Introduction to 'Books Up Close' with Chris Lloyd
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Books Up Close, to the podcast. I'm Chris Lloyd, a writer and academic, and on this show I talk to other writers about their work and their practice. This is a show for book nerds, aspiring and established authors, or anyone interested in how texts get made.
Exploring Peter Scalpello's Work
00:00:19
Speaker
In this episode I talk to Peter Scalpello about their poem, Performance Archive.
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Speaker
Peter is a poet and psychotherapist from Glasgow, based in London. Peter's debut, Limbic, was published by Cypher Press in 2022. Their second book, Mirror Stage, will be published in 2026.
00:00:39
Speaker
Thank you, Peter, for joining us. Thank you, Chris. I'm excited to be here. Amazing. I've been picking the text or the poems ahead of time and then not doing my annotations until half an hour before the episode, just to try and see if it stays, like to see what I see in the moment is what I'm trying to do.
00:00:56
Speaker
So it's very much fresh in my mind. But before we get into the poem, ah what are your thoughts on close reading as an activity?
Significance of Close Reading and Editing
00:01:03
Speaker
And more importantly, how do you feel about us doing it about your poem right now?
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting one that I've been thinking about since being asked to be on the podcast. and Thank you for choosing this poem. it Interestingly, close readings as a term still stays in my head as the thing that I was forced to do in secondary school like in in English, like the idea that we would have close reading, like today we're doing close reading and you'd be like, oh, for fuck's sake, like I don't...
00:01:31
Speaker
Not again, like more close reading. And it would be this kind of criteria-based exam-focused exercise of of close reading a set text for what felt like hours and hours.
00:01:44
Speaker
And disliking it, you know, ah in secondary school, this idea that it was kind of a forced thing. And then not until after leaving that that kind of setting and reading for enjoyment and writing for enjoyment, did I then realize the kind of benefits of, particularly in my own like poetry crafting, that I would be intentionally seeking out the opportunity to disseminate a poem or be in a kind of workshop space so where a text would be looked at, taken apart, that it would
00:02:16
Speaker
kind of be with the intention of how have they achieve this. You know, it's kind of evoked something and me or achieved something that I'm impressed by and trying to kind of work out the the formula behind that, I suppose.
00:02:27
Speaker
But this is the first time that I've ever done like, ah you know, formal close reading of my own work. I suppose the closest...
Background and Reading of 'Performance Archive'
00:02:36
Speaker
to that being the editing process when when writing things where it feels like every choice every line every word every kind of rhythm and beat is fraught with decision and feeling like there's there's a lot of close reading attached to this idea of what am i happy to share and yeah that's kind of the closest that that i get to that in my own work so i'm excited to hear your thoughts actually chris
00:03:02
Speaker
Before I make you read it, is there anything that listeners might want to know about it beforehand or should they just go in fresh? Because I have thoughts on how maybe if they've read your collection Limbic, the poem feels very much related to those poems, but it feels like a different direction or at least a different tone maybe from those other poems ah to me anyway.
00:03:25
Speaker
And I just wonder if there's anything you want to tell people about it before they hear it. Yeah, that's really interesting to hear. it's it's a new poem, relatively relatively new I don't know if listeners need to know any of this, but maybe it's interesting to kind of just like set some context a little bit. um it's the It was the last poem that I wrote for my newer collection that's coming out next year. So it actually was written after that collection, in my mind, was done.
00:03:54
Speaker
ah thought that I'd finished writing the collection. I thought that it was all kind of there. There was like a narrative. structure to that collection. um And I thought that this was almost like the first of whatever it was next, but then kind of realized actually as as time went on and I sat with the poem and with the collection as well as it kind of was edited, that this really slotted in very well. And that actually it was, it was not the next thing, whatever that is, you know, it was, it was actually just an extension of something that maybe hadn't been quite honed in the structure of
00:04:28
Speaker
the collection that had already. So it was yeah the last poem that that I wrote in in the collection and I was in Athens and it was
Structure and Themes of 'Performance Archive'
00:04:36
Speaker
my birthday and I was 30 and just kind of like doing a lot of reflecting and it felt like a moment to capture, I suppose, and also see its significance back to what I had been writing for the past few years in that collection. And it came very quickly in a kind of notes app.
00:04:54
Speaker
stream I think we'll speak a little bit more about my writing process later, but it just kind of went into the notes app and then I returned to it a couple of weeks later. so I think it kind of stands on its own as a poem, I hope, but also speaks to potentially Limbic as well, which is great to hear um because I think that this collection is a bit of an extension of that. okay so Yeah, no, that is definitely interesting. um In which case, would you mind reading it for us?
00:05:23
Speaker
Of course. Performance archive. In Athens, I'm hunched in front of stone reliefs of ancient nude warriors fantasizing about you.
