Recent Reads: "The Sourdough Collaborations" by Roland Prevost and Pearl Pirie

The Sourdough Collaborations by Roland Prevost and Pearl Pirie

Published by Phafours Press, 2015.

The Sourdough Collaborations is a rare consortium: an exchange between two poets that is chronicled in evolving drafts as well as informal discussion about the applications and results of each approach used. To put it another way, The Sourdough Collaborations is the making of The Sourdough Collaborations. And seeing as how authors Roland Prevost and Pearl Pirie have lifted the curtain, explaining their various intuition and internet-based means of manipulating text, I’m essentially writing footnotes on footnotes.

Regardless, I felt like a participant in the chapbook’s playful abandon. Whether they’re putting a poem through a series of translations (in one case: Spanish to Catalan to English to Klingon to French then back to English), riffing on the outcome or each other’s interpretation, Prevost and Pirie share an unguarded willingness to chase fresh writing. To give a broad idea of their interchange, here’s a poem undertaken by Pirie:

(Note: Although it’s customary to share a few excerpts, I must preface to remind that very satisfying context surrounds the creation of these poems. Seek out a copy here.) 

water-mind

sweet chap of bubble-language, nothing else

is in this (refillable) glass but us.

past refracted alfalfa fields, their roots like turnips

we 6 gaze, nod as seahorse steeds

ledge of seashells are Christian bystanders

in 2 hour litany of k’pows, daddy finger-blams

mangy fox, psycho cow, vagrant bear till Emmy holds up

her teddy, asks, would you shoot this in the bush?

an organ grinder in the gut claps, makes terrible

digestion, a useless sluice of gastric;

no bite against junkyard violence. us listing

as a group what gives reflux, cukes, orange juice…

the movement of ripples is a wobble in the plans

in the planes, in the planets

not the culpa of our wet earth.

it’s only you and me here; what matters now?

let us have as much compass direction as a rake.

that APB? never mind. self was never lost but a rain walk. 
(Pirie, pg. 16)

And here is Prevost’s response:

our slow liquid

The original bottle of us, filled and capped

permeates our travels

undersea fields of the kelp-woman

as she rides quiescent undertows

thin calcium armors, whose ridges

foretell an upcoming sparagmos

even landlocked prey will plead

with many-faced little-girl gods

what we stomach laughs out loud

weak acid drips harmless off skin

a stack gathers to attack

a lining that shrugs away

shaken by what should stir

the edge curves around the globe

tides, tidings on this stage

this known story still surprises

the map or mapless number

remains one small-big-whole fraction

that walks from and into fog

as enjoyable as ether 
(Prevost, pg. 17)

Despite appearing surgically removed from their authors’ comments, “water-mind” and “our slow liquid” present the core infallibility of this collaborative unit: Prevost and Pirie are keen readers and listeners, capable of shaping one another’s gambits into sturdy morsels worth pulling apart. Though the exercises seem custom-built for Pirie’s elastic dissection of koan and colloquialism, Prevost proves totally up to the challenge, often distilling these ‘bastard ghazals’ to their imagistic potential. Like any thriving partnership, one person’s strengths must balance the other’s. At various points in-between the peaks of exploration and consolidation, the Ottawa-area poets achieve a single, hybridized voice.

It could be said, albeit unfairly, that the procedures and approaches they discuss outshine the poems themselves – but that’s like saying limitless possibility outshines the closure of a finished piece! At one point, Prevost and Pirie realize their exchange could go on forever:

“As in renga, the poetic conversation starts conservative, safe, and gears up. By mid-point it can go wilder as at the height of a party where speech is most loose. More politics or violence or conflict or general chaos can be engaged with. Likewise with this. Once we were comfortable with the back and forth, we could stretch, throw wilder and assume the other could run for it, catch and throw something back.” (pg. 12)

The allure of possibility is magnetic because it’s theoretical. But these poems, often thoughtful, warm and surprising, double as blueprints of choice, using stream-of-consciousness, linguistic and homophonic translation, a bunch of excisions and intuition as ways of keeping options open. Given the imagination on tap for The Sourdough Collaborations, it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine these bakers finding their way into the kitchen for a second batch.

