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Likestarlings is a place for talking in poems and pictures. We pair poets with poets and photographers with photographers. Each pair produces a sequence of new works responding in turn to one another. Our palaver blog goes beyond poetry and photography to discuss collaboration in theory and in practice in a wide range of places. Please take a look, and feel free to add comments, opinions and suggestions here. Read poems here, look at photographs here.
August 13th, 2010

In this illuminating excerpt from their pre- and intra-poetic conversation, Vincent and Barry consider which directions to take their dialogue-collab. They ruminate on themes and forms, giving fresh insights into the process, and begin to hint at how poems can evolve – for the writer/s and reader/s – even when you’re not looking.

On Apr 1, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

I hope you are well. As you know by now, David Hawkins of Likestarlings asked me to do a collaborative project for their site, and I suggested that it be with you. I am very happy you too like the idea and agree to give it a try.

I thought we should have some plans, so here are my thoughts. Feel free to totally disagree, come up with a different approach, etc.

I thought it would be interesting to think of a project of five short poems (short meaning one to two pages). Each poem would have a different set of formal or informal restraints. For the first one, I thought, since we both move around a bit, it would be interesting to capture parallel senses of motion — not necessarily speed, though that could be part of it, but simply the changes from place to place. Since we both are highly indebted to the visual, I further thought that in this first poem colors and/or lights could be guiding structural forces. We could try a poem in four-line stanzas, with the first letter of each line being capitalized. The poem could be of eight stanzas total. Each stanza would have its own spatial character and tonality, but linguistically there would be some continuity from stanza to stanza.

I’ve written a first stanza to the first poem. If that plan for a poem appeals to you, let me know, and I’ll send it.

As to the forms for the other four poems, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

I am currently in Rio, which may explain my interest in investing a poem with changes of scenery, or it may be just that I´m reading James Schuyler´s new “uncollected” poems, Other Flowers.
All the best,
Vincent

On Apr 6, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Here’s a thought.

What I’ve been thinking about since I wrote that other email to you an hour ago (or however long it was) is that what counts as a constraint for one person might not count as a constraint for another. So what I suggest is this: You write a poem, any poem, for instance the one you talk about below (or another). Send it to me. I take three aspects of your poem, which may or may not have been constraints you imposed on yourself–and I impose those three aspects on myself as constraints in composing my poem, while everything else is at liberty. When I’m done, I send it to you. You take any three aspects of my poems, of which at least two were not among the features you used in your first poem, and use them as constraints on the poem you write. I do the same again with your second poem. And so on.

Or maybe it would be better if the rule were, at least one of which was not among the features used in the previous poem? Anyway, as you see, this system would generate both continuities and continual variation. What do you think?

On Apr 11, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

What you suggest makes me think about the unit of translation. I grew up understanding the standard method for a “collab,” as it was passed down in legend from how Berrigan and Padgett worked on Bean Spasms, etc., was one person sits at the typewriter, types a few lines, then the next person sits at the typewriter, types a few lines, etc. One could imagine collaborating by the line, the phrase, the word, even (extremely) the syllable or letter(!), then going in the other direction, by the stanza (or section), page, which brings us to your suggestion — collaboration by the poem, i.e. using the poem as the unit of collaboration. I would be up for trying it. It does seem the most removed of the possibilities. That is, we would not be interfering in each other’s writing, only responding to it. The parameter(s) you suggest would certainly provide limitation(s); I just wonder if we might miss some of the back and forth that often energizes collaborations — the energy that derails what one person was attempting, while leading to a completely unexpected outcome.

Having said all that, if that’s how you prefer to do it, let’s try it. Should we plan to write 4 or 6 poems and then see how it’s going? Should each poem have the same structure, say four four-line stanzas (or whatever — three two-line stanzas)? Or should the poems be in any form or lack of form the writer decides? I guess I feel if they were all in the same form, it would provide an interesting cohesion to the project. One of the appeals of collaborating by the poem in uniform format would be to see if we could submerge the individual personalities of the authors — unless of course we do not want to do that. I hope that by starting in the way you suggest, we might eventually feel encouraged to try other methods of collaboration.
Let me know your thoughts,
Vincent

On Apr 12, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I thought that what we were being asked to do was to individually write poems that responded to the other’s poems. Yes, I see that as a very different thing from collaboration — although presumably the sequence of the poems would then form a larger whole by both poets. But I would be very happy — perhaps even more so — to engage in a “proper” collaboration, which I understand similarly to how you outline it. Should we go back to David of likestarlings for clarification? Or just ignore that we are on assignment and do what we feel like doing and present him with the results?

On Apr 12, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I think we should definitely do what we feel like doing — and since it seems like we both feel like doing the same thing, let’s just start! So we will send each other lines back and forth until one of us thinks it’s finished.