00:05:39
Speaker
Some are faceless, cockless, just the balls and calves remain. Others, their wreck of limbs held in imagined positions with plastic rods which, en masse, gives a pleasant illusion of patriarchal dismantling.
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Speaker
Some of their noses are, like my own, battered. A bust representing goddess bears what appear to be tears, staining the marble terrain from one eye, due to chance oxidisation, we're told.
00:06:22
Speaker
The women's statues are described as young and owned. all are perceived as white due to modern display and uncolouring.
00:06:36
Speaker
This preservation of big, bald heads and erotic fragments. It's funny
Tone and Perspective Shifts in the Poem
00:06:43
Speaker
proclaiming them, men and women, when they were just chiselled.
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Speaker
The fantasies we insist on And those I keep to myself Among the rubble that's left as rubble And that which is propped up for effect.
00:07:03
Speaker
Amazing. Thank you. And you read it much slower than I read it in my head, which is always interesting to hear i I'm always like fascinated with like the speed at which people read their poems. I'm always told by friends I read too quickly.
00:07:15
Speaker
But I'm like, in my head, there's like the rush of the line, right? Like I feel very much like caught up in the line. So I'm kind of interested when people do, are reading in a different kind of tone.
00:07:27
Speaker
very as whole You know, like the idea that I probably think or intend to read faster, actually, and quickly kind of realize that it maybe depends on the mood or the space that I'm in at the time and what I'm trying to kind of evoke in a particular setting or um how comfortable I feel even with reading the poem. It kind of depends.
00:07:52
Speaker
So, yeah, I can be surprised as well by how it's read. I kind of want to talk about the title first, which is why i always get my students to do. But then I also kind of want to run straight into it because the title is interesting. It feels like a very different ah register from the other language in the poem. And I kind of maybe want to circle back to that as a way in. Right. So I'm
Sound, Language, and Cultural Commentary
00:08:13
Speaker
going to come back to the idea.
00:08:14
Speaker
What strikes me first is like the three stanzas, right? Like there's these three parts and they're all the same length. There's something very ordered about it, but then each of the lines has a very different kind of length and what's going on in them. So there's this tension between the very like formal rigid structure and then something that's slightly irregular. And that was the first thing that struck me.
00:08:35
Speaker
And then we get, in Athens, I'm hunched, right? Straight away grounded in time and place. And I think think you do that a lot in your poems, if I'm... recollecting And I wonder, you know, you said you were in that place and you wrote on your phone immediately. Like, was that immediacy important at the beginning of the poem that it didn't begin in the abstract, that it began in the very grounded and bodily almost?
00:08:55
Speaker
I'm trying to think because actually when I remember back to the notes that I made at the time, it was more abstract. Actually, it was more like the the noticing, the kind of processing, the the idea of what I was seeing and also my distractedness, you know thinking of other things. And I suppose that it came in the the structuring of the poem as, yeah, you're right, I do kind of start a lot of my poems with a kind of time and place and a context and and that's kind of something that I've been noticing more and more in what I'm interested in writing, kind of moving forward actually. So I think when I wrote this it wasn't an intentional let's start with Athens, let's start with time and place, what the body.
00:09:44
Speaker
but it soon became the case, um as is seemingly just my style or my interests or my my kind of subconscious, because i've I've been noticing it more in in my writing.
00:09:57
Speaker
But initially it was like a clump of certain accents and certain emphasis, I suppose, on on different concepts i was thinking about and then also how that was reflected and mirrored through me in the space in the moment.
00:10:14
Speaker
And it's interesting, actually, looking at the the form of the three stanzas, which kind of, in a way, resembled like these three columns as well that I was kind of seeing and that was the the draft that i completed and submitted to Berlin Lit who very kindly published this poem and interestingly now looking back at it it's no longer the form of the the poem in the book so there's this there's this nice like evolution, i suppose. Nothing else has changed, actually, since um the publication online and the the version that's in the collection. But the stanzas are split even even smaller into three lines segments. Rather than kind of taking this this idea of the three columns and the the three stanzas, it's been condensed even even more so into the three, three, three. And I felt that the rhythm of that actually
00:11:11
Speaker
Visually, I found it more interesting and ah more kind of appealing. And also in terms of reading it aloud into myself, having those kind of breaks actually between the three line sections.
00:11:25
Speaker
I liked as well. But I also love that I have these two versions because I don't think that either is really correct, to be honest. And, you know, I've kind of landed on this slightly altered version now, but that's not to say that it's ah better version or like the correct one. It's just the one that's going to be used in the book and I think maybe that's not the way that all poets feel about their poems and then their the edits of things but this kind of dynamism I think is quite interesting to me and I enjoy being able to actually look back at both versions here um and have ah a bit of a comparison.
