Maintenant #34: Ann Cotten
I see a stark line that in some way echoes the line between first and third world, having to do with a kind of trademark irony or self-reflectiveness. Works of art lacking this orientation… carry a stigma, and you are always afraid that they might come out with serious problems that spills beyond a cocktail party or a bout of self-discovery. They might decide against the validity of what is taught in art school, and they are really the only ones in the position to do so. Like Zadie Smith wrote in her article on McCarthy and O’Neill, there are experiences that can and need not be had by everyone; and this seems to cross the ideal of equal chances which suggests anyone could write about anything if she only did enough research and found her theme and tone. There is a tendency to see always a movement from an unself-reflecting voice to a self reflecting one, like a century ago one liked to compare some people with children (though they might hunt like three adults), and to see this movement as a kind of progress which the naive languages have yet to achieve to be taken seriously. I am curious about the turn that might come next…
In the 34th of the Maintenant series, SJ Fowler interviews the poet Ann Cotten.
Five Poems
Shareholders fanned the wounds with their light clothing.
They claim to understand things that come like giant cranes.
So we used them as gods, irregular gods
to play along the hems of the customers.
The latter, clouds in pants, sleeping hustlers,
wanked around in swarms, gushing like animals, spitting
fire when it tipped and threw them off. They mixed
fondness and fear, their love was horrible; ironic
observers observed large stains spreading over the land.
By Ann Cotten.
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
BFI Southbank – NFT1 – 17.20 – 20 November 2010 – film & panel discussion Patrick Keiller‘s film Robinson in Ruins, released on 19 November, is one of several outcomes of a three-year, AHRC-funded research collaboration between Keiller, Doreen Massey, Patrick Wright and Matthew Flintham. Following a screening of the film, the co-researchers will present […]
The Last Month of Moonlight
We invited professors to address the meeting. The cafeteria was packed. Our guest speakers were enthusiastic. Professor Massey, a cosmologist, explained that the moon was almost as old as the earth, and it would be a shame to lose such a marvelous piece of planetary history. Jane Katz, a writer in residence, submitted that without the moon, Shakespeare’s sonnets would have been basically impossible. Dr. Don Garcia, the chair of the entomology department, speculated that, because moths navigate by moonlight, its absence would prove quite confusing, at least for moths.
By B.N. Landry.