Nelson, Camilla

English

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 14 | No. 1 Article 219-1-2015Poetry Editorial: AudioecopoeticsCamilla NelsonSchumacher College, UKPart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North AmericaCommons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment CommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeNelson, Camilla. "Poetry Editorial: Audioecopoetics." The Goose, vol. 14 , no. 1 , article 21, 2015,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/21.Audioecopoetics	  	  	  	  	  	   I’ve	  been	  on	  holiday.	  	   	   	   	   	   	   With	  Timothy	  Morton.	  	  	  Ok,	  ok...	  so	  I	  haven’t	  been	  on	  holiday	  with	  Timothy	  Morton.	  I’ve	  been	  on	  holiday	  with	  Ecology	  Without	  Nature	  (2007)	  and	  The	  Ecological	  Thought	  (2010),	  and,	  as	  a	  result,	  I	  now	  have	  ambient	  poetics	  on	  the	  brain.	  Except,	  I	  think	  I	  had	  ambient	  poetics	  on	  the	  brain	  long	  before	  I	  read	  Morton’s	  account	  of	  it,	  and	  I	  don’t	  think	  I’m	  the	  only	  one.	  The	  first	  of	  this	  issue’s	  ambient	  ecopoets	  is	  Ian	  Mikyska.	  The	  detailed	  instructions	  that	  introduce	  ‘through	  a	  wheat	  field;	  to	  a	  pond’	  emphasise	  the	  multiplicity	  of	  this	  work’s	  sounding.	  There	  is	  a	  palpable	  blurring	  of	  what	  falls	  within	  the	  remit	  (and	  control)	  of	  this	  work	  –	  of	  what	  is	  there	  and	  what	  is	  not	  there	  (across	  its	  wavering	  degrees	  of	  reality)	  –	  as	  it	  is	  performed	  and	  recorded	  by	  humans,	  instruments,	  and	  audio	  equipment	  in	  a	  Southern	  Bohemian	  wheat	  field,	  and	  of	  what	  falls	  within	  the	  remit	  of	  this	  work	  as	  it	  is	  performed	  and	  experienced	  by	  humans	  and	  their	  audio	  equipment	  in	  their	  multiple	  audience	  environments	  elsewhere.	  ‘through	  a	  wheat	  field;	  to	  a	  pond’	  is	  a	  perfect	  example	  of	  what	  Timothy	  Morton	  has	  dubbed	  “ambient	  poetics”:	  “the	  attempt	  to	  forge	  art	  and	  concepts	  that	  lie	  ‘in	  between’	  traditional	  1Nelson: Poetry Editorial: AudioecopoeticsPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015ideas	  of	  inside	  and	  outside”	  (2007:78).	  	  This	  piece	  inhabits	  multiple	  places	  at	  once,	  and	  so	  do	  we.	  This	  is	  not	  atypical	  of	  the	  work	  in	  this	  issue.	  Audioecopoetics	  has	  proven	  to	  be	  a	  particularly	  well-­‐suited	  genre	  within	  which	  to	  explore	  this	  kind	  of	  ecological	  thinking:	  “the	  thinking	  of	  connectedness”	  (2010:7).	  	  Where	  Mikyska’s	  ‘through	  a	  wheat	  field;	  to	  a	  pond’	  is	  a	  radical	  merging	  or	  playfully	  enmeshed	  piece,	  Shin	  Yu	  Pai’s	  ‘Heirloom’	  separates	  things	  out	  for	  us.	  	  The	  sound	  of	  the	  orchard	  and	  the	  sound	  of	  the	  human	  voice	  are	  overlaid;	  but	  which	  is	  foreground	  and	  which	  is	  background?	  What	  are	  the	  politics	  of	  rendering	  nonhuman	  sounds	  as	  the	  background	  to	  our	  own?	  