From: "Reg Johanson" <rjohanso@...>
Date: May 13, 2008 2:20:49 PM PDT
To: "Andrew Klobucar" <aklobuca@...>, "Roger Farr" <rfarr@...>, <positions.colloq@...>
Cc: <rwong@...>, <vid@...>
Subject: RE: the neocolonial divide and the expansionist language

should we send this discussion out on the yahoo list, to share it with everybody? or should we stay "home" with this for awhile?

i'm a little amazed that roger seems to be letting me articulate a "PILLS position"! he must be giddy over recent successes at Cap.

this isn't a PILLS position, but i wanted to tell you about some of the deliberations we had around solidarity and participation in the colloq. The PILLS internal discussion has a direct bearing on roger's and rita's posts. roger and / or aaron may recollect / reconstruct differently.

roger and i spent a weekend with some friends who are involved in alliances with various aboriginal groups in anti-colonial / anti-olympic / anti-capital struggles. it was a brief but intense experience. (this is in addition to various other forms / experiences of support we've given to these struggles over the years, as individuals and as PILLS). when i got back to vancouver and started to look forward to the colloq, the colloq's relationship to the olympics (a relationship of funding) bothered me more than previously. PILLS had already discussed that problem before we agreed to accept the commission and---we accepted the commission. but after the weekend, it was bothering me again. how would it look, i wondered, for PILLS to appear in promotional material for the conference that would name the olympics arts-partnership group as a sponsor? i worried that our comrades would take that as a betrayal, or a breach of the solidarities we had discussed with them. how could we participate in an olympics-funded event and maintain solidarity with, specifically, aboriginal anti-olympic struggle (remembering that the struggle against the olympics is a rallying point for other, broader struggles)?

this led us to consider the exact nature of our relationship with other affinity groups. what, exactly, were we involved in with them? what specific projects had we committed to that would be in conflict with the colloq? there were none. we had not yet formed a specific target / task. at best we were exchanging information, hanging out, talking about writing. bowing out of the colloq would not be meaningful to the people i was worried about. they wouldn't notice, or care. the question for them would be, "what work are we going to do together?"

and on the other hand, the colloq would give us an opportunity to talk with writers whose work we were interested in. dropping out would alienate / insult participants and organizers, which we didn't want to do because we respect them. and we really want to talk about politics and art with these people, not from a hostile outside (for a change) but from the inside, as participants who understand and take responsibility for the problems of the thing.

so the problem with the sort of support that rita talks about is of this kind--what are the material connections between ktunaxa and ksw? is there an interest on the collective in taking on this issue in more than a one-off way? often such things are awkwardly inserted in a panicked sort of way to avoid the appearance of insensitivity, to "show support" as quickly and briefly as possible, then on with the show. this is the source of the depression i feel at conferences, listening to expressions of solidarity with indigenous struggles before i get into the tub in my room at delta hotels.

i'm sorry to be so blunt here! no disrespect.

all that said, rita does make a suggestion:

"what if each person on a panel was asked to write

a poem or a short essay on this kootenay link, or what if such texts
were accompanied by donations/funds for those initiatives, etc?"

i'd be down for that.

reg



Reg Johanson
Convenor, Writing Practices Program
Capilano College
North Vancouver BC
Coast Salish Territory
604 986 1911 ext 2428
"Read With Caution Against Bourgeois Perspectives"

Roger Farr 05/13/08 12:15 PM >>>

I think Reg is going to send out something shortly articulating a PILLS' "position" (and disavowal of?) here.

But I'm not sure I can agree that the cultures of which we're speaking "do not get to choose how to respond to the general technocratic delimiting of all social engagement via the growing information economy around us and media platforms/systems that support it."

If this were true, it would mean that there is no resistance movement to techno-capital ("Empire"), when obviously there is. So if we are serious about the relationship between land and language (as Rita has formulated this), we could begin by asking: what is the relationship between indigenous struggle and the movement against capitalist accumulation and expansion, with which KSW writers have expressed sympathy/solidarity? What and where are the claims and victories of indigenous struggle, and to what extent do we (participants in the colloq.) see ourselves in solidarity with this movement?

-R



Roger Farr
Instructor, English Dept.
Convener, Creative Writing Concentration
Capilano College
2055 Purcell Way
North Vancouver, BC
CANADA  V7J 3H5

http://capilanocreativewriting.blogspot.com

"Andrew" <aklobuca@...> 05/13/08 11:04 AM >>>

"how ironic and unjust it would be if this language were to die when there

is a school of writing, of poetics, named after it."

Thanks Rita. Very interesting.



Ironic, certainly. Unjust, perhaps - at least indisputably in the sense that
oral languages, along with the cultures that bear and nourish them, do not
get to choose how to respond to the general technocratic delimiting of all
social engagement via the growing information economy around us and media
platforms/systems that support it. Consequently, they remain in perpetual
peril of being absorbed, eradicated. The KSW's relationship to the ktunaxa
language must, I think, evoke these same traits. In other words, its
relationship to oral cultures remains ironic and possibly unjust. The irony
has many sources: there's always the risk within KSW poetics of replicating
the kind of relationship Las Vegas has perfected with respect to sites and
moments of original, historically organic interaction. The "school" becomes
a kind of simulation of the multiple histories informing it. It places Paris
next to New York without much concern for origins or cultural differences.
It decides, thus, that the orality informing these differences has already
been extinguished, or at least compromised - that Paris itself isn't really
Paris anymore, has, in fact, stopped being Paris since the Germans walked in
almost 70 years ago. Of course, the "school" doesn't want to brandish this
approach to simulation unconsciously, unlike Vegas. You won't find any
discourses celebrating the wonders of technologically enhanced artifice. Its
relationship to "writing" is therefore decidedly mixed, filled with
contradictions. Its writers, hypocrites, stressed-out neocolonials. They
know that to have a "school of writing" is just one of the many ways
modernity continues to destroy speech. Therein lies the problem; therein
lies the solution. That's how I see the structural aspects of these issues.











