‘In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari talk about a child walking through darkness who ‘comforts himself by singing under his breath’: ‘Lost, he takes shelter, or orients himself with his little song’. The song ‘is like a rough sketch of a calming and stabilising, calm and stable, centre in the heart of chaos’. Despite this centring effect, ‘the song itself is already a skip’: something on the brink of ‘breaking apart’. I take this to mean something akin to what you say about ‘the way poems know things’ through ‘co-ordinates of sound’. Like their navigational function. So often, reading poetry, I have felt like that child in the dark.’
Thanks to editor Tom Bailey at And Other Poems for inviting this conversation to happen! Always a delight to talk with Oli Hazzard about all things poetry, telepathy & dreams.
I don’t know if it’s summer or just plain warm for walking around in search of dark-bitter reprieve pulled the Ace of Pentacles in Maureen’s the pledge of a seed planted in manifest pasture walking up the Grand Parade to have Mau grab my arm and pull me into due embrace since they were just getting breakfast, sloshing oysters with Dom I keep saying it’s good to be with everyone the neighbours are rehearsing a play I sit on the floor and arrange paperwork phoning it all back like I failed to see the love in front of me fertile and with selenium
wishing I could have bottled the birdsong of Brace Cove so much to trap myself in notes also reeling around the English Market with poets wishing we were Irish ordering whisky with Luce if you ever want to talk, we say if you ever need whatever
the Beamish flows easily it is less than five euros. I have yet to burn my fingers on ice, to go home into caring situations with dutiful infinite replenishment of ice instead I run up Shandon arriving late for Maggie O’Sullivan, early enough to catch her words as Eden-variety everafters flying around our garden of poetry I was locked from initially, outside in the street awaiting my call
that poem about a mother opening her belly that poem incants a fact, you are present sometimes being born you will always be able to talk to me I weep through the reading, it’s easy to constellate far away suffering in greener syntax just across the sea to afterwards hug Maggie, thank you we have no idea how powerful words are to leap, mutate and glow in defiance of the law how hard it was for all of us just to get here
everything we’ve been through will be again but I don’t have a generation we see wagtails on the lawn sonograms of gathering voice what is it to be intimidatingly full of life Gloria singing of sailing Carl making faces at the baby making faces at poetry as we remember Callie being smart and funny and so singular as to outlast all of it eating dosa while watching Ellen Dillon’s killer reading then a cuckoo went off on someone’s phone, hello pastoral
those oysters were universal tell me about your shoes
guess I will inherit my father’s spiral cutlery
all the better to eat what cannot be stomached of home-cooked nowheres rich in cortisol
what I want is raw and clear
saw a little grey dog at my feet during Keith Tuma’s performance not a real dog, offhand come to comfort me because dogs smell cancer even when someone else’s lives like a phantom accord on your aura and in the forever ward of poetry who will get away with autumn
my life is a spatiotemporal displacement filtering love’s dimensionality
I want to go back to Dogtown rose petals steeped in promises
‘You may be weaker than the whole world but you are always stronger than yourself. Let me send my power against my power. So what if I die. Let me discover what it is that I want and fear from love. Power and love, might and grace. That I might desire again’ (Gillian Rose, Love’s Work, pp. 74-75).
Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, 2 Hope Park Square Edinburgh EH8 9NW
Broadly, our societal response towards sleep and rest is one of downgrading and devaluation. In our current capitalist society, sleep and rest are conceptualised as a time of passivity and inaction, and thus, as a period in which we are not producing or accomplishing. We tend to be jealous of those who can go about their days with fewer hours of sleep than ours, or praise those who can maximise their schedules, crammed with an endless series of activities and tasks. However, lack of sleep and rest time can lead to poorer health, both physical and mental. A good night of sleep can be one of our most restorative activities, and despite this fact, it tends to be neglected. Similarly, sleep and resting states allow for the occurrence of experiences that, if carefully attended, can provide us with a tool for self-exploration, such as dreaming and daydreaming.
The workshop intends to explore how these and related issues to our relationship to sleep and rest can be approached from the methods and perspectives of different disciplines within the arts and humanities. To that end, the workshop will consist of short presentations, panel discussions, and collaborative sessions for active participation. The workshop will be hosted both in-person and online.
DrMaria Sledmere(English & Creative Writing, University of Strathclyde)
Preliminary schedule:
11-11.25: Introduction and reflective activities:In this initial session, participants will be encouraged to share and write down their thoughts about their relationship to sleep and rest.
11.30-13: “Topics on dreaming, sleep experiences and transitory states” (Dr. Alcaraz-Sánchez, Dr. Bernini and Dr. Cowan). Short talks followed by a Q&A.