Here’s a beginning. This relates to an idea expressed in an earlier email — of a poem about lights and colors (in transit):

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in
The sky merited all the love it had received
During the day, all the walking
Colors as they darkened and were lit

On May 6, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Sorry I’ve been out of touch. The meantime has been a bit of a saga, I can tell later. But here is what I’ve come up with for the moment — see what you think:

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in
The sky merited all the love it had received
During the day, all the walking
Colors as they darkened and were lit

In direst harmony, evening’s next of kin,
We ambled down a cloudy highway,
Under flocks of color learned
That blue is fatal, a note with slow vibrato

On May 17, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in
The sky merited all the love it had received
During the day, all the walking
Colors as they darkened and were lit

In direst harmony, evening’s next of kin,
We ambled down a cloudy highway,
Under flocks of color learned
That blue is fatal, a note with slow vibrato

There is a city with no color in it
Just a long expanse of trees and hollows
When one has stayed in it, one knows
The paintings flow up to its edges

On May 18, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

We glimpsed a gray horizon
And glimmering molecules within it
All colors are all other colors
When bitten by the teeth of feeling

On May 25, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

I am on the road at the moment, so a little slow to respond.
Attached is poem as it stands so far. Let me know if you think it’s finished. If so, I’d like to start another one. Maybe you would want to set the format, if any.
All the best,
Vincent

On May 26, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I thought we were just getting started!
What do you think about seeing how far we can keep this going?

On May 26, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I like it! I will get back to you.

On May 27, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Excellent.

On June 29, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

It would be great if we could move toward finalizing “Finally” (if that’s what it’s title ends up being). Being very happy with how that poem is turning out, I am anxious to see what other poetic forms we can encompass. Not that it should have anything to do with our creative pace of working, but I know David Hawkins of Likestarlings is curious how things are progressing. What say you?
All the best,
Vincent

On Jul 12, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Sorry for my slowness. I’m back in London now. I would like us to keep going, but if David wants to start posting the piece in progress I’m comfortable with that.

In the meantime, I’ve come up with four more lines but also intervened more than either of us has up until now, namely, I’ve slightly revised the last four lines you added, and also moved one of them into what would now be the new last last-so-far stanza, as you’ll see.

Obviously, if you don’t care for what I did please change it. I’m thinking that in a way we are now far enough into this that we can treat our structure–and each other’s words–more freely. See what you think. Now or later, we could also start to think of revising some of the earlier parts of the poem in light of what’s come since.

On Jul 13, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

Thank you for the continuation! I find the changes interesting but need some time to let my responses come into focus (a day or two, hopefully).

The day, an accumulation of fears
Caresses in the past cannot be changed
An overage of yellow casts out eyes
Some sentences read like wine labels

Paintings welcome source and target
A girl flings out reddish laughter
I caught the accent of her hair
But make its document sallow music

In the above, I like your transposition of my line to your stanza/your line to my stanza. Still need to think about the changes in first two lines. I agree with you about, and am open to, our having freedom to change each other’s contributions. Everything is open to revision until it isn’t (or even later).

Regarding what we can release to Likestarlings, I thought it might be interesting to release our correspondence now, without the actual poem, until it is finished. Another thought: I kind of like the 6×4 format as a structure; it’s looking really solid suddenly. Maybe we should try another poem in this format? Or, if you would like to propose a new form (or absence of form), I would like to take a stab at that too (forgive my conventionally graphic metaphor, but I just saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and it’s haunting my imagination).
All the best,
Vincent

On Jul 13, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

That’s funny, I just saw that film on Sunday (when everyone else was watching the world cup).

It’s interesting that you find the 6×4 satisfying. I was just thinking, after my last email to you, that I feels like it is about to come to a conclusion, but not quite there — that maybe the next stanza would decide that it is either finished, or else that it was coming to a pause that would enable it to launch into its next part that would allow it to go on much longer.

But maybe this is good, but it needs a somewhat different last line?

Or maybe it could end with one more line, by itself, line 25?

On Jul 13, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I am up for more length, if you want to try to extend the poem (and think it can be extended). Let’s mull it over again. It’s interesting how time passing changes it. This time, when you sent your most recent version, the poem had changed quite a bit, even the parts that were not literally changed. That would be something interesting to consider, in our ancillary commentary.

I don’t normally like having additional (non-stanzaic) lines ending poems; they usually look a failure of form, but as I said earlier, I’m open.

What do you think about sharing our correspondence w/ Likestarlings?

On Jul 13, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Would it be embarrassing to reveal that we do not wax philosophic?

On Jul 14, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

No! We do wax, I think, poetic!

On Jul 28, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I’m starting to come around to your thought that we could stop the poem there. As an ending it
seems a bit abrupt but maybe that’s good.

On the other hand, what if we were to decide to add one more stanza? I give two lines, you give two,
and basta?

In the meantime, I’ve made a few more very small changes–using the “track changes” function.
See what you think. I’m not wedded to any of them.

Also wondering, how do you feel about the title being the first word? And should there be a
period at the end?

On 29 Jul, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Let’s try to add a stanza, see where it goes. Thanks for the changes; I’m mulling them over.
I like “track changes” — let’s use that from now on.
I like the title also being the first word (but am open to other title possibilities).
I would tend not to put a period at the end of this poem, but am open to it, if you want to try.
The thing that most excites me, and I hope you agree, is that I feel there are more poems where
this one is coming from.

On 29 Jul, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I know what you mean. There is definitely more we could do from here on.
Let me try to write the next 2 lines, then you polish off.
...

Here’s what I came up with.
I was starting to feel like it needed some geographical specificity, so I made it a London poem. I thought that would be ok with you. It could still secretly be a NY poem, because the last line is, obviously, a twist on “They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway.”

