wierd.<br /><br />Everything I like seems to be massive and largely centreless, flux instead of progression, or drone, poetry as both ambiend and psycho-traumatic(etymology is important here) experience, with an emphasis on duration.... reference points:Pierre Guyotat, Samuel Beckett, Tan A. Lin's BLIPSOAK01 (I've got to get the rest of them!), Kenny Goldsmith's No. 111, Artaud, Bruce Andrews more prolonged pieces, Karen Mac Comack in places, Steve McCaffery in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Black Debt</span> or parts of <span style="font-style: italic;">Panopticon</span>, the kind of psych-scapes of flux Auckland poet and mystic Jarrad Dickson constructs, the dronescapes of Swans, Earth, Campbell Kneale's various projects, late Coil, and Handful of Dust; much of the latest wave of US/Canadian blackmetal weirdness, the weirdest work fo Tricky, The Shadow Ring, the jagged, staccato time-fucking of grindcore and microgrind (ie 8sec songs one after the other) or rapidly moving polyrhythmic free-jazz or jagged post-musique-concrete composition-by-assembly... and internet hip-hop sensation Lil B "THE BASEDGOD".<br />Long form repetition that seems to go (k)no(w)where, other than the movement as an EMBODIED, EXPERIENTIAL ACT OF DURATION.<br />I need to perform this. How do you do it in a codex? Can you?<br />I'm leaning more and more toward sound-work as a possible answer.<br /><br /><br /><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" ft="{"type":"msg"}"><span class="messageBody"><br /></span><span jsid="text"></span></h6><form rel="async" class="live_1788725131542_131325686911214 commentable_item autoexpand_mode commentUndone" method="post" action="/ajax/ufi/modify.php" live="{"seq":0}"><input autocomplete="off" name="post_form_id" value="ebb5bdf3677caafde005cb26343e5e9f" type="hidden"><input name="fb_dtsg" value="WAXij" autocomplete="off" type="hidden"><input autocomplete="off" name="feedback_params" value="{"actor":"1642016961","target_fbid":"1788725131542","target_profile_id":"1642016961","type_id":"22","source":"0","assoc_obj_id":"","source_app_id":"0","extra_story_params":[],"content_timestamp":"1301312397","check_hash":"1b9c9559de670e7b"}" type="hidden"><span><span class="uiStreamSource"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/ross.brighton/posts/1788725131542"><abbr title="Tuesday, 29 March 2011 at 00:39" date="Mon, 28 Mar 2011 04:39:57 -0700" class="timestamp"></abbr></a></span></span></form>Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-53776874142047978492010-11-22T16:16:00.003+13:002010-11-22T16:20:03.890+13:00Gap Filler PoetryHello. I haven't posted in a long time because I've written 40 000 words this year, not counting reviews and poems. The idea kind of scares me. But I just got an email from my friend Micah, who is organising this really cool event in earthquaked Christchurch, called Gap Filler, where there are poetry readings and all kinds of awesome stuff in the vacant spaces left by quake damage. More details <a href="http://micahtimona.blogspot.com/2010/11/gap-filler-poetry-readingsperformances.html">here</a>. If it all goes well, I'll hopefully take part when I'm down for xmas-new years times.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-70646591608617673282010-09-11T20:38:00.005+12:002010-09-11T22:10:48.630+12:00Thank You For Telling Me Vodka is a Ponsy DrinkI Went and saw Xiu Xiu play last night. It was really great. You should buy their albums. The show made me all swoony like a schoolgirl. I got emotional. My medication was making me shaky. I talked to them afterwards, and made a dick out of myslef I think. But they were really nice. I talked to Angela about how music and writing destroy ego and Jamie about how other people's horrible stuff can make your horrible stuff feel less, becuase there's less lonelyness, some kind of community..... I'm not sure. I'm typing maybe kind of like <a href="http://arianareines.tumblr.com/">Ariana Reines</a> with some kind of naïveté and direct sentences, because I don't know how else to say things at the moment. I really like her writing but don't normally write like her. I hope it doesn't make me sound like a dick or a hipster. I don't understand the idea "hipster". The people who would be them hate them. It confuses me. I don't have enough money to be one I think. This writing is going nowhere. I really like Xiu Xiu anyway. Here are links to some of the songs they played.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/images/image.php/xiuxiuposter.jpg?width=200&image=/images/showImages/xiuxiuposter.