Chengdu: Bookworm Literary Festival
Participants past and present in the Bookworm Creative Writing Workshop will read on Wednesday March 19 as their contribution to the Literary Festival.
At the Workshop we do two kinds of writing: at each session I introduce a special short writing exercise, which the members do on the spot, after which each person reads his or her piece of writing. The listeners then comment on each person’s writing, asking questions, making suggestions or just giving a personal response.
The second type of writing is a longer story, done over a period of nine weeks. Currently the story we are writing is entitled THE STORY OF AMANDA CRIMSON. Each week I announce a new chapter title. Chapter One, for instance, is “Red Lipstick.” Everyone uses the same chapter title but beyond that each story is unique. The chapters are loosely rather than tightly joined but in the ninth week we draw the story to a conclusion. Shortly thereafter I introduce a new story title, and again each week provide chapter titles.
On the 19th, members will read something from one or the other of these two forms of writing. Some chapters in the long story are quite short and suitable for oral presentation. The weekly exercises are limited to a page, maximum. We hope to encourage anyone interested in improving his or her writing to join us at the weekly meeting. All kinds of writing and writers are welcome. The workshop is not restricted to poetry or fiction: the emphasis is upon writing per se. This enables anyone to benefit, even from attending a single session. Each week we focus on an aspect of good writing practice.
We usually begin with a question period, dealing with any particular problem someone may be having in writing.
Writing is a rather lonely form of artistic expression. Having a chance to meet other writers, and to get some immediate response to one’s own writing, as well as make responses to other people’s work, is a unique and important opportunity. The atmosphere at the Writing Workshop is open, friendly, informal and informative. Come join us and see for yourself!
Allen Sutterfield
Friday, February 29, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
GRENDEL'S POND
News fom Chengdu
BOOK LAUNCH March 5, 2008: GRENDEL’S POND
GRENDEL’S POND is the fourth in a series of small chapbooks comprised of selections from THE CITY OF WORDS, an epic work of more than 5,000 individual texts. There are 38 texts in Grendel’s Pond: there are poems, prose pieces, and pieces of writing which do not fit easily into any categorical genre. I call all the works ‘texts’ for the very simple reason that any piece of writing is literally a text, and there are many varieties of verbal expression in THE CITY OF WORDS. It is the writing itself, the language, that is the important part, not the category!
Grendel is a monster in the early English epic BEOWULF, the fiend whom Beowulf fights and kills. Grendel lives underwater in a fen or boggy pool, into which Beowulf plunges in pursuit of the monster. Their battle occurs underwater in this pool. The title refers to the choices a poet must make in pursuing his craft. While it’s convenient to think of the pond as a symbol of the Unconscious (personal and collective), I also have in mind the ordinary external world, whose surfaces must be plumbed to get at any kind of truth. There are plenty of monsters in both places. The poet here is seen as someone actively engaged in conflict, not a mere commentator on or describer of events. This engagement is largely invisible, just as Beowulf is fighting unseen by human eyes. The most valid poetry comes from the depths, and anyone seriously engaged in the effort to create poetry is entitled to a share of the epithet ‘heroic.’ Beowulf succeeds in slaying Grendel, and re-emerges from the pond, having freed the inhabitants of that area from terror and suffering. Successful poetry also liberates us, the readers, if only by reminding us of a larger, more heroic world than that of ‘the daily grind.’
Robert Bly’s very perceptive book IRON JOHN is a kind of echo of Beowulf, in that Iron John is discovered living at the bottom of a pond.