On Aug 2, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I guess my reaction is I would prefer to leave this poem free from specificity, as the poem started (in my mind, anyway) as a graph of both of our travels through various cities. This poem would take as its context “the city” but not any particular city, though undefining specifics could enter. What I did think, though, is that these two lines could form the germ for a possible “next” poem that could allow urban specifics. In fact, this next poem could be the opposite to the first in a sense (making it paradoxically identical): we could include defining details from many different cities, so the cumulative effect, though achieved by different means, would again be “the city.” What do you think?

…

[In this illuminating excerpt from their pre- and intra-poetic conversation, Vincent and Barry consider which directions to take their dialogue-collab. They ruminate on themes and forms, giving fresh insights into the process, and begin to hint at how poems can evolve – for the writer/s and reader/s – even when you're not looking.]

On Apr 1, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

I hope you are well. As you know by now, David Hawkins of Likestarlings asked me to do a collaborative project for their site, and I suggested that it be with you. I am very happy you too like the idea and agree to give it a try.

I thought we should have some plans, so here are my thoughts. Feel free to totally disagree, come up with a different approach, etc.

I thought it would be interesting to think of a project of five short poems (short meaning one to two pages). Each poem would have a different set of formal or informal restraints. For the first one, I thought, since we both move around a bit, it would be interesting to capture parallel senses of motion — not necessarily speed, though that could be part of it, but simply the changes from place to place. Since we both are highly indebted to the visual, I further thought that in this first poem colors and/or lights could be guiding structural forces. We could try a poem in four-line stanzas, with the first letter of each line being capitalized. The poem could be of eight stanzas total. Each stanza would have its own spatial character and tonality, but linguistically there would be some continuity from stanza to stanza.

I’ve written a first stanza to the first poem. If that plan for a poem appeals to you, let me know, and I’ll send it.

As to the forms for the other four poems, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

I am currently in Rio, which may explain my interest in investing a poem with changes of scenery, or it may be just that I´m reading James Schuyler´s new “uncollected” poems, Other Flowers.

All the best,

Vincent

On Apr 6, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Here’s a thought.

What I’ve been thinking about since I wrote that other email to you an hour ago (or however long it was) is that what counts as a constraint for one person might not count as a constraint for another. So what I suggest is this: You write a poem, any poem, for instance the one you talk about below (or another). Send it to me. I take three aspects of your poem, which may or may not have been constraints you imposed on yourself–and I impose those three aspects on myself as constraints in composing my poem, while everything else is at liberty. When I’m done, I send it to you. You take any three aspects of my poems, of which at least two were not among the features you used in your first poem, and use them as constraints on the poem you write. I do the same again with your second poem. And so on.

Or maybe it would be better if the rule were, at least one of which was not among the features used in the previous poem? Anyway, as you see, this system would generate both continuities and continual variation. What do you think?

On Apr 11, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

What you suggest makes me think about the unit of translation. I grew up understanding the standard method for a “collab,” as it was passed down in legend from how Berrigan and Padgett worked on Bean Spasms, etc., was one person sits at the typewriter, types a few lines, then the next person sits at the typewriter, types a few lines, etc. One could imagine collaborating by the line, the phrase, the word, even (extremely) the syllable or letter(!), then going in the other direction, by the stanza (or section), page, which brings us to your suggestion — collaboration by the poem, i.e. using the poem as the unit of collaboration. I would be up for trying it. It does seem the most removed of the possibilities. That is, we would not be interfering in each other’s writing, only responding to it. The parameter(s) you suggest would certainly provide limitation(s); I just wonder if we might miss some of the back and forth that often energizes collaborations — the energy that derails what one person was attempting, while leading to a completely unexpected outcome.

Having said all that, if that’s how you prefer to do it, let’s try it. Should we plan to write 4 or 6 poems and then see how it’s going? Should each poem have the same structure, say four four-line stanzas (or whatever — three two-line stanzas)? Or should the poems be in any form or lack of form the writer decides? I guess I feel if they were all in the same form, it would provide an interesting cohesion to the project. One of the appeals of collaborating by the poem in uniform format would be to see if we could submerge the individual personalities of the authors — unless of course we do not want to do that. I hope that by starting in the way you suggest, we might eventually feel encouraged to try other methods of collaboration.

Let me know your thoughts,

Vincent

On Apr 12, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I thought that what we were being asked to do was to individually write poems that responded to the other’s poems. Yes, I see that as a very different thing from collaboration — although presumably the sequence of the poems would then form a larger whole by both poets. But I would be very happy — perhaps even more so — to engage in a “proper” collaboration, which I understand similarly to how you outline it. Should we go back to David of likestarlings for clarification? Or just ignore that we are on assignment and do what we feel like doing and present him with the results?

On Apr 12, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I think we should definitely do what we feel like doing — and since it seems like we both feel like doing the same thing, let’s just start! So we will send each other lines back and forth until one of us thinks it’s finished.

Here’s a beginning. This relates to an idea expressed in an earlier email — of a poem about lights and colors (in transit):

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in
The sky merited all the love it had received
During the day, all the walking
Colors as they darkened and were lit

On May 6, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Sorry I’ve been out of touch. The meantime has been a bit of a saga, I can tell later. But here is what I’ve come up with for the moment — see what you think:

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in
The sky merited all the love it had received
During the day, all the walking
Colors as they darkened and were lit

In direst harmony, evening’s next of kin,
We ambled down a cloudy highway,
Under flocks of color learned
That blue is fatal, a note with slow vibrato

On May 17, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in
The sky merited all the love it had received
During the day, all the walking
Colors as they darkened and were lit

In direst harmony, evening’s next of kin,
We ambled down a cloudy highway,
Under flocks of color learned
That blue is fatal, a note with slow vibrato

There is a city with no color in it
Just a long expanse of trees and hollows
When one has stayed in it, one knows
The paintings flow up to its edges

On May 18, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

We glimpsed a gray horizon
And glimmering molecules within it
All colors are all other colors
When bitten by the teeth of feeling

On May 25, 2010, at 9:04 PM, Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

I am on the road at the moment, so a little slow to respond.