And	  how	  do	  Shin	  Yu’s	  audiopoetics	  contrast	  with	  the	  material	  (and	  arguably	  more	  ambient)	  poetics	  of	  her	  writing	  with	  apples?	  This	  question	  of	  the	  relationship	  between	  score	  and	  utterance	  recurs	  throughout	  these	  poetries.	  Alistair	  Noon’s	  work	  positions	  us	  within	  a	  plural	  and	  distributed	  textual	  environment	  where	  the	  environment	  of	  the	  body,	  the	  environments	  that	  this	  body	  inhabits/activates/creates,	  the	  digital	  environment	  of	  its	  recording	  and	  the	  physical	  textual	  environment	  of	  its	  “scription”	  (Cobbing	  &	  Upton,	  1998)	  are	  all	  part	  of	  its	  sounding.	  In	  this	  poetry	  we	  are	  posthuman,	  but	  then	  again,	  we	  always	  were.	  Hanna	  Tuulikki’s	  beautifully	  arranged,	  hand-­‐written	  scores	  return	  us	  to	  the	  concrete	  word	  shapes	  of	  Mary	  Ellen	  Solt,	  and	  to	  questions	  regarding	  the	  relationship	  between	  the	  visual	  arrangement	  of	  these	  letters	  and	  the	  sounding	  of	  the	  voices	  that	  utter	  them:	  How	  do	  these	  utterances	  relate	  to	  the	  shapes	  of	  the	  bodies	  that	  formed	  them?	  	  How	  near/far	  from	  the	  birds	  are	  these	  sounds	  now?	  	  Tuulikki	  is	  a	  Finnish-­‐English	  artist	  writing	  and	  performing	  in	  Gaelic.	  Intra-­‐lingualism	  is	  another	  feature	  of	  much	  of	  the	  work	  in	  this	  issue.	  These	  poets	  are	  thinking	  through	  how	  it	  is	  that	  apples,	  dogs,	  birds	  and	  rivers	  might	  sound,	  in	  amongst	  other	  people	  and	  places,	  so	  that	  it	  becomes	  a	  question	  not	  of	  whose	  language	  it	  is,	  but	  an	  always	  already	  between-­‐language.	  Jonathan	  Skinner	  adopts	  the	  arc	  of	  the	  thrush’s	  song	  to	  alter	  the	  arrangement	  of	  his	  speech,	  providing	  both	  thrush	  (as	  original?)	  and	  human	  song	  (as	  tribute	  or	  pastiche?):	  his	  poem,	  like	  many	  others,	  is	  in	  dialogue	  with	  the	  other-­‐than	  human.	  Elizabeth-­‐Jane	  Burnett’s	  intra-­‐lingual	  vocabling	  gradually	  replaces	  human	  words	  with	  birdsong.	  	  What	  are	  the	  politics	  of	  this	  replacement?	  This	  is	  a	  version	  of	  the	  foreground/background	  question	  asked	  of	  Shin	  Yu	  Pai’s	  ‘Heirloom’:	  who	  takes	  centre	  stage?	  This	  is	  a	  question	  that	  Julie	  Andreyev’s	  work	  also	  addresses	  in	  her	  investigative	  performance-­‐making	  with	  canine	  co-­‐artist,	  Tom.	  Who	  leads,	  who	  speaks	  and	  how?	  Ethics	  are	  always	  a	  part	  of	  it.	  	  Welsh	  poet	  Rhys	  Trimble	  examines	  how	  it	  is	  that	  water	  translates	  onto	  the	  page	  in	  his	  particular	  brand	  of	  between-­‐language.	  As	  a	  static	  gathering	  of	  black	  letters	  –	  water	  arranged	  in	  so	  many	  parts	  on	  the	  page	  –	  how	  does	  our	  reading	  release	  them?	  And	  before	  we	  are	  completely	  swept	  away	  by	  the	  excitement	  of	  vimeo	  links	  and	  audio	  downloads,	  Michael	  Sloane’s	  ‘Stone’	  reminds	  us	  that	  the	  printed	  text	  can	  make	  a	  noise	  all	  of	  its	  own:	  each	  word’s	  a	  singular	  vibration.	  