Re-opening the tower of poetry
http://www.vanvoice.com/article/20397-reopening+tower+poetry
12/01/2009
By Adam Stewart
Gee! A great poetry tower, with lights and pictures coming from it!
Washington-born novelist, poet and multi-media pioneer, Richard
Brautigan wrote these words for his 1967 poem, Rainy Day Gary Snyder
Poetry Night. In this poem, he admires fellow poet Snider's reading
at the Filmore in San Francisco at the height of the counterculture
movement, which Brautigan was a part of. The poem frames Snyder and
his words with a vivid depiction of the environment in which the
reading was held: candles, flowers and oranges inside, with a hard
rain on the outside: "Sometimes the sound of the rain / bumps up
against the distant edges / of his voice." High on vodka and the
fresh memory of the scene, Brautigan then writes about returning home
to burn incense on his dresser, listen to the cars on the wet street
and dream about the poetry tower.
At 7 p.m. on the night of Dec. 4, the "tower" will be recreated,
albeit more literally. "XXI Century Brautiganism," a multi-media
project celebrating Brautigan's work with long-time admirers and
inducting it to new ones, is, its creators say, the kind of thing
Brautigan himself would have partaken in. It's the brainchild and
capstone project of Mikail Oparin, a student of Digital Technology
and Culture (DTC) at Washington State University Vancouver (WSUV).
"I didn't read a lot of Brautigan, but what I've read from him, some
of his unpublished poetry, is unique," said Oparin. "It's not like
regular poetry [...] I had to read one poem ten times in order to get
to the actual juice of it. Every time you read it, something else
unravels, and just find it interesting every time you discover Brautigan."
"It's interesting to note that there's a number of tie-ins with
Brautigan's actual life," said Dr. John Barber, "which I think the
students are attempting to do with this project." Dr. Barber is a DTC
instructor at WSUV and was a personal friend to Brautigan during the
last years of his life. Barber is an authority of Brautigan's life
and works and archives his work and information on www.brautigan.net.
One of Brautigan's projects was a recording of his poetry. Included
was a track of several of his friends reading the same poem, each
recital inevitably varying, depending on the view and interpretation
of the reader. "I think Mikail and his group are trying to capture
that by making this [...] not their performance, but a performance
that's going to involve the audience as well," Barber said. As a part
of the presentation, visitors will be invited to recite their
favorite Brautigan work; similar to the open-mic readings Brautigan
would attend in San Francisco.
"I think what's rather interesting, though," Barber said, "[the
project is] beyond recreating the experience that Brautigan might
have had. The students are using their chops with technology to
intemperate in a totally different way."
The performance and the readings, which will take place in the
lecture hall of the Administration building on the WSUV campus, will
be recorded and broadcast live to the tower room. There it will be
projected on screens that will be suspended before the windows so
that the events inside will be displayed to anyone outside.
"So it becomes even more of a participatory, interactive experience,"
said Barber. "Now it's a piece that one can actually walk in or
around or be close to in some way."
"What we're trying to do is fill in that empty space with video and
sound to create the environment of the digital Brautigan of the 21st
Century as the poetry is being performed," Oparin said, "being
broadcast, both the video and the performance part through this
tower, including some lasers that we're going to be renting as well.
It's like a metaphor for the arts and the poetry and the education is
being broadcast out from within the tower out to the community."
Oparin said "XXI Century Brautiganism" will be made further available
via the internet following the event.
"It's an amazing group because there are people that have musical
talent, there are people that are sound experts [...] people who are
organizational experts," said Kathi Rick, an Arts and Technology
adjunct professor at WSUV. "Everybody has played to their strengths
[...] I've really never seen anything like this outside of a theater
production."
"It's kind of taken a life of its own beyond that it's just a student
project, even a very ambitious student project," said Barber. Barber
said the project has gained the interest of Brautigan's worldwide
following; people have been in contact from Australia, Europe, Canada and Asia.
While his work has accumulated a worldwide readership, Brautigan as a
writer seems very much a fit with the Northwest: his words are rich
with metaphors and imagery of the natural world and observations of
the beauty of life. His writings ooze with a carefree sensibility
that is in the face of what he knew could be a hard and gritty life.
It carries a romantic hope that the wonderful things in life can
thrive within the darkness.
Northwest origins, future in the 'Couv
Born in Tacoma in 1935, Richard Brautigan was brought up by his
mother, Mary Lou and her various partners (his biological father had
abandoned his mother months before Richard was born). As is often the
case with noted writers, his was a troubled life, marred with
poverty, trauma and abuse.
Brautigan eventually attended South Eugene High School, where he
wrote for the school paper, which ran his first poem. He continued to
publish poetry, and in 1967, he published his second novel, Trout
Fishing In America, which won him international acclaim.
Financial success didn't seem to be as important to Brautigan as
simply getting his work out was. Barber said Brautigan used to print
out his poetry and hand copies out to people on the streets.
In one of his novels, The Abortion, Brautigan wrote of a library that
was exclusively of unpublished manuscripts. Writers of all kinds of
works would submit and register their pieces, place them wherever on
the shelves as they liked for the public to read, though not to check
out. When the library would overflow with manuscripts, the old ones
were put away in storage to make room for incoming ideas.
The fictional idea was made into reality when, in 1990, Todd
Lockwood, a longtime Brautigan reader, replicated the idea and
acquired around 300 unpublished manuscripts to display in Burlington,
Vermont. Run by volunteers, the project eventually fell through in
1997, and the manuscripts are currently being stored in Burlington.
Soon, it is hoped, that library will be made available to the people
of Vancouver.
"We intend for the books to be physically available for people to
come in and read," said Barber. "We'd like to open the library to
further submissions, but because of physical space limitations, we
could accept only digital manuscripts that we would make available
for distribution through a website or other means to anybody in the
world that would be interested to read these unpublished manuscripts."
"It would definitely be an interesting spot on Vancouver," said Susan
Tissot, Executive Director of the Clark County Historical Society
(CCHM). "[It would] put [Vancouver] on the map in the literary circle."
The manuscripts, along with some artifacts including one of
Brautigan's typewriters and a pair of his glasses, would be on
display at the CCHM on Main St. Tissot said the Society has secured
the rights to the manuscripts, though talks are continuing with
Brautigan's daughter, who owns his likeness rights. Tissot hopes the
project will be underway next year.
Following the submersion of the counterculture spirit of the '60s,
Brautigan's life continued to be plagued by on-and-off domestic
stability, mental illness, declining popularity, poverty and
alcoholism. He took his own life in 1984.
"He was both amazing and difficult," said Barber. "In person, he
thought and he spoke and he acted exactly has his narrative voice did
in his books.
"He had a wonderful sense of humor, and I think, were he alive today,
he would very much be a writer of the internet and blogs, and I think
Twitter would really fascinate him. He would of probably eschewed
traditional publishing and put everything online because it would
have meant his work was immediately available."
Barber said he thinks Brautigan would be pleased with what "XXI
Century Bruatiganism" has in store for the people of Vancouver.
Oparin described a possibility for the event's promotion: flower
boxes around campus with books growing out of them. "We'll be
planting books in it, and over a period of, how many days we have
there, the books will grow." Approval of the use of the campus
grounds for this was pending at press time.
Dr. Barber said the idea reflects one of Brautigan's own, a
publication called Please Plant This Book, which had envelopes of
seeds instead of pages. Rather than being stored on a shelf, this is
a project that actually grew and developed, depending on the "reader."
"XXI Century Brautiganism," and the possibility of incoming,
unpublished manuscripts are somewhat like the planting of the seeds
of his works and ideas. Given time, we can expect the legacy of
Richard Brautigan to grow in Vancouver.
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Sixties-L" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