Attached is poem as it stands so far. Let me know if you think it’s finished.

If so, I’d like to start another one. Maybe you would want to set the

format, if any.

All the best,

Vincent

On May 26, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I thought we were just getting started!

What do you think about seeing how far we can keep this going?

On May 26, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I like it!

I will get back to you.

On May 27, 2010, at 2:04 AM, Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Excellent.

On June 29, 2010, at 6:53 AM, Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

It would be great if we could move toward finalizing “Finally” (if that’s what it’s title ends up being). Being very happy with how that poem is turning out, I am anxious to see what other poetic forms we can encompass. Not that it should have anything to do with our creative pace of working, but I know David Hawkins of Likestarlings is curious how things are progressing. What say you?

All the best,

Vincent

On Jul 12, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Sorry for my slowness. I’m back in London now.

I would like us to keep going, but if David wants to start posting the piece in progress I’m comfortable with that.

In the meantime, I’ve come up with four more lines but also intervened more than either of us has up until now, namely, I’ve slightly revised the last four lines you added, and also moved one of them into what would now be the new last last-so-far stanza, as you’ll see.

Obviously, if you don’t care for what I did please change it. I’m thinking that in a way we are now far enough into this that we can treat our structure–and each other’s words–more freely. See what you think. Now or later, we could also start to think of revising some of the earlier parts of the poem in light of what’s come since.

On Jul 13, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

Thank you for the continuation! I find the changes interesting but need some time to let my responses come into focus (a day or two, hopefully).

The day, an accumulation of fears
Caresses in the past cannot be changed
An overage of yellow casts out eyes
Some sentences read like wine labels

Paintings welcome source and target
A girl flings out reddish laughter
I caught the accent of her hair
But make its document sallow music

In the above, I like your transposition of my line to your stanza/your line to my stanza. Still need to think about the changes in first two lines. I agree with you about, and am open to, our having freedom to change each other’s contributions. Everything is open to revision until it isn’t (or even later).

Regarding what we can release to Likestarlings, I thought it might be interesting to release our correspondence now, without the actual poem, until it is finished. Another thought: I kind of like the 6×4 format as a structure; it’s looking really solid suddenly. Maybe we should try another poem in this format? Or, if you would like to propose a new form (or absence of form), I would like to take a stab at that too (forgive my conventionally graphic metaphor, but I just saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and it’s haunting my imagination).

All the best,

Vincent

On Jul 13, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

That’s funny, I just saw that film on Sunday (when everyone else was watching the world cup).

It’s interesting that you find the 6×4 satisfying. I was just thinking, after my last email to you, that I feels like it is about to come to a conclusion, but not quite there — that maybe the next stanza would decide that it is either finished, or else that it was coming to a pause that would enable it to launch into its next part that would allow it to go on much longer.

But maybe this is good, but it needs a somewhat different last line?

Or maybe it could end with one more line, by itself, line 25?

On Jul 13, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I am up for more length, if you want to try to extend the poem (and think it can be extended). Let’s mull it over again. It’s interesting how time passing changes it. This time, when you sent your most recent version, the poem had changed quite a bit, even the parts that were not literally changed. That would be something interesting to consider, in our ancillary commentary.

I don’t normally like having additional (non-stanzaic) lines ending poems; they usually look a failure of form, but as I said earlier, I’m open.

What do you think about sharing our correspondence w/ Likestarlings?

On Jul 13, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Would it be embarrassing to reveal that we do not wax philosophic?

On Jul 14, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

No! We do wax, I think, poetic!

On Jul 28, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I’m starting to come around to your thought that we could stop the poem there. As an ending it seems a bit abrupt but maybe that’s good.

On the other hand, what if we were to decide to add one more stanza? I give two lines, you give two, and basta?

In the meantime, I’ve made a few more very small changes–using the “track changes” function. See what you think. I’m not wedded to any of them.

Also wondering, how do you feel about the title being also the first word? And should there be a period at the end?

On 29 Jul, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Let’s try to add a stanza, see where it goes.

Thanks for the changes; I’m mulling them over.

I like “track changes” — let’s use that from now on.

I like the title also being the first word (but am open to other title possibilities).

I would tend not to put a period at the end of this poem, but am open to it, if you want to try.

The thing that most excites me, and I hope you agree, is that I feel there are more poems where this one is coming from.

On 29 Jul, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I know what you mean. There is definitely more we could do from here on.

Let me try to write the next 2 lines, then you polish off.

From Barry (7/29/10, 11:16 AM)

Here’s what I came up with.

I was starting to feel like it needed some geographical specificity, so I made it a London poem. I thought that would be ok with you. It could still secretly be a NY poem, because the last line is, obviously, a twist on “They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway.”

