48:4 Winter 2002/3

NOTES & COMMENTS
Dispatch from Marseilles

An account of TOM RAWORTH'S PETITES IRREGULARITÉS, new collages and exhibition of chapbooks/graphics/bookworks (24th May-29th June 2002), and POESIE BRITANNIQUE CONTEMPORAINE, a presentation of contemporary British and Irish poetry, 7 pm: Friday 31st May 2002, at the centre international de poesie Marseille, Centre de la Vieille Charité, 2, rue de la Charité, Marseille.

PETITES IRRÉGULARITÉS is a celebratory exhibition of twenty-three collages by Tom Raworth. As well as these thoughtfully hung works, there is also on display a substantial body of Tom's chapbooks/bookworks: all shown in the centre international de poesie Marseille (cipM) exhibition space, which is the former small chapel of "La Vielle Charité"-- a beautiful seventeenth century set of architectural buildings designed in the French baroque style by Pierre Puget to take in vagrants and orphans. This former workhouse with glorious, palmed cloisters, situated north of the harbour in the oldest part of Marseille, is now a multi-cultural centre.

The collages are dazzling and show an extraordinary passion for colour, texture, and structure (view collages here). No titles here--no "clues"--simply Tom's pencilled "pour Marseille, May 2002" beneath each collage. The raw material is entirely "found"--"all bits of paper" as Tom puts it--colour/monochrome newsprint/text--the sheer speed of a bunch of banner headlines as they zip/drive/fracture their scripts into/out/through & across in all directions/multiple constructions in one of the collages is breathtaking--the intercutting, zoomings in/out of, pushing against, breaking away from--unstoppable shapes and colour/textural vocabularies--labyrinthine high-speed signals--configurations--all surfaces high-energy active--vibrant, stained glass cinematic divinations that are wide-open, free yet all startlingly coherent in their measurements and precisions--that consummate clarity of detail--that assemblative knowing of the true collagist.

Also in the former chapel is an exhibition of chapbooks and bookworks by Tom (taken from the magnificent poetry library of the Centre) displayed in free-standing glass-topped cabinets. These works reveal Tom's commitment to collaboration and translation: they also give mark of his lifelong passions for making books in the breadth and craft of his textual and graphic works over decades of making/taking risk as poet, editor, publisher, printer, and visual artist.

I especially love the set of four-page A5 Infolio magazines, combining graphic and textual work--the first series of which began on July 1st 1986 (with work by Asa Benveniste and Claude Royet-Journoud)--and which continued to be made daily (Monday to Friday) for 40 issues (the first daily arts magazine in Britain)--to be followed by a second series produced weekly (Fridays) for sixty issues going on over the whole of 1987. Over 200 writers and artists appeared here, including Leslie Scalapino, J.H.Prynne, Giovanni d'Agostino, Alice Notley, Steve Benson, Clark Coolidge, Merrill Gilfillan, John Wilkinson, William Wiley, Corrado Costa, Anne-Marie Albiach.

Other bookworks in the exhibition include Catacoustics, Visible Shivers, Tottering State, The Relation Ship, Ace, The Thoughts of Captain Alexis (a collaboration with Franco Beltrametti), Hors-Champ (a collaboration with painter Micaëla Henich, translated by Françoise DeLaroque), Jazz, A Vide, and The Mosquito and the Moon (all translated by Pierre Alferi), Le Filon (a prose book written in Marseille in 1991 which exists only in its French translation by Catherine Weinzaepflen), Prétense, and Six Jours et Six Poèmes (translated by Marie Borel and Jacques Roubaud), and Frissons Apparents (translated by Borel and Roubaud with Laure Durien), the first of Tom's books in France, published by Emmanuel Ponsart's Spectres Familiers in 1988--an A3 vertically folding book, made from scraps of paper left over from production of a book by Anne-Marie Albiach.

To coincide with this exhibition, cipM held a number of evening poetry readings and presentations--all admission-free--throughout May, including Les Comptoirs de la Nouvelle B.S. on May 24th--readings by Tom of his own work, with translations made during the previous three days by Liliane Giraudon, Audrey Jenkinson, Yvan Mignot, Florence Pazzottu, and Jean Jacques Viton. Earlier that week there had been a reading by Joan Retallack, Emmanuel Hocquard, Jacques Roubaud, and Juliette Valery.

