aslongasittakes issue 1

"For some in the contemporary literary scene, experimental/innovative work is equated with a focus upon the meaninglessness of language and the erasure of all traces of subjectivity from the event of writing. Whilst agreeing that "language" is not a transparent mirror onto a preexisting (totally objective) reality, and that subjects are very rarely as self-possessed as they like to think (though that seems not to stop them developing enormous egos), I believe that both meaning and subjectivity are still relevant concepts in this here second millennium, and that literature can explore the phenomena we refer to by them.

"Meaning matters because all sense was not abandoned when the clocks ticked over. This sense may be far more complex than the reductivist models of language presented in the 20th century had us believe. It may also be more fragile, equivocal, ambiguous, and more relevantly studied by its affects than by its supposed referents. However, in some sense(!) it abounds, it lives, it is ecstatically alive, and I wish to experience as much of its wonder as I can, not lie down and give up and think everything has been reduced to the level of an ad for running shoes.

"Subjectivity matters, not because we can define our essences, but because political superstructures (within which I include the institutions of the family, the state, the banks, the world trade agreements, sexual norms, white supremacy, and the world map, with all its conveniently drawn lines--convenient to whom?), hail us from beyond all ideas we have about ourselves, and position us within hierarchies that are not of our making, but within we must then live, even as we try to fight off their constraints.

"Maybe there are others who do feel that they have achieved some Nirvana beyond their Self, but I haven't yet seen any evidence of this in the avant garde poetry world, and it is not my aim to strive for this ideal. Nor do I think it is an ideal that should be help up as the only definition of innovative, i.e., contemporary, work today. As long as the political hierarchies exist, so will subjects, except for those very rare individuals whose practices take them outside all structures. The purpose of my writing is to explore the forms of subjectivity as they exist today in the realms of contemporary politics. At least, because I can't do it all, as they are impacted by the institution of the contemporary family."

"In 1999, a relic of the ancient Olmec culture of Mexico was uncovered in a pile of debris near Vera Cruz. It was a block about the size of a rectangular roasting dish, and contained 63 glyphs inscribed onto its surface. After careful deliberation, leading archaeologists came to the conclusion that the glyphs inscribed on the block embodied the oldest example of a writing system ever found anywhere on the Americas. The following sample is one of several 'translations' I have done of the glyphs on the block, called 'glyphmachines'. Since no rubric exists for semantic counterparts to the glyphs, these translations are intended rather to play with the ideas inherent in the process of translation rather than to literally translate the block. This particular project is a collaboration using a direct ideographic translation by mIEKAL aND that identifies each glyph with the physical object it most resembles in the lexicon of the English language. I then translated his translation using a process of word scrambling where the syllables in mIEKAL aND’s English translation were split into two strands, each containing every other syllable in the translation after it had been put back into the order of glyphs on the block. The syllables in the second strand were flipped at every second syllable. After that, the two strands were spliced back together, with the resulting machine as it’s product."

In addition to collecting and making available sound poetry, we also want each issue to spotlight interesting sound poetry-related work already out there on the Web (and which may be outside this magazine's sweet spot). In this issue we are featuring Jim Andrews' interactive audio Nio project, which can be found here.

"The centrepiece of the Nio project is a net-based work of interactive audio in two 'verses' (you click the 'star' button to move between verses 1 and 2). It's a synthesis of sound poetry, visual poetry, music, animation, and interactive programming. It was created in Director, which is sort of Flash's older brother. It was commissioned in 2000 by Turbulence.org, which is a net art site from New York.

"Part of my background is in radio. I produced a literary radio show for six years in the 80's called FINE LINES and, later, ?FRAME?. This is where I cut my teeth and a considerable amount of reel-to-reel tape and learned how to try to be creative with recording technology and radio in some sort of literary way. You get a sense of the medium of recorded sound as involvinglayers and sequences of sounds. Or channels and cuts. The inscribable surface has that sort of form. That is what you write to and work with in a material sense. Nio is a little sequencer in that you can layer and sequence synchronized sounds interactively. In verse 1, you can layer sounds and animations. In verse 2, you can layer and sequence sounds and animations.

"The Nio project has other components that look at and use language in other ways. There are two essays. One on poetics of interactive audio for the Web, and one on audio programming in Director. There is also a 'Song Shapes' section, which is visual and interactive without audio. You imagine the audio. It uses the animations in the centrepiece in different interactive ways. As visual poetry. And there are stills, as well, visual poetry stills/onion-skins from Nio. The source code of Nio is also available in the project. Another form of language. You need Director to view it.

Part of the idea of the project was to explore some of the types of language that can be involved in poetry on the net. Not just talk about them, but speak in them. That's one of the things I like about sound poetry. It doesn't just talk about stuff. It's the thing itself."