Recent Reads: Culls by Roland Prevost

Culls by Roland Prevost (above/ground press, 2015)

Although bookended by poems about a tropical escape, Culls is less preoccupied with contrasting locales than it is balancing an inner conflict: fear of some unknown malady and gratitude for the presence that fear has made possible. The threat posed at the outset of “Seeds, on Rock Again” has no concrete form but Ottawa poet Roland Prevost ensures the stakes feel real: 

"Stand. Stare at the dry ground where

nothing grows. Crossed fingers hide

inside pockets. Last glass bottle of cold

water soothes a final parched throat. Enough

to fuel a desperate play. One meant

to unhinge. Either us, or these locked doors."

This early stanza, which structurally resembles about half of Culls, marks a notable shift for Prevost, after Singular Plurals (Chaudiere Books, 2014) constantly stretched, tightened and fractured its lines on an impressionistic metric. Here the relative directness affirms a sense of urgency, of basking in each fleeting moment. Prevost engages the natural world for solace and interprets an experience with a dragonfly from two distinct vantage points. From "Grounded to Airborne":

"The sepia colour of memory, too long

from the darkroom bath. A dragonfly close-up, 

my solitary index offered as a perch. Its seeming

friendliness, ad hoc, filled-in. As with all fictions.

Willing fools, we cram every blank space with connection." 

And an excerpt from "Knack to Promise":

"Rust string spun transformer-like round

my bent index anchors your paper flight;

a dragon less tyrannical. Many wishes tax

the voltage of your Talisman powers,

from this place. Mine’s to know what you know.

Minus the pompous tones, I mean. I’m in a mood 

to hear simpler godly things. Hard decades spent

asking, as against your easy millennia. Fruits of this."

In both poems Prevost attempts to reconnect with his mystical state but the natural world is either supplanted (by a photograph) or mechanized (through the “transformer-like” reenactment of a long-gone moment). Progressing from resignation in the former poem to openness in the latter doesn’t necessarily yield new results, but it does see the frustration of unattainable knowledge convert into a calmer, personalized faith. Wisely, that faith — much like the threat that spawned it — is conveyed more through feeling than exposition. And as this excerpt from "Crabdance Lessons" suggests, a change in perspective can be metamorphic:

"When riding on these waves

it's the view not the world
bobbing up & down"


Through doubt, superstition and joy, Prevost's subtle pacing toward self-discovery forms the heart of Culls. By the time a suite called “Five Cuban Poems” completes the chapbook, each a recollection of sun-kissed imagery and weathered textures, Culls has earned its newfound peace. 

On Writing #15 : Roland Prevost

Ink / Here

Roland Prevost

As for ink over here, it begins in the words of French-Canadian songs memorized as a child, sung at late-night réveillions, or in the summer at the family cottage by the campfire.  Lyrics.  Lots of them.   In metre and rhyme often backed by a guitar and some kind of percussion, like a tambourine or spoons, the stomp of feet, or hands clapping time.  Playing with breath, voice, intonation . . . and emotion.  Everyone present took their turn.  I learned how songs could give powerful expression to feelings.  By my early teens I started to write songs.  Something I've done for a lifetime.

Another lifelong writing practice has been keeping a journal.  It now stands at fifty-thousand pages, give or take. If songs give expression to emotions, then the logbook (as I tend to call it) acts as a potent mind-amp.  In the logbook, the reach of complexity, strength of focus, and accuracy of recall all get boosted by the powers of ink.

Interestingly, many elements of Song and Journal can marry:  breath and focus,  emotion and complexity,  sounds and ideas,  feelings and language, rhythm and thought.

Looking at this marriage, it's not surprising that I soon wanted to write poetry.

Poetry's more intricate, I feel, than either logbook or song.  I can't see its borders.   Which makes it particularly attractive.

~

Why write poetry? 

