Introducing Steve Van Hagen
I was appointed at Edge Hill in 2006, having previously taught at The International Study Centre, Herstmonceux Castle (Queen’s University, Canada, in the U. K.), the University of Kent, and Canterbury Christ Church University. I have taught most periods and genres within English and American literature, but have tended to specialise in eighteenth-century literature, Renaissance drama (especially Shakespeare), and modernism and post-modernism.
My edition of selections from Woodhouse’s The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus was published in 2005 (Cheltenham: The Cyder Press) and I have recently completed a book entitled The Poetry of Mary Leapor for the Focus On series published by Greenwich Exchange Press. I am currently writing an article for The Literature Compass on the life, career and reception of James Woodhouse, as well as writing The Student Guide to Jonathan Swift for Greenwich Exchange. I am also researching a critical biography of Woodhouse.
My other interests include literary representations of obsessive-compulsive disorders (and particularly in the work of the American novelist Chuck Palahniuk), and the life and career of the American eco-anarchist Edward Abbey.
Poems have appeared in a number of magazines (see links at the end of this post)
Die Sönne Scheint Noch
(with thanks to Jason Whittaker)
I
Barbarians are coming, they sing, crawling
from the East. He wears a leather skirt East
European hat, metal cross
draped over his bare chest. Aryan, Wagnerian
ice maidens who study postgraduate
English in their spare time sing
harmonies wearing black vests, blonde
pigtails tumbling from their fezes. Banners
depict a thick cross within a cog though no
White Rose. Seeming swastikas that know not
seems adorn album covers passed round, sleeve
notes by Žižek, film projectors
beam streams of images. The crowd
chant in tandem “Tanz
mit Laibach”, singing of American
friends and German comrades dancing
in Baghdad.
II
Most likely this was not what
Sophie and Hans and Christoph went
to the steel blade for but you never know
what you’re living or dying for till
later as they’ve told Tomasz as
they look down, unlike him, bemused. Dropping leaflets
from University stairs can be for some
what a concert and exhibition at the House
of the Workers is for others. It is many years
since the threesome took that last
unprecedented cigarette, but Sophie is a nation’s
heroine. At least the website says
Tomasz’s influence lives on.
III
Outside in the Trbovlje evening, where Tomasz
ended twenty three years before, the audience files
out, waves passports in the air that helped some
escape Sarajevo. The Kum mountain lodge houses
some as the NSK philosopher declaims, and they drink
Laibach wine, deep into tomorrow until
the sun comes up.
Der Papierene
the streets of Favoriten are quiet
now, a suburb of a city
of shadows, secrets, whispers, though they
weren’t quiet that day in January ’39
when they laid you to rest some say
twenty thousand thronged the streets
whisperers whisper still
about you; you were a jew, a
nazi, a gambler, when you were found
with Camilla in the Anagasse
they whispered too: you were
murdered, committed suicide, Camilla
killed you, politics
killed you
there is no memorial, even the cafe
you bought from Drill is gone,
demolished, “they did not want it there
as a reminder of him”, they told me,
when I asked
I look for you, I find you only
in the memories of the reunification
derby, the pride of
Osterreich, not Ostmark, waltzing
around grinning before the box
full of dignitaries, at full time
grainy images on You Tube
narrated in Spanish
are the only sight I find but
it is not a bad epitaph: “the new club
president has forbidden us to talk
to you, but I will always
speak to you, Herr Doktor.”
Emily warned me it would be like this
There is only one truly philosophical problem
wrote Albert, a problem I solved
one winter’s afternoon
At the last there was the little
not so much
the King in the room
as the mundane in the gloom
It ended
not so much with a whimper
as with an unavoidable bang
or two, on the head
As fumes swirled, the thoughts:
did I feed the cat?
did I turn on the gas (enough)?
the taciturnity of amorous encounters
i don’t bring you flowers
we meet in hotels
i don’t bring you chocolates
we mouth neither hellos nor farewells
we pass the same anonymous receptionists and bellboys
this month room twenty six next month ninety four
after, i trace the outline of your nose
in my mind as you lie
face up turned away on sweat-soaked sheets
perhaps one day we might speak
Links to poetry:
www.anonpoetry.co.uk/anon1.html
www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/svh1.html
www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/svh2.html
www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/svh3.html
www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/svh4.html
www.nthposition.com/analienisforlife.php
www.nthposition.com/author.php?authid=940
Two North West Events
TWO WEDNESDAY EVENTS
1
Cliff Yates Reading at The Rose Theatre at Edge Hill, Ormskirk on Wednesday 11th November 2009; 7.30, £3.50.
The launch of Frank Freeman’s Dancing School:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844715039.htm
his new Salt book.
Cliff Yates is the author of Henry’s Clock (Smith/Doorstop) which won the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Poetry Business competition, and Jumpstart Poetry in the Secondary School (Poetry Society). He teaches at Maharishi School, where his students are renowned for winning poetry competitions, and runs courses and workshops in the UK and abroad. His latest collection is Frank Freeman’s Dancing School (Salt).
www.cliffyates.co.uk
(This is part of the GOING PUBLIC series at Edge Hill: see www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com for details.)