I was the only one of the four poets invited to be able to make POÉSIE BRITANNIQUE CONTEMPORAINE--a presentation by Tom of contemporary British/Irish poets. Unfortunately Tom Leonard had been unable to accept the invitation for reasons including the intensive demands of seeing his version of Uncle Vanya into production with Glasgow's Theatre Babel--I had been fortunate to catch it on its U.K. tour in Manchester and was stunned: I can't ever remember Chekhov's dramatic writing having been brought to life for me with such vibrancy, dynamism, and wit. Then, due to sheer bad luck/circumstances beyond their control at the last moment (airline strikes, lost documents, etc.) both Trevor Joyce and Keston Sutherland were also unable to attend.

The readings took place in the small film theatre adjoining the exhibition space, with Tom, Eric Giraud (the French poet who also organises the cipM Poetry Library, and with whom Tom had worked closely on fast translations of some of the invitees' work), and myself. They were videotaped and recorded for the cipM archives. Tom began in French by saying that he had asked the four particular poets to be invited to read to try to counteract the idea in France that "Britannique" covers everything written on these islands (usually interpreted as writing in English by Anglo Saxons) and because of the panorama and diversity of their writing practices. He then mentioned several useful anthologies--Wesleyan's Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970, Oxford's Anthology of 20th Century British and Irish Poetry, and Etruscan's foil: defining poetry 1985-2000--which indicate the diversity of current poetic practices on these islands.

After apologising, and explaining briefly the reasons for the non-appearance of the others, Tom then described each of the invisible poets whose work was about to be heard as well as giving a brief intro for all four of us. Apart from the poets' work, he mentioned that Trevor Joyce lives in Cork in Ireland and was one of the few people to be involved in interesting poetry there since the 1960s: that Keston Sutherland lives in Cambridge, edits a magazine (Quid) and publishes Barque books with Andrea Brady, and has a good knowledge of the younger generation of English and American poets: that Tom Leonard lives in Scotland where he is part of an interesting new writing movement (along with prose writers such as James Kelman), was active in concrete and sound poetry, and writes in the language of Glasgow: that I live in the north of England, edited anthologies, and have a good awareness of women writing in England and the United States.

He went on to read all of Trevor Joyce's Saws in English, the first section of which was read in French by Eric: the whole of Keston Sutherland's Zeroes Galore, followed by Loss of Life in French by Eric: Tom Leonard's Glaswegian translation (ahma hoarss) of Je Suis Un Cheval by Hans Arp, followed in the original French by Eric, and all of his own Dark Senses. When it came to me, I spoke (the gist translated by Eric) for some minutes about the small press publishing context of my language/visual work and the importance of the work as book in my practice (showing examples). Then I read Equities Water, followed by a section from Doubtless and finished with a repeat of Equities Water to give the sounds again of the opening words. No translation was provided as it had been decided earlier between Eric, Tom, and myself that it would be futile to attempt to translate my work in the short time available after we came adrift on the title--Equities Water--and immediately dropped into deeper water with "Spayfer" the fourth word in to the text…

The event was well attended (the small theatre about half full) and afterwards people were friendly, welcoming, enthusiastic, and responsive to the works/readings. Nibbley things & cherries and a generous range of liquid hospitality, including a choice of gins and pastis was provided for all in the exhibition area. Afterwards Emmanuel, François, and Vanina who all work at cipM took Tom, Eric Pesty (who was visiting from Paris), and myself for an Moroccan meal of couscous--a lovely end to the readings.

The well-produced A5 (red cover/blue black lettering) booklet Le Cahier du Refuge 106 provides supporting documentation for each event at cipM during the month of May 2002--and contains Tom's TRACTOR PARTS, SOIXANTE MOTS QUE JE N'AI JAMAIS UTILISÉS, and DRINKING ELECTRICITY to accompany Les Comptoirs de la Nouvelle B.S. as well as two black & white reproductions of the Petites Irrégularités collages and brief biblio/biogs/examples of work for the British/Irish poets.

cipM, under the direction of Emmanual Ponsart, is committed to interaction between interdisciplinary creative practices and particularly to promoting a wide range of poets and poetics. As well as the monthly Le Cahier du Refuge they publish a series of books as Editions du Refuge, and a bi-annual Cahier Critique de Poésie. Three French poets, Eric Giraud, David Lespiau (who both work at the Centre), and Eric Pesty have just started to publish Issue, a well-produced A4 bilingual magazine. Issue 1 (January 2002) contains extracts from Clark Coolidge's (1975) Polaroid translated by Eric Pesty and Jennifer Bonn as well as The Doubles (in English) by Jena Osman and Dan Farrell's K, translated by Nathalie Quintane.

