Lines in Poetry: Linkage Theory, Enjambment, and Associative Leaps

Paul Hurt from the UK focuses attention on the myriad ways to create a line of poetry:
         Applying Linkage Theory to poetry: 

Joseph Kalar: Sketch

Joseph Kalar: Sketch

In 1927-1935, Joseph Kalar, described as "a kind of north woods Rimbaud," began to write in poetry and short form prose called "proletarian sketches."  This depression era poet was from Biwabik, Minnesota--the Iron Range. In the introduction to the small volume of poems edited by Ted Genoways, an interesting biography and literary critique explains: "…the sketch allowed writers like Kalar to address proletarian issues without without either the aesthetic distance implied by poetry or the plot demands of a traditionally constructed piece of fiction. Genoways borrows a description from writer Douglas Wixson, "The plotless nature, the personal-narrative quality of the sketch, preserving accents and idioms, was a form suited to the needs of the nonprofessional writer."

In Papermill, there are several vivid sketches by Kalar.  Because I grew up near Biwabik, I was particularly intrigued by his writing. "Dust of Iron Ore" describes the mining location of Merritt (near Biwabik) and an area called "Chicken Town" where he lived as a boy with his family. His father worked in the underground iron mine.  

The miners, emerging like bats from shafts leading deep into the earth, were stained red and yellow with it, their clothes streaked and hardened with the dust, from which emanated a peculiar stink of dampness, sweat, and iron ore.

He continues the story describing the thousands of rats that swarmed the dump and the discovered of a man dead of suicide (by shotgun blast) on the dump. In "Mesaba Impressions" Kalar writes:

A Call to Action: Wake Up and Be Creative

Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto, calls artists to help people find a story that reflects not dominion over nature but a story that reflects we are not separate. Paul Kingsnorth and the others of this project hope to break through denial and help people respond to the irreversible changes that climate change has already caused. The core of this plan is to do that through art and storytelling. The NYTimes recently published an article about Kingsnorth, but unfortunately, they portrayed the Dark Mountain project as a fringe group that conducts strange rituals; actually they were merely employing theater art.  Theater is powerful, even transformative. As for the New York Times, I'd reply, "In much Madness is divinest Sense," to quote a poem by Emily Dickinson.

Webs: Transmedia and Poetry

Today, a group of artists gathered at the Prøve Gallery in Duluth to talk with Kathy McTavish about her recent transmedia or net-art exhibit that is on display in the gallery this month. She did a workshop and Q&A about the art, transmedia story-telling, new technologies, and the web.  This post reflects the day's conversations and the participants' next steps. I've included some useful links at the end of this article.  

At the art opening last Friday, I was one of the writers who could "input" text into the film generator.  Her art was the "origin of birds." This posting is about my experience with it, a meditation on the "origin of words." Entering words was addictive. My text was not the only text on the wall-- the generator was randomly combining live twitter feed, climate reports, data, and other phrases. A few other poets were entering phrases as well.  The effect was similar to spraying graffiti on a wall, only to have it drift away and be replaced by other graffiti.

On my computer, at her web-page, whatever I entered in the text box would appear in the projection on the walls. This was new! wild! Generally as a writer, I do my work in solitude at my desk.  In the film, the text was performing live. It was me performing live, actually, but because I was at a table in the corner, I was not visibly part of the exhibit. My words appeared whenever I pressed 'enter.'  I noticed interesting juxtapositions and flows. I had surprises and sudden flashes of inspiration.  It occurred to music (her compositions in cello were also part of the film).

Sometimes, I'd share my text box with friends. Cecilia Ramón sat down at my computer and translated the text she watched on the projection into Spanish for our viewing pleasure. The other designated poets showed some of their friends how to access the text entry point, so a number of people were participating at the same time. Some of the writing sparked material I intend to go back to when I'm at my desk. Some was silly or forgettable. It cascaded or even precipitated on the screen, like the live tweets.  My writing evaporated (much like the way that 'too much information' is ignored or disregarded in other settings). I did walk away with the appreciation of how poetry, with its concentrated form and powerful image and sound elements, makes an ideal text for video work.  

Kathy McTavish's work was an exploration of climate change, the effect of overwhelming news and data, and the individual walking through the world. In addition, the software she created suggested new ways to combine multiple elements. I went to her workshop because I'm interested in finding ways to take my poems and stories off the page and into new media.  

