|
|
Pattern your breath on the sound of moth wings, magnified and frenzied, as you fight for sleep. Here, in Wide slumber for lepidopterists, language cocoons itself, dreams itself, lures you with a promise of wings toward the killing jar. This is a poetic fantasia, an erotic nightmarescape that stalks language through the stages of sleep with a lepidopterist's vocabulary. Narcolepsy, hypnic twitch, somnambulism: sleep is read here through the life cycle of a moth, from egg to chrysalis to mounting board. These poems, with their oneiric disquiet, embody the suffocating tangle of sheets, the cocoon woven frantically as teeth grind, the horror of a throat thick with wings as you struggle to wake up.
about the author: a.rawlings is a poet, editor, and multidisciplinary artist. In 2001, she received the bpNichol Award for Distinction in Writing upon graduating from York University. Since then, she has worked with many literary organizations; highlights include co-founding The Lexiconjury Reading Series and developing creative writing workshops for youth. She recently co-edited Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry (The Mercury Press). angela spent her formative years in Sault Ste. Marie and now lives in Toronto. about the artist: Matt Ceolin was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and studied visual arts in both Toronto and Windsor. Working with concepts of nature and environmental influence, he attempts to translate our interactions with and perceptions of our surroundings. Since 1998, he has also run a small private press under which he has bound over a dozen short edition titles. Matt currently resides in the forests of Algoma.
"Rawlings spins filamental connections between insect modes of being and states of sleep by excavating the scientific and sensual language around each concept, then using the page to orchestrate back-and-forth movements between her two interests.... The unexpected juxtaposition of these two realms of animal experience is interesting enough, but rawlings's ability to reproduce, using the most clinical terms, the to and fro of a frankly copulative energy pulsing through both worlds is often breathtaking. Vulva rhymed with larva, parallels of penis to proboscis -- this is one cool collection, a fresh combination of unashamedly brainy and unabashedly horny." - Sonnet L'Abbé, The Globe and Mail (click the link to read the full review, April 2006) "... there is quotidian simplicity at Wide slumber's core. That Rawlings can bend that simplicity with killing jar-like distortions is proof of not only mischievousness but a profound new talent as well." - eye magazine (click the link to read the full interview with Brian Joseph Davis, April 2006) "rawlings’ poems & performance are exciting. By exciting, I mean a thrill to see & hear.... “PUPA: PARASOMNIA” is perhaps the best sex poem (i.e., most sexy sex poem) I’ve heard, maybe ever. By extending her expression beyond everyday use of language & into the realm of sound art, rawlings’ work is a full-body experience.... Fucking fabulous." - T.L. Cowan (click the link to read her full review of the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival event) "[Wide slumber for lepidopterists] is a gorgeously produced little thing... The writing has a dreamy, underwater quality." - Alison Calder, Winnipeg Free Press "In stages they grow, the larvae the caterpillars the signs the questions. The specimens the clusters the phonemes the patterns the organs. There's much agitated excitation in this textual universe, abundant with visual and verbal accretions, sexual binds, mental folds. The gestation of writing bodies." - Caroline Bergvall "Collector and specimen, observer and observed, become one in this marvellously metamorphic text. Ms. rawlings's language - born of field and lab and other mysterious places - attains a lambent sensuality. These poems are luminous with intelligence, vivacity and beauty. Let the reader, entranced, be drawn to their light." - Steve Venright The Danforth Review (interview with Suzanne Zelazo, May 2006) "The sleepy heart of a poet" (interview with Wanda O'Connor, Ottawa Xpress, April 2006) "The language of butterflies and moths" (interview with derek beaulieu, Calgary FFWD Weekly, April 2006) rob mclennan blogs about Wide slumber for lepidopterists and OIWF Mike Woods blogs here and here about Wide slumber for lepidopterists Amanda Earl blogs about the Ottawa International Writers Festival performance Jill Hartman blogs about the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival performance John W. MacDonald blogs about the Ottawa International Writers Festival performance "I'll Have What She's Having" (Toronto launch review by Damian Rogers, eye magazine) Paal Bjelke Andersen blogs about Wide slumber for lepidopterists in Norwegian! terminus1525.ca (interview with Shawn Micallef, May 2004) forthcoming in 2006 Toronto @ Hot-Sauced Words Toronto @ The Scream Literary Festival Kingston @ Red School House Poetry Festival New York City @ belladonna* Hamilton @ The GritLit Festival Toronto @ Fourth Draft Reading Series
