Performance at Bruslam

Performance at Bruslam, Monday 27th September 2010, 8 p.m.

Building Y', VUB entrance 6, Triomflaan, Etterbeek, Brussels (last time I looked google maps sends you to completely the wrong side of the campus, but these directions work)

Sylvie Marie + me + open mike + Philip Meersman sewing and sticking and hammering it all together

... the one with the stones ... the one with the bottles ... the one with the lipstick, but different this time ... the new one with the sun salutation ... the other new one with the bit of paper because I haven't learned it off by heart yet ... that should fill fifteen minutes.

And I promised myself that next time I went to Brussels there would be Haagen-Dazs. If I get out of work in time to catch the early train there is definitely going to be Haagen-Dazs. Who needs poetry anyway?

so what happens if you fill a hole in the street with words?

the hole

full of word stones, half past nine last night

there they areand here's a woman passing by the next morning with her little boyoh, wait - who's missing? bruisend, luister, visje, kaartenhuis, keisteen, reis.three o'clock and I come downstairs and someone has tidied up.

Performance at Campo Santo

Jerry Heymans took this gorgeous picture of Maja and me performing Maja's 'line' piece yesterday, at an exhibition of his and Maja's new work.

Zieteratuur...

... finally arrived!



Anthology of visual poetry from the Netherlands and Flanders, 1915-2009 or thereabouts, including work by Jelle Meander, Maja Jantar and me.

AND poems by ...

Antony Kok (1882-1969), H.N. Werkman (1882-1945), I.K. Bonset (1883-1931),J .C. van Schagen (1891-1985), Paul van Ostaijen (1896-1928), Paul de Vree (1909-1982), Leo Vroman (1915),A. Marja (1917-1964), Jan Molitor (1917-1988), Oey Tjeng Sit (1917-1987), C. Buddingh’ (1918-1985), Leon van Essche (1919-1993), Maarten Mourik (1923-2002), Eldert Willems (1923), Sybren Polet (1924), U.G. Stikker (1925-2008), Harry Mulisch (1927), Maarten Beks (1929-2001), Jan van der Hoeven (1929), Nico Scheepmaker (1930-1990), herman de vries (1931), Riekus Waskowsky (1932-1977), R.R. van der Leest (1933), Nahl Nucha (1933-1998), Gerrit Krol (1934), Mark Insingel (1935), Hans Sleutelaar (1935), C.B. Vaandrager (1935-1992), Ivo Vroom (1935-1987), Alain Arias-Misson (1936), Ludo Frateur (1936), Ton Luiting (1936), Renaat Ramon (1936), K. Schippers (1936), Frans Vogel (1936), H.H. ter Balkt (1938), Bart Boumans (1940), Jeroen Brouwers (1940), Tom Ockerse (1940), Daniël van Ryssel (1940), Frans Vanderlinde (1940), Harry Hoogstraten (1941), Max Niematz (1942), Robert Joseph (1943-2003), G.J. de Rook (1943), J.A. Deelder (1944), Pier van Dijk (1944), Herman Damen (1945), Hans Clavin (1946), Trix Giebels (1946), Pieter Laurens Mol (1946), Pierre Hendriks (1947), Peter Meijboom (1947),Hans Vlek (1947), John Liggins (1948), Lévi Weemoedt (1948), H.B. Reeskamp (1951), Marion Bloem (1952), Jaap Blonk (1953), W.M. Elsenaar (1953), Tonnus Oosterhoff (1953), Johan Joos (1957), Wilbert Cornelissen (1958), Nanne Nauta (1959), Henk van der Waal (1960), Titi Zaadnoordijk (1960), Luc Fierens (1961), karel ten haaf (1962), Dirk Vekemans (1962), SAGE - Saskia van Herwijnen (1964) & Gerrit van Schuppen (1950), Rozalie Hirs (1965), PJ Roggeband, Ruben van Gogh (1967), Ingmar Heytze (1970), Philip Meersman (1971), Stefan Nieuwenhuis (1972), Arjen Nolles (1972), ACG Vianen (1972), Jet H.H. Crielaard (1975), Daniël Dee (1975), Xavier Roelens (1976), Maja Jantar (1977), Jelle Meander (1977), Helen White (1977), Denis Frietman (1978) en Cyriel van Rossum (1962), Arnoud Rigter (1978), Sieger M.G. (1979), Guido van der Wolk (1980), Dennis Gaens (1982) en Jurre van den Berg (1986).

If you live in the Benelux (and maybe the rest of Europe) you can order it from the Uitgeverij Passage; they don't take orders from North America but I'm ordering for a couple of people and sending copies on.

Selections from The Last Vispo Anthology on exhibit in Budapest, Hungary

Announcement (below) from Crg Hill's poetry scorecard. So while my colleagues from 'work-work' are up the road getting their VAT and sales tax kicks at the Budapest Intercontinental, my holding poem will be clutching at shadows in the Ráday Könyvesház. Thank you Crag and Nico!


Today Marton Koppany in Budapest put up 52 A/4 prints which will be on view during the next week. The opening ceremony is due on Monday at 6 pm. It also will be the opening event for an international poetry festival. More events (performances, poetry readings) will be organized in the same room with participants from different countries (mostly from Central and Eastern Europe). The exhibition hall is situated in downtown Budapest, and part of a cultural center. For those who read Hungarian, here is the link to the center (called "Ráday Könyvesház"), and to the program of the festival.
http://www.radaykonyveshaz.hu/viii-europoetica-fesztival
Several internet portals and the best (and only) literary weekly have already announced the show, which might mean a two digit number crowd for the opening if the weather is nice. :-) Beside opening the show Marton will give a digital presentation as well.
Pictures will be taken on the opening event on Monday. Photos from this and other shows will be posted on the Last Vispo facebook page and a website as soon as that is constructed.

