(click on map for a larger version)
I’ve recently been looking into psychogeography and found this. It’s a collaborative situation based poetry event based in Sheffield in 2007 by Paul Conneally and Anne-Marie Culhane called Circle of Fire. They have taken the renga form typically created in a fixed space to a series of places along a path from Weston Park Museum to Crookes Quarry Allotments to create a more experienced, inhabited poetry.
Since this Renga Ramble is inspired and recreating part of Sheffield I thought it must bring some of the unique elements of our great city to life and might help in getting a better picture of the Sheffield urbanscape and as such should be used within ShELP.
So, how does this depiction of Sheffield make you think about the city? Is it a good way of describing the town, or is it too subjective? Is the map above important for the Sheffield and Environs Landscape Project or could just the words be used? Is it all too general and could be applied to anywhere?
Original site – http://www.socialtext.net/data/workspaces/rengaramble/pages/renga_ramble
Photos based the event – http://www.flickr.com/photos/haikumania/sets/72157602489972853
[...] ShELP, a landscape in Haiku [...]
As i will never see comments on comments here is what I think:
The idea of map our thoughts about place and space is not only inspiring but it also brings the possibility to understand inhabitation. In other words, an usually devoid-of-feelings map turns into a more “subjective” representation of the landscape (if we can call it so).
My concern with this particular vision is that I just came to an understanding when I saw the photos; whereas reading a paragraph from Wordsworth would make me evoke a particular landscape.
Every phrase in this “poem” is related to a certain space, but also tied within a specific period of time. It doesn’t mean that they wanted to overlap their inhabited landscapes onto an abstract representation of the city (the map), on the contrary, it seems that they are trying to live the city differently, to experience another way of connecting to the places.
However, most of the phrases don’t tell me anything (apart from the fact that they’re not in a haiku form). Arguably, the idea could be practised in a different way so a poem would actually depict a “piece” of the city, but as it is presented here it’s far too general, unexplicit, incomprehensible…
Another post-modern experiment that seems more like a mental diarrhea.
cherry coke
in a greenhouse
an amazing view
And they even call themselves poets.
hi luis – the form of the piece you are correct is not haiku but renga and renga stanzas though hakai are not haiku (i was wondering what your definition of haiku might be) interestingly- far from being post-modern the piece the process is rooted in the ancient – a renga schema was devised and used and the work is built around the engine of link and shift process mediated through the master poet using degachi – that is every participant offers a stanza that links to the previous whilst shifting away from the verse before that – the added element here is that generally renga is written in one space but here the players – yes it’s a game at heart – move through the space on a predetermined route to the next stopping place where the next stanza is written – the verses become not only linked to the verse before but also to the space written in whilst shifting away from the previous now not only in content but location too – the process does not set out to ‘depict a piece of the city’ directly in any traditional sense though i feel it does in many other ways – as to the stanza you quote it is from a 12 year old and was his reaction to sitting in that greenhouse overlooking the Rivelin Valley whilst drinking – yes – Cherry Coke – it’s almost perfection.
Hi Barkkill, thanks for your nice answer and sorry for this late reply. I understand your point perfectly, and as I say in my first comment I find the idea very inspiring. However, for the purpose of describing the town I don’t think it is understandable; for being too general, I said first, but I’m thinking that is probably for being far too specific.
As for the Haiku, I’m nothing but a layman in the subject, but as far as I know it is a poetic form derived from the haikai with a fixed metric (5, 7, 5 syllables). The comment was just for the title of the post because I saw no reference to the term in you website. In fact, as you point out, it is in a renga schema, rooted in the ancient.
In this sense, it’s a different thing, and that’s why I refer to it as postmodern: I see it as a different way to depict “reality”, an attempt to inhabit the landscape in a different way. And that’s its value to me.
Nicanor Parra said in his Anti-poetry book: poetry will dye if it’s not raped. (v. free translation)