Steven	  Hitchins’	  ‘The	  White	  City’	  demonstrates	  that	  we	  are	  all	  vibrating.	  We	  cannot	  help	  but	  speak	  with	  the	  places	  (and	  people)	  with/in	  which	  we	  interact.	  Hitchins’	  work	  exposes	  the	  geology	  of	  place	  embedded	  in	  every	  human	  (and	  non-­‐human)	  voice	  and	  how	  this	  geology	  extends	  and	  expands	  in	  dialogue	  with	  other	  audio-­‐locations/locutions.	  2The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 1 [2015], Art. 21https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/21Angela	  Rawlings’	  and	  Marta	  Guðrún	  Jóhannesdóttir’s	  ‘ANDSCAPE’	  builds	  on	  this	  revelation,	  suggesting	  that	  the	  sounding	  of	  a	  place	  is	  embedded	  in	  its	  name.	  Listening,	  not	  just	  to	  the	  sounds	  that	  we	  make	  with	  and	  through	  the	  sounds	  of	  the	  non-­‐human,	  the	  living	  and	  the	  non-­‐(or	  the	  not	  yet-­‐)living	  entities	  around	  us,	  but	  also	  to	  how	  these	  sounds	  are	  produced	  –	  their	  journeys	  into	  making	  –	  reveals	  a	  lot	  about	  the	  relationships	  at	  work	  within	  these	  poetries.	  Works	  such	  as	  these	  allow	  us	  to	  see	  how	  a	  study	  of	  aesthetic	  production,	  of	  the	  activity	  of	  representation,	  can	  be	  used	  to	  shed	  light	  on	  the	  complex	  intra-­‐actions	  of	  animals,	  vegetables	  and	  minerals	  as	  they	  come	  together	  to	  form	  place,	  ecology	  and	  environment.	  If	  we	  listen	  hard	  enough,	  if	  we	  read	  closely	  enough,	  we	  begin	  to	  feel	  the	  points	  at	  which	  these	  things	  combine.	  We	  begin	  to	  feel	  the	  places	  where	  one	  thing	  becomes	  something	  else.	  And	  so	  we	  begin	  to	  hear	  the	  way	  our	  world	  forms.	  	  	  But	  don’t	  take	  my	  word	  for	  it	  –	  have	  a	  listen	  for	  yourself.	  Or,	  as	  Madelaine	  Longman,	  writes:	  “Behind	  your	  breathing,	  listen.	  This	  may	  be	  important.”	  	  	  It	  is.	  	  	  Works	  Cited	  	  Cobbing,	  B.,	  and	  L.	  Upton.	  (eds)	  Word	  Score	  Utterance	  Choreography	  in	  Verbal	  and	  Visual	  Poetry.	  London:	  New	  River	  Project,	  1998.	  Print.	  Morton,	  T.	  (2007).	  Ecology	  Without	  Nature.	  Cambridge,	  Mass.:	  Harvard	  University	  Press.	  Print.	  Morton,	  T.	  (2010).	  The	  Ecological	  Thought.	  Cambridge,	  Mass.:	  Harvard	  University	  Press.	  Print.	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  	  CAMILLA	  NELSON	  is	  a	  poet,	  text-­‐artist,	  researcher	  and	  collaborator	  across	  a	  range	  of	  different	  disciplines.	  	  She	  is	  also	  Senior	  Lecturer	  on	  the	  new	  Arts	  &	  Ecology	  MA	  at	  Schumacher	  College	  (UK)	  and	  founding	  editor	  of	  Singing	  Apple	  Press.	  	  For	  more	  information	  on	  her	  work	  please	  visit	  www.singingapplepress.com	  Photo	  credit:	  Lara	  Nelson,	  2015.	  3Nelson: Poetry Editorial: AudioecopoeticsPublished by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015

Poetry Editorial: Audioecopoetics

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Poetry Editorial: Audioecopoetics

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