Half
flings, stridence, and visual timber
Chris
Turnbull
I listened to Viggo Mortensen all day not
so long ago, his poetry, accompanied with Buckethead’s music, a wry, often intense,
aural presence to other writing I was doing. The day had all sorts of
distractions – movement in the house, other things that had to be done, the
etceteras of the daily. It also rained all day that day, pitched also, as an
ambient sound, was liquid dripping into the basement cistern. At times I
appreciated the slow visual pleasure of melting snow pooling along the street
and twisting into the drainholes. I enjoyed the rush of wind and water. There
are frequencies I attune myself to, others I try to avoid, but typically, sound
backgrounds to visual experiences; I have never really thought too much about the
impact of sound on my writing, though I know sound is constant.
By evening of that day, the street outside
looked wet in the dark. I’d seen the guys changing the streetlight bulbs a day
earlier; the streetlights have a softer glow. I was on my way to the coffee
shop down the street to listen to music. I’d heard separate members of the local
group play on other occasions, but not as a group. And there was a singer from Montreal in town
who I’d heard was good. As I went out the door, I felt I was stacking my day
with sound experiences, putting them to the forefront, so to speak. I was looking
forward to the outing; this particular coffee shop is a go-to spot; its shape
seemed ideal for a good acoustic performance, and I knew I’d see folks I know
and enjoy hanging out with. Uncharacteristically, I’d been in all day – it’s a
rare rainy day that I don’t spend part of it walking or hiking outside.
I was not mistaken about the enjoying the
evening. I was mistaken about the streets being wet. I noticed what was missing
visually, but didn’t note consciously the absence of the sound of water. I
noticed the street was reflective; the water had become polished black ice; the
pools of water had drained hours ago. The street was slick. I minced my way to
the coffee shop, tentative when I would have moved at a fairly quick pace,
hands out for balance, aware of how the body will fail you and also support you
if you fall– the proof of this my casted left wrist-- my wrist had probably
saved my back and my legs when I was striding confidently over unnoticed black
ice. I heard the snap of my wrist before I really registered that I’d fallen. When
I stood up my eyes hurt with small pink and white dots – and there was no
sound. This was temporary.
The coffee shop is long and narrow; block
glass next to the back door; a broad window at the front with a windowsill that
hosts plants; an ‘old’ cash register in the corner. Walls brick. The front
window had a curtain over it; the evening was videotaped. The tables were full;
I took a seat at the bar with my notebook. There was some writing I wanted to
finish; background sound I have always been able to tune out, or tune into. I
watched the musicians play, the movements of the bow on the violin, the
characteristic expressions of intensity and joy on the faces of the performers,
the measured breaths and movements of feet, hands, and body. I registered the
sound of the music, the transitions of the jig, and if I applied some effort,
could focus on notes of one instrument as opposed to the whole.
Not too long ago, my son was given a bell.
It was his third bell; just before coming back from a road trip to Minas Basin,
Nova Scotia two years ago, a friend gave him an immense Zen bell for the drive
home. Would the sound change, my son asked, if we open the windows when we
drive? Would others hear it, driving? I could barely put a couple of words
together after being surrounded by the incessant ringing, sonorous as it had at
first seemed. It is a 12 hour drive. His second bell was given in a spurt of
nostalgia, I think, a bell that had been part of a home. It had sat at a front
door, screwed tightly into the brick. This bell was enthusiastically rung many
times until it vanished, as loud things sometimes do, in a house. The third
large bell appeared near magically, as things do when other things vanish in a
house – and one morning, certainly before the neighborhood gathered themselves to
prepare for the day, and certainly before most kids were ready to go off to
school, or daycare, the street was shattered open by the sound of the bell in
the backyard and my son’s penetrating and exuberant voice bellowing: “CLUBHOUSE
MEETING!!!” This was followed by about 20 vigorous shakes of the bell. I was
wordless, although my neighbours were not similarly struck dumb.
It got me thinking about how the volume in
this house has increased since my son’s birth, and how quiet it used to be
here, and in this neighborhood. When I write, I write with ambient sounds -- creaks
of the house, the whirr of the dryer, the chatter of birds outside, the rumble
of wheels, and bellows of enthusiasm, as kids go to school or home in wagons,
on foot, and on bikes. I write in my head, sort of mapping, when I’m outside,
on a hike or just walking, taking note, attending– in all the ways that word is
charged – to what is around me, including the sounds of movement – trees,
leaves, birds, water, the sounds of response and echo, the sounds of pause. So
I have an ear, or two, and the sounds get included, contribute to, visual experience.
