What an epic weekend of gigs, dancing and general mayhem! Two gigs this weekend: a local gig featuring my housemates' and friends' band Gravedale High, a horror punk band run by Dave, at the Marquee pub. They were pretty good. Much better than they were last Halloween, mostly because they've been practicing once a week. I must say I like Adrian's vocals for the whole thing too, because they are so gruff and manly. While the sound wasn't very good, the gig was still fun. The other band I paid some attention to was a ska group called Stick Man Army. Mostly dancing at that one, which was fun. Ska is good, but not always my thing, you know. These guys were good live, though.

The other gig was much bigger. It was at UEA: Cannibal Corpse and Children of Bodom. It was epic. It was loud. It was... death metal. I have to say that CoB is more my thing, but both were good. The opening act was pretty good too, but I can't recall their name. I'll have to ask Chris later. I think the best part of Cannibal Corpse was the fact that their singer, who guest stars on Metalocalypse sometimes, was in fact wearing a Dethklok shirt. If I had the money, I totally would have bought one of their shirts. Even though I liked Bodom more, you can't beat a Cannibal Corpse shirt. They are more cult and awesome. Whats better, I got to talk to their bassist Alex Webster, got his signature and photo, and told him that he should write a song called Cock Cancer. So watch out on their next album. I may have contributed.

Morning writing

So, a few times now, I've gone to the library in the morning, before doing anything else, and sat down with a few of the poetry journals they have there, and read poems and written some of my own. I can't say how relaxing and productive it makes me feel. As you may have guessed, I did that again today. While I can't say it would be an everyday thing, I want to make it happen more often. As in maybe once a week. On Tuesday or Wednesday morning. Probably Wednesday, so I could go in early, and then stay for two hours or so and go straight to my lecture in the same building. But now I'm just rambling.

Also, I am very keen to have more people comment on here. I know that a few people actually read this aside from Nicole (well, I hope they do. I like to think they do.) And with me posting links to here on Facebook whenever I update, I assume some people actually read what I have to say, despite how irrelevant to daily life it really is. If you don't have anything to say, then don't worry about it. But just comment as a guest if you want (or if you have Gmail, you should be able to use your Google login).

So, today I found two poems that were extremely nice. There were lots of good ones, obviously, but these two were just stellar.

Theology
Jack Underwood

He tried to think about the zoo,
the bird he'd seen with an anvil head,
slinking lizards in the reptile house.
It had been a good day.

But he remembered the panther enclosure
where he had waited for thirty minutes
staring up at a dark hut hidden in trees.
Suppose there was no panther.


Poppy Day
John Burnside

The butcher arrives with a love song
he learned from his father.

Out on the kill floor, veiled in a butterslick
circumflex of marrow fat and bone,
he rinses off the knife and goes to work,
his voice so sweet, the children come to hear

the beauty of it, slipped between a vein
and what the veal calf thought would last
forever.
     Barely a shudder rises through the hand
that holds the blade
                             and yet he guides it down
so gently, it falls open, like a flower.

And still the children come, to hear him sing,
his voice so soft, it's no more than a whisper.

So, seriously. I love those two poems, and those poets. I'm definitely going to look into buying something of theirs, if available. I want to read more of them. I will read more of them. After reading such inspiring work, I, of course, wrote some of my own. I wrote two poems, but I'm only going to post the second one now. The first one is way too rough, and is pretty personal as well. But the second one I can share. It definitely needs work. I hate the way I started it out (which is weird, because my writing tutor told me last week that I'm really good at starts. This one's rubbish.) There are lots of parts that I'm not happy with. Mostly the start and the end. Rather short, but I haven't really written anything very long in a while, so nothing different there. No title yet, but here it is (also, to Talitha [if you're reading], the poem I showed you today at lunch about the three words [two posts down from this one], it is about a specific three. And also about stagnation and all the other stuff I told you.) :

The round pod, chariot
with massive wheels and two
horses; a dough-faced Achilles man
clad in ornate tableware and
a sword raised
to swing and decapitate
or carve up an arm like a Sunday roast.

And now the leap:
no choreographed front flip
no five-foot-high feat of
human inaccuracy, but a tumble,
a stack of porcelain falling from a cupboard,
but still intact, on his belly
dreaming of his curly locked love
as a spear splits through
his exposed lower spine.

Oh, the throes

So. What have I been up to? The obvious answer is not posting anything on my blog for a while. Too long, actually. I posted that poem earlier this week, but thats it really. I have been up to things, I promise! Its just been rather... turbulent, emotionally, I guess. But I'm hoping to put all of that aside this week and get out lots of stuff. I don't have any poetry for you tonight, but expect something later in the week. Also, on the subject of poetry, I'm going to be looking into submitting to some journals soon, see if anyone wants to publish my any of my work! This also involves going through all of my old stuff again, but I've got so many shiny new poems from the past year or so, I have a lot to work with!

