Tag: Peter Gizzi

Phantom Architecture

the stillness of the painting has a kind of speech to it
the sustaining restless grammar of poetry
is that how good poets defy things with their heart
the sun on the tongue is a kind of living
the poem seems to fill up with this
a panic, just in the peripheral vision
a mode that can maintain the day
something of Schuyler in the act of saying
how it allows the people to enter the self
we are not complete
when I’m writing, I’m the right size
I’m not bigger or smaller than anything
kindle’s like etch a sketch
one of the issues of elegy is not being able to let go
the Orphic is endless
we’re all here because we’ve been taken captive by our reading practice
a text of dubious origin which is a great analogy for poetry
trick us into thinking these are finished propositions
the only authority is the sound itself
foregrounding the process of echoing
the lyric utterance as operating system in the present moment
humour my error
invent my own invisible poem behind the invisible poem
beginnings are always about nothingness
meaninglessness makes meaning
a horizon or atmosphere that I can continue to write into
I am always beginning…
I literally don’t know how to write a poem
phantom architecture of a poem
the complexity of getting from one line to another
a properly honest relation to our temporality 
the poem that doesn’t know it’s good is usually good 
you can’t find anything if you’re not lost
making nothing as a suspension of labour
marking the duration of a symptom
speculative topos for tracing affinities
there is no better time than the present when we have lost everything
a generative uprooting of one’s identity or biography to do the work
incantation to wrestle the poem from its enclosure 
to project in divine sublimity
hoping poetry might come back 

*

All of these lines are quotations of things said by panellists and contributors at the Peter Gizzi Colloquium at St Andrews University on 18th October 2024: Anne Boyer, Luke Roberts, Oli Hazzard, Honor Hamlet, Colin Herd, Jacob Bard-Rosenberg, Rosa Campbell, David Herd, Caspar Bryant, Daisy Lafarge, Anthony Caleshu, Peter Gizzi.

Tonight I am

Thinking about this song over and over as I prepare something to say about Peter Gizzi’s Sky Burial (2020) at a colloquium on Friday.

Lyric refrain: the gig that was meant to happen and didn’t. The poem that was meant to be and wasn’t. The soul that was to be given. Ellipsis of what’s left. Diminuendo. Poem thank you kindly.

Upcoming Sleep Curricula

My research currently centres on sleep as a nexus for thinking about energy transition, low carbon pleasure and chronodiversity (the way our circadian rhythms differ).

Tomorrow I’m giving a talk titled Our Amazing Bed Is the Future Garden: The Poetics of Dream Ecologies. It emerges from a chapter in my DFA thesis which will form part of a book forthcoming with NoUP Press next year. If you would like a Zoom link please drop me an email at maria.sledmere[at]strath.ac.uk.

This autumn I’ve got three upcoming workshops, two of them with the brilliant experimental composer Kevin Leomo.

Civil Twilight: Carving Dreamtime – workshop with Kevin Leomo and Maria Sledmere
14th October at 5:30pm, Civic House, Glasgow

Get your brain sticky in the pumpkin meat of the circadian and join Kevin Leomo and Maria Sledmere in carving dreamtime as an expression of creativity and low carbon pleasure. As the nights draw in and the clocks go back, we’ll be thinking about how darkness affects mood and slumber. Civil twilight is the brightest of the three twilight phases, where stars and planets might be seen in the sky as the sun dips just below the horizon. By attending to the ‘nocturne’ as a form in poetry and music, we’ll dwell in the possibilities of liminal experience for cultivating ecological imaginaries.
Please bring: Preferred writing materials, If you have one, a reusable coffee cup, headphones and phone.
Tickets are offered on a slide scale: £15 / £10 / £5.
Part of Civic Harvest at Civic House – an Autumn themed day of family friendly activities, workshops and market stalls with lunch from Parveen’s and seasonal cocktails at Civic House Bar!
Tickets

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Design your own sleep demon – workshop with Kevin Leomo and Maria Sledmere
24th October at 5:30pm, Advanced Research Centre, University of Glasgow
While sleep is a source of rest and recovery, many of us wrestle with disturbed sleep. If you’ve ever had nightmares or found yourself sleepwalking, you’ve encountered oneirodynia. The word comes from the Greek oneiros, meaning ‘dream’ and odyne, meaning pain. Sleep disturbance may be caused by a number of factors: from stress to stimulants, environment, illness and temperature. The eponymous protagonist of Donnie Darko is often found sleepwalking or experiencing some kind of nocturnal anguish. In this workshop, which serves as a primer for the film’s upcoming CinemARC debut, we’ll explore hypnagogic states between wakefulness and sleep as premonition, vision and disturbance. Together we will produce a ‘sleep bestiary’ of our (least) favourite nocturnal nasties, and present our findings before the screening on Friday.

Tickets

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The Poetry of Somnolence – weekend double workshop with Maria Sledmere and Beyond Form Creative Writing
11th and 12th November at 1-4pm (GMT), Zoom

This 2 part series of afternoon workshops prioritise the relationship between writing and sleep. Exploring cross-genre writing, visual and sonic art, we will look at how daily writing practice can recentre our circadian rhythms. From hypnagogic poetics to dream writing, nocturnal missives, dawn songs and notes on twilight, we’ll consider experimental approaches to writing somnolence. All creatives welcome.

Workshop format will combine reading, writing, listening, optional discussion and two nap breaks.

Tickets

Kevin and I have also been working on this somnolent playlist for your melatonin delectation: