For Thursday, I’ll briefly go over the project proposal, which is something you’ll need to hand in (a draft of it) by Monday night. Remember, this proposal is to get you going and is as much as anything else for you, not something by which I’m making stern judgments. Take it seriously, think it through, and allow it to guide you without it weighing you down as you brainstorm. Brainstorming about what you plan to do viz. performative events/projects will get you to the proposal, not the other way around.
Also for the end of this week/beginning of next (Thurs-Tues): we will be heading into two seemingly divergent directions: looking at ritual and performativity (often associated with the spiritual and deeply personal/inward, but can be atheist too) and guerilla poetry. For the most part this will all be contemporary work and not as much grounded in poets theater (we’ll come back to the Anthology later), contemporary both in regard to our readings and via our smaller individual writings TBA (beyond collaborative projects). So, there is that overlap. But if we dig deeper into some of the somatic/ritualistic practices of performance, look at some potential political problematics of ritual and performance, we’ll see that there are deeper relations between this work and guerilla poetry than might appear. Think of HOW we are radicalized on certain issues, and what the stakes of guerilla poetry are. These are deeply collective, yet personal stakes–any activism is, no? The split often thought of, that of poetry being personal and politics being impersonal, this seems weirdly wrong, doesn’t it? When people talk about how they “don’t do” politics, what does this mean? Perhaps when said, the person is thinking of politics as electoral politics, or presidential politics. So exploring, as Gabe preemptively did so far with us via the bus poem, the relation between the “self” (its complexities) and collective protest (or artistic collaboration, or both together), one might find interesting questions to ask, or resonances: does anyone remember, for those of you who have done activist work, how it began? That moment of radicalization came from some kind of personal rupture, no? Does anyone relate to wanting, especially early on in involvement with a group, to be both an individual (outside the group) while at the same time wanting to be (or being) part of a larger protest/collective effort? That tug and pull between the “self” and the collective? Think thru these ideas as we head into these seemingly different waters, that between for example Jules Boykoff and Kaia Sand’s work, and the fire ritual we’ll build or the somatic work of CA Conrad. Where are the points of contact? Divergence? Tension?
Please, both in preparation for Saturday and the following Tuesday, but ALSO as exemplary of ways one can think about doing guerilla poetry/performative work that involves larger-scale text materials and involves spatial practices, read the links below. The simplistic definition of guerilla poetry, remember, is that this work is a uniquely ILLICIT (or sanctioned) act of public poetry, not a funded piece of public art (an important distinction to keep in mind). So please READ THE FOLLOWING/CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING LINKS. Read the excerpt of Sand and Boykoff’s book asap. Easy/quick read. Begin thinking what your guerilla poetry would look like, as post-fire ritual, we’ll come back to that question and put it into practice (end of, and after, Sat).
At the beginning of Thurs class I will be playing a sound file for you and asking you to work with it in relation to Nonsite’s site-nonsite ideas (in the draft proposal). We’ll then look at some of the Sand & Boykoff pdf-link in relation to Nonsite. Then we’ll break into our collaborative groups and begin in earnest on projects. At the end of class I will go over the instructions for the fire ritual.
On Saturday, remember that class begins at 5pm, not 4, and goes till 9. Everything an hour later, so we can work under darkness.
On Tuesday we’ll come back just briefly to Boykoff and Sand, intermingle that work now with ritual and performativity, the readings for which I’ll give you, as usual, by Sun night. Since there will be more / future readings due for Tues, yet another reason to read the Sand and Boykoff now-ish. Proposal questionaire below.
