[New-Poetry] CALL FOR PAPERS – CALL FOR POEMS for the POETRY OF RESPONSE PROJECT

[KitKelen at umac.mo]

CALL FOR PAPERS – CALL FOR POEMS
for the POETRY OF RESPONSE PROJECT

The ‘poetry of response’ project is a long-term international
collaboration, focused on a range of poetic activities, related to (and
dependent on) but not-quite translation – these include imitation,
variation, adaptation, dialogue, etc. An example of work-on-the-way towards
the publications now envisaged can found in Jacket magazine at –
http://jacketmagazine.com/32/index.shtml

What is ‘the poetry of response?’
It is foremost a poetry of practice, a poetry in process. In contrast with
earlier epochs’ bolt-from-the-blue myths of inspiration and the idea of
poetry’s ineffable sources, it is something of a postmodern truism that the
text has antecedents – generically, thematically, however. So in ‘response
mode’ we find poetry avowing an origin (though not an ultimate source), and
probably likewise denying a destination. Favoured rather is the
open-endedness of dialogue and hence a resistance to the product
orientation (and focus on ownership) associated with publication and
canonisation. The emphasis instead is on meaning as animated. In this case
the meaning is made with words which favour reader and writer with the
instability of crossing. While not all of the poetic ‘responding’ takes
place between languages, conversation involving translation of some kind
will be exemplary for the purpose of describing a ‘poetry of response’. The
hope is to collect examples of such poetry and essays about (what could be
theorised as) a continuum of response – from close translation to vague
influence, via adaptation, variation, response.

Two volumes are proposed (possibly for different publishers):
1 – a (multilingual) collection of (mainly examples of) poetry of response.
(This could include some theorising to get from a to b, but essentially the
anthology will consist of [previously unpublished] literary works that can
be considered as responses of some kind [together with excerpts of ‘fair
dealing’ length from the works responded to]. Alternatively, pairs or
groups of poets may submit an unpublished conversation [in and/or around
poetry].)
and
2 – a collection (in English) of essays about the poetry of response. (This
will no doubt include plenty of examples but they will be in the text of
the essays/chapters.)

Abstracts for proposed essays/chapters (for the second volume) should be
received by the end of September, 2008, completed essays by the end of
December, 2008. The deadline for poetry for the first volume is open-ended
and the process of collecting will continue until the book takes shape.

Please send all enquiries, abstracts, etc. by e-mail to Christopher Kelen
KitKelen at umac.mo, KitKelen at yahoo.com.au