He is brought to the surface by a less dramatic hero than Beowulf but still a very effective one. Iron John is immediately imprisoned in the local town, but eventually escapes, helped by the young son of the King. Ultimately Iron John reappears as a “Lord of Life’, having emerged from a kind of enchantment that had imprisoned him in the pond. This is a primary aim of poetry itself: to wake the reader from the drowsy humdrum repetitive rounds of everyday existence into a sudden awareness of a world one does not usually see or think about but which is there all the time. The poet shares the same world we do, but he or she lives in it differently, beneath the surfaces most of us take for granted, and because of this ceaseless interactive struggle “in the depths,” poems emerge with the power to propel us, even if only for a moment or two, into that more real place we usually describe as ‘dreamland.’ The Poet’s dream is the dream of the Real, and the poet’s touch wakes each of us into a world of the ‘really Real’ . These vivid moments enable us to return to our ordinary tasks and involvements with a fresh sense of ourselves, and a more productive, satisfying relation to all those around us. Poetry places us in touch with a larger feeling of both self and world. It is in that sense I find it a ‘heroic’ human action.
Grendel’s Pond is dedicated to a close friend of mine, who lives in Montreal, Canada. We met in 1983. I was hosting a weekly poetry reading series, at an art gallery. Brian was a scheduled reader for a Saturday night in late October. He arrived on time but alas, the weather was cold, wet and windy, it was a Saturday night and no one else came by! Brian and I spent a couple of hours talking, and I re-scheduled him for a later date, that proved much more successful. This is an example of the many disappointments any poet is in for, in seeking connections with the ordinary world. The poet soon learns to accept the loneliness of the poetic effort. It was Brian who, several years later, introduced me to Robert Bly’s IRON JOHN, on a trip we made to New York City, where among other things we attended a poetry reading in an apartment in Greenwich Village. Our own poems were well received by the people gathered there, all of whom were very creditable poets themselves, though unknown to the public at large. This, too, is part of the loneliness of the poet’s life.
Best wishes to all readers of GRENDEL’S POND! May each of you find in it a gleam or two of the ‘really Real.’
Allen Sutterfield
BOOK LAUNCH March 5, 2008: GRENDEL’S POND
GRENDEL’S POND is the fourth in a series of small chapbooks comprised of selections from THE CITY OF WORDS, an epic work of more than 5,000 individual texts. There are 38 texts in Grendel’s Pond: there are poems, prose pieces, and pieces of writing which do not fit easily into any categorical genre. I call all the works ‘texts’ for the very simple reason that any piece of writing is literally a text, and there are many varieties of verbal expression in THE CITY OF WORDS. It is the writing itself, the language, that is the important part, not the category!
Grendel is a monster in the early English epic BEOWULF, the fiend whom Beowulf fights and kills. Grendel lives underwater in a fen or boggy pool, into which Beowulf plunges in pursuit of the monster. Their battle occurs underwater in this pool. The title refers to the choices a poet must make in pursuing his craft. While it’s convenient to think of the pond as a symbol of the Unconscious (personal and collective), I also have in mind the ordinary external world, whose surfaces must be plumbed to get at any kind of truth. There are plenty of monsters in both places. The poet here is seen as someone actively engaged in conflict, not a mere commentator on or describer of events. This engagement is largely invisible, just as Beowulf is fighting unseen by human eyes. The most valid poetry comes from the depths, and anyone seriously engaged in the effort to create poetry is entitled to a share of the epithet ‘heroic.’ Beowulf succeeds in slaying Grendel, and re-emerges from the pond, having freed the inhabitants of that area from terror and suffering. Successful poetry also liberates us, the readers, if only by reminding us of a larger, more heroic world than that of ‘the daily grind.’
Robert Bly’s very perceptive book IRON JOHN is a kind of echo of Beowulf, in that Iron John is discovered living at the bottom of a pond.
He is brought to the surface by a less dramatic hero than Beowulf but still a very effective one. Iron John is immediately imprisoned in the local town, but eventually escapes, helped by the young son of the King. Ultimately Iron John reappears as a “Lord of Life’, having emerged from a kind of enchantment that had imprisoned him in the pond. This is a primary aim of poetry itself: to wake the reader from the drowsy humdrum repetitive rounds of everyday existence into a sudden awareness of a world one does not usually see or think about but which is there all the time. The poet shares the same world we do, but he or she lives in it differently, beneath the surfaces most of us take for granted, and because of this ceaseless interactive struggle “in the depths,” poems emerge with the power to propel us, even if only for a moment or two, into that more real place we usually describe as ‘dreamland.’ The Poet’s dream is the dream of the Real, and the poet’s touch wakes each of us into a world of the ‘really Real’ . These vivid moments enable us to return to our ordinary tasks and involvements with a fresh sense of ourselves, and a more productive, satisfying relation to all those around us. Poetry places us in touch with a larger feeling of both self and world. It is in that sense I find it a ‘heroic’ human action.
