How can a critic review Red Room Company projects which include text, art, performance and clothing all at once?
Occasional Poetry
August 16th, 2007
August 5th, 2007
Johanna: poets the size of their poems
By engaging with The City of Sydney’s project ‘Sustainable Sydney’, predicting what 2030 will be like has become a daily preoccupation. So far, no morbid apocalyptic thoughts about there only a baby green leaf poking up from mound of soot, all that remains of human-land. Instead, the 2030 vision I’ve had lately is filled with thin modes of transport (the bike, the memory stick) cycling beneath hovering mobiles and around a lot of legs dog walking real life dogs cross bread with computer bred canines.
How language exists and how we communicate in 2030 will be a central question for all the 8 poets participating in Red Room’s version of Sustainable Sydney. (One of the 8 poets is Jane Gibian, whose new collection of poetry ‘Ardent’ was launched with moving and teary readings yesterday in Sydney by Occasional poet, Adam Aitken and Giramondo Press)
Between now and October 2030 the 8 poets will have to work on their predictions, which will be recorded in studio and stored in an audio time capsule online. This capsule will be popped on line and in a public space, in October 2030. Whichever poets and Red Roomers are still here and living will have the chance to hear their original recordings broadcast around the city.
At this stage megaphones on every corner may exist, or perhaps there will be no street corners or public meeting spaces because everyone is saving themselves within the walls of their individuals worlds?
July 4th, 2007
Johanna: Pru Upton designed our Red Room’s own boxed head
Our Audio & Text Index is a collection of performances by and interviews with The Red Room Company poets. As I was saying to the Poinsettia on the workshop table (the only blossoming plant I’ve owned that hasn’t wilted and died within two months), this index is designed to offer other ideas and ways of wearing poetry, not offered by the academic run data bases of Australian poetry or multiplying a digital lists rich in poet names that scroll into infinity.
The Red Room’s Audio and Text index, as our Chief Researcher Bonny declares:
“The Audio & Text Index is not based in either academic research or resources, as APRIL is, but it aims to make a link between the audio and text, and not simply treat them as entities. This is important given the recent popularity and acceptance of performance poetry forms in Australia (ie. that those forms become recorded in a non-oral form, and vice versa for written poetry); and it is a specific archive of RED ROOM material, not simply anyone’s…it’s a record of our projects and existence and history as much as it is of the poets”
The design of the image took many seasons, myself sending Pru, who also photographed our ‘Occasional Poetry’ event, illustrations, art works, font references and letters of the ‘please be patient’ family. Again, when graphics try to tell the stories of the poems and our projects, there’s a sinking feeling only the poem can illustrate the poem, but having written that I think Pru’s design is one of our best.
June 25th, 2007
Johanna: Into-views of Adam Aitken, Greg McLaren and the rose petal tree
Greg McLaren was accompanied by a brown leather satchel and a blonde lady, he was walking towards the recording studio on a slightly sunny Sunday and within bird calls he read a gentle version of his epithalamium. The clinky chink of champagne glasses were replaced with Greg’s soft tone and, at the end of an interview, a highschool inspired burp which Elliott captured in the computer ears and, to our rude delight, stretched to a minute long. The four of us, that Sunday in that space, must have craved a moment of silliness to balance out an interview that ventured into talk of stillness and Buddhist compassion being written into poems. Between laughs, stumbles and flirty winks to the lady on the other side of the silent glass, Greg and I moved along to the notion of writing ethically and uncomfortably when surrounded by so many other poets and concepts of language. Greg admitted to following the order of the Jedi Knight but also a life that involves travelling whilst standing still.
Withouth wanting to use the term travel poet or stick any genre tag onto any of our Occasional Poets, Adam’s interview did discuss travel, but twisted it into exploration of the Ages of Adam, returning to the wardrobes of his boyhood. With all of Adam’s Occasional poem references to muffs, morals and oranges for breasts, our interview took a swift turn to talk about masculinity and machismo. A wave of silliness also entered into the space of my talk with Adam, although it was a verbal joust about humour and poetry and whether a reader can accept poems can address serious issues like torture but with a comic tone? As always, I’d say, it depends on the reader and if the poem is read in private (where we laugh about all those things that are not meant to be funny) or in public, to a stern audience with needle straight spines and parted hair.