On Aug 2, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I guess my reaction is I would prefer to leave this poem free from specificity, as the poem started (in my mind, anyway) as a graph of both of our travels through various cities. This poem would take as its context “the city” but not any particular city, though undefining specifics could enter. What I did think, though, is that these two lines could form the germ for a possible “next” poem that could allow urban specifics. In fact, this next poem could be the opposite to the first in a sense (making it paradoxically identical): we could include defining details from many different cities, so the cumulative effect, though achieved by different means, would again be “the city.” What do you think?

…

[In this illuminating excerpt from their pre- and intra-poetic conversation, Vincent and Barry consider which directions to take their dialogue-collab. They ruminate on themes and forms, giving fresh insights into the process, and begin to hint at how poems can evolve – for the writer/s and reader/s – even when you're not looking.]

On Apr 1, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

I hope you are well. As you know by now, David Hawkins of Likestarlings asked me to do a collaborative project for their site, and I suggested that it be with you. I am very happy you too like the idea and agree to give it a try.

I thought we should have some plans, so here are my thoughts. Feel free to totally disagree, come up with a different approach, etc.

I thought it would be interesting to think of a project of five short poems (short meaning one to two pages). Each poem would have a different set of formal or informal restraints. For the first one, I thought, since we both move around a bit, it would be interesting to capture parallel senses of motion — not necessarily speed, though that could be part of it, but simply the changes from place to place. Since we both are highly indebted to the visual, I further thought that in this first poem colors and/or lights could be guiding structural forces. We could try a poem in four-line stanzas, with the first letter of each line being capitalized. The poem could be of eight stanzas total. Each stanza would have its own spatial character and tonality, but linguistically there would be some continuity from stanza to stanza.

I’ve written a first stanza to the first poem. If that plan for a poem appeals to you, let me know, and I’ll send it.

As to the forms for the other four poems, I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.

I am currently in Rio, which may explain my interest in investing a poem with changes of scenery, or it may be just that I´m reading James Schuyler´s new “uncollected” poems, Other Flowers.

All the best,

Vincent

On Apr 6, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Here’s a thought.

What I’ve been thinking about since I wrote that other email to you an hour ago (or however long it was) is that what counts as a constraint for one person might not count as a constraint for another. So what I suggest is this: You write a poem, any poem, for instance the one you talk about below (or another). Send it to me. I take three aspects of your poem, which may or may not have been constraints you imposed on yourself–and I impose those three aspects on myself as constraints in composing my poem, while everything else is at liberty. When I’m done, I send it to you. You take any three aspects of my poems, of which at least two were not among the features you used in your first poem, and use them as constraints on the poem you write. I do the same again with your second poem. And so on.

Or maybe it would be better if the rule were, at least one of which was not among the features used in the previous poem? Anyway, as you see, this system would generate both continuities and continual variation. What do you think?

On Apr 11, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

What you suggest makes me think about the unit of translation. I grew up understanding the standard method for a “collab,” as it was passed down in legend from how Berrigan and Padgett worked on Bean Spasms, etc., was one person sits at the typewriter, types a few lines, then the next person sits at the typewriter, types a few lines, etc. One could imagine collaborating by the line, the phrase, the word, even (extremely) the syllable or letter(!), then going in the other direction, by the stanza (or section), page, which brings us to your suggestion — collaboration by the poem, i.e. using the poem as the unit of collaboration. I would be up for trying it. It does seem the most removed of the possibilities. That is, we would not be interfering in each other’s writing, only responding to it. The parameter(s) you suggest would certainly provide limitation(s); I just wonder if we might miss some of the back and forth that often energizes collaborations — the energy that derails what one person was attempting, while leading to a completely unexpected outcome.

Having said all that, if that’s how you prefer to do it, let’s try it. Should we plan to write 4 or 6 poems and then see how it’s going? Should each poem have the same structure, say four four-line stanzas (or whatever — three two-line stanzas)? Or should the poems be in any form or lack of form the writer decides? I guess I feel if they were all in the same form, it would provide an interesting cohesion to the project. One of the appeals of collaborating by the poem in uniform format would be to see if we could submerge the individual personalities of the authors — unless of course we do not want to do that. I hope that by starting in the way you suggest, we might eventually feel encouraged to try other methods of collaboration.

Let me know your thoughts,

Vincent

On Apr 12, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I thought that what we were being asked to do was to individually write poems that responded to the other’s poems. Yes, I see that as a very different thing from collaboration — although presumably the sequence of the poems would then form a larger whole by both poets. But I would be very happy — perhaps even more so — to engage in a “proper” collaboration, which I understand similarly to how you outline it. Should we go back to David of likestarlings for clarification? Or just ignore that we are on assignment and do what we feel like doing and present him with the results?

On Apr 12, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I think we should definitely do what we feel like doing — and since it seems like we both feel like doing the same thing, let’s just start! So we will send each other lines back and forth until one of us thinks it’s finished.

Here’s a beginning. This relates to an idea expressed in an earlier email — of a poem about lights and colors (in transit):

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in

The sky merited all the love it had received

During the day, all the walking

Colors as they darkened and were lit

On May 6, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Sorry I’ve been out of touch. The meantime has been a bit of a saga, I can tell later. But here is what I’ve come up with for the moment — see what you think:

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in

The sky merited all the love it had received

During the day, all the walking

Colors as they darkened and were lit

In direst harmony, evening’s next of kin,

We ambled down a cloudy highway,

Under flocks of color learned

That blue is fatal, a note with slow vibrato

On May 17, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Finally, a pinkish glow crept in

The sky merited all the love it had received

During the day, all the walking

Colors as they darkened and were lit

In direst harmony, evening’s next of kin,

We ambled down a cloudy highway,

Under flocks of color learned

That blue is fatal, a note with slow vibrato

There is a city with no color in it

Just a long expanse of trees and hollows

When one has stayed in it, one knows

The paintings flow up to its edges

On May 18, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

We glimpsed a gray horizon

And glimmering molecules within it

All colors are all other colors

When bitten by the teeth of feeling

On May 25, 2010, at 9:04 PM, Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

I am on the road at the moment, so a little slow to respond.