00:12:06
Speaker
Yeah, no, this is like super fascinating. This is all the stuff I love. But also that you're still working with the three, right? The the three lines. And I have thoughts on that, which which I'm going to say in a minute. But I'm i'm really interested to see the newer version with the breaks in it that probably does echo more of the kind of the dismantled...
00:12:23
Speaker
broken up figures right there in front of you. Like there's something reflective there. But when I was thinking of those three parts, yes, like the three columns, but I was also thinking of that very like classical emphasis on classical, like three parts structure, right? Like the beginning, middle, end, almost, right? That there's some kind of formal classical unity within which you've got actually all of this emotional chaos and crumbling.
00:12:45
Speaker
And the three, yeah, i'm going to come back to the three because you start with like, I'm hunched, right? This really bodily posture of you know, not quite uprightness, which I think is really interesting. And then we get front of Stone Reliefs fantasizing about you.
00:13:00
Speaker
the you does not return in this poem. And I've been thinking about that for the past half an hour. And whenever I, whenever I do a you in a poem, I'm always thinking like, who is that? Like, are they a concrete you?
00:13:14
Speaker
is Is the you partly the reader? Is it partly a specific second person address? All of these things. And I wonder, i mean, you don't have to reveal anything here, but but do you do you have a sense of why the you doesn't return?
00:13:26
Speaker
Why why the you is kind of like evoked in that first instance and then kind of left almost suspended?
Title Evolution and Writing Process
00:13:33
Speaker
the you is a specific person and i think interestingly the the bodily idea of the hunching is kind of something that i'm aware of in my physicality anyway just like my posture and recognizing that i do sometimes kind of just find myself slouched and and and not fully upright or you know putting putting strain on one side of my body and you
00:13:58
Speaker
um this idea that actually that was my position in terms of my physique looking at this in comparison to this very noble you know ripped figure and having a kind of ah like a psychic background of fantasy around a person and the absence of a person I think that The you doesn't return because the the person is absent in in reality.
00:14:26
Speaker
And the the link is actually just made to fantasy in general, as opposed to the the fantasy of that that object. It's maybe the object relation of erotic fantasy as well as...
00:14:42
Speaker
the the fantasy of identity or form. That was kind of the link that that I was made. And i think that the non-returning you is just emblematic of no resolution to that ah ah presence.
00:14:55
Speaker
Okay, see, so because I know you're also a psychotherapist and I was like, don't get too psychoanalytical today, Chris, but now you've opened the door, so we're going in. but you know, this is about castration, right? Some are faceless, cockless.
00:15:08
Speaker
Castration fantasy within the first four lines, I'm like, okay, this is a world of like the symbolic as well as the very literal. And the other three that I was thinking of in that regard is, and it's been something that's been on my mind late, is the idea of the third.
00:15:22
Speaker
right, within that kind of Freudian schema of the I, the you, and then this figure that's in front of you, right, this kind of fantasized, unrealistic figure of, like, the male body or the female body or something else, right, and both of those forms being incomplete,
00:15:38
Speaker
Like, I don't know if you're a Lacanian in interest, but like this feels very in that mode, right, of the ideal. And then this this reality that's kind of crumbling in front of you. And the three parts definitely felt like the I, the you and then the them of of these mythical figures.
00:15:55
Speaker
You don't have to comment on that. But like, ah that's where my brain was going. But now you've kind of like added to that. Absolutely. It's so fascinating to hear you pick up on that. And I'm really glad that you did because the, yeah, I'm a psychotherapist and the the collection itself is very interrogatory of Lacanian concept, actually. Oh, great. Fine, I'm in. I'm sold.
00:16:20
Speaker
and um yeah it's it's it's called mirror mirror stage which is a leucanian theory in in psychoanalysis and yeah the the idea of the uh self reflection and an other and a kind of fantasy made of the two and this is why i felt that it fits so well with what i was actually doing already in in the collection that it wasn't um It wasn't for something else.
00:16:47
Speaker
And I'm definitely, the the three thing is a trope, you know, the the kind of triptych is a trope in my writing that I've recognised as well. Like both Limbic and this collection have three parts.
00:17:01
Speaker
um I love a poem of three stanzas. And I think that may have been part of the the honing in on the edited version of this poem which is more deconstructed in the sense of the nine lines become three of three and yeah that's that's just something that i've aesthetically kind of linked to the project of this collection of poetry but as a way of evoking the subject also hopefully so i'm i'm really glad that you were able to pick up on that i'm sure that's your academic background that allows you to do so. um i i sometimes wonder if any of this you know comes across. So it's great to hear that you can see that.
