'your typos leak wisdom' / sound poetry #3 : cris cheek, orchid tierney

tonight Dunedin-based appropriative poet Orchid Tierney joins us in the studio, to give us an insight into her practice and research, which has included twitterbot textual appropriative works, translating the Treaty of Waitangi into morse code, and Bracchiation, her chapbook with Gumtree Press. Orchid will treat us to a reading of recent sound / text works, and associated speculations on poetic practice.

while on a recent holiday in New Zealand, renowned British live artist and sound poetry practitioner cris cheek talked to Avant Gardening about everything from the Baltimore scene of the 70s and 80s, DIY aesthetics, artist book making, concrete poetry using live crabs, the vibrant sound poetics scene and associated interdisciplinary cross-pollinations, the tape recorder vs. live voice and physical presence, how he came to be involved with Bob Cobbing’s famous Writers Forum Workshop, thoughts on the ‘Poesie Sonore’ of Henri Chopin, performance art, his disinclination toward British male pub poetry, and the New York Occupy movement’s use of media. we also replay a poetry reading cris gave at the Circadian Rhythm café in Dunedin, introduced by Otago University English department academic Jacob Edmond.

we end the show with a polyvocal perfomance by Avant Gardening co-hosts Sally Ann McIntyre and Campbell Walker, of a concrete poetry text / artist book by Campbell Walker, The Crime LINKS in the Smoke. The book is a reworking of burnt pages of destroyed detective fiction collected from the floor of Princes St. second-hand bookstore Raven Books, where both McIntyre and Walker once worked, on the 1st anniversary of the fire that destroyed both the bookstore and its c.1870s building. The Crime LINKS in the Smoke is a work made for The Rose Collection, Scott Flanagan’s artist book project forming part of his exhibition Do You Remember Me Like I Do? exhibited at the Christchurch Art Gallery’s offsite space, in the NG building, Christchurch, until 23 September 2012.

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Playlist :

1. reading by Orchid Tierney, of 4 poems : Se -Or Sy : In, Going with the Flashy, Emily Dickinson 1., and Full., live in the Radio One studio.
2. reading by cris cheek at Circadian Rhythm cafe, Dunedin, 18 July 2012.
3. interview with cris cheek, 20 July 2012, conducted at 1/367 High St., Dunedin.
4. Campbell Walker and Sally Ann McIntyre, The Crime LINKS in the Smoke, recorded august 2012.