· Dr Marco Bernini (Durham University): “Dreams and Heightened Narrowed Immersivity: Combining Saturation, Permeability, Presentationality and Presence”.Are dreams (narrative) worlds? What similarities and differences are in play between our waking consciousness of the perceptual world and dream consciousness as quasi-perception? This paper posits that dreams exhibit a unique experiential mode called ‘Heightened Narrowed Immersivity’ (HNI)—a state characterized by intense presentational immediacy and severely restricted informational context. Combining frameworks and concepts from narrative theory and cognitive science while looking at dream reports, literature, lyrics, and movies, the paper shows how dreams and their artistic mediations reveal unstable ontological environments—low saturation in time, causality, identity, and space—while maintaining a high degree of immersive presence.
· Dr Robert Cowan (University of Glasgow). “Exotic and Ordinary Dreaming”.In this talk I consider two kinds of ‘exotic’ dreams. First, those that occur during episodes of REM sleep behaviour disorder where subjects allegedly ‘act out’ their dreams. Second, lucid dreams wherein subjects are apparently aware that they are dreaming while dreaming. My question: what do these exotic cases tell us about the nature of ordinary dreaming? My answer: very little and certainly less than others have thought.
· Dr Adriana Alcaraz Sánchez (University of Glasgow). Hacking the sleeping mind: the exploitation of the dreamspace.In dream research, the term ‘dream engineering’ has been adopted to describe techniques that manipulate, record and affect our dreams. Within the research context, dream engineering has become a useful tool for exploring the nature of dreaming as well as its potential for enhancing our waking lives. Yet, a couple of examples taken from outside scientific research might make us worry about the extent dream engineering practices should be conducted, especially when those are applied widely to the general public. Here, I consider some of the ethical implications of those practices outside the research realm, some of which put into question the value we attribute to sleep and dreaming.
13-14: Lunch Break:Vegetarian and Vegan catering for all participants
14-15: Panel discussion: Working title “The need for rest”(Dr Reeder, Dr Jones, and Dr Callard and Dr Sledmere): Our panellists will give a flash/provocation followed by a chaired discussion with questions from the audience.
15-15.15: Short break:Tea and coffee for all participants
15.15-17.00: Creative session.In this facilitated session, we will explore the role of dreaming/liminal states for creative purposes.
· Poetry reading and discussion by Dr Sledmere and Dr Hazzard.
· Haiku writing and Deep Listening activities
17.00-17.30: Discussion back to the rest of the workshop/final thoughts
From 17.30: Wine reception at IASH (Open to all participants)
This event is organised byAdriana Alcaraz-Sánchez(Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy, IASH, University of Edinburgh), Maria Sledmere (Artist and Lecturer in English & Creative Writing, University of Strathclyde) and Kevin Leomo (Artist and Community and Engagement Manager, University of Glasgow).
Accessibility: This event will take place at IASH, 2 Hope Park Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9NW. Please see a map here: https://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/location
The Seminar Room is on the first floor, and unfortunately IASH does not have a lift. If you have mobility issues and would like to discuss access, please contact iash@ed.ac.uk as soon as possible. Next to the Seminar Room, there are a couple of rooms that can be freely used in between the sessions/break time. If you require a quieter space at any point during the duration of the workshop, do reach out to the lead organiser (contact below) or let any of the organisers know on the day of the event. There’s also access to a microwave/small kitchen space if you require it.
Note to online participants: All sessions will be streamed, and online participants will be able to ask questions. However, note that due to the engaging nature of some of the sessions (i.e. creative session), we will not be able to provide tailored support or feedback to online participants. The sessions (including the talks) will not be recorded.
Note to in-person participants: Unfortunately, we are unable to cover travel and/or accommodation expenses for participants. Catering (including lunch and refreshments) will be provided to all.
Contact: For any questions or enquiries regarding the event, please get in touch with the lead organiser Adriana at Adriana.alcaraz.sa@gmail.com
The event is supported by the Susan Manning Workshop Fund from the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) and is jointly hosted by IASH and Project Somnolence.
In August 2022, which legitimately feels a whole fat wormhole ago, Ian Macartney and I found ourselves working in Edinburgh for part of the summer. We met up at after-hours cafes (more prevalent in the capital, what you playing at Glasgow?) and walked around the Botanical Gardens where the staff promised ~*’Instagram flowers’*~ and we talked about our hopes and dreams and struggles as booksellers and teachers. Part of the emergent narrative concerned utopian ideals of Scottish infrastructure, where one could zip to Lerwick in a hyperloop heartbeat (all élan, not El*n) or at the very least catch a local bus on time, or unlock a hidden realm below the loch of Linlithg(l)ow. Part of it was about friendship, love and pop music. We were listening nonstop to Caroline Polachek and feeling okay about it. Pretty good actually. There was her vocal flipping over the crags, at sunset. I remember purifying my heart with orange liquor. Wearing a lot of lilac. Bleeding ink into industrial bedsheets. We were thinking about pivotal points where our childhoods overlapped with culture. We wrote things in documents and met in the months ahead. I did a lot of chaos cycles, late, trying to meet Ian at say, the Mitchell Library to go over some edits. A lot of awful things happened in the months intervening but there was this document we could splash land into and like turn on the light. Poetry’s coy ambience zonked up to warp speed. I liked doing this project a lot. I’m glad it’s in the world.
