Cleave poem: In memoriam Saigon

The setting sun penetrates my skin	like the memories of Kieu
branding it a deeper hue than	under a heavy moon,
the poems	the shadows of relatives are
buried by tyrants	lost ghosts, veiled faces
empty of all but curses	as grey as tombstones,
not like me with all my	wailing, with
tattered oriental	flags of mourning,
patterns, messages,	headbands, symbols worn like
old embroidered dragons, gold	emblems of Vietnam
on blood red silk	buried as deep as Saigon.

Cleave Poetry Article

Cleave poetry

Cleave poetry is who I am. A dichotomy. I am a Vietnamese boat person, a refugee in England. I am a doctor yet I see death everyday. I am a poet and an artist. I believe there is truth beyond what can be scientifically proven. Cleave poetry is a concept, a poetic form, a doorway – a paradigm shift in poetics opening up an unexplored land.

My life is a dichotomy on many levels, there are many areas in need of fusion and synergy: the East and the West, science and art, science and faith, life and death. I was planning a novel in which two different species on another world needed to communicate, one by light and image, the other by sound and word. From this grew the idea of information fusing to form a synergistic new language. The concept was already within me, it was inevitable – a form without a concept is a barren woman; a concept without a form is an orphan.

I needed a form that was a dichotomy that embodied the concept of fusion and was instantly recognisable as a work of art. For me a good poem should be an epiphany. It should be well crafted, with depth and meaning, not mere entertainment, not the random scribbles of a disordered mind. The cleave form was a logical step – two poems fusing to become a third new poem. Each poem can stand alone, a true poem in its own right. In its most basic form the cleave poem is a vertical stanza on the left hand side, a vertical stanza on the right hand side, and a third horizontal poem which is read straight across from left to right, as though there is no gap between the left and right vertical stanzas. The cleave form is a contranym: at once a fusion of two poems to form one, and a splitting apart of one poem to form two. Not surprisingly interpretations and variations of the basic form, by others, have been numerous, and the form has been ‘invented’ a number of times by other poets in the last decade or two.

Cleave poetry is a new way of thinking about poetry. It opens out onto a land where structure paradoxically allows greater exploration of language, context, meaning. I can say more with fewer words, each word having a greater depth. The concept of fusion inherent in the form invites poets to collaborate. The possibilities are as numerous as the combinations of minds.

The doorway is cleave poetry; it leads to a poetic land where form allows freedom from the old structures, where poetry is synergistic on an interpersonal as well as a personal realm. The concept is relevant to our fragmented world, the form is elegant and flexible: the doorway is open.

(Written for the July 2009 edition of The Firmament)

Coming up for air

The day job has been moving furiously forward. I went to an interview for a Consultant Histopathologist job last Friday and got it.

I can take a breath or two before the hard work starts – moving house and city, starting a new job with huge responsibilities and which is by all estimations madly busy.

Hopefully poetry can get a look in…

Lets see.

Poetry reading at The Late Shift Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

We have come back from the Late Shift Refugee week special (at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich) where I read 5 of my poems – 2 specifically about Vietnam. We didn’t have much time after my reading as I was there with my family.

Also, [here] is a link to an article about me for Refugee Week in The Norwich Evening News.

As for the day job – I have passed my exams, finished my training and am looking for a Consultant Histopathology job…somewhere in the UK…

Refugee Week (Norfolk)

15-21/06/2009 Refugee Week (Norfolk)

I should be here during the week:

• (Sun 7th June) Refugee Week on Future Radio. I was on air in The Platform show (5-6pm), and possibly the next Sunday 14th.
• Wed 17th June Late Shift Refugee Week Special. Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, UEA. (5-8pm, more specific time later)
• Sat 20th June Living Library (I will be a book, you can borrow me). Outside the Forum, Millenium Library. (12-5pm)

Interview by Stash Kirkbride for Future Radio

I was interviewed by Stash Kirkbride from Future Radio today, we discussed cleave poetry and my being a refugee. This is for the lead up to The Refugee Week in Norwich.

The interview including some of my cleave poems will go out on The Platform Show, Sunday, 5-6pm (7th June and possibly the next Sunday).

I will be involved in some of the events on Refugee Week, including the Living Library on Saturday 20th June (outside the Forum, Millenium Library, Norwich) where you can borrow me as a living book.

The state of poetry?

Here are 2 quotes that I think are true of the state of poetry and how we should approach it.

The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by SW Bauer

pp341-342

In 1983, Philip Larkin, reflecting on the growing abstruseness of “academic” poetry, remarked that poets – thanks, in part, to the impossibility of earning any money writing poetry unless they also teach and write about writing poetry – have become critics and professors, and thus pass judgement on poetry as well as writing it. The result is that poetry is in danger of becoming the province of experts: “It is hardly an exaggeration,” Larkin writes, “to say that the poet has gained the happy position wherein he can praise his own poetry in the press and explain it in the classroom, that the reader has been bullied into giving up the consumer’s power to say ‘I don’t like this, bring me something different.’”

p342

In the meantime, the careful reader of poetry should be willing to work hard at understanding poetry: to take it on its own terms, chew it over, reflect on it, and analyze its forms, and then to praise it or to conclude, “This is a disorganized mess” and put the book down.

Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

My latest read is Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono. The concept is brilliant – a highly efficient way of thinking. It helps demystify the creative myth further.

“I am often asked whether creativity is a matter of skill, talent or personality. The correct answer is that it can be all three. But I do not give that answer. If we make no effort to develop the skill of creativity, it can only be a matter of talent and personality.  People are much too ready to accept that creativity is a matter of talent or personality, and since they do not have this, they had better leave creativity to others.” A quote from Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono (pg.139).

Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

Back from Premieres and poetry

UPDATE:

Here are youtube videos of the poetry & music

The Premieres & Poetry event went very well yesterday. Thanks to the friends who came to support me.

A video of the event will come out later, but for now, here is my part:

My reading of the cleave poem “Migration” and performing of “Rendezvous under a Saigon sunset” went as well as I could have wished. Lots of positive feedback, which was great as this was my first ‘gig’.

Click on the youtube links to see them:

• Migration
• Rendezvous under a Saigon sunset

The music to these poems was amazing – the composer is a highly talented young composer called Oliver Leith.

The rest of the night was amazing to watch and listen to – live poetry and live new music (conductor, flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet/bass clarinet, trumpet, two cellos). The highlights for me was the singing by a professional Russian singer and Luke Wright’s performance of his poem “Colonel Crompton Goes Off”.

My thanks to the EMFEB orchestra and Owen Bourne for a brilliant evening.

Premieres and Poetry tomorrow

Tomorrow, I will be ‘performing’ 2 poems at the Premieres & Poetry event at the Poetry Society Cafe in Covent Garden, London. I am somewhat nervous as I always am, before any public speaking. Hopefully the London crowd are not too hard and that my poems will be well received.
I am most interested to listen to the musical response pieces to my poems. This juxtaposition of 2 different ‘pieces’ to form one piece is very cleave like in its concept.
I aim to record my performance.

Well, onward and upward!

ptdiep