Hymn

Earlier in the year I was invited to participate in an intervention art trail at the William Cowper Museum curated by Wayne Warren.(picture above) Barney had just died and recognising Cowper's love of his pet ducks, I wrote: 

Hymn

Iff one word is enough for a fatal dream,

The jaws of a dying boy have a slow hinge of tears                   like loss

Pressing air from those lungs   auxetic pain

perpendicular to the force applied,

More words offer                    astheny

Extreme separation without end its inverse

                                                            ratio of not at this address

                        For the dialogue of men fades to

Irrelevant by name                  forgotten                      but for name

I know the name but don’t know the work

Unlike song                 its shiny hopeful eyes implying needs

And small creature openings.

It was initially displayed in a display case with a Cowper poem and later moved to be displayed on a typewriter. Also included in the show Jayne Dyer and Jonathan Wright . 

Last Things

Except for the poem "Israel" (published on this blog) I haven't written any poetry since 2010 - poetic silence from a combination of Bury workload, more exciting creative possibilities, and the sense that I had reached a point where to write was to repeat myself. When Jayne Dyer and Wayne Warren started work on their exhibition in the Bury Sculpture Centre, they asked initially for an essay for the catalogue, but then changed their 'demands' to a poem. I said OK but didn't actually think it was likely to materialise. 
It was only when I walked into the gallery and saw the installation forming that I realised that I had to respond poetically, as the extraordinary balanced moment of beauty is beyond description or explanation being relevant. So I wrote: 

Last Things

forward

past last things,

minus one, it is all happening too fast as iff propagation delay echoes shicho

Like now: and I cannot keep up capacitance

I am bicontinuous counting interarrival time

I am picked off trying to count backward minus one

a false antecedent and a false consequent, a nowhere and an everywhere

the lamps are going out

The catalogue (designed with John Rooney) - also beautifully produced - is available now from the Bury Art Museum shop.

The Australians Are Coming (to Bury)

Over the next week/month Bury celebrates Australian contemporary art. On Saturday afternoon (yes, I know it's an odd time), two shows - one an installation  Illuminating configurations : re forming the line; edges, splats and cuts by Irene Barberis and (curated by Irene) a survey of contemporary Australian drawing featuring 100 works. I'm very excited to see Irene again, we first met in Tokyo back in 2006 and it's always a pleasure to see her and her work. (some of you might have seen her installation in Bury alongside Mike Parr in 2011). 
Both shows run to 13 August. The Contemporary Australian Drawing has organically evolved from six previous exhibitions around the world, from Chicago and Rome to Dubai. The participating artists were asked for a visual response to two texts on writing/drawing, taken from essays by Serge Tisseron and Michel Butor, “All Writing is Drawing’, and ‘the Space of Writing, what is that?’.  

All artists were supplied with a standard size and weight paper. The thoughtful and enthusiastic response of all artists concerned has resulted in this extensive exploration and examination of the themes, ‘All writing is Drawing’ and ‘the Space of Writing'. 

The Australian intervention in the Sculpture Centre is Jayne Dyer working in collaboration with Wayne Warren. Funnily enough I met Jayne in Beijing through an introduction from Irene Barberis, and we immediately got on very well. She has shown in Bury before - you might remember her piece in the Text Festival.

Last Thing previews on 17 June, inspired by Paul Auster's 'In the Country of Last Things'; the book presents a world where architecture and space constantly vanish, preventing individuals from building their own identity relative to the space they inhabit. An arena where matter is scarce and what is available is regurgitated until it becomes unrecognizable or depleted. 'Last things' documents fictional spaces about to disappear. 

Three great shows not to be missed.