The web, of course, applies to the world wide web but the term also offers an image for the artist or storyteller.  A spider's web is circular with many connections.  Web art or story-telling similarly presents a nonlinear form with many entry points and multiple connections. It might be participatory.  Henry Jenkins defines transmedia as "the art of telling one story over multiple media, where each medium is making a unique contribution to the whole."  I found Henry's blog (he is an expert in transmedia) with a lot of fascinating interviews, ideas, and links. 

In the workshop, we discussed her work and some examples of i-documentaries. Kathy had an interesting phrase about some of the work by other artists as having "a hole in the center." Especially artists who are writing about or creating work about trauma or atrocity, the hole in the center could contain the unsaid, the unspoken or the disappeared. I understood how the image of web or circle can offer a useful format for many uses. Kathy also talked about semantic webs, CSS3, HTML5, and Javascript as tools.  

Other artists at the workshop: a musician, a visual artist, a digital media artist, a fiber artist, three poets. We decided to meet with our own work next time. We launched a research institute.  Each of us will create a web aspect of our own work over the next few weeks.  Individually, we will spend an hour with "The Hour of Code" or go online to the "Code Academy." We will each find a example of a transmedia project that inspires us or we might emulate.  Next week when we gather we will bring our concept.  Kathy will help us take it into a transmedia form, social media formats, or code. Individually, each of us will walk away with a web component for art.

Because my book of poems, Night Train Red Dust is forthcoming from Wildwood River Press, I am thinking about women's stories and the five noteworthy women from the past (1900-1930) that I told stories about in my book: Mary Bray, MD; Viola Turpeinen, musician; Rev. Milma Lappala, Unitarian minister; Meridel LeSueur, journalist and writer; and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, union organizer for the Wobblies, and my grandmothers.  These women have inspired me and deserve greater attention for their contributions.  So I thought about an i-documentary or a video story about these women. I look forward to seeing the work that emerges from our group.  Stay tuned! And thank you Kathy!

Here are some useful links:

The Blog Tour: Welcome!

What am I working on?

Night Train Red Dust: Poems of the Iron Range: stories of women’s, labor, immigrant and mining on the Iron Range in Minnesota. Forthcoming June 2014 from Wildwood River Press.

Love on the Iron Range: Liz, the main character, grows up on the Iron Range to work in a taconite mine and later, become a musician. This novel is structured with twelve linked stories (daughter, sister, mother) based on Minnesota’s Iron Range and its immigrant, women’s and labor history. Several motifs or images of engagement, rings, wedding dresses, birds, water-life, and naming connect the stories. The narrator’s names are various, and the structure of the narrative is musical.

Recent Collaborations: “Migrations:” A collaboration with Finnish composer Ollie Ortekangas who has been commissioned to create music for Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra. We also plan to work together on an opera. A collaboration with media artist and composer Kathy McTavish around her net - art installation “origin of birds.”

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I am from the Iron Range. It has geologic layers and friction between the natural and industrial. I excavate. There are fractures. Glimpses at objects often open up other perspectives and histories. I work out of certain tensions and silences. I search for structures instilled by my landscape: rivers, forests, and shorelines. I believe there is a connection between women and birds.

Because I grew up in two languages, I am influenced by the rhythms and culture of Finland, and also its modernism. Traditional forms in poetry do not appeal to me. I believe that writing is a physical art, that it must find ways to enter the body. Good art must “break something open.” 

In my fiction, the narrators have odd perceptual experiences. I explore obsessions. I discover that certain motifs or objects appear in different stories and they become visual languages. It happens subconsciously. My poems in Night Train Red Dust are driven. They are fast moving trains or rivers.  Previous books of poems:   The Mother Tongue poems are about growing up on the Iron Range and mother/daughters. Echo & Lightning explores bird migration as a language of women's intersections with the divine.  Cloud Birds explores women walking through violence and a story of immigration.    

Why do I write what I do?

Does any writer get to choose the material? I believe this is given. We can either accept it or reject it. Certain things haunt me: images, phrases, absences, and I write about them. I write about my dreams, I find patterns and I read a lot. 

How does your writing process work?

The process is always changing.  Each project has a new set of rules that I need to discover. It’s my job to follow and learn.  Carl Jung wrote “…a work of art is not transmitted or derived - it is a creative reorganization…. One might almost describe it as a living being that uses man only as a nutrient medium, employing his capacities according to its own laws and shaping itself to the fulfillment of its own creative purpose.” In some ways, this is alarming idea, but I do think that creative work does take a life of its own. It's wise to learn to nurture this plant and make it beautiful.

