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| Christ on a Clothes Line |
Myths of the Modern Woman Sat, 30 Jan 2016 4.00 PM - 6.00
PM
Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool
Parmar programmed Myths of the Modern Women in
response to Loy's writing and to Melissa Gordon's enduring fascination with
Loy's play 'Collision' (1916). Gordon's exhibition Fallible Space, an
installation determined by the script of 'Collision', provided the backdrop for
the afternoon. The event was introduced by Sandeep Parmar followed by
poetry readings by Skoulding, Crangle, Ashcroft and Sheppard. The readings were followed by a round table discussion.
Mina Loy (1882-1966) is recognised today as one of
the most innovative modernist poets and artists, numbering Gertrude Stein, Marcel Duchamp,
Joseph Cornell, Djuna Barnes and T.S. Eliot amongst her admirers.
Everybody read special sets assembled (and written) for the afternoon, four carefully crafted performances. Melissa then joined the poets to talk about Loy, experts rubbing shoulders with enthusiasts.
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| Me reading with Melissa'a piece visible behind |
Robert's set (see his website here)
I wrote a new poem for the event, referencing Loy, the previous Saturday, in the Performance Space, inside and around Melissa's installation (which we'd seen assembled as part of a performance of Loy's 'Collision' the evening before; so did Joanne: see her photo here). It's one of a series of poems in which I am trying to be anecdotal to some aesthetic effect. So I began with that:
1. 'Useless Landscape' Partly about the Tom Jobim I was listening to - 'its title floats free' - 'one of Loy's mad bums' spotted in Church Street, and the installation itself: 'A sharp shard in suspense'. Unpublished.
2. 'Only the Eyes are Left, for Mina Loy' (in Hymns to the God and History or Sleep; see here)
3 'A Scapel of Light Slicing through a Smile, for Charlotte Saloman'. (from Hymns)
4 'Leeds' (unpublished exploration of modernism)
5 'Empty Diary 1920' (see below) from Empty Diaries and Twentieth Century Blues (see here)
6 'Empty Diary 2009: Hellstew Microblog' (unpublished, from 'Wiped Weblogs', a row of Song Nets)
Empty Diary 1920
Grippe Espagnole
Split
in a
mirror, gloves or fingers in
their meadow of scarf lines, with
its censure, like a man’s. I’ve
shelves of those Everyman books,
a chair in front of the fire.
Light up, read Goldman, bloomers
under the wet umbrella.
Whenever
I’m photographed in front of
my portrait, self-vigilant,
a seismic oscillation
of bone, cruel beauty dances
for a field of fogged lenses.
Only a master could paint
the crumple of rich dresses;
my
nest of
hair for marble eyes to steal
a home, crystal beads trembling
under those hot sick fans. Such
tyranny behind men’s masks
breeds: Poisons sprayed onto bus
seats, nestling between the hard
joints, sticky with the flu’s beads.
Classic Loy - Man Ray |