Grendel’s Pond is dedicated to a close friend of mine, who lives in Montreal, Canada. We met in 1983. I was hosting a weekly poetry reading series, at an art gallery. Brian was a scheduled reader for a Saturday night in late October. He arrived on time but alas, the weather was cold, wet and windy, it was a Saturday night and no one else came by! Brian and I spent a couple of hours talking, and I re-scheduled him for a later date, that proved much more successful. This is an example of the many disappointments any poet is in for, in seeking connections with the ordinary world. The poet soon learns to accept the loneliness of the poetic effort. It was Brian who, several years later, introduced me to Robert Bly’s IRON JOHN, on a trip we made to New York City, where among other things we attended a poetry reading in an apartment in Greenwich Village. Our own poems were well received by the people gathered there, all of whom were very creditable poets themselves, though unknown to the public at large. This, too, is part of the loneliness of the poet’s life.
Best wishes to all readers of GRENDEL’S POND! May each of you find in it a gleam or two of the ‘really Real.’
Allen Sutterfield
Thursday, February 21, 2008
BOXES
Copyright©2008-Allen Sutterfield
In 2006, in Toronto, I began placing my texts in wooden teaboxes I bought at the many Dollar Stores in that city. I replaced the 20 teabags with 20 texts, but included one teabag also. The idea was, to enjoy a text or two while having a cup of tea! These proved quite popular but since it was a very labor intensive project, I produced less than 50 that summer, all in the wooden box format.
When I returned to Chengdu this past summer, it suddenly occurred to me that ANY kind of container could potentially be used in the same way. Packaging is a conspicuous part of modern commercial life. It was no problem to suddenly find I had all kinds of good containers for my texts. Pasteboard teaboxes, of course, were a convenient starting point but, lightbulbs, toothpaste, Kraft Dinner, mosquito killer, printer cartridges, ballpoint pen pack, film cartons, cigarette packs (which a friend gave me, I don’t smoke!), the list goes on and on. So I began selecting and packing texts in all the different kinds of packages. I call this series “MAKER’S DOZEN.” We have the expression in English “Baker’s dozen,” which refers to the number of cookies or pastries you get at the bakery. An ordinary dozen is 12, but a”baker’s dozen” is 13. So I put 13 texts in each package. I began with very small packages which made 13 an attractive number but I kept the same number for even larger packages for the most part. The wooden teaboxes, a few of which I brought from Toronto, still have 20 texts, however. Another variation is Chopstick covers: I found they accommodated a pair of texts very conveniently, so there are 2 texts in each chopstick cover. Longer story texts I placed in special bags, and called them “Bag-o-Tales,” to pun on the French bagatelle, referring to a trifle or a certain kind of game, and, more obliquely, to the ’baguette’ or long slender loaf of bread.