Adam arrived and left in a rowdy car that looked like it would curve nicely around sharp bends on the Eastern Creek Go Cart track. Pam arrived via choo-choo and toes and Greg by bus and foot. Claire by plane and me, as always, not ever arriving as I never seem to be leaving the land of Occasional poets.
June 19th, 2007
Johanna: Through influenza there can be heard poetry!
3 bodies and brains, 3 particular shuffles and coat sizes and 3 imaginations that transform wood, bricks, hessian sacks and egg cartons that trap sound in the studio space where Red Room poets are now recorded into and in.
Space transformed by each frame and frame of mind that walks into it and waits for the hand wave that means ’speak poem now and speak poem meaning’.
With little to do but watch the lips behind the window move, I sit on a small stool picking dry skin off my thumb and re living the Occasional Poetry evening.
The meeting and greeting was similar for all poets so far – Pam, Claire and Adam. Each of their feet stepped up the steps into the studio space (that is a neat wedge into a building on the edge of an edgy city back street) Each poet foot then lifts up over the door floor and stands in the room faced with a rack of leads for instruments and digital magic making equipment. Then each poet nudges to their left and is ushered into a smaller room with large glass window, behind which each of the poets stand and delivers their poems or, today with Pam, a Mineslec.
Curse! Far too much um. But .. how else to contain so many questions in a single breath. Don’t suggest silence as it can suggest closed ears and wandering into another atmosphere whilst the body stays behind. If it wasn’t for um a person would be so caught up with words that they would be unable to pause and without pause there would be no thought in what anyone said. This is, at least, my Tuesday afternoon excuse for why I Um and Sttt and MMM so often whilst asking questions, a strange coo at concepts and ponderous confusion at answers not expected and not fully answered, until the next poem the poet rights perhaps.
June 13th, 2007
Johanna: Price of poems?
To enter and exist into freddo Friday with a cliché : ‘it seems like yesterday’ ..
when the festival masses pushed their coats and pulled their shoes through wind on the Wharf, and passed the security guards, up the stairs and into the Occasional Poetry performance space.
Since that night, this body which houses these fingers that type, has taken part in an informal break, defined by walking, talking and lap-topping Less. Yet, the concerted effort to replenish the bones and imagination, through earlier beds and later get ups, has failed. It seems I’ve only pretended to reduce Red Room and poetry doings, but have instead increased them. What follows A teacup Chihuahua sized whinge of the days from June 3-June 14, 2007:
i. Each day features programs and badges (from Occasional Poetry) being distributed to the poetry hungry – such as when I handed a set to a verbose taxi driver who, in between rants (about Kevin- Mandarin-speaking-did anyone- mention-I-am-fluent-in-Mandarin Rudd) revealed his penchant for badges
ii. Dinner at an Italian restaurant in East Sydney to celebrate the making and broadcasting of the Occasional Claire Potter film made in collaboration with Andrew Garrick The menu included Garfish, chips and a beastly rat lurking in my direct line of sight and smirking at me as it darted about collecting wheat crumbs.
(iii) A squashed meeting in Sappho bookshop with Nic and Kelly-Lee to discuss Red Room’s participation in this year’s Newcastle Young Writers’ Festival. Over coffee and in the company of eavesdroppers we planned how to use Red room’s pre existing Audio & Text Index. Kelly & Nic looked and sounded like a comic country and western duo. The three of us debated the definition of sound artist to the point of me turning up late to meet with a friend who greeted me with the horror story of her being robbed on the Queen’s birthday
(iv) The Red Room has found and recorded in a new studio spacem based in Sydney’s Chippendale and run by composer and RRC board member, Elliott Wheeler. The Chippendal studio signifies the Return of our audio radio projects. You can listen to Claire Potter now.