When someone reads their writing, I appreciate the how the voice, in its
pauses, frequencies, and emphases, affects the way the sound of the words might
illuminate something otherwise hidden. But I rarely read my writing out loud when I’m
writing it.
I am enjoying the music at the coffee shop.
Folks are tapping their hands, feet, moving their bodies to the harmonies. The
music changes from a Swedish ballad to a fast jig, and I am distracted from the
words I’d started to jot down by a flash of blue. It’s a lone dancer with a
blue hat; she’s up in front suddenly, lending movement to a room moving in
subtle ways – and then everyone is clapping, her hands are over her head as she
twirls, the sound is enthusiastic and so --- a young woman moves past me toward
the back of the coffee shop. She has a guide, but I move to the side to give
them both space.
The sound man sits alone – so how does he
hear language, see the words…or does he feel them, reverberating, and adjust
accordingly with buttons and dials, the microphone? The singer comments that
two of her songs are similar in sound – it’s an obvious surprise – and it
happens. I notice repetition sometimes when looking at different pieces of my
own writing, and in the writing of others – as if the words had encountered
each other before – even the blocking of words can be repetitive, as though
something more concise formed before, and is still forming. Sometimes, if I
notice it, I leave it, let the accident happen. Other times, being more
deliberate, I disrupt things, change direction: sounds clash, words get sharp,
edgy, until I don’t want to listen, or read it. There’s some discomfort. I try
to do the same thing with how I place words, how they cluster, or vanish, or
bump into each other acoustically, even when separated by their own visual formations.
Behind the stage is the bands’ banner. Ferns
unfurling, textile and tactile. The kinetics of writing leaves behind, near
reveals, the tactility of language—in rhythm, visual imprint and reverberation.
Words intersect on the page and inform one another. The performer can take the
words and enact them, sound them, give them movement.
I think in pictures and spaces and physical
forms. I think in a kinetic way, too. I sentence sound to the back of my mind;
I preference the visual and shaped/ly in writing but am coming to see that I’ve
often been using sound to shape. I was talking with a friend, a sound/performance
poet about a long piece I’ve been working on, and while we were chatting over
the phone, he asked me if I had read it out to myself. Pause. No, I said. It is a multi-voice piece,
oddly enough, and meant to be performed by voices other than mine. The piece as
a whole evolved as a voicing; it seemed the best way to get into the text in
the writing of it, the best way to describe formulations, or reformulations, of
memory and history, the best way to get at fluctuation and curvature. It is
written deliberately; made up of discrete visual chunks which, when voiced, or
depending on how they’re voiced, relate to one another in obvious and sometimes
surprising ways. But they have form. They suggest. If words could be physical,
tangible blocks that I could touch and move and push…I would move them into
place with my fingers. And yet, I’m realizing that I’ve ventured into a sound
landscape as a visual landscape in the writing. And I move through it –
movement is important.
As I write this, I’m listening to Mortensen
and Buckethead. My cast came off today; it was a hairline break of the radius;
I imagine what that looks like without asking to see the X-ray. I walked home
from the hospital, paying attention to the skidding clouds, that the birds are
having a bit of trouble, half flung. I think the wind got in my ear because it’s
humming.
Chris Turnbull lives in Kemptville,
Ontario. In 2010, above/ground press published a chapbook of her visual and
multi-performative piece, continua. Thuja Press published her chapbook Shingles
in 2001. Her poetry has been published in The Volta, Ottawater, Convergences,
How2, ditch, Dusie, Open Letter, Dandelion, and experiment-o (Angelhouse Press),
among others. Occasionally, she has written poetry reviews and interviews. Her
sometimes small press mag, rout/e, has more recently become an ongoing
footpress project involving placing poems on trails, including pieces from
Monty Reid, George Bowering, rob mclennan, derek beaulieu, Amanda Earl, Pearl
Pirie, Angela Rawlings
(http://scalar.usc.edu/works/stroboscope-magazine/issue-1), Steven Ward, and
Jamie Reid.