00:17:44
Speaker
but Yeah, but I think part of part the idea of this podcast is like surfacing some stuff that it almost doesn't matter if like a reader sees it or not. that If you saw something that I didn't see or I something that you didn't see, kind of think that's where like the pleasure is, right?
00:17:59
Speaker
It is one of the things I'm trying to always try and communicate to students and like other writing workshops is I'm less interested in the like authorial intention than the kind of things that are produced through language like when we talk about them right so the stuff that's maybe intentionally put there by you versus unconsciously put there by you right no problem I mean it's in that that transference idea which is of of psychotherapeutic kind of grounding i've I've really been fascinated in that idea of transference in art and in writing and in poetry and that idea that that you just mentioned there of, you know, even if what you receive isn't the intention of the the person or is rooted in your own experience or relation to making connection and similarity, you know, that that is its own kind of third thing as well.
Themes, Influences, and Literary Dialogues
00:18:53
Speaker
But yeah, so then from there, you get like others, their wreck of limbs held in imagined positions with plastic rods. Like that's the first kind of part for me where you get this, like the idea of the body that's held up by this kind of like technology or scaffolding, right? Like the plastic rods that actually we're talking about the ideal and the real or the the way that ideals are propped up quite literally.
00:19:15
Speaker
but also psychically. but Then what interests me more in this line is you then do comma, which comma on mass comma gives the pleasant illusion of patriarchal dismantling.
00:19:26
Speaker
Imagine. I'm really interested in those like tonal and register shifts that like up to this point, the language has been quite specific and like paired back almost like very descriptive almost.
00:19:38
Speaker
And then You get this little thing, that which en masse gives a pleasant illusion. Like it's almost like you change tone entirely. It's like this this pullback shot is how I picture it in my head, right? Like the camera iss zooming back where you were talk in this different and almost academic register or ah or at least like a theoretical register.
00:19:57
Speaker
And that really for me is a good side move in the poem because I think the poem could easily like stay in that first voice just there. But where the poem gets interesting to me is when you kind of... when it moves slightly and this illusion of patriarchal dismantling imagine which to me is like very very funny obviously as as though we could as though that is possible but um yeah i'm wondering how you're thinking about register if at all when you're writing Yeah, that's a really fascinating point. I'm glad that you picked up that kind of, yeah, that the idea of perspective shift. And I suppose that is maybe just emblematic of literally my thought process and these kind of settings and and the moving from, which ah which is why I thought maybe I felt inspired to to write this kind of the snapshot of this moment because it it felt like it could go from
00:20:47
Speaker
the the bodily posture, the the inner fantasy, the the the the propped up figure in in front of me of a very kind of classical and yet this very contemporary intervention with plastic rods and this kind of cyborgism almost, which I felt so kind of drawn to and fascinated by and this real kind of queerness of the idea of how the body is I think how how these figures are supposed to be received and and maybe not how I receive them. you know I kind of see this inherent queerness and um in in the display.
00:21:23
Speaker
And from that perspective then shifts to a more like, look at all that you know these supposed men, all these broken figures. imagine that, you know, this, this, this nation is, is this how I'm supposed to be receiving the, the, the ruins of this, this empire, you know, that was just my train of thought, I suppose. So to be able to move between register there was just my interest, I suppose. Um, but I also wasn't sure. I remember thinking.
00:21:59
Speaker
is patriarchal dismantling, is that, like, can that go in a poem? Like, is that, as ah as two words, like, is that a phrase that doesn't sit within the lyric, right? I wondered, but I did it anyway. I suppose I was kind of thinking, maybe that's too academic, yeah, the academic language, and it's it's not lyrical, but I wanted maybe to show that the concept or the theory that I was linking to the
00:22:29
Speaker
the subjective lyrical experience potentially as opposed to trying to create a more florid language for yeah because then you do in the next stanza some of their noses are comma like my own comma battered
Book Recommendations and Closing Remarks
00:22:48
Speaker
I can imagine writing that line as some of their noses are battered like my own.
00:22:52
Speaker
I would write that. And whether that that some of their noses are like my own battered, like we have to wait for the battered. Right. Like it's it delays that word. It's on its it's outside of the parenthesis and it's on a new line.
00:23:06
Speaker
For me, there was something about like the delay of the kind of intensity of that word battered. And then we get it like, then you're like, oh, no, this is alliteration central, right? We get battered, a bust represented a goddess bears what appears to be tears.
00:23:20
Speaker
So you do a few things there, right? You go from the kind of intensity of battered and bust, which is both like a physical bust, but also like bust as in like broken to me, right? That relates to battered.
00:23:31
Speaker
and then bears what appears to be tears and um when you look at it it looks like it should rhyme right like visually it should be bears and tears but it's not it's tears so you're kind of really playing with the way those words appear and how they sound and that to me again feels like the the gap between what we perceive and what is like what it looks like and what it actually feels like or sounds like like these bodies Yeah, like i I feel like this stanza becomes way more sonic in that world.
