Playing With Code, Breaking the Grid

Playing with code, text & image . there's so much yet to explore with HTML & Javascrip.

Code is, indeed, Poetry ~

I explored creative applications of HTML & Javascript on my album Joe Sent Me.

Hover over 'Love Lives in the Dark' and watch the words disappear:

 Drag & Drop the text / words to create new combinations:

 

Fearlessly Understanding | The new guard @ Sibling Rivalry Press

"I am a stenographer of my mind. I write down what  passes through it, not whats going around me. I am a poet." — Allen Ginsberg

"I do not understand poetry", a mantra so often intoned. I used to think this had to do with the oblique lens through which poets see the world, but I'm beginning to see that this has more to do with time, the gap of years during which a new generation of Poets acquire that particular voice which 'speaks' to their generation.

When this occurs, when a new 'voice' enters the conversation, it causes a rift among the status quo: a rip, a tearing of the old fabric which clings, unrelentingly, to tradition. When a new guard of Poets take hold, they sound an alarm; theirs is a celebration, a battle cry and a warning — a call to arms for those who've been searching for words that both agitate and assuage, waiting for those voices to rise & shake up complacency and re-adjust their own world view - the way Ginsberg and Anne Sexton and Dickinson and Yeats and Neruda did .....

In poetry today, we're seeing a shift from the static & academic to the fluid & intrinsic. It's happening in other art forms such as Dance. (a great piece by Gia Kourlas @ NYT "The Margins of a Form Are, Increasingly, Not Where They Used to Be") For those who say they don't "get" poetry, I say, poetry is all around us. It's not something that needs to be learned. You know it when you hear it.

Sibling Rivalry Press

Today's voices of Poets that are resonating come from Sibling Rivalry Press - its stated mission "is to publish work that disturbs and enraptures." And that, it does. I challenge anyone to come out of the experience of reading Collin Kelley's 'Render', DGilson's 'BritLit', Joanna Hoffman's 'Running for Trap Doors', 

Stephen S. Mills' 'He Do the Gay Man in Different Voices', or SRP Founder & Publisher's Bryan Borland's 'My Life as Adam' and say they don't understand. These are Poets who have no fear of diving headlong & hedonistically into their raging, rapturous sea of words. Any reader who lives and thinks breaths in the world today will find themselves reading on, fearlessly understanding.

Render: Poems by Collin Kelley - book trailer 

Collin Kelley on a Writer's Worth @ Poets&Writers

Thank you Collin, for your eloquence & bravery with words.... 

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P&W-SPONSORED WRITER & PRESENTER: Collin Kelley

"For the next few weeks, poet Collin Kelley, author of After the Poison, Slow to Burn, and Better to Travel, and curator of both the Poetry Atlanta reading series and the Georgia Center for the Book reading series will be blogging about his experience as a longtime R/W-sponsored writer and presenter of literary events.

In February 2005, I wrote my first grant approved by Poets & Writers, Inc., when it expanded its Readings/Workshops program to the Atlanta area. The recipient of that grant, Cherryl Floyd-Miller, hadn’t asked for any money, but deserved it for her many years of selfless and uncompensated work as a writer in the city. We had a standing-room-only audience that night at the Barnes & Noble on the Georgia Tech campus, and I was thrilled to be able to put a check in Cherryl’s hand."

Read more at Poets & Writers

10 Questions on Poets & Technology_by Collin Kelley

A must-read @ Very Like a Whale by poet, novelist, playwright and journalist Collin Kelley:

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"The internet, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, websites, iPad, iPod, podcasts, digital video and who knows what else. What do they all mean for the poet qua poet? For Poetry? Is it still pretty much where the Gutenberg press left it? Is Poetry technology-proof? In our fearless ongoing quest to exploit other people’s wisdom on poetry-related subjects, we are posing ten questions to a group of illustrious contemporary poets on this topic. This week’s responder is Collin Kelley.

7. Technology is enabling poets today to take poetry off the page in ways that were previously inconceivable. Either comment on this piece by Tom Konyves or provide a link to and comments on a different piece of work that uses technology to take the poem off the page.

CC. Most computers now have the ability to make a sound recording, which is uploadable as a podcast in a matter of minutes. I started doing that on MySpace four or five years ago. Sites like YouTube and Vimeo (which doesn’t have nearly as many content restriction as YouTube) has turned anyone with basic knowledge of editing software into a filmmaker and many poets are creating videos for their work and posting it around the Interwebs. 