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 283px;" src="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/images/image.php/xiuxiuposter.jpg?width=200&image=/images/showImages/xiuxiuposter.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNzpDT_qL1Q">Grey Death</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiWnGY-0IFU">Dear God, I Hate Myself</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx3k1O87DgI">Chocolate Makes You Happy</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CgKO2haaAo">Save Me, Save Me</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kiOncD_neE">Sad Pony Guerilla Girl</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSqhrj_UnFI">Fabulous Muscles</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OijWHn3L8Ss">Crank Heart</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7iEyvvrP6k">I Luv the Valley Oh!</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJFmpLvofrM">Boy Soprano</a>Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-83924585835739414882010-09-10T12:52:00.001+12:002010-09-10T13:00:15.962+12:00A PELT A SHRUB A SOIL SAMPLE has sold outYes, that's right. I'm both happy and sad to say that there are no more copies left. That is, until someone want to reprint it. I would, but I'm poor. However as <a href="http://ignoretheventriloquists.blogspot.com/2010/09/forthcoming.html">the previous post</a> attests, there's more stuff coming......Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-7733815925690338842010-09-05T22:09:00.004+12:002010-09-05T22:20:26.021+12:00ForthcomingOk so I've got three things forthcoming. My latest volume, /K/:HAVEDONEWITH will be out by the end of the year (hopefully) from <a href="http://www.thejunegloom.com/">June Gloom</a>, a new micropress in Christchurch run by the wonderful Timothy J Andrew. I would trust anyone with a tattoo of Arthur Rimbaud with my life, trusting him with my work comes naturally. The book is a long poem drawing from a mutilated text of Artaud's "Pour En Finir Avec La Jugement De Dieu".<br /><br />I'm also publishing a small volume, tentatively entitled <span style="font-style: italic;">Draft from "Birds"</span> as part of my (BA) Honours dissertation in an edition of 26 hand-lettered copies. I'm not sure how much they'll cost yet, but if you're interested chuck me an email.<br /><br />Lastly, I've been asked to take part in the latest <a href="http://dusie.org">Dusie Kollektiv</a>, which is really awesome, I'm a big fan. Susana Gardener is one of that rare breed of super-awesome people. I've got a manuscript lined up called <span style="font-style: italic;">Tempral Maze Denture</span>. I'm proud of that title.<br /><br />So stay tuned. I may have quietened down on the blogging front, but there's still things happening.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-14103719224550113442010-08-30T23:01:00.002+12:002010-08-30T23:07:24.525+12:00More on UnemploymentLast k-punk link. I promise. More on unemployment, that I hope will be appreciated by any who have had experiences like mine last year - Incidentally when I had the resources to blog at a rate that I liked. Long-term unemployment sucks, and is, by its very nature, demoralising and worse, psychologically damaging (and, as Mark points out, ontologically alienating). A piece I particularly like:<br /><br /><a href="http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/011643.html">"For a number of reasons, during my twenties I believed then that I was unemployable - too feckless to do either manual work or retail, and nowhere near confident enough to do a graduate job of any kind. (The ads for graduate jobs would fill me with despair: surely only a superhuman could do the job as described?) I won't deny that eventually getting employment was important - I owe so much of what I am now to getting a teaching job. But equally important was the <i>demystification</i> of work that gaining this employment allowed - "work" wasn't something only available to people who belonged to a different ontological category to me. (Even so, this feeling wasn't rectified by having a job: I had a number of depressive episodes when I was convinced that <i>I wasn't the sort of person who could be a teacher</i>.) </a> <p><a href="http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/011643.html">"But surely the importance of Virno and Negri's work is to have undermined the distinction between work and non-work any way. What precisely counts as non-work in post-Fordism? If, to use Jonathan Beller's phrase, "to look is to labour" - if, that is to say, attention is a commodity - then aren't we all "contributing", whether we like it or not? As Nina argues, "[i]t is as if employers have taken the very worst aspects of women's work in the past – poorly paid, precarious, without benefits – and applied it to almost everyone, except those at the very top, who remain overwhelmingly male and incomprehensibly rich." In these conditions - in which unemployment/underemployment/perpetual insecurity are structurally necessary, not contingent accidents - there's more case than ever for a benefits saftey net."