Thus, I will have a “Bag Launch”, not just a “Book Launch.” A first, actually, since I did not have an official launch of the teaboxes in Toronto. This is very much in keeping with my aims as a writer and visual artist. My primary aim is to establish nexes or “meeting points” or “connecting points” between art and everyday actuality. All of us do endless shopping. By placing my poems and texts in familiar product containers I seek to make writing as available and convenient as any other product in the mass market. Not that writing or creating is itself a “mass market” item or activity, but because the mass market is a common feature of contemporary urban society. I do not think poetry or creativity is well served by remaining aloof from the marketplace. Quite the opposite! I would prefer to find poetry right alongside face creams and breakfast cereals and jello boxes in any grocery! This is a direct slap at that unfortunate development in the past that placed poetry and art on a high pedestal knowable and approachable only by an aristocratic few. I do not wish to make writing or any other art devalued or undervalued by locating it in the marketplace. Rather, the reverse. There is no danger to art itself, real art will always require real sacrifice on the part of those who produce it. But the accessibility of the products of art is an entirely different matter. I think art can only benefit by being more readily viewable and available to humans at large. Artists are notoriously marginal in economic terms in modern life, in Toronto as elsewhere. Most live on or below the poverty line. Greater accessibility could alleviate this problematic aspect of the artist’s life. By reducing the distance between creative work products and mass market items, art itself comes closer to all people, it becomes a visible and potent presence in the everyday world. I think this can have very positive results for both artists and public.
So, I say welcome to Sabrina’s Country Store, specializing in texts by Adze! Have a look round and buy some texts, to store alongside your groceries and toothpaste once you get home. Let art be a part of your everyday world—you won’t suffer for it! You might even come to enjoy things in a way you never thought of before!
That’s the key word: Enjoy!
Allen Sutterfield
In 2006, in Toronto, I began placing my texts in wooden teaboxes I bought at the many Dollar Stores in that city. I replaced the 20 teabags with 20 texts, but included one teabag also. The idea was, to enjoy a text or two while having a cup of tea! These proved quite popular but since it was a very labor intensive project, I produced less than 50 that summer, all in the wooden box format.
When I returned to Chengdu this past summer, it suddenly occurred to me that ANY kind of container could potentially be used in the same way. Packaging is a conspicuous part of modern commercial life. It was no problem to suddenly find I had all kinds of good containers for my texts. Pasteboard teaboxes, of course, were a convenient starting point but, lightbulbs, toothpaste, Kraft Dinner, mosquito killer, printer cartridges, ballpoint pen pack, film cartons, cigarette packs (which a friend gave me, I don’t smoke!), the list goes on and on. So I began selecting and packing texts in all the different kinds of packages. I call this series “MAKER’S DOZEN.” We have the expression in English “Baker’s dozen,” which refers to the number of cookies or pastries you get at the bakery. An ordinary dozen is 12, but a”baker’s dozen” is 13. So I put 13 texts in each package. I began with very small packages which made 13 an attractive number but I kept the same number for even larger packages for the most part. The wooden teaboxes, a few of which I brought from Toronto, still have 20 texts, however. Another variation is Chopstick covers: I found they accommodated a pair of texts very conveniently, so there are 2 texts in each chopstick cover. Longer story texts I placed in special bags, and called them “Bag-o-Tales,” to pun on the French bagatelle, referring to a trifle or a certain kind of game, and, more obliquely, to the ’baguette’ or long slender loaf of bread.
Thus, I will have a “Bag Launch”, not just a “Book Launch.” A first, actually, since I did not have an official launch of the teaboxes in Toronto. This is very much in keeping with my aims as a writer and visual artist. My primary aim is to establish nexes or “meeting points” or “connecting points” between art and everyday actuality. All of us do endless shopping. By placing my poems and texts in familiar product containers I seek to make writing as available and convenient as any other product in the mass market. Not that writing or creating is itself a “mass market” item or activity, but because the mass market is a common feature of contemporary urban society. I do not think poetry or creativity is well served by remaining aloof from the marketplace. Quite the opposite! I would prefer to find poetry right alongside face creams and breakfast cereals and jello boxes in any grocery! This is a direct slap at that unfortunate development in the past that placed poetry and art on a high pedestal knowable and approachable only by an aristocratic few. I do not wish to make writing or any other art devalued or undervalued by locating it in the marketplace. Rather, the reverse. There is no danger to art itself, real art will always require real sacrifice on the part of those who produce it. But the accessibility of the products of art is an entirely different matter. I think art can only benefit by being more readily viewable and available to humans at large. Artists are notoriously marginal in economic terms in modern life, in Toronto as elsewhere. Most live on or below the poverty line. Greater accessibility could alleviate this problematic aspect of the artist’s life. By reducing the distance between creative work products and mass market items, art itself comes closer to all people, it becomes a visible and potent presence in the everyday world. I think this can have very positive results for both artists and public.