00:23:57
Speaker
The move from the very physical tactile and like you your thought to something then that becomes way bigger through the soundscape in my head anyway, is how i'm thinking about it. It's really validating to hear that's picked up on.
00:24:10
Speaker
And I think that, yeah, the battered and bust I wanted on the same row for the yeah the alliteration, but also the the idea of introducing this notion of violence, actually, which kind of continues through the through the stanza here. um And also trying to just contain within the first line the recognition of the nose in the comparison prior to the what i'm seeing so yeah that kind of edging or uh the edging there um was was intentional and again i kind of relational mirroring uh idea because yeah there's this kind of concept of the roman nose right i've always kind of um
00:24:56
Speaker
carried that with my heritage. and And then this idea that there's there's the Roman nose, but then also the the nose-less figure in front of me, actually, like it's it's missing the nose.
00:25:10
Speaker
And that to me just kind of felt like an interesting comparison to yeah, the idea of, I suppose, Mediterranean ethnicity um resemblance and to myself, but also I've broken my nose four times, like this kind of connection to, ah there's there's this nose that's been kind of chopped off or missing.
00:25:32
Speaker
and And that is the kind of the introduction to this idea of, yeah, comparison and also recognizing a sense of physicality and violence that may be present amongst the context in which these forms exist or existed.
00:25:50
Speaker
And I'm glad that you picked up on the the the lucky kind of bears and tears, that luck, you know, I'm glad that you you're able to kind of see that there's satisfaction and, or it's satisfying to have those two words bookending the line and not rhyme.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But like feels like they should. And that's always interesting to me when like you you want language to be doing something, but it's not doing it. And it's like kind of frustrating, but in a good way. Well, now you're talking about they like the nose cut off, like it's making me think of like the goggle story, right? Like the nose with like the nose becomes like the partial object, right? In psychoanalytic terms, right? Like the body part that exceeds the self, right? the There's something, again, not to go back to castration, but yeah, like there's a sense of the bodily unity versus this other thing that's happening, right? Like the body that's outside of us, outside of our control, outside of our being.
00:26:42
Speaker
And you take that, I think, in an interesting direction at the end of the stanza where we talk about like the women statues are described as young and owned. And you're like, okay, well, the young is fine. And then the next line and owned is that real kind of gut punch.
00:26:57
Speaker
But also the women's statues are described as young, as though like, as though we can't see that, like, we don't know if they're young, like we're having to, the the speaker is having to be told this information somehow, right? Whether it's by like a person or a plaque or something, as opposed to like, what do we see versus what we're told about them, which is fascinating.
00:27:14
Speaker
And then all are perceived, right? We get that word as well, described, perceived as white due to modern display and uncolouring. Again, a very, the end of the stanza again goes into this other register.
00:27:26
Speaker
You know, you started off thinking about like gendering, I guess, about like the process of gendering, like the body and what that looks like and how one might look at a statue and feel resemblance or not.
00:27:38
Speaker
And then think about how racialization or ethnicity comes into this too. And the way that modern display, the way that the bodies are presented is also doing a kind of violence, right? To go back to your thing, like it's not just the violence of the body coming apart, but it's the violence of the body being misrepresented or misrepresented or something.
00:27:59
Speaker
And whitewashed. Yeah. And yeah, reflecting this, this idea of the, the, the violence in in all of these kind of elements throughout the stanza and the the the way that things are presented described and kind of questioning the intention of the these choices as erasure and violence and missing context yeah as as well as that seeing your seeing oneself or or
00:28:30
Speaker
resonating with the the figures that that maybe may be displayed. And again, that that transference idea of what I see in opposition with but what I'm actually reading and being presented with.
00:28:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's as much the stuff you're bringing to this scenario as much as like what's been given to you. and then this space in between those two things. And the final stanza of like this preservation of big, bold heads, like funny little alliteration there. Like, again, the tone is like all over the map and not in a bad way, like in a good way, right? In this poem, like you're constantly kind of thrown in different directions, which I appreciate.
00:29:07
Speaker
big bald heads and erotic fragments. And then I'm like, okay, well, that's just a description of the poem, right? Like, and a description of like, maybe the collection is what I'm thinking of or the stanzas. And especially now I know you have broken it up into more fragments. I'm like, oh, the like these are the erotic fragments, right? Of like the poem itself.
00:29:23
Speaker
And then I was like, oh, wait, is this a poem about poetry? I feel like it must be. It's funny proclaiming the men and women when they were just chiseled. Like, oh, we're in the world of making things, right? Like, funny to, like, name it a person when actually it's just a made thing.