We’re publishing the full collection, Languishing, cute with the wonderful Tapsalteerie, an indie press based in rural Aberdeenshire. Ian’s worked with them before via their pamphlet imprint Stewed Rhubarb Press and they published some of my poems in the 2019 anthology, edited by Calum Rodger, titled makar/unmakar: twelve contemporary poets in Scotland. We’re big fans of Duncan Lockerbie, Tapsalteerie’s founder and editor, who does so much for Scottish poetry and beyond.
We’re also publishing, thanks to the exquisite printing of Earthbound Press, a separate riso pamphlet of b-sides titled The Gate. Look out for that at our launch events…
From the publisher
languishing, cutepresents a collection of jittery missives that propels the speculative Scottish canon of Morgan, Gray and Mitchison into a maximalist ‘high femme goth surrealism’ via hyperpop, Celtic futurism and digital culture. Here the poets tend towards e-pistolary contemplations of retro-adolescence, fizzy ecology and mercurial slippy gurlhood to complicate notions of Scottish identity, nationhood, ecology, nostalgia and more.
Nice things people have said:
languishing, cute is the opposite of a flyting — that traditional bare-knuckles fight between two poets. Rather, the two poets here offer their worlds to each other in the gift of friendship and they listen back: it’s not a duel, it’s a jewel. Where they meet is in a place of Anglophone avant-garde stimulants — locating codes include Francesca Lisette’s Teens, Edwin Morgan, Tim Atkins and Peter Manson — and the dancefloor has Bunny Is A Rider pumping out in up-melancholy and autotune. At times this is glitch-poetry, funny, para-kitsch and mesmeric. At other times there are the amplitudes of tenderness and self-effacement in a palette of citrus and greenest day-glo. What’s also fascinating is the pressing together of the virtual and its tics with its mineral and viscose underpin, all via the very human. It’s a leap from body/mind to capital/digital and back again, flickering, a visit to Silicon Brig-a-Doon you’ll want to be the first to Insta.
– Richard Price
[…] Messy as a teenage tumblr, flashy as a strobe light, this is two exceptionally generous poets bouncing off the walls of the backrooms with the energy of a thousand monster energies… here ~The Glitch~ is not a glitch but a stitch between windows, the glue between a b2b set, the rhythmic green hills of algorithmic infinity … and yet these re-mixes and e-mails traverse an internet of metal and cable, the business of poetry is conducted by staples through sheets of reconstituted tree::: there’s something old-school, decidedly analogue about all this. It feels like you could feel it. It feels like the push of a button, the caress of a bright cool screen. Actually no it feels warm and coarse, a cosy transmission rumbling, re-tuning itself like you’re flicking from station to radio station, flickering between noise & dialectical noise, patterns emerging in the static as the ether unknots itself, and the stuff of life comes spilling out […]
– Dan Power
Endless aureate refreshment from Maria Sledmere and Ian Macartney, languishing, cute is a collection with all its push notifications turned on that still finds headspace to pay attention on the DL to form and poetic inheritance. There’s Sledmere’s elliptical take on William Carlos Williams’ fridge raid (with Kylie Minogue R osé instead of plums), the odd sestina, and plentiful nods to that Scottish experimentalist Edwin Morgan range from embedded songs of the Loch Nes[s]presso Monster to Macartney’s predictive geographies in time-travelling poems indebted to Morgan’s Sonnets from Scotland.
With spins to further Scottish topographies from Maybole to Lerwick, Sledmere and Macartney are often found shuttling east and west ‘w/ eloquent glitches’ across Scotland’s central belt, heading increasingly into CAPITALS when Macartney’s voice announces us into Superedinburgh Vaporwaverley/Edenbruh/the London of Scotland.
The internet’s vertigo is never far away from poems presenting like listicles. Sadly for any wannabe monetised content, in languishing, cute these poets may be trading futures, but their hacked hypernature is funding nobody’s wellness retreat.
If you are in Nottingham, I’ll be reading at Dandelions Poetry at Broadway Cinema on 22nd April, 7pm. I’ll be joined by Charlie Baylis of Anthropocene Poetry. There will also be an open mic.
mariaology 