</a></p>Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-11244330935315002012010-08-30T22:36:00.002+12:002010-08-30T22:40:04.221+12:00More k-punk: Morrissey and Unemployment<a href="http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/011648.html">"Is there anyone who has caught the agony of this state of worklessness better than Morrissey? The useless jouissance of refusing what was anyway impossible: "No I've never had a job/ because <i>I've never really wanted one</i>" "No, I've never had a job because <i>I'm too shy</i>" ... I do sometimes think that the implicit political position in those handful of early Smiths songs was one of the most powerful of the 80s. Singing "England is mine and it owes me a living" at the time of 3 million unemployed and the Miners Strike ... Rejecting the masculine destiny of Fordist worker at the very moment when that destiny was being denied to the working class ("No, we cannot cling to the old dreams any more") ... Rejecting, that is to say, all of those working class homilies about the dignity of labour"</a>Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-67948232421299846542010-08-30T22:02:00.002+12:002010-08-30T22:06:19.557+12:00CYBERNETIC POST-CAPITALIt's been a while since I've posted, I know - in my defence I'm writing 20 000 words a semester of coursework, no counting all the (too much) variousness I do on the side.<br /><br />It's also been a while since I've linked to k-punk, and too long since I've read. Straight off I found this, which looks very cool - I wish I was in the UK.<br /><h3 class="title">Accelerationism:<br /></h3>This one-day symposium will think through the implications of accelerationism in the light of the forthcoming publication of Nick Land’s <i>Fanged Noumena: Collected Writings 1987-2007</i> and Benjamin Noys’s <i>The Persistence of the Negative</i>. <p>More <a href="http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/">here</a>. Along with an awesome picture of a cyborg.<br /></p>Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-56214302204138735462010-08-23T18:22:00.004+12:002010-08-23T18:30:14.498+12:00From an essay on Johnson's RADI OS, drawing on Steve McCaffery's Levinasian PoethicsSteve McCaffery, in his description of John Cage’s mesostic poems, coins the term “parasitography” as a descriptor, describing the work as “utterly dependent [on the host text] for its existence”(217). I dispute the implication that the “parasite” does not contribute to the “host”, that there is an unfair exchange that is detrimental to the "host". The paragramatic reading strategies enacted by the like of Cage, Jackson Mac Low and Ronald Johnson illuminate heretofore elided textual potentialities already existent within the texts they draw from. In this way the relationship can be described more accuratly as symbiotic. This release of potentiality is most obvious in <span style="font-style: italic;">RADI OS</span>, or other physically enacted works of performative reading such as Tom Phillips “treated Victorian novel” <span style="font-style: italic;">A Humumen</span>t. The partner texts, such as, for example Paradise Lost and <span style="font-style: italic;">RADI OS</span> , begin as Same to one another, yet through the process of excision or etching, the newly formed <span style="font-style: italic;">RADI OS</span> gains alterity from its progenitor, without violent disinheretence – indeed, the poem functions as a loving tribute while still maintaining its difference. Furthermore, as a reading of Paradise Lost, it contributes its own (albeit idiosyncratic) interpretative work to the corpus of possibility that constitutes the possible responses to the poem. Johnson’s <span style="font-style: italic;">RADI OS </span>performs and makes physically manifest these processes through its literalisation of erasure, thus enacting the process of its composition. Through the differentiation of the poem from its parent-text <span style="font-style: italic;">RADI OS</span> gains its own alterity, while at the same time maintaining its obligation to the Otherness of <span style="font-style: italic;">Paradise Lost</span> and its polysemy.