00:29:38
Speaker
The fantasies we insist on and those I keep to myself among the rubble that's left as rubble. Like... All we've got are just the bits, right? We've just got the bits of language that make up this fantasy, this idea of the body.
00:29:50
Speaker
And that which is propped up for effect. Like, that's the bit when I was like, oh, this is a poem about poetry. This is a poem about writing. Because it's really about how language is propping up by our idea of anything, right? Of like the self.
00:30:04
Speaker
you know, the unconscious is structured as our language. Like that's all we've got access to really, right? Like the parts, the bits that don't actually index anything real, but rather just are the fantasies we insist on.
00:30:17
Speaker
I think that's like a really key line to me. Oh, I'm actually really moved, Chris. like think up because i As well, because this this all feels quite new. Yes, it's been published recently in in Berlin Lit, but um there there wasn't any editing done to it. And there hasn't been other than my own kind of intervention with the the the change in in the stanza since. So I don't actually have any feedback from this particular poem to kind of go on other than what kind of exists in my own head for it. um And the fact that, you know, somehow that it's out there maybe means that people are receiving it and and may have read it
00:30:54
Speaker
But yeah, I find it moving that you can kind of see maybe what I was trying to do and the the bringing it back to the the act of crafting. What is craft? What is creation?
00:31:08
Speaker
Is any of it real? and the The erotic fragments of a gendered history and the erotic fragments of memory in my head that I have lived.
00:31:19
Speaker
and the idea of chiseling as well, you know, the the the formation of one's body, the physicality of being chiseled, um either either as ceramic figure or as flesh.
00:31:33
Speaker
And yeah, linking that again to the idea of the the fantasies that that we, you know, actually thinking, oh, maybe we actually need, we rely on these fantasies, actually, you know, the the preservation of this, you know, to what I'm seeing,
00:31:48
Speaker
just all these bald heads all these big bald heads like propped up you know to signify what exactly and you know what what is the decision of relevance and significance of particular placement versus all these other erotic fragments that lie around actually in the the museum in in athens that There's a kind of decision made around whether consciously or subconsciously what we uphold um and what we prop up in our thinking and in our realities.
00:32:24
Speaker
So I'm really glad that you would tie that in together and that you see that there's maybe a link there as much as this is just my kind of free thought, to be honest. But that is the curatorial bit, right? Like what gets contained and what doesn't, which does take me to the title of this performance archive, right?
00:32:41
Speaker
We're used to thinking of the archive as just like the collection, right? Of like stuff. I don't want to get too theoretical, but like Derrida would be would say... the archive contains as much as it destroys, right? By including, you're also excluding.
00:32:54
Speaker
If you try and include everything, and this is in a Ben Lerner short story, actually, a called The Ferry, by collecting everything, you collect nothing. Because like if you like, he's talking about the cloud, right? The idea of the cloud. Like if all you've got is all information of all time,
00:33:07
Speaker
then you're not actually collecting anything. You're just like amassing stuff. It's like that's one idea of the archive. But then performance archive, is the archive the performative thing? Is it an archive of performance or performativity?
00:33:21
Speaker
I was straight away thinking about like the performativity of gender, for example, in this regard. Like, I think you could read that title both ways and you do not have to ah lock down either of those right now. But just the sense of And a performance archive, which does, again, sound more in that academic discourse or language realm, that when you read that title, you then get in Athens, I'm hunched.
00:33:41
Speaker
You're like, oh oh, we are taken in a different direction, right? The title sets up what you think you might be reading, and it doesn't quite go that direction, least immediately. a I like that the title could be received and either way. for For a long time, it didn't have a title, actually. um It wasn't until...
00:33:57
Speaker
after I decided to kind of include it in the collection that i I thought about a title. It didn't have one for a while. And yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think maybe to give away a bit of mine my my thoughts around it, the the performance relates to gender and the the evolution of a socialized performance of gender um between a kind of classical and contemporary framing, um I suppose. So that's the kind of performance, performativity.
00:34:26
Speaker
um that that drew me to the word performance for for the title. And then archive as, yeah, just the the sense of the curatorial, what is what is held in in mind, in in space, in a particular way, as its own performance as well.
00:34:44
Speaker
um And yeah, that that just kind of felt appropriate as a title. Okay, let me ask you about your writing process then, because I feel like I've talked about this poem for a really long time. You kind of alluded to it earlier, like writing on your phone, but do you have a set standard writing practice at all? Like, do you write in a place, time?
00:35:02
Speaker
do you have candles? Do you have snacks? Do you have totems? Like, what is your set up? I was thinking about this for the podcast, actually, and it's interesting because when i started writing, and probably only until recently, i ah i maybe would have thought, no, I don't have a ritual. Like, I don't have a practice. I don't have a ah set time or a place or a a ritual or a routine.