Claire was recorded in between starts and stops of Sydney’s frightful storm. I collected Clairet at a pub, and both of us without umbrellas sprang down the terrace line streets to the recording booth. Claire peeled off her gingery brown overcoat to reveal a fashionable and funky Parisian ensemble, layers of autumnal colours, flowing skirts and elegant blouses. With her glasses and nibbled fringe Claire read her poem seamlessly and once we’d recorded the chat Claire ran all the way home, to France
(v)The restaurants of Sydney are currently being explored by myself and our board member, Jane. We’re seeking a small private room to host a secret meeting in. So far only the best location was a slightly dishevelled upstairs room in a quaint French restaurant that boasts ‘a shagpile of Oysters’ on its menu.
(v) Chief researcher for Red Room, Bonny Cassidy, and myself travelled to Croydon, and met with two twins just over 2 weeks old. Each head in the elbow of Mr Tony Britten, who is writing our papercuts education program. Tony made choc-chip muffins, poured tea and in between visits from his wife and eldest daughter a white blonde haired toddler called Violet, we have our first successful program draft which will be re worked in time for our four schools’ Term 3.
(vi) Now, following a brisk walk past the up turned rubbish bins, brown jacaranda heads littering the path and the purchasing of a Rosetta roll, I shall meet with Sandra, designer of oue Occasional Poetry mascot. Under the door I can see the cold and so I’m reaching for the sack of a duffle coat hanging on the stairs, its red buttons and furry hood the ideal armour for the 14th June and for hiding in and crying into when I think about the fact some audience members gave a pathetic 10 or 20 cent donation to experience our live event for ‘Occasional Poetry’.
June 11th, 2007
Johanna: Click on flight
Andrew Garrick is based in a matchbox shaped room that peeks onto a major Sydney street. Andrew shares this box with a fiery little woman who also works in the universe of mobile phones, commercials, short films, anything that moves and is imaginative and can potentially be a source of life or of income to have a life. Andrew crafts animated men with large chins, surreal park scenes of floating kites and picnics, corporate videos and now poem films.
It was my last minute Occasional decision to film Claire Potter writing her poem on the night, (photographs on their way) in the light of the dummies, in real-poet-time. Over her shoulder Andrew followed Claire’s fingertips as Bird became Bird-Card became Bird-Card For Lingis became a U-Tube Bird-Card For Lingis Flight
June 7th, 2007
Johanna: Line of blood
The Bodies of the Dummies have been returned to their store house, Singer sewing machine locked in her box, photographs released from frames and wedding lace packed back into the jumble of other laces shelved in prop departments and wardrobes from all around Sydney.
The Occasional programs and badges we have left over are tightly contained in a suitcase and I will unpack them once the sadness of this project ending lifts and Red Room can move into the next one.
The end
Ing of projects are wierd little deaths best cured by intense discussions reflecting on the strange encounters, opportunities seized and tossed away, ideas faced and words met that are always part of producing and publishing poetry into the world on the faces of the world.
All those faces .. all those words unleashed into the world for a week of the Sydney Writers’ festival now gone. The disappearance of the guests and the audience fortunately can’t be totally forgotten as one has a tightly wired factory of memories onto which we print the experiences not able to be printed in or on real world materials.
But there is a joy in keeping relics from the projects, locketing objects like books, badges, photographs, someones sock that ended up in my bag. And, a very large, deep, long red scratch mark. A bloody line from my hip to my knee that appeared the morning after the Occasional event as if I’d penned a line into my flesh, scarring the body to be at one with the dummies who we’d pinned and pricked and cut and tapped all week long.
June 4th, 2007
Johanna: Packed out and packed up
Whistles flew across the harbour waves all the way to the other side of poetry. The Occasional poets read their poems before a crowd of 200 or more, the dummies performed semi naked, totally dumb and in bright lights. Curious eyes reading the dummies clothes contemplating what was beneath them all, perhaps a personality, perhaps a price tag.
The crowd was made out of the fabric of the poetry community in and beyond Sydney. Poetry and meaning hungry masses opened their memories and stretched their definitions of a poetry performance and a way to publish poems and simply swallowed everything the event served them.