Attached is poem as it stands so far. Let me know if you think it’s finished.

If so, I’d like to start another one. Maybe you would want to set the

format, if any.

All the best,

Vincent

On May 26, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I thought we were just getting started!

What do you think about seeing how far we can keep this going?

On May 26, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I like it!

I will get back to you.

On May 27, 2010, at 2:04 AM, Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Excellent.

On June 29, 2010, at 6:53 AM, Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

It would be great if we could move toward finalizing “Finally” (if that’s what it’s title ends up being). Being very happy with how that poem is turning out, I am anxious to see what other poetic forms we can encompass. Not that it should have anything to do with our creative pace of working, but I know David Hawkins of Likestarlings is curious how things are progressing. What say you?

All the best,

Vincent

On Jul 12, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Sorry for my slowness. I’m back in London now.

I would like us to keep going, but if David wants to start posting the piece in progress I’m comfortable with that.

In the meantime, I’ve come up with four more lines but also intervened more than either of us has up until now, namely, I’ve slightly revised the last four lines you added, and also moved one of them into what would now be the new last last-so-far stanza, as you’ll see.

Obviously, if you don’t care for what I did please change it. I’m thinking that in a way we are now far enough into this that we can treat our structure–and each other’s words–more freely. See what you think. Now or later, we could also start to think of revising some of the earlier parts of the poem in light of what’s come since.

On Jul 13, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Hi Barry

Thank you for the continuation! I find the changes interesting but need some time to let my responses come into focus (a day or two, hopefully).

The day, an accumulation of fears

Caresses in the past cannot be changed

An overage of yellow casts out eyes

Some sentences read like wine labels

Paintings welcome source and target

A girl flings out reddish laughter

I caught the accent of her hair

But make its document sallow music

In the above, I like your transposition of my line to your stanza/your line to my stanza. Still need to think about the changes in first two lines. I agree with you about, and am open to, our having freedom to change each other’s contributions. Everything is open to revision until it isn’t (or even later).

Regarding what we can release to Likestarlings, I thought it might be interesting to release our correspondence now, without the actual poem, until it is finished. Another thought: I kind of like the 6×4 format as a structure; it’s looking really solid suddenly. Maybe we should try another poem in this format? Or, if you would like to propose a new form (or absence of form), I would like to take a stab at that too (forgive my conventionally graphic metaphor, but I just saw The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and it’s haunting my imagination).

All the best,

Vincent

On Jul 13, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

That’s funny, I just saw that film on Sunday (when everyone else was watching the world cup).

It’s interesting that you find the 6×4 satisfying. I was just thinking, after my last email to you, that I feels like it is about to come to a conclusion, but not quite there — that maybe the next stanza would decide that it is either finished, or else that it was coming to a pause that would enable it to launch into its next part that would allow it to go on much longer.

But maybe this is good, but it needs a somewhat different last line?

Or maybe it could end with one more line, by itself, line 25?

On Jul 13, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I am up for more length, if you want to try to extend the poem (and think it can be extended). Let’s mull it over again. It’s interesting how time passing changes it. This time, when you sent your most recent version, the poem had changed quite a bit, even the parts that were not literally changed. That would be something interesting to consider, in our ancillary commentary.

I don’t normally like having additional (non-stanzaic) lines ending poems; they usually look a failure of form, but as I said earlier, I’m open.

What do you think about sharing our correspondence w/ Likestarlings?

On Jul 13, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

Would it be embarrassing to reveal that we do not wax philosophic?

On Jul 14, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

No! We do wax, I think, poetic!

On Jul 28, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I’m starting to come around to your thought that we could stop the poem there. As an ending it seems a bit abrupt but maybe that’s good.

On the other hand, what if we were to decide to add one more stanza? I give two lines, you give two, and basta?

In the meantime, I’ve made a few more very small changes–using the “track changes” function. See what you think. I’m not wedded to any of them.

Also wondering, how do you feel about the title being also the first word? And should there be a period at the end?

On 29 Jul, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

Let’s try to add a stanza, see where it goes.

Thanks for the changes; I’m mulling them over.

I like “track changes” — let’s use that from now on.

I like the title also being the first word (but am open to other title possibilities).

I would tend not to put a period at the end of this poem, but am open to it, if you want to try.

The thing that most excites me, and I hope you agree, is that I feel there are more poems where this one is coming from.

On 29 Jul, 2010 Barry Schwabsky wrote:

I know what you mean. There is definitely more we could do from here on.

Let me try to write the next 2 lines, then you polish off.

From Barry (7/29/10, 11:16 AM)

Here’s what I came up with.I was starting to feel like it needed some geographical specificity, so I made it a London poem. I thought that would be ok with you. It could still secretly be a NY poem, because the last line is, obviously, a twist on “They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway.”

