This is more a thank you note than a comment or a coda. I seize this opportunity to thank the writing community out there (readers, writers, editors, interviewers and so on) which is full of incredible people who, like you, are working hard to build beautiful monuments on a turbulent ground.
Showing posts with label Alexandre Ferrere. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alexandre Ferrere. Show all posts
Monday, 6 May 2019
Monday, 29 April 2019
Alexandre Ferrere : part five
How does a poem begin?
I would be tempted to say that, in my practice, it begins by the end, as it is once a situation or an idea has ended that I try to recreate the invisible path towards a particular sensation. But it sometimes begins like a bull in a china shop—in a logic of chaos, not being able to grasp the idea. In that situation, I tend to focus on forms and colors so as to create a visual narrative, before reinforcing or destroying contents, aiming for an immediate effect on the reader.
I would be tempted to say that, in my practice, it begins by the end, as it is once a situation or an idea has ended that I try to recreate the invisible path towards a particular sensation. But it sometimes begins like a bull in a china shop—in a logic of chaos, not being able to grasp the idea. In that situation, I tend to focus on forms and colors so as to create a visual narrative, before reinforcing or destroying contents, aiming for an immediate effect on the reader.
Monday, 22 April 2019
Alexandre Ferrere : part four
When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book you return to? A particular author?
There is a poem, perhaps the one which haunts me the most, by Robert Creeley entitled “I Know a Man”. I often come back to this poem, and especially to his own rendition of it, recorded for the Library of Congress. There is an aura of mystery as well as an urgency in this wonderful recording that always transports me to an unknown place, in which I am nothing but thoughts. I also have on my nightstand an incredible (and famous) book by Hugh Kenner, “The Pound Era” which I am often returning to, and it never fails to inspire me. I also like to dive into anthologies, like Alan Kaufman’s The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry in which I have discovered d.a. levy, or, into the well-known Donald Allen’s The New American Poetry 1945-1960. Among novelists and short-stories writers, I often reread books or passages by Jack Kerouac or John Fante.
There is a poem, perhaps the one which haunts me the most, by Robert Creeley entitled “I Know a Man”. I often come back to this poem, and especially to his own rendition of it, recorded for the Library of Congress. There is an aura of mystery as well as an urgency in this wonderful recording that always transports me to an unknown place, in which I am nothing but thoughts. I also have on my nightstand an incredible (and famous) book by Hugh Kenner, “The Pound Era” which I am often returning to, and it never fails to inspire me. I also like to dive into anthologies, like Alan Kaufman’s The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry in which I have discovered d.a. levy, or, into the well-known Donald Allen’s The New American Poetry 1945-1960. Among novelists and short-stories writers, I often reread books or passages by Jack Kerouac or John Fante.
Monday, 15 April 2019
Alexandre Ferrere : part three
What other poetry books have you been reading lately?
I have recently read a lot of poetry books by Ed Dorn, Ted Berrigan, Gilbert Sorrentino and others as part of my thesis, which overlaps my own pleasure. But I have also been reading and listening Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters again, which always sounds as fresh as dew, and as affecting as a punch in the face. I have also been reading poetry books by Michel Houellebecq (who is a great poet before being a novelist) and by Alphonse de Lamartine.
I have recently read a lot of poetry books by Ed Dorn, Ted Berrigan, Gilbert Sorrentino and others as part of my thesis, which overlaps my own pleasure. But I have also been reading and listening Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters again, which always sounds as fresh as dew, and as affecting as a punch in the face. I have also been reading poetry books by Michel Houellebecq (who is a great poet before being a novelist) and by Alphonse de Lamartine.
Monday, 8 April 2019
Alexandre Ferrere : part two
What poets changed the way you thought about writing?
There are so many! But other than Robert Creeley, to whom I will be returning to in another question, Allen Ginsberg is definitely a major influence in my attitude towards poetry. He taught me about poetic energy, offered me the opportunity to study poets as different as Blake, Whitman, Williams, Mayakosky and so on. In his poems, every subject and every person are likely to be poetry and I sincerely think that this is the heart of poetry. He also developed a very interesting personal conception of poetic lineage: only time and space could work as dividing walls—but poetry acts on another level, which is transcendence and which units de facto.
I have also been interested a lot by Jacques Prévert’s poetry, and not only because he is taught early in schools, here in France. I had the chance to work in his last home near where I live (now a museum) and was engulfed with emotions in that place. I have always been drawn to his poetry, which is thoughtful and popular at the same time, but it has now a personal and singular echo in my life.
There are so many! But other than Robert Creeley, to whom I will be returning to in another question, Allen Ginsberg is definitely a major influence in my attitude towards poetry. He taught me about poetic energy, offered me the opportunity to study poets as different as Blake, Whitman, Williams, Mayakosky and so on. In his poems, every subject and every person are likely to be poetry and I sincerely think that this is the heart of poetry. He also developed a very interesting personal conception of poetic lineage: only time and space could work as dividing walls—but poetry acts on another level, which is transcendence and which units de facto.
I have also been interested a lot by Jacques Prévert’s poetry, and not only because he is taught early in schools, here in France. I had the chance to work in his last home near where I live (now a museum) and was engulfed with emotions in that place. I have always been drawn to his poetry, which is thoughtful and popular at the same time, but it has now a personal and singular echo in my life.
Monday, 1 April 2019
Alexandre Ferrere : part one
His essays and poems appeared or are forthcoming in Beatdom, Empty Mirror, Rust+Moth, 8poems Journal, Riggwelter Press, Barren Magazine, armarolla, Lucent Dreaming and more.
What are you working on?
I am working on poems focusing on the interactions between forms and contents, like in what could be called simultaneous poems or like in poems with challenging physical structures. In my writing, this has to do with the notion of time and the confusion it often induces—to uncoil meaning through the form/content interaction is one of my aims. In other words, I am trying to zoom on and to extend intersections so that it is easier to approach them, under different but complementary lightings. The visual work in my poems is equally based on the sensation I want to convey as on the indetermination of language we all depend on. As a consequence, the poems I am working on tend towards building up a potential of different and subjective evocations, yet anchored in a language that is naturally objective—poetry therefore deconstructs an organic system in order to reach specificity. I often find myself thinking about what Robert Creeley wrote: “content is never more than an extension of form and form is never more than an extension of content”. I am just experimenting around this idea, and hope that I will be able to gather my poems into a book in the future.
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