A Sun
and five decompositions
Text by Carla Harryman
Sculptures by Jeni Battaglia Guidry
1. (we are floating under it) so the body is experienced as imaginary because we share a double experience.
phase but the conversation is pleasurable because
ends
I don’t know it
to continue Northward
north-
we are less concerned about the boundary between a body and a word
a study in slow time
to continue I don’t know
than we might normally be
it’s North
A
phase ends? words
Yet, what is recorded here are traces of conversation
to revise hunger heating up
symbol’s sentence?
left between us after such an event
a line drawn through a container
a light ray inside
to amend the humongous divot, funny that
a box as large as one outer-space groove grew in the gash
left by the sacred golf ball machine
later abandoned in the slower time
to append The words place us back into the event but
differently
to last
2. (from a kitchen window)
rooftops ablaze to the horizon, cooled by shadows that
arrive very late in the day and go quickly dark
That was Paris.
That was Algiers. because
we share a double experience.
That was Dakar.
a
small person passing Montreal scrunched in the kitchen sink a
mirage
Shelter and container fuse in view of sun-blasted roofing.
she
sneaks on board the state-owned flotilla
what’s
in there for her?
that’s
for her to know and you not
to destroy Cuba
The demand for the high cube container—hicube—is increasing.
The popular high cube container has a normal height of 9.5 feet.
the
doubled experience is suspended
the sink is her bed, her pillow, her favorite armchair
an object
between one land mass and another
“copyright Export 9/11”
3. (land writing, land living)
A place
A door at night
left a lot to write out
with a paw gathered and cultivated from a small hand
out to
To whom, re-circuited who is hard
phase fed
To, in, from
ZZZZZZZ not even, P, A, D matched the destination
and you
sink
a bird, now
in an imaginary medium that requires
A place
to write
to who? is hard a negotiation with a distressed condition which we share
From whom, revised
phrased feeding a soft said
noises in vent listen up
blister in structure wait for me
a song for airports and the tip of a long line
of unruly potato heads
those I believe we have
identified as
our people
pavement livers
maybe we could write
over the line
who would that harm,
you or me?
don’t be silly
or them? Writing over
us, them?
a bed
a
ride in clatter
of
tea party biscuits
the color of dead
4. (just listening, concatenation)
Birds or bird without a goal
And business, mine little
counted shouts, never Zzzz ferry across (make
meaning of thizz)
transliterate bones
a bird dirty word
(To) continue phase ends. Without a third
To follow low-lying voice=weather
To follow low-ling voice=weather
ferry
a third feather frozen as word appended to what one hears outside
(the beauty of outside is you and I need not be inside always)
and you, who are fringe counted little
not yet sinking steel (now)
fallen threat or one count in a thread still wound on a spool
only birds or bird without a goal made the trip
you, little shouts and business sagas
thirds without a goal a threat wearing ordinary
clothing but not shoes
grip
on
tabled plans, been fed up. Left a lot the
world of feet debris
Busses hills heat through fold. Excrete container ends sentence threat. The symbols
reading it all at one time without regard
for order hold
onto
this, one count. Only one counted
without a goal, an
organism confused
with represented
space
The United States of Paris, the
Africa of parts,
coasts of metallions (made up
ports) divided in the blasting brain
Frozen heat of roofs expanding to horizon and ends sentence
the city, a shipyard
plus glamour
hill’s heat folds escape
siren silence this periphery container and
a meal
waits
on a truck
Steel phase industry to even out, not a threat
Whose silence, this escape, left when there is no person
Is hard business without a goal where
the damage is less likely to be smelled
grime
uprooted here
repotted there repeated
Is hard business without a goal in a common veneer
East, talk amongst mixed signals
As if the chorus had made sense of all of this veneering,
threat table the
grids divvy up some land scale of a
hundred families and multiply that by many
symbols fallen phases shipping
containers, or sleeping crates
con artist documents an odd
lady in a sink
she gives
her self away
I thought so
much about this that
I
didn’t know where to begin,
could convey these events in digest form
the scale of one stacked next to
another 9.5 you can’t absorb, experience
without a
long walk around them, and the walkway reserved
for
employees only, so this description is just a made up frieze
in slow
time, a dance
disreputable,
almost
other
phases
a
sun, low enough to give up light
to
thee, the minnow, marrow, and the tree
5. (decide, design)
shipped
abroad, again
never ends sentence
flown
away and back
wing
watched and bent
been fed to
Zzzzzz n-not even ocean, sea
one counts only
one is counted you, little shouts
birds or bird without a goal
you, little shouts
and global rags
low-lying
Voice =
weather
follow
who is hard
night at the door dodge,
face
left a lot
out to put down record
world of feet
Busses hill s heat curve
through fold escape siren song
this a
sun
geography
Performance Index
August 2011
Carla Harryman
Carla Harryman’s work includes fourteen books of poetry, plays, and prose. Recent performance works such as A Sun and Five Decompositions and Mirror Play emphasize polyvocal text, bilingualism, choral speaking voices, and music improvisation and have been performed in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Recent publications include a collection of conceptual and poetic essays Adorno’s Noise (Essay Press, 2008), the book length poem Open Box (Belladonna 2007), the novel Gardener of Stars (Atelos, 2001), Baby (Adventures in Poetry, 2005), and the special edition Tourjour l’epine est sous la rose (Ikko, 2006) translated by Martin Richet. Harryman is co-editor of Lust for Life: On the Writings of Kathy Acker (Verso, 2006) and a participant in the multi-authored experiment in autobiography, The Grand Piano, a serial work that locates its project in the San Francisco Bay Area writing scene between 1975-1980. The Wide Road, a multi-genre picaresque co-authored with Lyn Hejinian, is forthcoming from Belladonna in 2010. She serves on the faculty of the Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan University. A special feature on her writing and performance can be found in the current edition of HOW/2
Jeni Battaglia Guidry
Jeni Battaglia Guidry graduated in 2002 with a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts in sculpture from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She has had numerous showings of her works in galleries in Lafayette and surrounding areas, including solo shows held at Café des Amis and Flowers Into Paintings Art Gallery. Her sculptures have been displayed in the exhibitions Sustained Winds and Sense of Place at the Acadiana Center for the Arts, and selected to show at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. One sculpture remains in the private collection of The Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum.