The Bodies Remains Return To Us by Jennifer K Dick on Poetry in a Pandemic

NOW ONLINE: “Of Tradition & Experiment XIV: The Bodies’ Remains Return to Us (Poetic Migration in the Time of a Pandemic” at Academia.edu with permission of editor David Caddy  AND IN PRINT in Tears in the Fence, (UK literary magazine), n° 72, Autumn 2020 issue: 

Abstract:
In this essay which opens: 

    "To what extent do place and time determine a poet?
      To what extent do plague and time determine a poet?"

the issues of value during a period of mass loss, of motivation to write, and rituals of remembrance are explored. The text vacillates between critical prose readings of recent poets, political poetics reflections on pandemics and migrations due to attempts to escape contamination, and more poetry-like writing emerging from my Spring 2020 journals. Here, as I read others, I interrogate my own continuation and writing during this time of limbo and loss, in an ambiance of latent fear. Only one of the poets I speak of, Laura Mullen, is directly addressing Covid-19. Other works I examine were published before this illness appeared, but these poems, thoughts, and lines are resonant and pertinent to these times—and in particular to current issues of grief, absence, mourning. This explains the large reliance on my reading of Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen (Omnidawn, 2018).

Read the article / download as member from Academia.edu site: Click HERE

Or Purchase a PRINT COPY of TITF N°72 or SUBSCRIBE by Clicking THIS LINK HERE

JUST OUT: Tears in the Fence 62 with Of Tradition and Experiment XII

It is so lovely to be a part of the continued tradition of the UK

magazine run by David Caddy called Tears in the Fence. Their most recent issue--NUMER 62!--is now out and ready for order from http://tearsinthefence.com/pay-it-forward

My article "Of Tradition and Experiment XII: On Beauty and Reading" (pp109-117) is a personal exploration of what draws me to a poem: music, vision, thought/perspective. It is a kind of conversational retrospective of my reading experiences with poetry, with short close reads and thoughts on my favorite poems and authors, going from John Donne, Thomas Hood, Robert Frost, Gerard Manly Hopkins, Carole Maso, Anne Carson and Michael Palmer to Myung Mi Kim, with a brief tip of the hat to Erin Mouré, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Nathanial Mackey, N. NourbeSe Philip and Craig Santos Perez.

To give you a sense of the momvent of my essay, in it I write these following snippets: 

"The mind leaps in beauty and is ensnared. A poem combines music, vision and thought and, in so doing, pierces the body...escaping its enclosure within a single time or moment as it opens to something many call universal." (p9)

"It is for the love of the music that I first read any poem..." (p111)

"To seek refuge in language, in poetry, as a peripheral space, a space not like and also not unlike society..." (p114)

"Of course, how does one define beauty? For me, the light of the lines and spaces in [Michael] Palmer combine with a kind of texture in the meaning, and that combination is beauty, hard and cold, warm and light at times. There is also something ineffable, fragile in a thing of beauty, and Palmer's poems capture that..." (p115)

"Many of the authors like the ones I find I am now reading and am excited about reading appear to be attempting to recalibrate the self within a sense of the nation (or nations) and its history." (p116)

Here is the announcemnt and information CC'd from the TITF wordpress blog about the most recent issue so that you can order your own, thus keep the magazine alive. It is FULL of amazing poetry and closes with a long section devoted to book reviews and reflections on poetry and poetics today.

Tears in the Fence 62 is now available from http://tearsinthefence.com/pay-it-forward and features poetry, fiction and essays from Simon Smith, Nancy Gaffield, Patricia Debney, Andy Fletcher, Michael Farrell, John Freeman, Afric McGlinchey, Anamaria Crowe Serrano, Anamaria Crowe Serrano & Robert Sheppard, Sarah Connor, Samuel Rogers, Rose Alana Frith, Michael Grant, Charles Hadfield, Mike Duggan, Dorothy Lehane, Vicki Husband, Hilda Sheehan, Andrew Darlington, David Miller, Karl O’Hanlon, Amy McCauley, Rupert Loydell & Daniel Y Harris, Sam Smith, Rodney Wood, David Greenslade, Lesley Burt, L.Kiew, Graheme Barrasford Young, Andrew Lees, Michael Henry, James Bell, Rhys Trimble, Sophie McKeand, Haley Jenkins, Alexandra Sashe-Seekirchner, Richard Thomas, Alec Taylor and Steve Spence.

The critical section consists of David Caddy’s Editorial, Anthony Barnett’s Antonym, Jennifer K. Dick’s Of Tradition & Experiment XII, Alan Munton on Steve Spence, Andrew Duncan on Kevin Nolan’s Loving Little Orlick, David Caddy on Gillian White’s Lyric Shame, Robert Vas Dias on Jackson Mac Low, Laurie Duggan on Alan Halsey, Chris McCabe on Reading Barry MacSweeney, Mandy Pannett on Angela Gardner, Mary Woodward, Ric Hool on Ian Davidson, William Bonar, Steve Spence on John Hartley Williams, Linda Benninghoff on Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, Notes On Contributors
and Ian Brinton’s Afterword.

Jeff Hilson, Richard Makin and Jennifer K Dick at Tears in the Fence Festival 2014 on What is Experimental Writing in the 21st Century?

New video now up on Youtube of the Oct 2014 "On Tradition and Experiment" round table talk I lead with Jeff Hilson and Richard Makin from the Tears in the Fence Poetry Festival organized by David Caddy and the magazine Tears in the Fence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vfYKipPhI0

We ask questions like what is our "reponsibility" to tradition, in particular, in the case of Jeff Hilson's topic, to the tradition of forms like the sonnet? What is the relationship between alchemy and experimental procedures as authors and readers? On a more general note, so what is the new? What is tradition or experiment? How did we get to now? What are the limits of language? How are young people writing today inheriting from traditions and what techniques and perspectives are they bringing to the table? Why can we see awkwardness in writing as compelling? Underlying this are the unasked questions, the hinted at query about what space exists today for transformation, opacity, transparency, inspiration, intention, creation, or hybritdity in the new writing and writers of today? Are we, like alchemists, "journeymen of the soul"? Or something far less grandiose?

Jeff Hilson brings in issues on the sonnet and  perspectives on whether explorations of the sonnet can change, sharing some his own techniques as explored in his book In The Assarts (Veer Books, UK, 2010 ).

Richard Makin shares a talk on alchemy that in many ways might stand as a kind of metaphor on transformation. Makin speaks of this hybrid of art and science, of conversion, of transformation, from the dull to the luminous.  Makin also opens up a space for reflection on indeterminateness in reading (and perception), thus the space for reception in the making of art via this talk. For more on Makin's own work, check out his dense poetic novels Dwelling (Reality Street, 2011) or Mourning (Equus Press, 2015--read an excerpt at https://equuspress.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/mourning-2/ )

Jennifer K Dick looks back over the convoluted literary trends of tradition and experiment in the American cannon, the interweavings, the redefinitions, the limits of the obsession with the new and yet the sense that perhaps a new is still just about to arrive once more. Her reflections are based on a series of articles published in Tears in the Fence over the past 5 years.

Let me know what your thoughts are on this talk and our topics! Enjoy! --Jen