Ottawa @ Mother Tongue Books :: January 13 @ 7:30pm :: Shift & Switch anthology launch with Max Middle, Rob Read, Mark Truscott Montreal @ Cafe Esperanza :: January 14 @ 8pm :: Shift & Switch anthology launch with Jon Paul Fiorentino, Matthew Hollett, Max Middle, Rob Read, Mark Truscott Buffalo @ Rust Belt Books :: January 27 @ 7pm :: Shift & Switch anthology launch with Gregory Betts, Lori Emerson, Geoffrey Hlibchuk, Alex Porco, Rob Read, Trevor Speller, Angela Szecepaniak, Mark Truscott Philadelphia @ Robin's Bookstore :: January 28 @ 7pm :: Shift & Switch anthology launch with Gregory Betts, Janet Neigh, Rob Read, Mark Truscott Windsor @ Milk Bar :: February 4 @ 8pm :: Shift & Switch anthology launch with Danielle Maveal, gustave morin, Mark Truscott Fredericton @ Charlotte Street Arts Centre :: March 4 @ 7:30pm :: Shift & Switch anthology launch with Alice Burdick, Hugh Thomas Halifax @ Ginger's Tavern :: March 6 @ 7:30pm :: Shift & Switch anthology launch with Michael deBeyer, Alice Burdick, Hugh Thomas, Andy Cull & the Fancy Lebanese Country Band Mahone Bay @ The Biscuit Eater :: March 10 @ 8pm :: Shift & Switch anthology launch with Michael deBeyer, Alice Burdick Brandon @ Town Centre Art Gallery :: March 16 @ 8pm :: Ecopoetics Symposium with Annharte, Charlene Diehl, Erin Moure, Mari-Lou Rowley Toronto @ Revival :: April 12 @ 8pm :: 783 College St. :: Coach House Books launch with Chris Ewart, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Karen Hines, Darren O'Donnell, Sina Queyras Hamilton @ Mixed Media :: April 20 @ Mixed Media :: with Chris Ewart, Shannon Bramer, Darren O'Donnell Ottawa @ Ottawa International Writers' Festival :: April 21 @ 8:30pm :: Library and Archives Canada (395 Wellington St.) :: with Gary Barwin, John MacDonald Montreal @ Mile End Cultural Centre :: April 23 @ 7:30pm :: Green Room (5386 St. Laurent) :: with Chris Ewart, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Sina Queyras, Melissa Thompson Calgary @ International Spoken Word Festival :: April 26 @ 7:30pm :: Beat Niq Jazz & Social Club (811 1st St. SW) :: with Jason Christie and Jon Paul Fiorentino Calgary @ NoD and dANDelion launch :: April 27 @ 7:30pm :: Carpenter's Union Hall (301 Tenth St. NW) :: with derek beaulieu, Jason Christie, Jon Paul Fiorentino Winnipeg @ McNally Robinson's Portage Place :: April 28 @ 7:30pm :: 208 – 393 Portage Ave. :: with Jon Paul Fiorentino Wolfe Island Literary Festival, June 3, with Dave Bidini, Bill Kennedy, Darren Wershler-Henry Toronto @ Queen's Park Read-In, June 6, with Tanis Rideout and the Minister of Education
in canada & online: your local indy bookstore, coach house books, mcnally robinson, amazon in u.s.: your local indy bookstore, spd books, powell's books, amazon
A first connection: The dictionary. On an early November day during my undergrad, I procrastinated writing an essay by thumbing through my dictionary. I was delighted to discover words new to me. I copied down these words-- lepidopterist, littoral, macrocarpa, maquette, marram, parasomnia. Around this time, I was in contact with a high-school friend of mine. Matt Ceolin was working on his Masters in Visual Art at University of Windsor, and we took the notion to collaborate on a text/art project. Matt had a fascination with insects (his final OCAD project, entomechology, consisted of 200+ life-size insects handmade from metal and acetate and mounted in barn-board boxes), and I was fascinated, at the time, with sleep and dream studies. The phrase "wide slumber for lepidopterists" occurred during a free writing session, and rattled around in my head for a week. Subjects intersected. What happens during rest when a person is obsessed with a subject; does the subject matter affect how she thinks, how she dreams, how her body processes information? I'd been toying with this question for awhile, in terms of my own tendency to write poems while dreaming. If a poet writes poems during sleep, how might a lepidopterist work while she sleeps? What effect does intimate examination of insects have on long-term information processing and subconscious behaviour? A 'pataphysical question cropped up, too.… What happens when you breed the vocabularies and ideas of two disparate subjects together (in my case, lepidoptery and sleep/dream studies)? What does the spawn of incompatible bedfellows resemble? From that perverse breeding, Wide slumber for lepidopterists was written as a five-page poem. Over five years, it's morphed dramatically into a book object. If you'd like to read the initial poem, it's here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