READINGS FOR THURS & SAT (more coming for Tuesday): R
1) Excerpt of Landscapes of Dissent, by Jules Boykoff & Kaia Sand HERE
2) Audio File, in re Nonsite, “Starry Night,” to translate poetically (due Sat) HERE
3) Re-Read Nonsite Collective Draft Proposal (link is a couple posts below, also in email as reading for lecture this past Tuesday)
4) Optional: Brief thoughts on street art in Venezuela HERE
PROJECT PROPOSALS:
By methods determined in group (consensus model, one person writing on behalf of, dictatorial, tyrannical, etc), email me the following as attachment before class next Tuesday (5-8pp, double spaced):
BASIC INFO (cover page):
WORKING TITLE:
GROUP MEMBERS (& group/collective name, if you desire):
MEETING TIME OUTSIDE OF CLASS (at least 2 hours per week outside of class):
HOW THE PAGE WILL BE USED (a paragraph or so):
HOW YOU PLAN TO MAKE THE WORK BE A ‘LIVE’ EVENT: (another paragraph or so)
STRATEGIC/TACTICAL QUESTIONS:
1) WHAT IS YOUR POETICS?: writing a poetics means writing about what your work–not just this piece–but any work your group would do together–is doing (or: would or should be doing) both formally and in terms of why you have collectively taken interest in doing things this way instead of that. That is, a poetics is you, collectively, in some way, coming up with a sort of manifesto for performative poetry as you collectively see it–what its stakes and potential functions or non-functions should or will be in relation to the broader context it’s situated and informed by. A poetics is also a sort of manifesto, or preferred thinking regarding the function of language itself (after all, this is a language arts class, poetry’s central medium is language!)
2) What, in a page or two (or more if you need it), your performative event for this class is (will be), and importantly, in what sense it is answering the central 2 questions of the course (i.e., is answering or relating to your poetics) – 1) absent normative definitions of “poetry,” “creative writing,” “performance,” etc (or absent at least one of these), what can “performing the text” come to mean? And 2) how does this work function as, or speak to, or translate into “the political”? In other words, how does this work decenter dominant modes of discourse? Does it? How does it perform dissensus? Does it? Re-narrate? Or if the work is overtly speaking to a current (topical) set of issues, what are the formal (written, performative, and otherwise) strategies and tactics you plan to employ? What are your intentions? This is the part of the proposal that allows you to address at length and in detail what your intentions are and how you plan to realize them–formally, linguistically, strategically, and tactically–with respect to the specific collaborative performative event.
3) In a following few lines, describe how you will accomplish this collaboration, specifically questions (1) and (2) above, what your basic schedule is, your basic working model, and what problems you see arising that will likely need to be addressed– So: a) potential problems, b) a working schedule.
4) ORGANIZATIONAL POLITICS: Pertaining to (2) just above, give me a few sentences as to what your organizational politics will be–that is, division of labor. Make sure to elaborate on how you will be working as a collaborative group, who will be responsible for what, at least generally, how you plan to make decisions and divide labor generally.
5) Describe what materials you will be using, and how you will be procuring them if you don’t already have them.
6) Make mention of any assistance – technical, material, or otherwise - you think you may need.
7) What sort of “public” will this work demand? How do you envision this work being “performed,” “read,” “displayed,” “played,” “wrestled with,” etc? In what space? Where? Etc. Be specific, and remember: work need not have a specific audience, or the audience may not be your classmates (if it is guerilla poetry, for example, signs on an overpass, for example, it may have passersby as audience). If that is the case, how will you document this work so that you can share it with the class? Suggested mode of sharing beyond necessarily writing about it during or afterwards: photos, blog post, etc. Think about how, if there is little to no actual audience, this live event (again, the sign example) can be projected and how you might spread word of the work’s existence. Or if the work is riffing off Hakim Bey’s poetic terrorism, think about how you will document this work for the very end of the program, so that we can take part, at very least, in a sort of “data” about how things went with what you have done.
THE PROJECT PROPOSAL ITSELF SHOULD BE 5-8 DOUBLE SPACED TYPED PAGES, SENT TO ME AS EMAIL ATTACHMENT (by volunteer in each group). MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE INFORMATION NECESSARY. THE PROPOSAL SHOULD SERVE NOT ONLY AS INFORMATION FOR ME (SO THAT I CAN UNDERSTAND AND CRITIQUE AND SUPPORT YOUR WORK), BUT IT SHOULD SERVE AS A WORKING MODEL AND OUTLINE FOR YOUR GROUP.
———————–