My process works best if I have more than one project going, because then if one needs time or I if reach an obstacle, then I can work on the other. Somehow they cross-pollinate. Sometimes I will take what I wrote in a poem and try to create a story from it or I will create a character based on favorite authors and add them to my fictions. I experiment and find what works the best. I like to wander through archives, scan microfiche newspaper files, and surf the internet. I fall into rabbit holes. I feel a personal mission to write women’s stories in order to honor and make those stories stronger. I am inspired by many great writers.

Origin of Birds: Circles Within Circles

A new net-art installation will be at the Prøve Gallery in Duluth. The opening is on April 11 at 7 pm with live music by the Cosmic Pit Orchestra.  "The Origin of Birds" is created by Kathy McTavish: it features her new film generator, text, and music. For more information: http://originofbirds.blueboatfilms.com/  and and http://www.provegallery.com/
 
Circles:

In the creation stories, both the bird and its egg arrived before the earth was made. According to an ancient Greek story, the god χάος (Chaos) was the first to emerge at the creation of the universe. Soon after her came Gaia (Earth), Tartaros (the Underworld) and Eros (Love). In many versions, Chaos then gave birth to the Birds. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God created birds of on the fifth day of creation.  

Night Train Red Dust: Poems of the Iron Range

"I excavate these words from a vein of iron….” these poems are “test drills and core samples” — a weave of memory, archive, dream, song, story — drawn from the history and people of the Iron Range of northeastern Minnesota. These pages sound the whistles and roar of the mines, the dust in the lungs, the dangerous crossings into a new language, the accordion’s
breath. Culled from violence and tenderness, bone and ash, ore and light, they map a place, a time, a journey through love.”

Pamela Mittlefehldt, PhD and co-editor

The Heart of All That Is: Reflections on Home

Holy Cow! Press

CELEBRATION! THE BOOK! CELEBRATION! THE BOOK


Wildwood River Press announces the publication of Night Train Red Dust: Poems of the Iron Range.  ISBN: 978-0-9843777-7-0  Available at bookstores. http://www.wildwoodriver.com/

This collection of poems draws from the rich geologic, mining, Native, immigrant, and women's stories on the Iron Range. The book has two sections, Track I: Night Train and Track II: Red Dust. Night Train is a narrative about travel and immigration. Red Dust is about derailments--of many kinds including labor strikes, cancer, violence, accidents, and relationship splits.  The project Night Train Red Dust is also more than a book. It's a work of transmedia and it forms a multiverse: the poems are in the book, several essays and articles about the poems and the Iron Range are on the Red Dust blog (linked on the book website, nighttrainreddust.com) and live music and video are done in theater or installation settings. The essays and articles offer literary explorations of writers, influences and Iron Range history. 

The book uncovers and excavates layers. It asks the questions: are we using everything until it's gone? taking from another body?  The characters in these stories are metamorphosing, dealing with overburden, effluence, and tailings. They walk on the Divide, like the Laurentian Divide, and they are rivers flowing in opposite directions. The stories reflect the lives of the people who built this community: Mary Bassett Bray, MD; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, union organizer; women miners in WWII; Meridel LeSueur, writer; Rev. Milma Lappala, Unitarian minister; Viola Turpeinen, accordionist. This is a working class story of the midwives, farmers, miners, immigrants, and many others with iron in their veins. 

The Iron Range is economically supported by and environmentally damaged by mining.The poems provide strong images of the beautiful landscape of open pit mines and ore dumps, the Boundary Waters, and the wildlife. My grandparents arrived here because of the employment opportunities: one grandfather was a lumberman, and many relatives worked in the mines. My aunts worked in the iron mines during World War II, in the war effort. I have tried to present the music and the frictions of the Iron Range. 

Collaboration: Cello & Poetry - Echo & Lightning

PlayList - Sheila Packa - Migrations

Read a review of Migrations in Culturology at PRX

https://www.prx.org/pieces/86537-culturology-dan-sinykin-reviews-migrations-poe#description

Migrations: Poetry and Prose for Life's Transitions received an Honorable Mention at the North East Minnesota Book Awards, administered through the University of Minnesota, Duluth Library.

Willa Cather: Poetry vs Prose

Willa Cather published poetry when she was young, although she is known for her later short stories and novels. Her poems seem to sink under the heavy weight of meter and rhyme, but still they reveal the world from which she drew her art: