by Greg Hall 1946-2009
(to whom FA Nettelbeck has dedicated our next issue)

In most of these pages
the only thing left even vaguely gold
continues as a careful harmony
my fingers and the searchings of my heart
describing the unheard answers
a man who answers
questions like yours…
Much has vanished—
The clamor and the poison,
the usefulness of further transfusions,
the possibility of self-defined grace…
Still, a certain connection
to those who were injured
falling from horses
and to those who were compelled to sing
because the world was suddenly taken over
by robbers and thieves—
And because the ocean
answered every question
left unsolved by the wind and the night.
Although in page after page
my losses grew
something else also grew—
Now I can feel
what I was trying to say
and from these failures
something green and unbroken
is rising and running towards the shore—
Inside these shards of feeling
lost nations and lost wars
that which was deathless inside you
was addressed by what was deathless in me
and for those who can’t believe in death
I recommend you go find
some American poet
who can be
ironic
about
Love

…I was trying to draw out a comment by you about what you think poetry does? Or what is poetry for?

Poetry done right stops time.

As follow up to the above, with the cultural landscape so crowded with everyone, uhhh, doing their own thing how can a writer be heard?

Take hostages.

F.A. Nettelbeck interviewed by Mr. Jim Hayes. Four Minutes to Midnight Issue XI, featuring Nettelbeck’s Happy Hour, is coming very very soon!

On Friday, I received my much anticipated copy of Ruud Linssen’s Book of war, mortification and love in the mail. Published by one of my favourite typefoundries, Underware, the book, which consists of a collection of personal essays on the concept of “voluntary suffering”, also acts as a type specimen for their Blackletter typeface Fakir.

The book is beautifully designed and crafted, which is not a surprise given the quality of Underware’s work. I was pleasantly surprised by how well Fakir reads as a text face though, since I had always considered it a bit of a playful display typeface. Even more impressive is how well it sits in such a serious and sombre context, accentuating the darkness of the essays with its jagged edges.

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Last weekend, I was in Toronto to protest the G20 summit and the now all too obvious emergence of a full-out police state in Canada. During most of the weekend, and especially during the evening jail solidarity demonstration, I was fortunate to be with friends far more reasonable than myself, and I owe them a debt of gratitude for keeping me out of trouble, out of jail. Considering what I’ve now seen and read, my weekend was spent in relative safety and I left Toronto unscathed and unharrased. The same cannot be said for many friends, comrades and random passers-by.

Much has been written, recorded and revealed over the last week. Many disgusting and disturbing things about the excessive force exerted by the police/state. The assault on basic democracy and civil rights. It’s a disservice to gloss over it, but also rather pointless for me to address here. Do the (easy) research yourself and see how much you can stomach.

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The following is a rough transcript of the presentation (in franglais) I gave last week at Pecha Kucha Night MTL. For those that are unfamiliar with the event’s format, presenters are asked to present 20 slides, commenting on each for 20 seconds, resulting in a fast-paced 6m40s presentation. More details about the event here.

01. This is my desk. The organisers asked me to focus on presenting process work tonight, and I think it’s equally important to always look at context, so here’s my desk, my after-hours working environment, and over the next few slides, I’ll explain a bit about who I am to further contextualise what I’m going to be presenting.

02. Je suis un designer graphique avec des tendances anarchiste. Ça veut dire quoi avoir des tendances anarchistes? Pour moi ça veut dire que je crois fortement dans la collectivité non-hierarchique, je m’alinge avec des luttes minoritaires, et que je suis un romantique sans espoir. Par contre je ne suis pas un member du AIGA, mais je trouvai l’illustration assez drole.

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The eleventh issue of Four Minutes to Midnight will represent a dramatic change in format, an hors-série as it were, featuring the work of American poet F.A. Nettelbeck and Montréal visual artist Sophie Jodoin. I’m very excited and honoured to be working with such talented artists on this issue, and am happy to say we actually have a real editor/production manager on board this time around too. It’s going to be beautiful…

The issue itself will be split into two booklets. The main booklet will feature F.A. and Sophie in all their glory, and the other booklet will consist of the Fugue (XI) that we’re starting here. For those that are unfamiliar, the typographic fugue is a collaboratively written “poem” loosely inspired by the exquisite corpse surrealist technique. It’s our goal to use this approach to find/create a resonant/dissonant collective voice, marked in time, and through type.

So, to start it off:

“a stranger’s borrowed words…”

In honour of International Women’s Day yesterday, I wanted to write a post on a few of the women designers that have impacted my practice. I remember during my final year of undergrad (in 2000) being asked by my professor to name some female designers that we admired and, very ashamedly, drawing an almost complete blank (not that I was that aware of design culture or history in general at the time).

I asked my portfolio class this same question last night and was happy to see them fare better than me, but not by very much… So as always, there’s work to be done, and I’ll start with a (very) select list of women who’s works have directly guided my own.

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I quickly whipped up these poemcards to promote the upcoming issue at expozine.Just a little taste of things to come.

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“Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with their society is a lover’s war, and they do, at their best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to themselves and, with that revelation, to make freedom real.”

– James Baldwin