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-71275403547215913262010-07-26T22:03:00.003+12:002010-07-26T22:23:37.213+12:00National Poetry DayIt looks like it's going to be a big one. As well as <a href="http://ignoretheventriloquists.blogspot.com/2010/07/reading-at-lopdell-house-for-national.html">the reading I'm performing at out in Titirangi</a>, there's the lauch for<span style="font-family: georgia;"> the late Leigh Davis' collection</span><span style="font-family: georgia;font-size:100%;" > <span style="font-size: 12px;"><i>Stunning debut of the repairing of a life</i></span></span> at the at the University of Otago's Auckland Centre, 385 Queen Street, Auckland from 6.00–8.00 pm. At the Auckland City Library is a continuation of the "Million Poems for Matariki" project, with Selina Tusitala Marsh, last year's poet laureate Michele Leggott, and current Laureate Cilla McQueen.<br /><br />And Christchurch - I haven't forgotten you! There's a reading at the University Bookshop, for the launch of <span style="font-style: italic;">Guarding the Cellar Door</span> by Linda Connell, published by Steele Roberts, with readings by Roger Hickin, Tusiata Avia, my good friends Jeffrey Paparoa Holman and Micah Timona-Ferris, and writers from the School for Young Writers. I think there may be something at the central city library as well, but I could be wrong.<br /><br />More events can be found <a href="http://www.booksellers.co.nz/awards/new-zealand-post-book-awards/national-poetry-day-events-2010">here</a>.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-35275416100039928832010-07-24T22:54:00.003+12:002010-07-24T23:00:22.116+12:00Reading at Lopdell House for National Poetry DayI'm reading at this event alongside Selina Tusitala Marsh; Kevin Ireland; Raewyn Alexander; Doug Poole; Courtney Meredith; Mark Pirie; Janet Charman; Daniel Larsen and Ila Selwyn.<br /><br />I will be reading from my forthcoming book /K/:HAVEDONEWITH, coming soon from <a href="http://www.thejunegloom.com/p/discography.html">June Gloom</a>. I have special plans.<br /><br />From the <a href="http://www.lopdell.org.nz/events/details/rhythm_verse2.html">website</a>:<br /><p>This event is always a sell out so book early.</p> <p>Hot mulled wine will be available.</p> <p>This event is made possible with support from Creative Communities and National Poetry Day's sponsors, National Post and Booksellers New Zealand.</p> <p><strong>Venue</strong>: Top Floor of Lopdell House, 7.30pm, doors open at 7pm</p>Corner Titirangi & South Titirangi Roads, Auckland 0604<p></p> <p><strong>Entry</strong>: $10</p> <p><strong>Booking</strong>: phone 817 8087 x201 or call into the Gallery Shop.</p>Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-29188344331059318612010-06-23T16:05:00.002+12:002010-06-23T16:07:34.712+12:00Myung Mi Kim’s PenuryTwo reviews in two days. I'm still on course-work mode, and need to relax. <a href="http://tsky-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/06/myung-mi-kims-penury-reviewed-by-ross.html">This one is Myung Mi Kim's Penury</a>, a fantastic title by an amazing poet, published by the company with the best name ever: Omnidawn.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-12643221925472575962010-06-22T15:23:00.001+12:002010-06-22T15:25:18.916+12:00review of Bruce Russell's Left Handed Blows: Writing on Sound 1993-2009I've just posted my (incredibly late) <a href="http://tsky-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/06/bruce-russells-left-handed-blows.html">review of Bruce Russell's Left Handed Blows: Writing on Sound 1993-2009</a> over at Tarpaulin Sky. You should read the review, buy the book, then read it. It's very good.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-46429956459292645332010-06-08T22:32:00.002+12:002010-06-08T22:34:36.093+12:00Reviewers wanted!Interested in reviewing for Tarpaulin Sky? In NZ, preferably Auckland? (I don't have much money for postage, so would rather deliver books by hand - though rest of the country would be good to, if you've got the right stuff....) Then give me an email!<br /><br />Also, if you're looking for a flat, a couple of rooms becoming availible soon...Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-58753281012010636192010-06-06T02:06:00.003+12:002010-06-06T02:14:27.716+12:00Steven Karl has good taste.He's got my chapbook on his <a href="http://notellpoetry.blogspot.com/2010/06/recommended-summer-reading-steven-karl.html">recomended summer reading</a> list over at No Tell. Furthermore, he is not just a man of impeccable taste, but furiously great words as well. Both <a href="http://intocopiousunknowns.weebly.com/states-of-flux.html">State(s) of Flux</a> and <a href="http://flyingguillotinepress.blogspot.com/2010/03/irrational-animals-by-steven-karl.html">(Ir)rational Animals</a> are wonderful - and the former is one of my favorite book-objects as well.<br /><br />This is not praise out of obligation! Buy his work!Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-11961534656577441592010-05-24T20:09:00.004+12:002010-05-24T20:20:51.571+12:00LOUNGE 14Just a reminder to all that I'm reading at LOUNGE 14 on Wednesay evening - 5:30, Old Government house , University of Auckland City Campus off Waterloo Quadrant. Come down!Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-45331402678636780172010-05-15T19:41:00.002+12:002010-05-15T19:47:10.415+12:00particularly unconventionalI just got mentioned on Canadian Radio. Emma Healey, editor-in-chief of the <a href="http://incongruousquarterly.com/">Incongruous Quarterly</a>, was asked on <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/radioshows/HERE_AND_NOW/20100514.shtml">"Here and Now" on CBS's Radio One</a>, about any "particularly unconventional" submission that they'd recieved - their mission is to "publish the unpublishible". She just emailed me saying that my submission, all 150 of Shakespeare's sonnets run through a bank or randomisers and algorythms, was "one of the first that sprang to mind." I'm very happy to have that dubious honour. Go Inconguous Quarterly!Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-5655396117840658622010-05-12T21:21:00.002+12:002010-05-12T21:25:52.604+12:00COMABUY THIS<br />FUCK<br />SEMIOTEXT(E) YOU ARE GOOD<a href="http://www.semiotexte.com/authors/guyotat.html"> {GO HERE}</a><br /><br /><img src="http://www.semiotexte.com/books/bookCovers/coma.jpg" alt="coma" width="125" height="188" /><br /><br />COMA BY PIERRE GUYOTAT<br /><br />Long ago, in childhood, when Summer reverberates and feels and throbs all over, it begins to circumscribe my body along with my self, and my body gives it shape in turn: the "joy" of living, of experiencing, of already foreseeing dismembers it, this entire body explodes, neurons rush toward what attracts them, zones of sensation break off almost in blocks that come to rest at the four corners of the landscape, at the four corners of Creation.<br /> —from ComaRoss Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-53076167782291772842010-05-03T14:46:00.002+12:002010-05-03T14:51:07.203+12:00Upcoming ReadingsI will be reading at LOUNGE #14 Wed 26 May at 5.30 pm, at the Old Government House UOA City campus, on Waterloo Quadrant. Full details of that still to come.<br /><br />I'm also reading on Friday July 30th at Lopdell House in Titirangi for National Poetry Day. the details of that too are to come.<br /><br />I'm working on doing something interesting for both of them, so stay tuned.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-50347091983743249182010-05-01T00:06:00.002+12:002010-05-01T00:09:40.355+12:00Urs Alleman Interview!The author of Babyfucker (translation recently published by Les Figues) <a href="http://tsky-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/04/urs-alleman-interviewed-by-elizabeth.html">interviewed by Elizabeth Hall</a> over at the TSky blog.<br /><br />It's a fantastic interview too, well worth reading. More than that, even.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3803322100561501381.post-28967913570431283192010-04-30T16:14:00.001+12:002010-04-30T16:17:25.850+12:00New Reviews at Tarpaulin Sky<a href="http://tsky-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/04/nick-e-melvilles-selections-and.html">nick-e melville's Selections and Dissections reviewed by Stephen Nelson </a> and <a href="http://tsky-reviews.blogspot.com/2010/04/douglas-kearneys-black-automaton.html">Douglas Kearney's The Black Automaton reviewed by Micah Ling</a> <div class="post-header"> </div> .<br /><br />The Kearney is great, I haven't read the melville yet - but I googled him and checked out some of his work and like it a lot.Ross Brightonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04917759678804057979noreply@blogger.com0