00:35:27
Speaker
But I kind of recently, I think I've realized that that that isn't true. And it's just that I don't have what I maybe felt... was the only acceptable form of that, which is maybe sitting at a desk, having the hours, you know, and in whether it's before work or after work or the weekend or, you know, like a set schedule almost of I write at this point, at this time, in this place.
00:35:51
Speaker
And that place is kind of in my head or kind of traditionally what i thought was expected was this idea of, yeah, the desk, the cafe, the library, the place.
00:36:01
Speaker
And I've for sure done all those those things. I've written in all those places and ways, but I felt that it was forced in in most cases and that actually my preferred method actually is when the thoughts occur to me or if I'm deliberately even when I'm deliberately trying to kind of formulate something it will be through typing on my phone initially it will be notes up notes or free verse or ah just sentences probably just anything that kind of comes out of me at that time depending on where I am usually it's in transit and
00:36:42
Speaker
amassing ah a collection of these notes, a collection of these kind of mini drafts and things and editing them together on a Word document. So I would then kind of translate. Usually I'd like email them to myself, the ones that want and put them in a Word document and start the typing process. So that movement from typing with thumbs to typing on a laptop with all my fingers is actually, especially for this collection, I think that was like how ah most of it was written.
00:37:11
Speaker
And that is a ah ah method actually, like I didn't, you know, because it didn't fit the the style of sitting, writing, you know, word count, set time, time of day or whatever.
00:37:24
Speaker
I thought that it didn't count, but yeah, thinking more recently that, and this may evolve as I write and do things in future, but there's something about the kind of movement and the the transit itself.
00:37:40
Speaker
and the thoughts that kind of go on in my thinking, or if I'm actually out and about at the museum or with with friends or on a walk by myself or something, that these thoughts are created and articulated just so that I don't forget them, really. it's it's more more more on that intention.
00:38:00
Speaker
And then there's kind of a ah ah time for, I just would like to type these up now and and bring it together. And the there's a poem there that I want to form or this is the kind of catalyst for a further bit of writing and usually it's on my bed lying on my front I was thinking like right down to the detail of how do I write I much prefer lying and writing actually I've realized on the bed on my front typing that's when I feel like this connection between notes app and word doc and
00:38:31
Speaker
and and poem that that can be formed from that is most effective. And it's interesting because there's a real digital era kind of slant to that. I think the the fact that I don't really write in in handwriting.
00:38:47
Speaker
I don't really write in in in journals or in um like a notebook. It is kind of held in this different way. And yeah, that's that's kind of my ritual, I suppose, as much as I didn't think it was for a while.
00:39:02
Speaker
You're such a young millennial. Just always writing on your phone. No, this is like super useful. And I think gonna really helpful for people who are listening who want to be writing or want to be publishing whatever, because every single person I've spoken to has said there is no standard writing practice. Like all of the how to write books that like you need to do X amount words a day and you sit in one place and do Everyone. well I mean, 60% of people said they write in bed.
00:39:27
Speaker
So you're not the only person. So that's really fascinating to me. Everyone's like, you write when you can and you just get it out and you do what you can and you move on. And I really love that as advice because I think it really, I think it will help people understand that they don't have to be this formalised practice, right? That there's something anyone can do.
00:39:45
Speaker
You mentioned earlier about this like new collection, and it's kind of like major concerns or themes. To what extent are you, are those themes in your mind as you're writing the poems as you go along? Is it something that's retroactively, you know, you stitch them together to make a collection?
00:39:59
Speaker
and Like at what point in the writing process are you like, oh wait, this is a whole, this is a whole book. a I think it's differed between the last collection in this one in that Limbic was my first collection. So it became, it just kind of accumulated out of living and attempting to to to do that for the first time, to to accumulate what a collection might look like. And I've spoken about the kind of the triptych fascination there.
00:40:28
Speaker
And then when you're talking about a collection and promoting a collection and, you know, you kind of internalize the contents of it to a certain extent once it's shared with the world you I then realized you know of course the the common themes the the interests and yeah like I am a psychotherapist like that was kind of in Limbic that was part of my experience and um perspective in Limbic but I think going into this collection there may have been a slight more intentionality around that actually I remember
00:41:01
Speaker
thinking at the very early stages of starting, you know, what I thought would be one long kind of unbroken poem for the collection, which didn't materialize, it kind of has become separate kind of fragments in itself, I suppose, that tell a story.
00:41:20
Speaker
But I remember that early stage thinking, I want to interrogate, actually. um I want to be positioned in the self. I want to be reflective of personal narrative, but also cultural, ah almost like community theory and things. And was reading Paul Preciado and Noir Al-Sidhir and kind of merging the two in my thinking.