First, out of a desire to encapsulate some of the mysteries at here/now's edge.  Self-expression isn't exactly the correct term, though I've no objection to the word 'expression' by itself.  I find it very meaningful to try to give a body to that strange substance.  An incarnation.  That's at the core of why I even try. 

Also, I've recently begun to feel something I'd not felt before.  Writing had always seemed a solitary pursuit;  I experienced no desire for publication.  Then I noticed how many others were trying to put their work 'on River', making efforts to pass it on.  I realized that what I refer to as my 'self' was in large part a patchwork of what I've found in thousands of publicly shared artworks.  Culture suddenly felt like a third, unrecognized parent.  So now, I sometimes add a publication attempt to my creative ritual as many others did for me.  I'm trying to keep faith with them.  In a solidarity tinged with thanks.

Beyond that, trying to write poetry presents such a complex and layered challenge.   It's not always easy, but when it succeeds it feels great to 'have written'.  Like very few other things in life, it provides me with a renewable 'tall enough mountain' to climb.  A proper gerbil-wheel for my cage, if you like.

Then there are my associations with members of the local arts community.   These exchanges result in a rich sharing of substantive 'notes on being'.  Artworks act as a starting point, providing something in common to build on.  I find this social aspect of poetry worthwhile.

There are other more transient motivations over time, but these four seem to have taken hold and keep me returning to the blank page.

~

How do I write poetry?

            I've always had this Picture-Mind, or Pixmind as I call it, as far back as I can remember.  It provides me with an ability to call up free-flowing pictures, like snippets of movies, if I just get out of the way.  I often say it's like there's a constant stream of images out there on the horizon.  That I can choose to watch or not. 

            This Pixmind's centrally involved in writing poetry, for me. 

Let's go through the actual steps, and you'll see what I mean.

            I wake up at six or seven in the morning.  Grab a quick breakfast, sip a coffee.  I want to get downstairs to my poetry binder, pen and paper, as soon as possible.  Preferably within ten or twenty minutes after waking up, so that some of the sleepiness remains with me when I face the empty page.  A bit of dream-dust left in my hair, so to speak.

When I get there, instead of trying to stake out a linguistic terrain, I just wait.   And a picture comes.  With no fingers pressing.  Most of the poems I write, if you look, have an image at their core.

 

My approach involves writing a text-response to the spontaneous graphic output (as with ekphrasis: texts in response to graphic artworks).  It's almost like writing subtitles to a foreign film clip.  These 'subtitles' end up providing the first seed-draft for a poem. 

At this point, the poem's still very incomplete.  I've no idea where it might eventually go or what it might mean.   But it hooks me well enough to stay with it.  I've often said that I like to write into, instead of out of, inspiration.  So long as I have this kind of visual seed to start from, I feel able to do that.

It's only later that the time comes for applying edit-transforms and somewhat more practical skills.   That work gets done on the computer.  Remove clichés, add some senses, adopt a voice & tone, orchestrate a confluence, play with rhetorical forms of meaning.   A few hundred fairly loose rules, more like tendencies towards certain do's and don'ts.  My goal with editing is to sculpt the words towards the original feel of the unscripted Pixmind.

I write poetry this way simply because other approaches don't seem to get me there.  Like anyone else, I prefer what works.

Along the way, poetry's become my favourite sort of ink by far.  

Probably because it has such a mind of its own.

Roland Prevost's poetry appears in Arc Poetry Magazine, Descant Magazine, The Toronto Quarterly, Dusie, The Ottawa Arts Review, Stone Chisel, The Bywords Quarterly Journal, The Peter F. Yacht Club and Ottawater, among many more. He has four chapbooks: Metafizz (2007, Bywords), Dragon Verses (2009, Dusty Owl), Our/Are Carried Invisibles (2009, above/ground), and Parapagus (2012, above/ground). He's also been published in three poetry collections by AngelHousePress: Whack of Clouds (2008), Pent Up (2009), and Experiment-O (Issue 1, 2008 online). He won the 2006 John Newlove Poetry Award. He was, for a few years, the managing editor of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics, as well as poetics.ca, both online. He studied English and Psychology at York University and the University of Manitoba. He lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada.