Monday, October 18, 2010

Small Release

Here are two electronic poems that have been submitted to digital Bridge.  The first one I made four years ago, and the second this year.  I rather like the idea of two people who call out to eathother through the distancing mechanical void,  for internet poetry.  But also it's across other divides, divides of time of culture etc. as you will..  The words themselves are lost in translation, or in perception, maybe through censorship or some other kind of distortion.  Maybe I'm spelling it out.  I was moved by the many artists filmmakers and journalists who have been incarcerated unreasonably recently in some countries.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Brief Bio re Poetry



Genevieve McClean emerged as a poet in the early nineties, reading in Auckland and then all over the country. 
   Her spoken word has informed her other work in different forms, -as a singer, actor, and film-maker, and with particular note: her solo play Word (a play on words 1998), and The New Language of Stasis in Exile (a collaborative post-structural lecture performance at the Uni 2004). 
    In 2006 after completing a period of interdisciplinary arts tuition at Unitec, she toured America as a poet with an eye out for different forms of presentation.  In performance her poetry has developed to uphold experimentalism, improvised poetry; sound poetry, and collaborative musical spoken word.  
    Her recent short film: Stasis, explores existentialism in a brush with death and uses her recorded word performance.  Currently Genevieve is working on a number of documentary projects under the insignia Fat Blossom Films, including a feature-length poetic documentary about New Zealand artists in Central Europe.  She also produces an annual forum for Poetry-Film called the Projector Project, and a new theatre initiative called These Four Walls.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

That was then this is now... I know truism, but zen

Alright then.  This is a poetry blog.
  It was a long time ago and the mists were misty when I first started to care about poetry.  I blame an array of extraordinary parents or two, and some very kind and nurturing children's book author's. . . . .
...and some great teachers...  and some great university teachers, and some great friends who have in turn taught and schooled and parented me.  And all those buggers who have made my life difficult I thank them for shaping me and making me resolute and indestructible.
 Ghandi, Leonard Cohen, thanks Tibet.  ( I know sometimes I might suggest that I'm a practicing buddhist.  The key word there is practicing ).  

  As is the way with cutting in a blog half way through a life time ( a 3rd of the way through would be great), I'm going to have to go back in time and forwards in time all at the same time.
  No worries.  I like starting new things.  Resolution has too few meanings in my life's approach, and that includes the ship.

First of all,
  I'm going to be reading at a reading at Lopdell House on the 28th October.  If you would like to come along it would be very nice to see you seeing me and having a listen.

  You might have some presumptions about poets, let me put you straight.  Poetry is not a religion, it is a universal cultural type. There are poets all over the world.  Poetry is not dangerous but it is contagious.  Poets are not all quiet slow moving ponderous people. Though some are, you may find that poets have all different modes of operation and body types.  Poetry is different from talking like you're a bit wired, or clever talking, or talking a lot.  This for example is not poetry. This is me typing as fast as I think, which is not especially enlightened, particularly as this is a public domain.  Soon I will anchor my life as a poet to this blog, and we'll see we'll see.