Thursday, November 12, 2020

Susie Campbell : a small folio of poets : engerland

a small folio of poets : engerland

 

 

 

water: hold/dissolve

 

sand seeping wat                                               ut a letter-shape briefly
before the wate                                                       n the shallow water
between drift-line a                         f drownings each year

insert at a site                                                                  historically held
watch it dissolv                                                                   in negotiation

at the waterline                                        oving water's edge
shapes the way bodies interact w                                    d then dissolve

carve a safe crossin                                                  oem water or between
made                                                                   n negotiation a game          paddling in
the

shallow                                                                             ween the driftline and the water's
edg                                                               tching for them

make the poem san                                                                       ootprint of the number o
drowni                                                                                 each year

a poem in their sha                                                                   is rhythm
of the water's                                                                                  dissolve

 

 

 

[Extract from] Red Book Entry for 'A Chantar m'er'       

 

A Chantar m'er, composed by 12th century singer Beatritz de Dia, is one of the few trobairitz songs to survive but its language, Occitan, is now under threat as a spoken language and a number of its dialects are categorised in the Unesco Red Book of Endangered Languages as severely endangered.


This performance text has been prepared by gradually removing from the song, and my modern translation, all the letters from its Occitan title. This random erasure gestures to the erosion of an oral culture and a spoken language, as well as to all the 'mishearings' that result from a contemporary translation. When performed, this becomes a 'sonic erasure' that creates a stuttering in the text as though the song is reaching us from a distance or through radio interference.        

     I don't want to sing about this
    
I will sing about this

       ch nt r m'er de so qu'eu no volri [...]

                               I  m so fi e
                              
V ler mi deu mos pretz e mos p r teges
                              
e m  beut tz e plus mos fi s cor tges

                              
you must love me

in the bruised and violet, a voice, once of Beatritz, no longer clay, this rind on sour vowels, a huskiness clogging on tar and cartons, this voice starts to separate, consonants drifting in dry leaves

          's w y I  m se di g you   is so g
         
priv  e mess ge  o w ere you live

as the wind almost Beatritz, a breath through Beatritz and the dust, stagnates in  plastic tags and advancing dead-lines

before it reaches the length and space between the lines, no longer any human language.  You sound out Cha or Sha, some say facsimile, you say ah or ach

                               I w n   o know w y you've  u    e
                              
Do you   i k you dese ve be  e ?
                              
You  p id  will l  d to   f ll

a voice, this voice a voice, as the wind almost in bruised and violet, this long daydream, a breach through Beatritz, air whistling through and scattering

                                                       d  so qu' u  o vol i

 

 

 


 

 

 

Susie Campbell : I am currently researching spatiality and spatial form in poetry with particular reference to Gertrude Stein and the kinds of literacies involved in prose poetry for a practice-based poetry PhD at Oxford Brookes. My poetry publications include The Bitters (Dancing Girl Press, 2014), The Frock Enquiry (Annexe Press, 2015), I return to you (Sampson Low, 2019) and most recently Tenter (Guillemot Press, 2020). My poetry has appeared in a number of UK and international magazines including Poetry Review, Shearsman, Long Poem Magazine, Magma, PERVERSE, Cordite, 3:AM magazine and Axon (international). I am part of the team at Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre running poetry workshops for military veterans, and I am one of the founder members of 'Poets for the Planet'.

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