So, I say welcome to Sabrina’s Country Store, specializing in texts by Adze! Have a look round and buy some texts, to store alongside your groceries and toothpaste once you get home. Let art be a part of your everyday world—you won’t suffer for it! You might even come to enjoy things in a way you never thought of before!
That’s the key word: Enjoy!
Allen Sutterfield
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Unforgettables
Copyright©2008-Pat Lamont
Much of what we hear is easily forgotten,
But every now and then,
A brilliant thought precious as a diamond
Is given to us to remain forever unforgettable.
Much of what we hear is easily forgotten,
But every now and then,
A brilliant thought precious as a diamond
Is given to us to remain forever unforgettable.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Allens "LIST"
CHENGDU- February 2008
Hi Della,
Just back home after three days with friends for Chinese New Year; got my first cold of the winter this week so that also slowed me up a bit. About books: did I send you previously the "List" of books from my notorious "1967 LIST" of 420 books I wrote down at that time I intended to read? I have since read more than half on the list, and have rounded up about half of the remaining ones--that was fun last summer in Toronto, going to bookstores with the List! and buying anything and everything that was on it. I have plenty with me to keep me busy for quite a while but any book on the list is always welcome. Some I want to read more than others of course but ALL are to be read eventually. I hope to finish the whole 420 by the time I'm 75, ten years from now. That's an average of 2 titles per month, in addition to ALL THE OTHER reading I'm interested in of course! As for Brown's LIFE AGAINST DEATH... is a book to be read and reread many times, not just dashed through and marked off a list. It was NOT on my list in 1967--wish I'd read it then! But it no doubt would not have affected me the same way it did last Spring. The main task I have for the Literary Festival is getting a new chapbook printed in the next four weeks---I'm scheduled to do a book launch on March 5, and you are scheduled to read and do whatevere on March 19, as part of the Writing Workshop Evening. So do bring a few copies of your book or books, and I'd advise bringing the ACTS trilogy, in case some publishing chance happens to spring up. Anyway I'd like to see it again and even have a copy of it, so we can always photocopy it if you have it here.
Hi Della,
Just back home after three days with friends for Chinese New Year; got my first cold of the winter this week so that also slowed me up a bit. About books: did I send you previously the "List" of books from my notorious "1967 LIST" of 420 books I wrote down at that time I intended to read? I have since read more than half on the list, and have rounded up about half of the remaining ones--that was fun last summer in Toronto, going to bookstores with the List! and buying anything and everything that was on it. I have plenty with me to keep me busy for quite a while but any book on the list is always welcome. Some I want to read more than others of course but ALL are to be read eventually. I hope to finish the whole 420 by the time I'm 75, ten years from now. That's an average of 2 titles per month, in addition to ALL THE OTHER reading I'm interested in of course! As for Brown's LIFE AGAINST DEATH... is a book to be read and reread many times, not just dashed through and marked off a list. It was NOT on my list in 1967--wish I'd read it then! But it no doubt would not have affected me the same way it did last Spring. The main task I have for the Literary Festival is getting a new chapbook printed in the next four weeks---I'm scheduled to do a book launch on March 5, and you are scheduled to read and do whatevere on March 19, as part of the Writing Workshop Evening. So do bring a few copies of your book or books, and I'd advise bringing the ACTS trilogy, in case some publishing chance happens to spring up. Anyway I'd like to see it again and even have a copy of it, so we can always photocopy it if you have it here.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
From: THE KUBRA BIRD
TEXT 269
copyright©2007 Allen Sutterfield
8:5A a.m. Oct. 18:
6 hours sleep but somehow I'm perky and peppy and more resolved than in a long while. Immediately went out front to "read the weather" and turn off the lights, beautiful sunny crisp morning awaited! Splashes of gold and orange as the sun lit up the trees across the street. Clear sky and cool clarity everywhere. The weather is always a surprise emerging from this basement. Dreams of Mullah Nasser Eddin prepared my resolve, I guess! I can't recall particulars but I seemed almost to be a current representative of that esteemed hodja.
