A Biting of Words

world summit to bring you weapons

a big fan not just of peace

these women never die grubby

once upon a future true heroes

finding joy in the gathering

curious love splash

blood and conservation make a bright ballet

seasonal monotone delights

poetic train giving tourists new voice

hand in hand a biting of words

This piece is from the 'shreadline' series 2005. Headlines from newspapers are cut up and placed in a bag - they can be from a particular paper on a particular day or a mixture. Five fragments are picked out at random. The player has to create a new line using at least three of the fragments. This series were all ten line poems. Each line is a 'shreadline'. Another action is to take each 'shreadline' and use it as the 'headline' for a new story.

The process is one of physical literary detournement.

I have run intervention pieces using the 'shreadline' process both on the street and other settings - passers-by being encouraged to pick out fragments and make a shreadline sticking it directly on to a sheet of cardboard to make a collaborative piece that works both visually and as a piece of text - a poem.

paul conneally

The Frequent Flyer

Henry Rollins starts the European leg of his massive spoken word world tour tonight in Dublin - he's all energy and The Skinny has a good wide ranging interview with him:
http://www.theskinny.co.uk/article/98316-regarding-henry

He talks beyond the normal American showbiz line - here's his answer to a question on why so many Americans appear to be against free health care:

"You would be against it if you were in bed with big insurance, or you would be against it if you are inherently against the idea of equality. What would happen if there was a better education system in America? What if America was number five in literacy, not number 46? It would mean a lot of non-white people with college education, and you know what that means? It means the prisons would be empty and it means that the next time we have a fake war with a sovereign nation, like the invasion and occupation of Iraq, millions of Americans would go "ahhh, NO!" you wanna go to war? I’m not showing up to work today.”, “I’m throwing my rifle on the ground and you'll have to court-martial me and 300 000 other guys because we're not going; because we are educated, we know our history and we're not going for this blood lust.” And that’s why this country fears the education and fears the equality of health care. Because, heaven help us if we had a whole bunch of healthy people making wise decisions; we might just have peace and posterity. I think there is a concerted effort to keep some people where they are and I think that is the inherent thing about the health care system. I don’t want my Americans to lose their home because momma gets cancer, because I like people and I like my countrymen, and I want them happy and well. Because if they are happy and well, our factories work better, our roads are better, quality of life is better. You don’t feel like robbing a liquor store or slugging your wife. Things get better."

Henry, who fronted Black Flag from 1981 is in Leicester on Thursday. On his radio show he plays Dum Dum Dum from time to time and we're planning to link up sometime on Thursday if only for a few minutes as I'd promised to send him an original copy of the Dum Dum Dum EP from 1979/80 and never got round to it - so no excuses this time - must get up into the loft and find it first though!

The Haiku Parrots

click picture to download pdf
A linked hypertext work by Paul Conneally featuring work by George Waring, hortensia anderson, Debra Woolard Bender, Sheila Windsor, Max Verhart, Robin Estil and Robert Wilson.

The source text is an extract from: FREE-RANGING PARROT POPULATION OF HAIKU DISTRICT, MAUI, HAWAII by George Waring. Conneally sets up a colloborative linking process that sees readers encouraged to engage with and interpret the original academic paper in new ways.
Acting in ways similar to the sabaki or master poet does in the renga process Conneally brings together a group of disparate poet artists to engage, link and shift with Waring's piece. What was initially an academic paper 'FREE-RANGING PARROT POPULATION OF HAIKU DISTRICT, MAUI, HAWAII by George Waring' now becomes something much more whilst remaining the same. A detournement takes place encouraging reading across and between different media.

Clicking on any one of Waring's paragraphs in the PDF download starts the journey.