So, art. My coursemate Lara is basing some of her project work around her trip to Korea, and the way that flats and houses are built there. As such, she has been handing out matchboxes and asking people to modify them. Here is mine:


I am very happy with it. I got some thread, bunched it up in paint, and it looked awesome. I cut holes in the box and then burned the edges around each hole. It was really fun.

As for my project, I've been doing some work with slabs and plaster. Rolling out slabs of clay, impressing gears and other techno-junk into them, and then casting them in plaster. I'm going to be doing much more of it over the next few days. Tomorrow I'm going to make slabs, Tuesday I'll cast the slabs from Monday, and make more. Not all techno-themed either. I might go for some more natural-themed slabs, and other stuff. Any ideas are more than welcome! Here are some photos!

this is definitely not a sonnet

I am a poem without a mouth;
no rhyme, no name and unable
to say anything beyond what
I have already said. I am
a poem with out metaphor, for
I have told you what I've
held so dear, whispered in your
ear the same three words.
I am a poem whose sounds
have lost their feet,
as words stumble and fall
into unchanging ears and I repeat those
same three. And all you can say is
"I'm sorry."

Playing with texture (images)

So, I've decided that this sculpture is all about the textures on the form. I'm putting human bits, such as the ribs, and I hope to put more stuff in there that resembles familiar human forms. I'm also throwing in a lot of other stuff, such as the bumps and the indents on the legs. I've been asked if I plan on doing anything with the feet and hands, but I don't really think I will. I kinda like having it be a headless, handless, footless... thing. It is obviously a human figure, but it just has so much more added to it. Well, sorry for such a short post. I promise to do a longer one this week, especially after writing group on Thursday. Here are some pictures!

Robo-baby

So, while I have been having some stress headaches, I'm still doing lots of cool stuff. So aside from housing difficulties and the possibility of having to quit my course after one year here, I'm just trying to keep myself busy. Have been and will be recording more stuff with the dictaphone, and have started playing with clay, and soon plaster! Here are some photos of my clay experiments with my baby mannequin today:

you who have made bright things from shadows

Today in creative writing seminar we talked about dreams, mainly trying to figure out what they are, how they work. It was pretty interesting. I didn't manage to directly get a poem out of it, but I have something that I can easily turn into a poem. I couldn't manage to get anything down for the actual main exercise, but I can work on that.

Our first topic of discussion was about trying to describe dreams. We each wrote down a description of what dreaming is, addressed to some being from a place without sleep, and therefore without dreams. Most people listed some stuff, but I was feeling more prosaic and wrote this:

You close your eyes and the body stops, you lose control of your senses and lie as still as a breathing corpse. And then the visions, dreams: fantastic adventures or terrifying chases full of discontinuity and preconceptions, alternate realities completely unfamiliar, or created from hopes for the future and regrets from the past, but always glossy and displaced; a thread that may be similar to those woven into your waking life, but destined to fade into ash as soon as you regain your sight.

Other people said things along the lines of altered conciousness, surreal visions, fleeting senses, unfamiliar territory, like being in a film. Our next task was to try and make rules for dreams, I guess trying to define what they are. I didn't manage to write down what we decided on our five were (due to lack of sleep, actually. I was rather zoned out this morning), but here are the three I managed to write down:

Rules of Dreaming:
1. Dreaming is an altered state of consciousness.
2. While the events in dreams may mirror those of reality, they are all constructed fantasy.
3. Dream time has no correlation to real time.

Someone mentioned lucid dreaming, and the film Waking Life, a film about dreams which talks extensively about lucid dreams. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend watching. I might track down a copy and watch it this week just for a refresher. Been a few years.

Alongside all of this, we looked at some poems about dreams which are really interesting:

Beale Street
Langston Hughes

The dream is vague
And all confused
With dice and women
And jazz and booze.

The dream if vague,
Without a name,
Yet warm and wavering
And sharp as flame.

The loss
Of the dream
Leaves nothing
The same.


Birds Appearing In A Dream
Michael Collier

One had feathers like a blood-streaked koi,
another a tail of color-coded wires.
One was a blackbird stretching orchid wings,
another a flicker with a wounded head.

All flew like leaves fluttering to escape,
bright, circulating in burning air,
and all returned when the air is cleared.
One was a kingfisher trapped in its bower,

deep in the ground, miles from water.
Everything is real and everything isn't.
Some had names and some didn't.
Named and nameless shapes of birds,

at night my hand can touch your feathers
and then I wipe the vernix from your wings,
you who have made bright things from shadows,
you who have crossed the distances to roost in me.


The Song in the Dream
Saskia Hamilton

The song itself had hinges. The clasp of the eighteenth-century Bible
had hinges, which creaked; when you released the catch,
the book would sigh and expand.

The song was of two wholes joined by hinges,
and I was worried about the joining, the spaces between
the joints, the weight of each side straining them.


Now I'm off to have some dreams of my own. I have more stuff to do tomorrow.