2
Following the popularity of the Birkbeck launch in October, Gylphi Limited is pleased to announce:
The launch of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry
Ed. Robert Sheppard (Edge Hill) and Scott Thurston (Salford)
at the University of Salford with guest speakers Christine Kennedy, Allen Fisher and Ian Davidson (Wednesday 9 December at 4 pm)
There will be speeches and discussion of the journal, as well as an opportunity for readers and contributors to the journal to meet with editorial board members.
Speakers:
Christine Kennedy, Leeds Trinity & All Saints
Allen Fisher, Manchester Metropolitan University
Ian Davidson, University of Wales at Bangor
Followed by discussion and drinks.
All Welcome. Free entry.
Directions here: http://www.salford.ac.uk/travel
To register for this event on Facebook, please visit:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169385893578
You can also become a fan of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry at:
http://www.facebook.com/innovativepoetry
To receive your copy of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry before the launch subscribe online: http://www.gylphi.co.uk/poetry
Talks: Daniele Pantano and Michael Egan
(photo courtesy of Patricia Farrell)
A game of two halves last night: Daniele Pantano (left) and Michael Egan (right) answering questions after their presentation. (Who's your smiley friend, guys?)
Dan spoke to the title 'Living in Translation: A Discussion of Exile, Translingualism, and Writing Your Way Home'. Home might or might not be Switzerland, in Dan's case, and he explored the polylingual background of Switzerland, his sojorn in the United States, his writing in English and his translating from the German. He quoted Richard Kearney on Ricoeur's On Translation: 'The idealist romantic self, sovereign master of itself and all it surveys, is replaced by an engaged self which only finds itself after it has traversed the field of foreignness and returned to itself again, this time altered and enlarged, "othered".'
Michael introduced us to the tenets of 'Motivism', a style of poetry (or a schema for generating a long sequence of poems), based around a verse form of 1/3/3/1 lines and a series of guiding principles for each stanza: initial image, wandering, connection, and return.
This is final talk in the series but Cliff Yates (supported by the team of 'talkers') will read at the Rose Theatre, at Edge Hill University on Wednesday 11th November at 7.30: tickets £3.50 for the launch of his book Frank Freeman's Dancing School (Salt).
Introducing Daniele Pantano (as translator): Georg Trakl
Georg Trakl (1887-1914) is commonly seen as the most prominent figure of Austro-German literary Expressionism.
IN RED LEAVES FULL OF GUITARS . . .
In red leaves full of guitars
The yellow tresses of girls flutter
By the fence where sunflowers grow.
A golden tumbrel wheels through the clouds.
The elders in a peace of brown shade
Become silent and hug each other like fools.
Orphans sing sweetly at vespers.
Flies buzz in yellow palls.
At the stream the women still wash.
Hanging linens sail.
The girlchild I long fell for
Comes again through the evening gray.
Sparrows plunge from balmy skies
Into green voids filled with rot.
A bread smell and pungent spice
Cheats the hungry one of recovery.
Translated from the German by Daniele Pantano
TRUMPETS
Beneath mutilated willows, where brown children play
And leaves drift, trumpets blare. A graveyard shudder.
Scarlet banners plunge through the maple’s grief
Horsemen along fields of rye, empty mills.
Or shepherds sing at night and stags enter
Into the circle of their fires, the grove’s ancient sorrow,
Dancers rise from a black wall;
Scarlet banners, laughter, madness, trumpets.
Translated from the German by Daniele Pantano
Introducing Daniele Pantano (as poet)
(photo courtesty D. Pantano)
What I enjoy about chaos is the guarantee of creation
The rapid unexpected
EVERY MOMENT OCCURS AFTER A SEQUENCE OF LOOKS
1.
Anticipate the whipping beauty of these southern women
Accustomed to euphoria within the word.
2.
Inform them that they’re unable to solicit the final embalming.
3.
Language consists of minute fractures near each climax.
4.
Confirm the impossible: to fully comprehend any experience.
5.
We can die at once and laugh about it.
6.
Proclaim days are dominated by sex, verbs, red paint.
7.
Witness the death of a praying mantis as her black hair finally settles.
BEYOND THE STOP SIGN: SWISS LANDSCAPE
Fictitious. This green. Like no other. This blue. Conscious.
Spectators. We agree. Language at birth. The rush. At once.
Forever. Scourged by origins and locutions. We find ourselves.
Back to it. The octagon. Its base. Like a senate of fatidic ants.
Ready. For the scouts. To move. From red. To white. To red.
Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, translator, critic, and editor born of Sicilian and German parentage in Langenthal (Canton of Berne). His individual poems, essays, and reviews, as well as his translations from the German by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Georg Trakl (see next posting) and Robert Walser, have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, including
Absinthe: New European Writing, ARCH,
The Baltimore Review,
The Cortland Review,
Gradiva: International Journal of Italian Poetry,
Italian Americana,
The Mailer Review, and 3
2 Poems Magazine.
His next books,
The Oldest Hands in the World (a collection of poems), and the translations
The Possible Is Monstrous: Selected Poems by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and
The Collected Works of Georg Trakl, are forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press, New York. He teaches at Edge Hill University.
For more information, please visit his website at
http://www.danielepantano.ch/.
Dee McMahon and Robert Sheppard
Photos courtesy Scott Thurston and Andrew Taylor
A sanp of part of the audience, plus Dee McMahon and Robert Sheppard answering questions after their presentations to the Poetry and Poetics Research Group meeting in the GOING PUBLIC series. Dee was talking about her sequence of prose pieces that springboard from quotations 'Stories of a Line', in which - Klee-like - she takes a 'line' for a walk. Robert was talking about his latest sequence, the poems of Rene Van Valckenborch, and the double fictional poetics by which they are permitted.
Next week the last in the series: Daniele Pantano and Michael Egan.
Robert Sheppard: Sudley House
Here are two shots – the bottom one by Andrew Taylor and the top one by Tim Power – of Robert Sheppard performing his ambulatory/site-specific text
Sudley House at Sudley House in November 2004. The text may be read at:
http://www.greatworks.org.uk/poems/sh/rs1.htmlClick at the top from the page you find here to
Preamble to
Instructions before you reach the
First Room (and continue until the
Ninth). Then read the
Notes.
Introducing Dee McMahon
Dee McMahon is a former student of the MA at Edge Hill University and she has a CD of her work published, which she will be selling at the Poetry and Poetics session tomorrow night (I’m on too). She is currently working in the Library at Edge Hill, where I saw her about half an hour ago, but she didn’t see me, scuttling in to return the CD of Jerome Rothenberg that I was playing to this year’s MA full timers. Previous work on Pages may be seen at (link and then scroll a long way down to Page 451):
http://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_archive.htmlRobert Sheppard
Photos above coutesy Andrew Taylor; Dee at the Neon Highway reading in the Walker Gallery and Dee waiting in the recording studio.
Introducing Patricia Farrell
Photograph of Patricia with her friends in Neumarkt Square, Amsterdam; Robert Sheppard, and reading in the Tate, coutesy Andrew Taylor
Patricia Farrell is a visual artist, art historian, writer and student of philosophy, and has taught philosophy and creative writing. Published in New Tonal Language from Reality Street. The Zechstein Sea is available from Ship of Fools. She lives in Liverpool with two fools.
TRAVELLING ON ONE TICKET
(outbound)
pointing shifters
another object
previously verbal
a finger towards
and says
also denoting
pointed out something to it
“It will be better” –
and when I say that
a finger can live
without people
she means
all right is plain and heavy
a care-lined face
a heavy face
want her
not
used to beauty
“I think you are like a painting” –
this time takes it from her purse
and leaning out she talks simply
how such columns these heads might be
copying an older maxim not properly understanding
a series of heads and the spaces between
in the case of a butterfly less decomposed
he invented the image
as it were
with the viewer
the connection whatever the argument
and the manuscript of hybrid monsters
characteristics of initial capitals
this sentence is a possible
central theme now
romantics of structure
that’s what mountains are
a winter’s summer’s Christ fulfils itself
hinted at an orchestral piece,
a superb current falls into the irretrievable
and that’s just gentle by the inclusion
to seep in you a first time
a diversity of closes with
will leave you in the wind
sophisticated
idea of resurrection
animation
but from the angular sinister
with a stiff-backed
trying to get any you can see why this intelligent saved the sexed-up but nasty chivalry
(return)
a difficult word being
recalling not a little
disrupts or myths
worked out
several versions interested
in the form updating on
struggle
by those peaceably involved.
levels broad units
in what coup
would reference guarantee
operated by
or at least
some sense its typographical space
to lead them out
that we are bound to fail
just counterfactual
precious as confirmation
or two things
to make a company evidence of
what the weight of
for example
gone on longer
desperation advanced by years
by design of it
of it in the areas
worst is much more
have turned
there were clear signs
frightening again
maybe
pure incarnation
done in usual panic
consistent
our ethic unique enough
there is no object
purpose behind
unpersonal purpose
intimately fade all this
but to make the world
ultimate
indeed for no other reason
to argue
for to do so
prompted
if at all lasting
without reward
playing became
betwixt-and-between
visit the house
the window that she missed
options locked
when with her arm
reach the window
iron bars are up
turned his back on
turned himself
from that day on
- “I am your enemy”
were out and relied on
who turned framed by rivers
of those converging
deposited
nevertheless convinced
that the judgement
who reads the left in any document
indeed questions convention’s epidemic
a number who at a time
freed
from them to invite
so that witnesses come forward
for all that although
Hear her reading at The Other Room (Manchester) at