On Aug 2, 2010 Vincent Katz wrote:

I guess my reaction is I would prefer to leave this poem free from specificity, as the poem started (in my mind, anyway) as a graph of both of our travels through various cities. This poem would take as its context “the city” but not any particular city, though undefining specifics could enter. What I did think, though, is that these two lines could form the germ for a possible “next” poem that could allow urban specifics. In fact, this next poem could be the opposite to the first in a sense (making it paradoxically identical): we could include defining details from many different cities, so the cumulative effect, though achieved by different means, would again be “the city.” What do you think?

…

Posted by: David Hawkins in Guest post | No Comments »

July 14th, 2010

Following on from Caleb’s last blog post, I’m inclined to agree that ‘impulse’ and ‘theme’ or concerns are probably more profound ways to root out poetic kinship than measures of formality or how ‘experimental’ someone appears.

It does seem that recently there has been a great deal of discussion regarding poetic schools, locales, groupings and styles though – and the obvious distinctions, value-judgements and schisms that such taxonomization entails. Not to make light of the intentions behind (sometimes crucial, sometimes pointless) conceptual ordering of poetry. As Caleb says, we need to have critical apparatus to grasp what’s going on of course, but the lasting quality of various items can be a much trickier thing. Vitriolic denouncements and supercilious dismissals of other styles or approaches seem like a waste of energy. In light of this, what sort of debates are actually progressive and useful – in the broadest sense? On what sort of debates ought we to be spending our limited energies?

At the same time, contemporary poetry is broader and more diffuse than ever. Perhaps it is an anxiety over this breadth that leads to such impassioned attack and defense positioning. It sometimes feels as if Poiesis is conceived as some great mother ship, with opposing factions grappling over its controls.

Hierarchization of living literature is a tricky and uncomfortable thing, and can be very divisive. So many decisions are instinctive – this is art after all. Within the poetic ecosystem, there ought to be space for many variants, adaptations, specializations. Naturally there will be experimentation because experimentation is both inevitable and essential in an ever-changing world. I’m wary of pushing the ecological analogy too far though – some things that are certainly wondrous and beautiful fail to survive.

Here at Likestarlings, we believe that good, urgent, vital writing can happen within many categories, can look and sound radically different, and can be apparently ’simple’ or ‘difficult’ on first examination. This might sound idealistic, or even naïve, but we reckon it’s as perfectly possible to have an eclectic taste in poetry as it is in music, films or condiments. And we think many people share this view. This isn’t to say that poets don’t have ancestry and heritage both selected and ineluctable, but new unities can be found regardless or in light of these things. We continue to be excited by poetry coming from and heading in many different directions, at many different heights and velocities. Fundamental to the Likestarlings project is getting these differences to talk to each other, and make something new out of that meeting.

Over the coming months, watch this fluxious space as we pair poets from across divides, physical and conceptual, real or imagined, and see what happens as they converse in their chosen medium.

Posted by: David Hawkins in Editorial | No Comments »

May 2nd, 2010

I’m very much in agreement with your last week’s post. I guess when writing I just hope that someone will read it – but who that person is I don’t really know. Of course you want there to be some form of engagement, otherwise it’s elliptical or solipsistic. So I always have an ‘audience’ in mind, but, as I say, their faces are obscure – as in a dream! Perhaps these ideas become clearer over time (or if people are actually reading your work!) Perhaps other people have a much clearer idea… and without needing a specific social cause/ coterie or such. What about you? It strikes me that poetry concerned with ecology ought to be trying to speak to everyone, somehow, anyway.

I suppose one of the problems with audience is that with most poetry which can broadly, vexedly, be termed ‘experimental’ or ‘progressive’ or something it seems likely that the audience is going to be almost solely other poets. This issue was dealt with rather grimly on the Poetry Foundation recently. Mind you, elsewhere they provide more detail about who is in fact reading the stuff, in America at least.

Basically I concur that you just can’t worry too much about it, but should try to keep some awareness. And absolutely to write with ‘the widest possible empathy’, as you say, is surely a noble aim, and the best thing we can do. And to write as clearly as possible, using just the right words to further one’s ends i.e. taking risks where you have to, and not hedging. All this sounds very obvious and Coleridge, but it’s never that simple.

In the quest of better elucidation and in order to swing things back more to our original discussion on ecopoetics I turned to something which had heartened me before: the final chapter of Jonathan Bate’s The Song of the Earth, entitled ‘What are poets for?’ He characterizes poets as sort of earth-links who can speak from/through/within the earth, at their best when not describing, not giving narratives, but ’saying’ the things that are – rather like the Sami tradition of Yoiking. He also offers us a way out of didacticism (as discussed before): ‘…Ecopoetics should begin not as a set of assumptions or proposals about particular environmental issues, but as a way of reflecting upon what it might mean to dwell with the earth. Ecopoetics must first concern itself with consciousness.’

The argument is complex but the poet is seen as ‘the guardian, the treasurer, the primary maker of language’. The role is crucial, and the societal space is both necessary and allotted; poets are ‘imagination-workers’. This is a big job, and its takes me back to what I said in the first instalment of this conversation that it will a ‘failure of the imagination’ that scuppers us as much as anything.

But in the course of all this it’s occurred to me again that the vast majority of poets are naturally and unavoidably amateurs – in the etymological sense, and in the sense of being non-professional. This puts us in a very privileged position: we can say anything. But with that realisation comes huge responsibility of course.

