Klang Farben Text was essentially about the visual properties of language as a creative field, and collaboration. It was built in collaboration about collaboration, and the brilliance and professionalism of Elke Ritt, Chris McCabe and Holger Pils ran through the experience as new friendships. I am left with great respect for them, for how we built the project together. Three constant, kind, deeply clever people. And they brought me into the company of Michael Lentz, Lucy Curzon, Pia Leuschner too. The cohort grew, and then reached out to many fine poets, and the very many generous people of Munich who came to watch us work.
The project was no less than 12 poets from two nations for the better part of a week showing and making in Munich. In the gorgeous surroundings of the Lyrik Kabinett, a really remarkable home for us. Working in pairs, making the live, concrete, visual, kinetic. Presenting poetry from the past. Reflecting, actively and variously and insightfully on what we were doing when we worked in the field of concrete or visual poetry. It was a symposium too, as well as the three big evening gigs we did. We ate together, shared long lunches and dinners, talking of more things than I can remember, we exchanged works and books and concepts and methods. We made things together. We were supported as best as we could be throughout. Again, a rare thing.
The opening night was a high energy introduction to each other, rapid solo performances, interventions and interjections. I can impatient and sometimes hard to impress. Everyone was good. Relaxed, authentic, unpretentious, interesting. I did a wee thing with a misdirection intro and then letter sponges. A companion piece to my Lego poem, done for The New Concrete anthology, which created this whole project in a way.
The second night dipped its footing a little to find it, because perhaps it had too but our concept was being tested. I did a powerpoint presentation, played but maybe lost my tone a little, or it didn’t fly in the crowd. It had some funny poetic-jokes though, I think. The collabs began and were considerable – Victoria Bean and Angelika Bean bringing glossolalia and Kim Campanello and Benedikt Kuhn salvaging each other in the dark.
The final night was a triumph and completed our valley. I had the chance to present on Bob Cobbing and his influence on me, alongside a wonderful presentation by Kim Campanello on Paula Claire. Then the collaborations, Robert Montgomery and Gerhild Ebel, burning alphabets in multicolour, Barrie Tullett and Falkner creating new sculpture poetries, Chris McCabe and Michael Lentz crushing the cross-lingual cross method improv and finishing everything with a killer.
Klang Farben Text feels significant in its understatement. Naturally I most often fail and feel dejected as even successes feel fleeting and often unnoticed yet, fundamentally, I’m trying to do things, creatively and curatorially, that haven’t been done before and would not happen otherwise. I need help from others in that. I need to organise with others. Organisation is a word I like, because it operates in a paradox. That the more you can organise context, the freer and more apparently un-organised content can be. Klang Farben Text was a rare thing and a testament to these principles. It was a moment in our professional lives that began friendships and I hope will have a legacy matching its experience.
