Author Statement:
wastelands is an intact excerpt from a larger work-in-process. It responds to the medieval myth of the ‘wasteland’, a wounded land corresponding to the wounded (usually male) king or hero. It also responds to the modern version of the myth in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land which occupies its own mythical space. the project employs strategies of D-I-Y to produce a marriage of embodied and material forms of poetry with technologies of writing and digital publication. Charlie dog, see author photo, is an integral collaborator in the larger frame of the project which also deeply considers non-human interactions with place.
Wasteland: A Spoken Word Performance by Susie Campbell:
PERFORMANCE TEXT
Charlie dog digs up fabric
PERFORMANCE NOTES:
TQ05393 48363
East: 505393 North: 148363
Performance note: Dis-eased landfill site (closed) at Weston Wood, situated on the Pilgrim’s Way. Gag myself with bandage-like retaining strips dug up by my dog. Read aloud (with difficulty) Hilaire Belloc’s account of following the Pilgrim’s Way through the wood (The Old Road, 1905). Due to irritation and reddening of tender skin around my mouth from contact with contaminated material, replace with clean bandages. Print transcript of gagged text onto bandage strip and use to bind invisible wound.
Susie Campbell is currently completing a research project on place and spatialities in poetry for a practice-based PhD at Oxford Brookes University. Her poetry has appeared in many UK and international poetry journals, including Poetry Review, Shearsman, Long Poem Magazine, Stride, 3:AM, Axon, and Cordite. As well as writing text poetry, she also makes visual, sound and textile poetry. Recent publications include I return to you (Sampson Low, 2019), Tenter (Guillemot Press, 2020), Enclosures (Osmosis Press, 2021) and The Sleeping Place (Guillemot Press, 2023). Her work is included in anthologies such as The Book of Penteract (Penteract Press, 2022) and Seeing in Tongues (Steel Incisors, 2023) and has been specially featured on Queen Mob’s Tea House (2022) and Olney Magazine (2023). Echolocations (2023), a sound poetry piece made and performed in collaboration with poet Chris Kerr, was the inaugural publication of Angry Starlings, the sound poetry imprint of Hem Press.
She writes about her practice on https://susiecampbellwrites.wordpress.com and you can find her on social media:
https://twitter.com/susiecampbell, https://www.instagram.com/susiecampbellwrites/
Robert Frede Kenter – page layout and design.
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