Poets are collaborating with artists and musicians to move their words off the page and into different arenas. Poet Steven Reigns has created installations of his work and created photography exhibits that incorporate words and images. Musician and poet Vanessa Daou created an interactive website that allows the user to hear, read and cut and paste her words into new forms" 

Collin Kelley on 'Love Among the Shadowed Things'

"You simply must listen to (or download) Vanessa Daou's brilliant, Love Among the Shadowed Things, recorded for the Weird Tales for Winter show curated by Jonny Mugwump on UK radio station Resonance 104.4FM. Poetry, ghostly jazz, sinister choirs, footsteps, trains clacking on tracks, a needle endlessly circling the lead-out of a record and Vanessa's unmistakable voice -- it's like the soundtrack for a film David Lynch has yet to make. Brava!"

Collin Kelley

Vanessa Daou: 'Love Among the Shadowed Things', new music & poetry for 'Weird Tales for Winter', a collective radio series on Resonance 104.4 FM, UK

Vanessa Daou: Love Among the Shadowed Things

Coming soon: New poetry, sound & music for 'Weird Tales for Winter', a collective radio series curated by Jonny Mugwump for his always mind altering Exotic Pylon radio show on Resonance 104.4 FM

Broadcast January 31st 2010
Total playing time 30 minutes

Other featured artists contributing to the "hauntological dream project":

Moon Wiring Club
West Norwood Cassette Library and Matthew de Abaitua
Dolly Dolly
Belbury Poly and Lawrence Norfolk
Radio Joy
Mordant Music
John Foxx

follow me on Twitter & Facebook & my new myspace poetry, sound & art site for updates, news & links

follow WeirdWinter on Twitter

full site pending - subscribe to exoticpylon for updates, images, resonances

'Conquering Venus' by Collin Kelley

sipping green tea, deeply engrossed in 'Conquering Venus' by Collin Kelley - poetry meets prose in this novel; it begins with these beautifully sculpted lines "In his dreams he can remember her name. From the shadowy first glimpses when she was peripheral, on the edge of a crowd or morphing into a friend..." inspired, inspiring - more thoughts to come...

The 4th issue of Ouroboros Review

The 4th issue of Ouroboros Review is out; if you crave beauty, fantasy, shades, shadows, and infinite nuance, if you have the desire to stir your poetry-starved imagination, don't wait, read it...

A highlight is Collin Kelley's engrossing interview with Cecilia Wolloch who discusses her life, influences, and her new work 'Carpathia' -

Each poem is an essential read. I'm loving Michelle McGrane's language-lovely poem 'Augusta Fabergé' [p44] & very much looking forward to her 3rd collection of poetry 'The Suitable Girl', published by Pindrop Press in 2010.

If you missed issue 3, take time to soak in every word of Michelle's interview with John Siddique. When you reach the part when he says "The Basic act of writing for me is an act of Love", pause, revel, reflect, read on...

Etienne Daho: The Invitation

Etienne Daho is a voice drenched in the sensual, engulfed by a Poet's truth and fueled by Love's fire. 'L'invitation', his latest album, speaks to every heart that is drawn to the equally destructive and seductive flame of Desire.

With a profound understanding of Desire's manifold facets, Daho puts into words and sings about its many intangible flickers: pleasure and pain, power and surrender, a simultaneous loss and discovery of self, the beauty as well as the bruising of ones manifold illusions. Daho explores the many subtle angles and sharp edges of Eros - self-doubt, self-destruction, self-sacrifice - and invites us to join him on his journey of Love and Desire through his Music and Poetry. Do we dare follow...?

I've translated 'L'Invitation' below.....
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Invitation

Ah I burn I burn, your tentacles trapping me from the depths of Hell
giving me the cruel sensation of walking barefoot on glass.
The goodness of your hand, generous and perfect,
beckons me to come, giving me the sweet feeling
of being alive again, invited, invited.

At the table of the guests where one lives until one dies
from those things that satiate, you invite me to take my place
to divide the honey of the honors of your heart.

Willingly I accept the best treatment that is reserved exclusively
for the guests at the naked feast, which makes the tongues
of the evening come untied.

Oh now I burn I burn to taste all these dizzying nectars,
whose black and crimson poison make the blood of lovers beat indecently.
Your confident kiss calls me to another adored destiny,
giving me the sweet feeling of being alive again, invited, invited.

What can I do, I want to share the volatile liquors
at the table of poets, of assassins, all like me, invited here.

Willingly I accept the best treatment that is reserved exclusively
for the guests at the naked feast, which makes the tongues
of the evening come untied.