You can find some of Tom's Petites Irrégularités on his website at tomraworth.com by clicking on to the "Pictures" icon, then clicking on "Collages for Marseille." There are also links to some photos which may give a sense of La Vielle Charité, the people, and the city. There seems to be a lively arts scene--the evening I arrived I went to the opening of an exhibition of work by Christophe Tarkos (with readings by Julien Blaine, Nicolas Tardy, Frédérique Guétat-Liviani, Jean-Luc Parant, and Tom) where the crowd spilled out onto the pavement of the hot narrow street with their drinks, enthusiasms, and vitality. Later, Jean-Francois Moyer (the gallery owner) took a number of us out for a splendid meal.

Marseille is a gritty, pulsing, vibrant city/port--the clarity of light/aromatic air is amazing--all manner of seacraft--fishing, sail, speedboats--ferries to the islands and to Corsica, dock around the Vieux Port, the heart of the city--everyone doing what they do with ardour and flair--the fishermen selling their morning catch at the harbourside--the gracious woman in the North African store in the Arab market presenting her treasure of spices and herbs in beautifully painted paper sacks--the exuberance and charm of the large party of small schoolchildren and their attentive teachers who thronged the boat Tom and I took one morning out to see the islands of Frioul.

Unforgettable for me was my visit to Cézanne's studio, a short train journey from Marseille to Aix-en-Provence. I stood on the gently tended hilltop site at Lauves from which he daily looked across at and painted Mt. Saint Victoire. Miraculously, I encountered no one here--simply all birdsong Saturday afternoon stillness fragranced with orange blossom, pine, and lavender. Later I walked down to his studio--(this was thick with tourists!)--nonetheless it was moving to be inside the tranquility of his large studio, before his easels (alas, all his brushes are gone!), and to countenance the long shelf of objects--pitchers, jars, bottles, teapots, carafes, and the three skulls, all of intimate significance in his work

The objects penetrated one another…
They never stopped living…
They spilled insensibly around each other
by intimate reflections,
like us with our looks and words

and to behold his outdoor clothes and bag/backpack, that he used to carry his painting gear in, hanging on pegs behind the door, as he had left them at his death in 1906.

Down in bustling, elegant Aix I lit a votive candle in the magnificent cathedral that opens on the pavement, looked in the wonderful shops where everything is presented with such care and sipped a Perrier under the linden trees before I headed back to Marseille.

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Department of Hypocrisies

Dear Geoffrey Treacle:

In the issue of CR in which I appeared ("Statement of Purpose" in "Notes & Comments," CR 47:3), you heavily edited my somewhat bombastic bio line. I can understand that you have issues of space, and that you never promised to print the bio as-is. I wouldn't even mention it, except that in the same issue you printed a snide critique of bio notes, alleging that they were boring and careerist. It seems to me that if you are going to bowdlerize, you shouldn't then criticize your contributors for not being sufficiently sexy.

Dear Mr. Berlatsky:

You deserve an award for your trenchant identification of hypocrisy. It should be noted that I have no control over how this magazine is run, least of all over the collation and bowdlerization of the "Notes on Contributors." I'm upset enough about the fact that "Notes & Comments" appears to be permanently cheeked-and-jowled with those notes. But alas, our capacities are constrained by our positions. Indeed, the powers that be have not even seen fit to include me on the masthead. But since I do run this section of the journal, I am happy to print your original bio in full below.

"Noah Berlatsky was once a single sorrowing suckling tapeworm segment, expelled from civil society's circumcised diction. At last! At last! I have become the mature and frolicsome sphincter of shameless self-promotion! For pictures, see www.artofthemix.org/monomyth."

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Send your observations, suggestions, corrections, and lamentations to Notes & Comments Editor Geoffrey Treacle

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