Literature and Art

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Comment by Nancy Bell Scott on November 13, 2011 at 5:55am

correction: epistolary poems. My proofreader has gone home for the night.

Comment by Nancy Bell Scott on November 13, 2011 at 5:54am

Got the p.s. after my last comment. I think I know personally what you mean by fragmented, and also slow. Movements aren't always slow, but so much reflection time, staring and wondering time, trying a million scraps for one small spot, etc.--it all adds up and takes up, and therefore leaves the impression of slow accomplishment. A few IUOMA friends recently have reminded me of the unimportance of pace, which I've appreciated very much. They're right, you know.

Comment by Nancy Bell Scott on November 13, 2011 at 5:47am

Theresa, really, your imaginative approaches to writing are stellar. I love very much the epistolary letters you've written me ("letter-poems" has to be more accurate or descriptive), not to mention the artworks that accompany them. You have no problem with growth--just more to look forward to, so far as I can tell!

Comment by Nancy Bell Scott on November 13, 2011 at 5:20am

I'm sure you're right. Many parts of blogs and comments get written in my sketchbook, but when I try to find the blogs for more, sometimes it's impossible. Nice logos! I'm especially partial to the second one. There are two great works from you here that are at the top of the blog list. Almost finished the other night ... not quite.

Comment by Nancy Bell Scott on November 13, 2011 at 2:48am

I'm trying to get a grip on this, Theresa, and I think it's starting to happen. Anything dedicated to the personal letter is exciting, and the mosaic description leaves a lot of room for both substance and whimsy. Yes ...

Comment by Nancy Bell Scott on September 8, 2011 at 5:25am

This will take more than one reading; it's rich and compelling, Guido.

The term "poetic letter" is a very nice one, very appealing, and I think it fits what Guido has written. Here some expertise is needed, Theresa, and you might have known I'd ask this: Is there a difference between what Guido has written and an epistolary poem?

Comment by Guido Vermeulen on September 7, 2011 at 4:21pm

Poetic letter to Theresa Williams to thank her for the book "the secret of hurricanes"

 

Dear Theresa,

 

See

how the animals of the night

disintegrate & perish by the light

of invading colors

See

how the sun is a vicious murderer

& darkness agonizes

in the silent transition

from dusk till dawn

See

how the slime of slugs trace

back the time of fading night

See

how air evaporates in bursting lungs

how earth bleeds from the furious ferocious merry-go-round

of raging progress in an empty nutshell

See

how Hélènes wolves howl

to the sky were Allen disappeared

how animals die with the simplicity

of absolute trust in an exploding eye ball

See

how Fall proceeds Winter

& snow concludes a done deal

See

how skin is found on skin

& nobody lifts a finger to the executioner

of the weeping clouds

See

how rivers dry to make patterns

& write asemics for the mind

how easy it becomes to loose that

treasure in the heat of nearby morning

See

how words hanging from the ceiling

have lost their meaning & reason to be

in thimbles made of papier maché

See

how the peace of sleep ends

by the envy of poisonous greens

See

how stray cats came to conquer

a fat heart that beats too fast

See

how bric-a-brac & trick a track are neighbors

in the sounds escaping from the prison door

how cold vowels of the moon vanish like a lady

between the bittersweet teeth of imperial sun

See

how breadcrumbs are no longer a salvation

for migrating night birds from the forest Hunger

See

how the secrets of hurricanes

have no mercy for a nazi god

See

how fire burns the skin of night

& blinds my deeply troubled

retina as an unwilling

sacrifice for the eye of Snake

But also see at last

how the water of knowledge resists

& is still alive in the hidden beauty

of our inner eye …

 

Guido Vermeulen

6-7 September 2011

 

Intertextual references:

The secret of hurricanes, novel by Theresa Williams.

Nazi god, expression I loved in that novel (my own "the executioner of clouds" is another shape of the nazi god).

Hélène's wolves, pianist Hélène Grimaud uses her concert money to raise wolves again in the wild.

Howl and Allen, see Ginsberg.

This text is also linked with a new large painting I made. I'll publish images later.

Comment by Guido Vermeulen on August 28, 2011 at 8:08pm

FOR CHERYL PENN's Book project on Plagiarism

 

PLAGIARISM IN LITERATURE

We live in an age of "intertextuality", which makes it quite difficult to accuse writers of plagiarism when they use fragments in their books of other writers. The real problem starts when there is no mentioning at all of the sources they are using.

It's almost a plague in contemporary African writing! A few examples:

Sony Labou Tansi's novels retells the stories written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One hundred years of solitude/ The autumn of the patriarch) in his own magical reallist books

Yembo Oudologueur used passages from Graham Greene and Simone Schwartzbart in his 1968 novel "Bound to violence"

Calixte Beyala copycats passages from Ben Okri's famous novel "The famished road" in her own book "Lost honors" (what's in a name?). She got a prestigious literary prize while at the same time she was condemned in a Paris court. Isn't it sick that one African writer copies from the other without giving him the credit of his work. Beyala's reputation was already quite damaged because she had done this before in other books like her own version of Saint Exupéry's The Little Prince.

She defended herself in 2 ways:

In Europe the writers of some centuries ago often used large passages of writers before them without giving them the credit (has been done in music also by the way) and then the ultimate defense was the ethnic angle. We Africans have an oral tradition and retell the stories of others all the time. There is no copyright in Africa.

Beyala forgets she's not in Cameroun anymore but has made a career in literary and cultivated France.

 

A close friend of mine, writer and artist Laurent d'Ursel, has always "crazy" projects. Some years ago he had written a book based only on quotes of other writers who were mentioning "grelot". He asked for my help to find more passages on grelots. It was A French word I did not understand. A grelot is a small bell but enclosed in a sphere. My help was limited to making the cover for his book (a collage where I used for the first time 19th century graphics). Laurent tried to find a publisher for his book but nobody was interested. He became very frustrated. What's the matter with these editors today? We live in an age of intertextuality! Don't they know the work of Solers?. I said to him that I found the work of Solers extremely boring and his book suffered from the same handicap: there is no story or structure, there is nothing in fact. It's a huge text collage of passages of writers mentioning this type of bell. I like the idea, it is modern or postmodern or whatever term or label you would like to wear as a medal but it can't hide the fact that such books are unreadable for a larger audience than that of the writer and some close friends and admirers.

Laurent and I are still friends. His wife is a professional translator of books, movie scripts and theatre plays, which makes the situation even funnier.

 

Guido Vermeulen, August 2011

Comment by Guido Vermeulen on August 28, 2011 at 4:01pm

Painted envelope as tribute to Henri Michaux, see earlier discussions on this group, mailed to Karen Champlin in the USA.

Comment by Guido Vermeulen on August 28, 2011 at 3:59pm

The tribute to Emily Dickinson papercut, linked with the poem I posted earlier, mailed to Cathérine Petré in Belgium

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