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The 5th Beneath the Underground Poetry and Jazz Festival will be held at:

Hen and Chicks, Abergavenny 2-6 p, Saturday 11th June.

 

 

New CD/Book - Rori, a Book of the Boundaries by Heat Poets - Chris Torrance and Chris Vine

When I began writing poetry back in the 60s, I had no idea I would end up collaborating in the sort of work presented here.

An early, crucial discovery for me was that poetry at a public event becomes performance, involving the body as instrument of the poem.

By the mid 70s, now in Wales, I was drawn into Barry Edgar Picher's band DRAGONS BLOOD.  In response to the greater volume demanded, I had recourse to Allen Ginsberg's long prophetic chanting line as a model.  When, after a few years, the band broke up, I assumed that was the end of my association with poetry & music.

In the mid 80's however, I met musician/composer Chris Vine, & soon we were working on the title poem of our CD FRINITE, mightily influenced  by Anne Waldman's poem PRESSURE.

The new CD & booklet contains a compressed version of my book RORI: A BOOK OF THE BOUNDARIES.  The theme is one of those giants of the landscape who figure in myth & legend. The giant is a wise fool who at first succeeds.  The he is tempted. He falls, is pronounced dead ; he dreams in the tomb; then - perhaps like Osiris - he resurrects.

Chris Torrance

The Rori book/CD, a limited edition which contains previously unpublished  material by Chris Torrance, is obtainable for £12 - contact cv@chris-vine.com

 

POEMS BY CHRIS TORRANCE

WRITTEN ON STONES was prompted by a suggestion from artist Rubin Eynon, who had thoughts of finding stones, incising them with poems, & returning them to the environment. When he mentioned this idea to me, I liked it; so Ive made this collection of very short poems that could go on stones - &, possibly, into a small book.

After Id typed out this batch, I was idly running a speculative hand over my bookshelves & pulled out WINDOWS, a collection by Robert Creeley. Flipped it open at an old marker, & found myself looking at EIGHT PLUS, Inscriptions for Eight Bollards at 7th & Figueroa,LA.  A typical intense, concentrated Creeley series.  Of course!  I had set this as an exercise, years back, for my class  ADVENTURES IN CREATIVE WRITING.  So my series is a bow to Creeley's concept, as well as a response to Creeley's composition.  & Rubin's project.

One or two of these poems have already appeared elsewhere (in HERMITS, with Bill Wyatt and Barry Edgar Pilcher ; & SLIM BOOK WET PULP) but became key enough to sneak in. Ive often thought that the smallest possible poem units, similar to say, haiku, should be able to potentiate as much of the space around them as possible. To place them across the path of the casual wanderer facilitates this intention.

 

WRITTEN ON STONES    (For Rubin)      
  swifts
scream
heaven
   
path is vector
vector is path

 

 

 

 

 

 

spiders dance
to trilobite song

 

 

 

 

 

neutral
is not an option

 

  informality
sets the artist free
 

 

 

 

 

dream drummers
dance with blue dreams

     
   

hay glutton
gobbling moonlight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

approach
perfect

 

summer daub
fly in the matrix
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

hand & eye
hand & tool
fine & refine

 

from ages of
wood &flint
& bone
      to now.
tool driven
       brain,
       brain -
driven tool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pan lyricon
pan
        lyr
               icon

   

 

 

 

 

 

red planet
olive sky
chalk reef

 

 

 

   

borage
forage

 

 

 

weather bee
occluded dabbler
 

 

 

backward
cunning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ghosts
tiny biscuits
hundreds
and thousands

 

 

              today
      no that's
        tomorrow
               i mean
yesterday

 

 

 

 

 

 

poem
red
         herring
mares
         nest

               
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

im a
stone
enter
my zone

 

 

 

 

 

heat
saints
a
cursus
for cirrus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

irregularity
the flaw
of genius

 

we enjoyed
our illusions

 

 

 

 

moon fertilised
        woman spun
into me
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(for bill)

a speck of blue sky
        flutters down
        a tiny butterfy
i contemplate eternity
         for a moment
then move on

 

 

 

 

(for bill and ikkyu)

yes, poetry's
bullshit
powerful
grows tomatoes!

 
whilst putting
world to rights
bread is burning
   

 

 

 

 

 

 

whilst putting
bread to rights
world is burning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

g

 

 

 

A Brief Meditation on Snyder's

"Raven's Beak River at the End"

 

Hypnotic    lulling    caressing rhythm

of  "Raven's Beak River at the End"

 

I've read his work down the years,

but now, maybe because I'm older, I've

 

Been swept away more than before. There's

a rhythm of images propelled by a "slow

 

river", & by the sense of him moving among

things (no words but in things..." William

 

Carlos Williams). 4 major beats every

2 lines is the staple, creating effect of

 

"circle in the square" - yet the poem moves

elegant as a snake, or a coyote, embracing

 

the texture of the ground, seductively as a

vixen, aided by loving repetitions, re-

 

placing; & the grand flow, if you like,

that so vitally energises, animates the poem,

 

that keeps the bright waters dancing, like

"something" briefly rippling the surface;

 

here & there the 2-liners possess extra licks,

extra beats, thus inducing a further feeling of

 

circularity, or layering. The beat, then, is

not exact, is pliable; can be smoothed out,

 

carried before or after - but a swaying beat, like

waves incoming, successive waves of awareness. It's

 

very quiet, as a glacial river can be; but very

powerful, resonating deep in the eco-cortex.

__________________________________

 

"Raven's Beak River at the End" is in

MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS WITHOUT END,

(Counterpoint. Washington 1996)

__________________________________

 

 

Hare Pie

HARE PIE was written during the visits of a hare to my garden in the summer of 2007. I was set a moral, ethical, ecological & spiritual dilemma. I wanted to get rid of the hare, which was eating my garden plants, but I wanted to respect her. The poem is obviously a threat, even a curse. There's an old wives tale that a hare can be a witch in disguise, a shape shifter. Who was I to go against that?

In the end, she left; hares are nomadic by nature. In the poem I had to be careful not to cross a certain (invisible) line. When I'd written it I sent it to artist Deidre Farrell, who designed & produced the card with the poem in it. These cards are on sale, prices given below.

 

 

 

 

Prices

Small Card FREE  Large Card   FREE
Small card signed by poet & artist and numbered 1-20   FREE  Large card signed by poet & artist and numbered 1-12   FREE

Chris Torrance
Glynmercher Isaf
Pontneathvaughan
Nr NEATH
Glam
SA 11 5US

 

Poems   

Biography and mission statement. 
Beneath the Underground Poetry Festival 2008 - a record of the day with words by Chris Torrance and photos by Val Maillard
40 years on Chris on forty years in Wales and an account on the BTU festival and on a reading at Chepstow in 2010
Publications - a list of CDs and books and link to order form
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