L'invitation

Ah je brûle je brûle, les tentacules m'attrapant du fond des enfers
me donnent la cruelle sensation de marcher pieds nus sur du verre.
La bonté de ta main généreuse et parfaite qui me fait signe d'avancer,
me donne l'aimable sensation d'être à la vie de nouveau convié, convié.

A la table des convives, convives
Qu'on vive jusqu'à ce que repu l'on en meurt.
Tu m'invites à prendre ma place à partager le miel des honneurs de ton coeur.
Volontiers j'accepte le meilleur traitement
Que l'on réserve tout exclusivement
Aux invités le festin nu, qui fait les langues au soir se délier, se délier yeah

Oh je brûle je brûle de goûter à présent à tous ces nectars affolants,
dont le poison noir et pourpre fait battre indécent le sang des amants.

Ton baiser confiant m'appelle à tout autre destin adoré,
me donne l'aimable sensation d'être à la vie de nouveau convié, convié.
Convié yeah

A qu'y puis à qu'y puis je, la liqueur volatile je veux toute la partager,
à la table des poètes, des assassins, tout comme moi ici conviés.

Volontiers j'accepte le meilleur traitement
Que l'on réserve tout exclusivement
Aux invités le festin nu, qui fait les langues au soir se délier, se délier yeah
yeah yeah yeah...

High School Halloween, Music & Memory

"Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know, she's half crazy
It's why you want to be there..."

Leonard Cohen, from "Suzanne"

This year, Halloween triggered my memory of this yearbook photo from 11th grade which many of you viewed on Facebook (thanks to all for your insights, witticisms & ruminations)

I've always believed that we all hold inside of us, from an early age, the seeds of our eventual 'grown up' selves. Although I didn't intentionally set out to become a singer or songwriter, when I reflect on my past, there's the impression of a clear trajectory that led me to that career decision.

Many would argue that being an artist is something that is somehow programmed inside, that true artists do not choose their paths, that it is their fate or kismet that chooses them. But it can also be argued that, for some, there comes a time to decide, a crossroads. Andy Warhol began his career in magazine illustration and advertising. Robert Motherwell studied Philosophy before he changed direction and rigorously pursued Painting.

While I was at Vassar, I was declaring a major in Aesthetics until I transferred to Barnard/Columbia and declared a double major in Art History/Studio Art. It wasn't until my senior year when I studied Poetry with Kenneth Koch that I realized I had reached that crossroads.

I've always perceived of this monumental moment as metaphorically akin to the moment when Alice picks up the bottle and reads 'DRINK ME', and after confirming that it is not marked 'poison', swallows the otherwise unmarked liquid. Her decision, while not well-informed, is not precipitous. That decision to follow the untrammeled road and become an Artist is fundamentally based on that need to do as Alice did, follow her inner need to open the door into the enchanting and mysterious adventure and explore the sometimes treacherous new terrain, come what may.

It was during this time in High School that I began discovering & devouring music that was tapping into me on all levels of Poetry, intellect & emotion: Leonard Cohen, The Ramones, Blondie, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, Joan Armatrading, The Go Gos, The B-52s, Pink Floyd, The Police. Soon after, I would discover Francoise Hardy, Julie London, Juliette Greco, Nico & The Velvet Underground.

My good friend, pictured above in the photo, was as much of a music hound as I was. I haven't asked her yet if she remembers that particular night of Rock 'n Roll debauchery... Halloween & Rock 'n Roll share a similar ethos: to find trouble where you can & head into that place which is at once thrilling & frightening. Everyone at some point in their lives plants the seed of who they are to become. For me, that moment is captured here, in this photo.

The Artist is all things: creator, witness, inventor, storyteller, gift giver, shaman, seducer, rule-breaker, Philosopher, thief, magician, myth-maker, bellwether With instinct as much your guide as intelligence, the Artist chooses to follow that unruly path of most resistance, hypnotized by that the ever-present temptation to metaphorically drink that mysterious, unknown & tantalizing essence.

Collin Kelley, Storybook Burlesque, The Concretes

"Well, Ive been haunted in my sleep
Youve been starring in my dreams"

The Rolling Stones, from "Miss You"

I love this cover of 'Miss You' by The Concretes - played by the 'Storybook Burlesque' during one of their lovely & voracious performances on Sunday night at The Tank, NYC -



Novelist, poet and playwright Collin Kelley read portions from his much lauded new book 'Conquering Venus', which he lovingly signed - i'm eager to begin reading it...

iPhotos from event coming soon -

google: rare obsolete words

google: rare obsolete words

psychomachy, conflict between the body and the soul
Eleutherommania, manic desire for freedom
Facetiae, term for books of inappropriate or lewd nature
Tuberous, yielding an abundance of milk
Otherguess, an old word for different
Reserate, an old-time word for unlock or open
Fabulist, one who invents fables
Ucalegon, neighbor whose house is on fire
Alectryomachy, cock fighting
Ailurophilia, love of cats
Chasmophilous, fond of nooks, crevices and crannies
Gynorikolobomassophile, one who nibbles on women's earlobes
Hydrophilous, loving or preferring water
Scopophilia, obtaining sexual pleasure from seeing things
Clinophilia, passion for beds

Essential Poetry: Collin Kelley - Meeting Jeanne Moreau

"Hurricanes": Part III 'JOE SENT MDE' at MCCC

Part III: "Joe Sent M.D.E." at Mercer County Community College - "Hurricnaes" from Elixir Productions Theatre Co. on Vimeo & YouTube


HURRICANES

Soon life's knowing will come.
it will dust the mind like talcum.
Meanwhile, everyone will dream
at least once
of times they tried to run.
but their legs got stuck
in the ambivalence of love's mud,
in the imagination's straining.

Our days are drenched by hurricanes
entering sideways in our minds
with no warning.

It's gray where the thinking thinks,
where the radar blinks.
It's the surge of you
that burns me crimson.
I am asleep, asleep all day,
blood running,
an accident of treason.
((My mother was the one
who laughed from other rooms
while I cried, the division between us
multiplied a thousand times))

You say (and I quote) Don't do the math
(end of quote), italics mine.
(Quote again) just come here (end quote).

So what if I do? I go nowhere with you,
and everywhere.
I am subsonic, plutonic, woebegone,
forlorn, language forgotten, towel shared.
I am scared, scarred, scarlet letter 'A',
hermit, Hamlet, tragic, victorious.
I am soldier, souvenir, medal of honor
attached to your pocket. I am intrinsic,
entropic, order, chaotic,.
limited to this word
I have just finished,.
conception of the infinite.
Masculine, feminine, everything is division;
days, dollars, mortgage rates,
bequeathed estates.
Leave me with nothing
more than your essence.
Invisible lover, indivisible number,
only then will I remember,
remember with my lack of logic.

With you I am myth maker, glass breaker,
soul taker, hip shaker. I am techtonic,
ironic, sardonic. With you I am purified,
pornographic, protean, prolific;
for you I am problematic,
acrobatic. Yes, like I said,
every crevice that cracks in me
I spread for you since that first night.
in my bed when the flash of my life.
turned your blue eyes red.

And so the story always goes
ending before the author knows.

Our days are drenched by hurricanes

entering sideways in our minds
with no warning.

© 2007 Vanessa Daou

---

Joe Sent MDE website


Joe Sent Me-poetry

'Joe Sent Me': Review on PopMatters

"Opening with a menacing scrape of guitars, "Manifesto", the album's first track, gives way to a robust, near-hip-hop beat under the support of a rumbling bassline. The temperature of both exhilaration and desire rises right around the time Daou sings, "You’re a sexy gun," during the very moment a high-hat kicks in. The vocals are buried deep in the mix and give the impression that they were recorded under a suffocating heap of blankets, amplifying the sense of claustrophobia inherent in the song. Meanwhile, the electronicized cabaret-stomp of "Black and White" unfurls in a silver spray of ghostly piano licks and burlesque horns. In addition to being the album's most accessible track, it also features some of the most inspired lyrics Daou has ever penned."

Read full review by Imran Khan on PopMatters

Zipless/Vanessa Daou

"Vanessa Daou's 1994 debut album Zipless consists entirely of musical interpretations of the poetry of feminist writer Erica Jong, as found in her 1991 collection Becoming Light: Poems New and Selected. ... According to the description of the album on Daou's website, "Jong's emotionally complex and sexually-charged narratives radiated against the sumptuous backdrop of Peter’s masterful arrangements and Vanessa’s engrossing vocal caresses." Jong herself provided a vocal for the album, reciting her own poem on the track Smoke. The album's title alludes to a two-word phrase coined by Jong in her 1973 novel Fear of Flying, referring to a sexual encounter between two strangers, without emotional commitment or involvement. One of the words is "zipless." We're far too delicate to include the other word here."

Read original blog post at Classics Rock

'Heart of Wax': Conquering Venus Book Trailer

I'm deeply honored that Collin Kelley has chosen 'Heart of Wax', from my new album 'Joe Sent Me', to be the soundtrack to the trailer for his forthcoming novel Conquering Venus. About the novel, Gary Zebrun writes: "From Memphis to London and to Paris, Martin Paige seeks redemption after a terrible and violent loss. The wonder is that he still believes in love, even when it appears like an apparition in an elusive and conflicted young man. Collin Kelley takes you on a sometimes frolicsome, sometimes tragic tour of the heart in this engaging first novel."

Thank you, Collin, for the spark that you ignite with your words and the smoldering fire that continues its slow burn in our hearts.

Collin Kelley & the Charge of Poetry

"I want to drive away into the morning light,
headed for Spain, hurting like hell,
but with my head up
and the taste of him on my lips."
Collin Kelley, from 'Why I want to be Pam Grier'

We feel it as a jolt, a surge, as though we've received some invisible electrical charge: then, a window opens up, there's a flash of recognition, a recollection, a memory that had been dimmed, dulled or denied, then, a slow opening of the mind - a thought, emotion, sentiment, perception - our finger is on the pulse of something, an inkling, that we were, previously, unable to identify.

Whether spontaneous, structured, confessional, or historical, Poetry condenses meaning into tight, terse, tensile language: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways"; one phrase engenders an endless stream of impressions, iterations, and interpretations. Poets might be whimsical, reclusive, oblique, or explicit, remembered as defiant or ignominious... Whatever the destiny or description, all Poets use words as they choose them: as tools, as weapons, seeking to exact revenge, some positing a particular vision of the world, others, a plea for redemption.

David Herrle writes: "Collin Kelley's social/political poems are never mixed to go down smoothly like, say, a Sea Breeze. They're Tanqueray served neat." Kelley achieves the sweepingness of love's paradoxical emotion in one phrase:

"I want to drive away into the morning light,
headed for Spain, hurting like hell"

and exquisite nuance in the next:

"but with my head up
and the taste of him on my lips."

The charge, the surge: Poetry.

Coolness: Christine Swint on 'Joe Sent Me'

"Vanessa Daou's new album, Joe Sent Me, is exactly what I want to listen to now. I’ve been keeping the CD in my car while I drive around town, and I even played it for my yoga class the other day. They melted.

Daou's vocals are pure silk, and the jazz riffs underneath are the wind that rustles the lyrics. It's heaven. Her work shows the heights that can be reached when the artist takes risks – it's contemporary, fresh, original. Go listen. And go read too. Collin Kelley's interview with Vanessa Daou is on page 28 of the current issue of ouroboros review. A huge thank you to both artists for being a part of our fledgling magazine."

Words by poet & writer Christine Swint @ Balanced on the Edge

The Daou of Poetry: A conversation with musician and poet Vanessa Daou By Collin Kelley

A portion of my interview by incredible poet, novelist & journalist Collin Kelley from issue #2 of the Ouroboros Review, a stunning new poetry & art journal:

Collin: Let’s start back at the beginning of your life as a poet – who inspired you?

Vanessa: When I was attending Columbia University, I studied poetry with Kenneth Koch. His class was amazing and he was such a communicator for his vision and idea of poetry. He shattered the notion that poetry is something unapproachable and obtuse. I became interested in spoken word because of him and I often read at PostScrypt, the poetry spot at Columbia.

......

Collin: Joe Sent Me is amazing. The music reminds me of Miles Davis’ score for Elevator to the Gallows, and the spoken word element is really strong here; much more so than on the other records.

Vanessa: Originally, I conceived of Joe Sent Me as a soundtrack of sorts to my own life, perhaps a projection of it, as a kind of sonic document of my experience through time. I have a background and interest in research and one of those interests is in code, with respect to words and the kind written for a computer. Joe Sent Me is an old speakeasy password from the Prohibition-era. You said those words at a door and suddenly you were in this hidden, mysterious place. That idea intrigued me. On the digipack for the album there is a quote from Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Poetry as Insurgent Art that reads, “Words on a page of poetry are a code for human emotions.” That idea is the heart of the album.

Issue #2 also contains poetry by Michelle McGrane, Iain Britton, Rebecca Gethin, Julie Buffaloe-Yoder, and Robin Reagler, and more.

Make sure to view Hunter Ewen's illustrations & listen to his score to Amy Pence's poetry, follow the link in the NEWS section of Ouroboros here

Editors Jo Hemmant of flourescence & Christine Swint of balanced on the edge have created an internet savvy & highly forward-looking Poetry & Art experience.