Works exhibited in the Budapest exhibit:
Fernando Aguiar: Calligraphy
Reed Altemus: Mural
mIEKAL aND: Cascajal Flower Trance Color
Gary Barwin: Ode
Michael Basinski: FECHEFACHE
Guy R. Beining: freezing briefness
John M. Bennett: Tic
Carla Bertola: Down-up
Jaap Blonk: Labior
Daniel f. Bradley: White Witch 11
Mike Cannell: "e" river
Judith Copithorne: The Letter O
Amanda Earl: Sun
endwar: A found concrete poem for Bern Porter
Kathy Ernst: Viole(n)t
Oded Ezer: The Message
Tim Gaze: untitled
Marco Giovenale: 0506, from "asemic sibyls"
Robert Grenier: AFTER/NOON/SUN/SHINE
Bob Grumman: Frame 1 of The Long Division of Poetry
Scott Helmes: untitled
Geof Huth: Suspension Within
Serkan Isin: dada korkut alphabet
Michael Jacobson: from Action Figures
Satu Kaikkonen: Paper Flowers
Karl Kempton: Rune 16: Basho Answers Before Hakuin Asked
Joe Keppler: 1000 Common Surnames in USA
Anatol Knotek: zickzack
Jim Leftwich: decomposition 2
Troy Lloyd: peakzero playback
Carlos M. Luis: Ma(I)ze Tassel Retrazos
Kaz Maslanka: Beginners Mind
Sheila Murphy: Attentionalia
Stephen Nelson: Walk with Me
Marko Niemi: from Katjusha
Rea Nikonova: Architectural Treatment
Juergen Olbrich: from the series "Postcard-corrections (since 1977)"
Clemente Padin: Nahuatl Protest Song Circa 1500, Nahuatl Protest Song Version 2005
Marilyn R. Rosenberg: Voyage
Suzan Sari: The Sun of Somewhere
Michael V. Smith & David Ellingsen: from Body of Text
Serge Segay: from Comma-ism
Pete Spence: untitled
Carol Stetser: from Mappaemundi
Cecil Touchon: Fusion Series No. 2500
Aysegul Tozeren: ekmek
Andrew Topel: From Ink
Helen White: Holding
Tim Willette: Black Letter
Karl Young: from 100 Sunrises 1000 Sunsets - Moon Plates
Mark Young: Defiant Lethargy

how to quote visual poetry

Previews from my arrogantly titled chapbook How to quote visual poetry, which is coming out later this month as no. 94 in Luc Fierens' Postfluxpostbooklet series.

our soft parts

Don't quite know where this is going yet. But the light was pretty that day.

Who's Bigbert, who's Egbert, who isn't?

a planet like pluto / naderbij de rand is a text, a performance, a very small paper man who lives on my windowsill, and a very large paper man who lives in the corner of my bedroom and watches me sleep.

Like show dogs and showgirls, paper showboys have a fancy name for when they do exhibitions and a normal name at home. So they share a long and fancy title, but back home on the sofa they're just plain Egbert and Bigbert.

Here are Egbert and Bigbert in my living room:


And here is the text. Just in case poet karaoke sparkles your starfish.

alsof
a

planet like a nearby effervescent tide
like i (kan niet) effervescent
(as if)
nearby effervescent a river but you
effervesce forget forget effervescent river vergeet en succumbing closer en
tide i deeper effervesce

like i (kan toch niet) effervesce
ik (kan niet)
(kan) (as if) nearby
effervescent forget forget effervescent river vergeet effervescent silence closer en naderbij toch

pluto like underwater toch otherwise
like i (kan toch niet) en
underwater naar de en rand water alsof toch en river
tide ik de en
onmogelijk

alsof like silence otherwise forget
like ik (kan toch) effervescent
silence i like effervescent naderbij closer en
onmogelijk nearby murmur onmogelijk gaan en like i jou (kan niet)
forget onmogelijke rand gaan en toch

ik
(kan toch)

toch onmogelijk closer huis
otherwise toch huis en rand water ik silence en
closer like onmogelijke stilte en rand
huis underwater ik silence

naar alsof alsof rand
alsof like silence otherwise forget
alsof lijkt stilte onmogelijk forget
rand alsof naderbij de

huis underwater ik silence
underwater naar de en rand water alsof toch en rand
ik (kan niet)
silence ik lijk effervescent naderbij closer en

kon onmogelijk naderbij
onmogelijk nearby murmur otherwise gaan en lijk ik jou (kon toch)
naar alsof alsof rand

gaan alsof alsof naar
alsof
alsof
naderbij

naderbij de rand van het water, alsof ik toch naar huis kon gaan

Performance in St.-Niklaas

Svend Thomsen filmed my performance of [distant thunder]:



... and also made a longer film which includes a bodyscan of dear patient Bigbert (several days into the exhibition, by which point his legs were quite visibly mashed), the spoken version of a planet like pluto / naderbij de rand (mixed English and Dutch) and the same film of [distant thunder] as above:

'Over de grens' exhibition in St. Niklaas

a planet like pluto / naderbij de rand (or 'Bigbert' to his friends)

our soft parts

our soft parts (detail)

our soft parts (detail)