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April 20th, 2010

That’s very much what I meant, yes. It is difficult this thing of being overtly ‘direct’ in poetry. It so often blurs into a seeming or definite didacticism. And it explains why so much of what we find is oblique or incomprehensible. Adding a layer of artifice (and this is not to denigrate the intention) allows the writer to step back into the joy of poiesis, a joy (not the same as happiness) that having a surefire agenda displaces very easily. Any lyric impulse is innately troubled by the need to take make an ideology or value-system so explicit and naked as this.

Troubled, I would say, whether we realise it or not. And it’s out of this tension – the tension between the undeniable poetic instinct and a sense of that instinct being hijacked by something ineluctable like an emergency (in this case the ecological ‘crisis’) – that some of the best work seems to emerge. It appears throughout Peter Reading’s work, for example, but particularly in Faunal (2002). Although the lyric desire there to celebrate the natural world is ironized and sophisticated a step further by a dry, semi-scientific tone and the juxtapositions in the text. Perhaps because he recognises this tension more acutely than most. As in ‘Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas’ where the narrator describes ‘Mexican Free-tailed Bats,/ Tadaria brasiliensis (mexicana)‘ emerging from a roost as ‘One of the most spectacular/ phenomena I have ever been privileged to witness.’ But goes on to explain how he got banged up for ‘Public Intoxication’ after throwing his binoculars into a river.

But while the tension is there, Reading is so clearly didactic that it almost blasts through the issue altogether. You’re probably right, in that we should worry less about whether or not someone is being didactic per se but rather about what they’re saying and how well they’re saying it. But the unsettling thing in didacticism is the idea of certainty it relays/attempts to relay. As you say, it feels ‘predetermined and boring’. Poetry, I always thought, was supposed to inhabit that doubtful stretch, where slippage happens, to walk into the fog without a map and come back some funny mineral off the mountainside or something. Not dictate terms. I need to consider your closing questions for longer. However, I agree that some sort of provocation is vital – because that moves us forward, whereas the timelessly poetic objective of evocation might just have us looking back or standing still. The elegiac mode will come through whatever, but doesn’t serve our purpose now. Inherent in all this ‘-vocation’ there seems to be a target, an audience; but who, exactly, are we trying to provoke?

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April 5th, 2010

the two phrases that keep going through my mind in relation to poetic practise are ‘poets as filters’ and ‘reality, our great collaboration’. I made the thoughts catchy so they were easier to meditate on. Addressing the second to begin with:

joint commitment/ joint responsibility/ full accountability// most importantly: the desire and need to make something useful – to as many people as possible – that serves some kind of a purpose now, and, ideally, onward into the future – whatever that might be. This seems ambitious. I hope so. It stems also from a (sometimes desperate) sense of urgency, in the main pertaining to what we might broadly but vexedly term ‘the environment’. I say ‘vexedly’ because I very much agree with James Sherry that to make any real progress it’s absolutely essential that we scud under the (basically Romantic) separation between ‘Humanity’ and ‘Nature’. Any more advanced and holistic (i.e. Gaian) viewpoint doesn’t allow such easy distinction and disambiguation anyway. However, I realise that saying these things so simply is perfectly reductive as well. Still, as the best poetry pushes at the bulbous glassy edge of reality and attempts to chart undistorted its findings we may as well try and get on with things as best we can. It’s only language, our chosen(?) medium. I would rather a restless, risky poetics than the majority inertia witnessed where apparent ‘realism’ is a stultifying virtue. Documentation doesn’t seem like enough, and didacticism is nearly as worrying as the thought of failure. Coaxing and honing the edges of imagination somehow seems to be the thing. Because it’s a failure of the imagination that will let us down eventually.

Some of these ideas also link to an essay on (the impossibility of) closure by Lyn Hejinian (also) in Jacket. The idea of us existing on and in a continuum I find helpful. This echoes the calling out of the artificial division (the default, atavistic us&them) between humanity and nature/the environment. And again the idea of a collective effort comes through.  This is fitting for Likestarlings and for a collaborative clean-up and rescue operation. It points the way to poetry that is less definite in assumptions (but no less definite in its quality) about its immediate purpose (autopilot) and more expansive in its aims – an investigative poetics so to speak. This is poetry that can embrace anything, evolve, adapt – survive (yes). It acknowledges its own transitory nature, the impermanence of its medium and situation, and presents a permeable interface allowing multiple interpretations, trajectories and implications.

These concepts of investigative poetries with permeable edges takes me on to the first-mentioned phrase: poets as filters of information/sensation/ revelation … as a linguistic organ rather like a liver or kidney. Decisions about what to pass over in silence are highly important in this context. Because poetry is open-ended doesn’t need to mean it’s unclear in its aims or convictions. Peter Reading of course, with his wholly linked, inter-referential and remarkably coherent oeuvre, springs very spikily to mind. He’s predicted a great deal of this.

Poetry, it seems to me, is the medium most adept and fitting for considering the ecological crisis occuring now. This is because as a communicative and evocative vehicle  it is the most mobile, the most nuanced, the most capable of being honest thing we have. It most closely reflects the fluxious nature of experience. So, poets as semi-permeable membranes creating permeable, evolving works in an impermanent medium! Sounds difficult.

This is much longer than I intended. Does it make any sense? As ever, I fondly (but not complacently I hope) await your elucidation and better ordering of these fuggy thoughts…

DEH

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