One story I was either writing living dreaming telling or listening to was called "The Man Who Needed Stamps" or, "Hidden Resources." The Mulla was getting no mail because he had no moolah for stamps for letters he wanted to write to his many friends. He decided to "concentrate in public", i.e., protest and meditate at the same time, by taking up a position on the steps of City Hall. After a couple of hours a policeman approached, asking to see his permit to sit there. Naturally the Mulla had no such thing, and was surprised to find such a requirement, being a wellknown citizen of the place. "Well you at least have to have your birth certificate, bring me that and I will accept it as a temporary permit you do have a birth certificate, don't you?" "Of course I do!" he shouted and rushed home to obtain the document.
The Mulla kept all his papers, both trivial and important, in a huge trunk in a small room next to his bedroom. Before locating the birth certificate, however, he carne across all the letters he had received in the past, he kept everything of that nature, and he began to look at all the different handwritings and names of correspondents, some of whom he'd all but forgotten. Then he noticed the stamps, still intact, because he always opened the envelopes carefully and neatly. Many of the stamps had not been cancelled by those sleepers working in the post office! He immediately chose all the envelopes with uncancelled stamps, went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, made a pot of tea and simultaneously steamed free all the stamps.
While drinking the tea in the small garden out back, sitting at a wooden table where he had often written and read letters, he at once wrote to a dozen of his friends, assuring them that whatever it was that they might think they needed on any given morning, that thing they probably already had, if only they knew where to look for it. True, it often required another person to occasion their looking, but that person was sure to appear, if only they concentrated on the actual problem at hand.
copyright©2007 Allen Sutterfield
8:5A a.m. Oct. 18:
6 hours sleep but somehow I'm perky and peppy and more resolved than in a long while. Immediately went out front to "read the weather" and turn off the lights, beautiful sunny crisp morning awaited! Splashes of gold and orange as the sun lit up the trees across the street. Clear sky and cool clarity everywhere. The weather is always a surprise emerging from this basement. Dreams of Mullah Nasser Eddin prepared my resolve, I guess! I can't recall particulars but I seemed almost to be a current representative of that esteemed hodja.
One story I was either writing living dreaming telling or listening to was called "The Man Who Needed Stamps" or, "Hidden Resources." The Mulla was getting no mail because he had no moolah for stamps for letters he wanted to write to his many friends. He decided to "concentrate in public", i.e., protest and meditate at the same time, by taking up a position on the steps of City Hall. After a couple of hours a policeman approached, asking to see his permit to sit there. Naturally the Mulla had no such thing, and was surprised to find such a requirement, being a wellknown citizen of the place. "Well you at least have to have your birth certificate, bring me that and I will accept it as a temporary permit you do have a birth certificate, don't you?" "Of course I do!" he shouted and rushed home to obtain the document.
The Mulla kept all his papers, both trivial and important, in a huge trunk in a small room next to his bedroom. Before locating the birth certificate, however, he carne across all the letters he had received in the past, he kept everything of that nature, and he began to look at all the different handwritings and names of correspondents, some of whom he'd all but forgotten. Then he noticed the stamps, still intact, because he always opened the envelopes carefully and neatly. Many of the stamps had not been cancelled by those sleepers working in the post office! He immediately chose all the envelopes with uncancelled stamps, went into the kitchen and put the kettle on, made a pot of tea and simultaneously steamed free all the stamps.
While drinking the tea in the small garden out back, sitting at a wooden table where he had often written and read letters, he at once wrote to a dozen of his friends, assuring them that whatever it was that they might think they needed on any given morning, that thing they probably already had, if only they knew where to look for it. True, it often required another person to occasion their looking, but that person was sure to appear, if only they concentrated on the actual problem at hand.
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