It took minutes before my own eyes adjusted to the shapes of bodies and glowing expressions, who present was new to poetry and Red Room? Or, who knew us already? Youth changed depending on the angle of the moon bone and professional poets watched the professional poets play. Audience toes touched the podium and their bottoms pushed into the back wall. Silence/ conversation/ guffaws/cheers/ casual chuckles and spluttered punctuation/ ’shut up’ from a drunk man with a wire like frame and speckled brown hair who resembled a windswept sparrow costumed in red leather jacket. There was the occasional wine spill and glass fragmentation, badges were served as hors d’ouvre, wine and beer was supplied by the Sydney Writers’ Festival .
Security was vicious and kind, hating the crowds but allowing the bodies to stay and grow into the event – special thanks to Peter – a location-events-everything-manager who is savagely handsome in his resemblance to James Dean and then dense deep sea blue eyes that make a serious conversation with him impossible, for example his eyes have a disruptive way of turning plywood into a splintered paper with poetic qualities .. the eye warning sang itself loudly – best to remain distanced at all times in case his eyes are the type of eyes that end up eating you. A warning similar to when you read a particular poem on a particular occasion and suddenly certainty is anything but that.
Why was the night so spirited and soulful? Certainly the poems themselves were wise selections and the poets contrasted one another brilliantly, in fact it wasn’t until they performed one after the other that their individuality became so impressive. Of course particularities to each poet was heightened in the space of only live once, Glen was more gentle and meditative in his read, his voice of conversation trots but when reading poetry his tone and pace is closer to swimming breaststroke in secret rock pools. Adam was feisty and naughty in his animated faces, asides to the audience, his confessions about red lace lingerie, oranges for breasts and ruins. Claire, already high in the sky from traveling from Paris to here a few days ago, was cloud soft and ponderous her manner and poem structure having an intellectual edge that was an invitation to the audience to consider her poem again, now she’d read it live and hand written in front of the crowd.
The video piece of Claire’s wrist writing her poem is being crafted as we blog by Andrew Garrick and at this point I mention all the poems, Pam’s ‘mineslec’ and recording will be added over the next few weeks to our site.
Pam’s mineslec .. it was swift and sophisticated and captivated the crowd that was different in every centimeter of floor space. The cheek of Gwen Harwood, the skillful manipulation of language and poetic techniques to tell a story, make meaning and question meant we were treated to a history of the Occasional Poem, an investigation into Harwood and a tour of Pam’s own wardrobe of masks and material all her selves have put into the public. And with and without thinking Pam’s whiskey brown collared top gave her performance a courtly, royal, dedicative essence that had the audience bowing to her as she walked down the aisle to her seat all the eyes on the words which she’d released into the atmosphere.
Everything feels today. That’s always the way when things are over and beginning and ending as they open.
June 1st, 2007
Johanna:Long Live Lyn
The prevailing atmosphere within my headspace was of doom and disaster, until I met Lyn. Exiting the launch of David Malouf’s new collection of poems ‘Typewriter Music‘, I came across Lyn – a bold and assured being able to save our Occasional Poetry installation from being un lit and un picked until they disappeared…
To keep the story lean – the installation and poetry within the window area have stretched into space normally reserved for a view of the woodwork at the Wharf, yachts sliding over wave laps or day dreaming into the back of another coffee sipping skull. But for four festival days our Occasional set’s back blocks this view. Understandably, the owners of our space have Large concerns patrons will miss out on the harbour , but I have no doubt people will be drawn to the cafe by the installation rather than the water reflections. In The End it is a problem because of poor communication problems. Somehow in the excrutiatingly full days of festival planning the set was born and and installed and is now more prominent than expected.
But the immediate crisis action of Lyn was to approach the owner, whom she knows well, share champagne and save the distinct, metaphorical dasslements of our project. Just as well, as newspapers, festival publicity, all our sponsors, the poets, their friends, some dogs and a single baked bean are all on their way down to view the installation today – If the set had have come down – Oh, what a feeling of nakedness if the installation wasn’t there, all our money and imaginations crushed and wasted. Thanks to Lyn the poet and the reader have a runway in a window for the next two days, Occasional Poetry remains and awaits your criticism, fascination and gaze.