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The Rori book/CD, a limited edition which contains previously unpublished material by Chris Torrance, is obtainable for £12 - contact cv@chris-vine.com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
heavenpath 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 dreamshay glutton
gobbling moonlight
approach
perfect
summer daub
fly in the matrix
hand & eye
hand & tool
fine & refinefrom 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 geniuswe 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 FREEChris Torrance
Glynmercher Isaf
Pontneathvaughan
Nr NEATH
Glam
SA 11 5US
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 Back to strange- attractor homepage