00:41:48
Speaker
um And there was an intention around that, I suppose, um to to begin with. But then, like I said, sometimes it then just becomes a bit of a free association exercise around what I want to be forming in language.
00:42:04
Speaker
And that isn't always intentionally an interrogation of the psyche per se, but maybe it kind of comes out in these general repetitive themes of gender, sexuality, memory, ah relationality, and definitely in the kind of editing process of a collection that that feels more apparent and like you can kind of emphasize and create rhythm through that.
00:42:31
Speaker
And also in this instance, I hope kind of narrative story. So it's ah kind of both and neither and um this and that. Yeah. No, that's really helpful to think about, actually. Like when you read a collection, you're like how much is, you know, set from the beginning and and and what is kind of coming together as you go, which is is I like to think about.
00:42:52
Speaker
A couple more questions. One is, are there any poems or poets that you think this poem that we've read today is in dialogue with that other people might be interested in? Yeah, i so I think that this particular poem actually speaks in dialogue, for me anyway, that with an inspiration of mine for this collection, for this book actually, was... and Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through by T. Fleischman, which is a ah kind of hy hybrid essay poem work that I think is just phenomenal and so inspiring. And even in writing in my previous collection was an inspiration and a kind of touchstone for I would love to kind of evoke or achieve something that that this book does.
00:43:40
Speaker
And Leaning more so into that in Mirror Sage, this newer collection and this particular poem I think really links to this idea of the narrator in T. Fleischman's book concerning they see art and relate it to personal experience and their own identity, their own sexuality, their own gender experience and transition actually.
00:44:06
Speaker
is what I found so special and profound about that book and ah think that there's kind of elements of trying to do that in in this poem and in this collection more generally but I would say that in terms of like actually more widely thinking like who am I in dialogue with of course I have you know countless influences and um and people that whose work that I admire but I think that actually it's it's hard to to say who you're in dialogue with and maybe that's more for readers and poetry lovers or people who consume the work to to make those connections i'm really interested in what those connections may be but the actual dialogues that i've had like the actual conversations that i've had with other poets and other writers in the process of writing both collections actually
00:44:59
Speaker
I can think of Soumeyer, Nisha Ramayya, Ola Wishun, Oleo Ola, Isabel Vadner, Adam Smith, Andrew McMillan, all these people who I've had the the privilege of having conversations with and discussing their work and my work with has inspired my ability to even do this, i think, and my ability to even make poems.
00:45:25
Speaker
So that's kind of the dialogue that I think of in my head, actually. It's like, who have I actually spoken to and then communicated with? And and that's been a ah real kind of profound element of the process for me recently. Yeah. Okay. Well, the final question I ask everyone is like, what, I mean, you've given us some lovely recommendations already through the dialogue anyway, but are there books or collections or or anything really that you want to recommend to listeners? Like could be new things, old things, things that not out yet.
00:45:54
Speaker
i I have loads to recommend, to be honest. I mean, I think in terms of this like idea of finding your voice and formation of of a creative voice or a poetic voice for me, that was when I was about 20, Andrew McMillan's physical collection.
00:46:11
Speaker
More recently, t Fleischman's book that I referenced there has been a real touchstone for me. But also in recent years, you know, given the given the topics that we've discussed today and the the kind of subject matters of this new collection and this poem, I think Animal Joy and Fourth Person Singular by Noir Al-Sadir have just really blown my mind and opened so much for me in life and as a psychotherapist and a poet, actually.
00:46:38
Speaker
And I can only strive to, you know, evoke any kind of... just a smidgen of that wisdom and the skill and power that that she does, as well as Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe, I think does sit very similar things for me. um And just, yeah, endlessly kind of inspiring, poetic, mindful work.
00:47:05
Speaker
And then just like a kind of more recent one, i just read Sean Fay's Love and Exile, which I thought was amazing. I just would really, really recommend that book. It's so, clever and wise and sincere and funny and I just loved i I loved reading it and I'd really recommend it These are amazing recommendations. This is the second shout out for Sean Facebook. So this is like a definitive people should buy it.
00:47:32
Speaker
The other person that recommended it was Amy Key. So I'm glad they were in a nice little dialogue here. And yeah, if people haven't read Noir Al-Sidia's Animal Joy, it is mind-bendingly clever and funny and thoughtful and so many things at once.
00:47:47
Speaker
And Christina Sharpe, who we always love. Those recommendations are great. Thank you so much. Peter, thank you so much for spending time with me today. It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me, Chris. Thank you for listening to this episode.
00:47:59
Speaker
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00:48:13
Speaker
It's really helpful to us. you can get show transcripts and more information by subscribing to the Substack. This show is made possible by an Impact Accelerator Award from the University of Hertfordshire and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.