This past Thursday Maria Damon's seminar on Bodies + Knowing attended a conversation between John Cayley and Rita Raley (a former professor of mine, actually, back in the fall of 1999 when I was an undergraduate here--I remember Freida Hughes, the daughter of Plath and Ted Hughes, had done a reading of her own work at what was then the Hungry Mind [later Ruminator, and then, sadly, it closed, my favorite bookstore of all time]--and I told Raley and she told me about another poetry something, to which I somehow replied that "poetry wasn't really my thing"--funny how things work out) in the e-poetry series. All of us minus CAM attended, laptops open (minus my own, whose battery did completely die on me yesterday and the plug-in is feisty, so I believe I might be in the market for a new laptop--drat), listening to song and distorted language, an eerie experience with the lights shut in a small fusty university room.
Different moments of the presentation, I think, both repelled and interested us--or at least, for me, I felt both reactions, sometimes simultaneously. I curled in on myself, feeling protective of books as books, as two covers, pages in between, curious about how technology can serve the written word, but very taken with the book as an object, and much more interested in the book as a work of art than the book as a technological experience.
However, I had never encountered "the cave" before, which just adds a bit to my lack of awareness in technology--the program medical students used and have abandoned for better, stronger, faster (my husband informs me that our very university has developed the cave in new technology--I'm wanting for synonyms here--which does not require the 8x8 room but can be projected nearly anywhere)--and Cayley simulated an undergraduate program using the cave as a surface on which to write, a three dimensional experience that would have been pretty amazing with those trick glasses, the strange cacophony around us, etc. I wasn't entirely interested in what was written though, and I think that is for two reasons--one, I was too distracted by the program itself, and two, the writing itself was not terribly compelling.
However, I was thinking about what other poets could do with a room like that, could do with a space, a kind of performance of their own work. I know I'd be interested to see what certain classmates of mine might do with it, but I'm trying to think of those big name poets, who might be able to do something truly interesting with the cave's parameters. The poet would have to be incredibly aware of timing and space, something I believe is lacking in my own work. This, to me, indicates where I ought to turn--what poets, then, might you hire for the cave? Living or dead, no limit, collaboration considered as well.
2 comments:
Yes indeedy, the undergrad writing left something to be desired. Brown, Shmrown. I think though that Cayley himself characterized it as adolescent, but said it's still fairly impressive that a group of undergrads could have made the whole piece in a semester... with which I can concur.
I want contrast in the cave... something old and beautiful like Keats against something fresh, clipped, and a little saucy... Matthea Harvey? But repetition also seems an important feature in that environment. Lorca then... and Alex Lemon? That would be an interesting combination!
Why this embedded putdown on your own writing is here, Molly, I can't really tell. I find your space and timing lovely, and don't think you lack in positive energy, articulation, responsibility, wit, etc. in comparison with the rest of us!
so interesting, thanks for reviewing the event. repelled? that's strong. say more? books aren't going away, though the way people relate to technology will certainly change. i appreciated the ambition of the writing of the cave-ugrads, and the care with which the whole project was woven together, even though there were stronger and weaker elements. i loved the voices in Cayley's piece "Imposition," and the morphing languages and letters, moving in a stately algorithm.
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