DUBLIN POUND CONFERENCE

I was in Dublin for the Pound conference 9th to 14th July. Lots of papers of course and with three strands running most of the time you get only a sample of what is happening. Ira Nadel's paper on Pound and the Artichoke (Pound meeting Beckett) had a spoiler from Seamus Heaney who also had something to say about this Paris encounter and Pound's dismissive remark to Beckett. Emily Mitchell Wallace was again focused on Byzantine Torcello and carved dolphins with lots of beautiful photos. I think that the Torcello mosaic is one of the most beautiful things I've seen and very different from everything else in Venice, so I was glad to have it displayed up on the big screen. I saw and heard a range of papers some of them really interesting by David Ewick, Catherine Paul, David Ayers, Jo Berryman, Richard Parker, Yoshiko Kita, Andrew Houwen, Ron Bush, Michael Kindellan (read out by Richard Parker) Giuliana Ferreccio, Annabel Haynes, Alan Golding, Daniel Swift, Philip Coleman, Robert von Hallberg, John Gery, David Moody and others. I took part in a reading with David Cappella, Desmond Egan, Kevin Kiely, Patrizia de Rachewiltz, Mary de Rachewiltz, John Gery, Biljana Obradovic, Jessica Pujol I Duran, Ron Smith, Stephen Romer, Daniel Maria Mancini, Jeff Grienensen, probably others, which demonstrated the enormous range of poets who apparently have an interest in modernism (though quite a few of them write as if it never happened). It was fun to meet up with friends and go out in Dublin for drinks and dinner. The district I was staying in, Temple Bar, is a kind of theme park of Irish nightlife, lots of live singers, pavements thronged with revellers many of them very tired and emotional. I had a day free after the conference, stashed my luggage and walked round the James Joyce sights including the James Joyce Centre and a trip on the DART train to see the Martello tower that opens Ulysses. I wished I'd taken some swimming trunks along as the forty foot bathing place looked like the best place to be. The photos above are the Martello tower at Sandycove, the interior of the tower as it is now, the sign for the Forty Foot Bathing Place, and the James Joyce statue with suitcases and litter bin by O'Connell Street.

IN PLACE OF LOVE & COUNTRY

A new anthology edited by John Gery and Richard Parker, In Place of Love and Country is published by Crater Press, 2013 - ISSN 2041-0948. The contributors are Mary de Rachewiltz, Ron Smith, Wayne Pounds, Biljana D. Obradovic, Julian Stannard, Amy Evans, David Cappella, Desmond Egan, Jeff Grieniesen, Tim Atkins, Daniel M. Mancini, Kevin Kiely, Richard Parker, John Gery, Michael Kindellan, Dirceu Villa, Tony Lopez, Jessica Pujol I Duran, Gavin Selerie, Stephen Romer, foreword by Walter Baumann. This is an anthology based on a reading in London at the Ezra Pound International Conference, held at the Institute for English Studies, University of London, July 2011.

BUNTING CONFERENCE AT DURHAM

Earlier in July I attended the Basil Bunting conference: With Sleights Learned From Others: Basil Bunting and Friends, which took place at St John's College, Durham University, 4-5 July 2012. It's a long time since I was in Durham, 1981 I think, to visit Ric and Ann Caddel and stay over with them. This was a good two day conference, with some parallel sessions, and the standard of the papers I attended was very good on the whole. I particularly enjoyed seeing Harriet Tarlo give a talk on Bunting, Lorine Neidecker and Richard Caddel, establishing a tradition coming out of Objectivism of environmental poetics. The care for precise observation and the invention of appropriate form based on 'music' would be shared. I really enjoyed the paper and thought it gave a good introduction to the poetry of Neidecker and Caddel, which was the point, for Bunting readers.
     I saw Alex Pestell on Bunting's criticism of William Carlos Williams, Nicoletta Ascuito on Bunting's use of an Italian source for his poem 'Chomei at Toyama', and Philip Sidney on W.S. Graham's use of the frozen polar landscape. Don Share of Poetry Chicago gave the annual Basil Bunting Lecture, Bunting's Persia. That evening I gave a poetry reading with Tom Pickard and Amy Evans at the Williams Library in St Chad's College, which was packed. It was a pleasure to read four of Ric Caddel's shorter poems at the beginning of my set, to get him heard in Durham, though he was unable to be there in person. I hadn't seen Tom Pickard read before, his was an excellent set and it was good to see Amy Evans read again.
    Richard Parker's talk on Bunting, Zukofsky and Briggflatts was a high point of the conference for me. Louise Chamberlain gave an interesting account of Tom Pickard's career that connected somewhat with his earlier reading. Samuel Rogers was concerned with place and National or regional identity in the writings of various modernist poets. There was a very good poetry reading by Harriet Tarlo, Rory Waterman, Michael Zand, Dez Mendoza and Julian Stannard, all of it interesting. I was particularly amused by the lovely witty poems read by Julian Stannard.
    We had a showing of a wonderful film on Roy Fisher called Birmingham is What I Think With. This ambitious documentary presented Fisher's life and work, really integrating the piano playing and writing, and using the built environment, especially the way that the 19th century industrial landscape is still there. There was a touching meeting with a young Asian boy living in Fisher's old house and a stunt of walking the old front door of the house through the city. This was great fun and woven in with shots of Fisher reading his work and playing Jazz. I loved this brilliant and funny film. I thought it a very good introduction to Fisher's work and a fine response to Birmingham. It ought to be shown on TV. It was a real treat to see it at the conference.
    A very special talk by Colin Simms was personal memoir of Bunting, rant against the morals of certain University academics in botany fieldwork, and the captions accompanying some slides of Bunting's friends, which photos were sadly not available to be seen. Colin Simms finished with the reading of a very fine short memorial poem to Bunting, which was worth the wait.
    The final session included Bradford Haas on Joseph Macleod's The Ecliptic as a forerunner to Briggflatts, very usefully putting Macleod's work in front of Bunting readers. Also Annabel Haynes, the main conference organiser did a very good reading of Bunting's poetry based on pride in skilled labour, making connections with William Morris's socialism. Last was Julian Stannard's excellent paper on 'Chomei at Toyama', I learned a lot.
     I'm very grateful to the organisers for their splendid hospitality. I enjoyed staying in St John's college. I was able to visit my friend Ann Caddel for the first time in many years and I thoroughly enjoyed a couple of days focused on Bunting's poetry.

RICHARD PARKER LAUNCH

Richard Parker's book from The Mountain of California, Openned Press, is being launched on 18 August 2010, 7.30pm, at Carnivale, 2 White Church Lane, London, E1 7QR. Admission is free. It should be a good event, lots of readers, more information and another flyer with policemen on the Openned website.