 _____

From: Kootenay School of Writing [mailto:positions.colloq@...]
Sent: May 12, 2008 1:53 PM
To: collective@...
Subject: Fwd: the neocolonial divide and the expansionist language



exchange between reg and rita.
i'm going to answer later today, i hope you have something to contribute to
the response.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rita Wong < >
Date: 2008/5/11
Subject: Re: the neocolonial divide and the expansionist language
To: Reg Johanson <rjohanso@...>
Cc: positions.colloq@..., Roger Farr <rfarr@...>,
vid@...

thanks for this response reg.  after i sent off that email, i thought some
more about the name, "kootenay school of writing." one story of the KSW is
that it began in 1984 after DTUC closed in nelson. this is the human POV.
but what if, and let me just speculate, language arises not only from human
intention, but also from the land itself (which we somehow manifest).  it
didn't become the david thompson school of writing when it moved to
vancouver, but kept a trace of geographical history, of land, in the name.
maybe the name, kootenay, is a clue, a hint, a track, a challenge, a call to
learn the language(s) of the land. maybe KSW is much older than 24 years if
we take the origins of the word kootenay, or ktunaxa, as another start for
the school, from a perspective that resides somewhere in the land/language
itself, through a process that began much earlier than our current human
lives. the long now. according to one website, Kootenay is a Sinixt word
meaning "water people." (this resonates for me because lately, i've become
very interested in water and am developing a humanities course looking at
water culturally, ecologically, poetically, artistically etc for next
spring.)

the ktunaxa language is an endangered one (see attached newsletter of the
ktunaxa nation).  the ktunaxa are making serious efforts to preserve their
language (you can hear ktunaxa words at
http://www.firstvoices.ca/scripts/WebObjects.exe/FirstVoices.woa/8/wa/enterL

anguageArchive?archive=4ff342906f1cbae4&wosid=LmkiXN2Pyly3k5bJCQnILg# ).

how ironic and unjust it would be if this language were to die when there is
a school of writing, of poetics, named after it.  maybe the work is not only
to deconstruct dominant codes, but to reconstruct with or speak nearby
endangered ones.  i think it's probably too far a leap for the colloquium to
try to bring in someone to do a workshop on ktunaxa words, but wow, what a
challenge to consider: how can poetics align with indigenous languages,
given that cultural and linguistic diversity also relates to ecological
diversity and preservation.

i've been thinking about this partly because i recently came back from a
reading tour in the kootenays, where i was told by one high school teacher
that all the first nations people in trail are gone, killed off by smallpox.
however, the native boy in the audience who sat near the front and didn't
say a word except to nod strongly when i acknowledged that i was on native
land, silently contradicted the high school teacher.  as does the ktunaxa
website (http://www.ktunaxa.org/) and http://sinixt.kics.bc.ca/.

can i trust the language, both written and oral, to offer signs of where to
go? does using the name "kootenay" involve some invitation to give back, to
reciprocate to where the name came from? when i mention structural
questions, i'm not only thinking about who's part of the conversation and
who's not (maybe native poets (and there are lots) wouldn't want to come to
such an event--who knows if they haven't had a chance to say yes or no), but
also wondering about other forms of bridging colonial divides, like finding

ways to support such language survival initiatives. what if each person on a

panel was asked to write a poem or a short essay on this kootenay link, or

what if such texts were accompanied by donations/funds for those
initiatives, etc? just brainstorming here... thanks for getting me thinking
about this because of the colloquium--my questions are not meant to be
hostile (and i know email is sometimes not the best way to communicate so i
did hesitate which is why it took me a while to respond to donato) but i'm
thinking this through as i go along. my comments are offered in a
constructive spirit.

sincerely,
rita

On May 10, 2008, at 6:18 PM, Reg Johanson wrote:

hi everybody. rita forwarded the brief e-mail exchange she and donato had
around inviting first nations writers and how not doing so reinforces
"neocolonial divides." i should also say here that i really appreciate how
colloq organizers have opened the project up to participants for
development, critique, and adjustment.

i'll say right off that i think marie [baker] would be a great addition to the

colloquium. i think her work (and critical writing, ie the essay "Borrowing
Enemy Language") directly addresses the colloq's concerns.

[another writer, x] seems uninterested in these questions, if not outright hostile

towards them. While his writing certainly doesn't conform to normative
patterns of story-telling or syntax, i've been unimpressed by the (lack of)
politics in his poetics.

so not just any aboriginal writer will do. what the person is saying is v.
important. FN writers / artists / activists hold all sorts of "positions"
which, many aboriginal people argue, run counter to the decolonizing
project. There is a wide diversity of politics in aboriginal anti-colonial
struggles. the presence of the aboriginal body alone does not guarantee a
breakdown of the neocolonial divide, and, depending on the person, might
even be a function, or reification, of it.

exclusions and compromises seem to come with the territory of
conference-organizing. i remember when the transcanadas conference came to
vancouver and put everybody up in delta hotels, at that time under active
boycott because of their involvement in the sun peaks project. when i raised
that with the organizing committee, and suggested another venue, they
demurred. one person (who should know better) even told me that he "didn't
do boycotts"! so that committee has to wear that now. not that two wrongs
make a right, but these problems seem endemic to the structure.

i guess i'm saying that i don't think the absence of aboriginal writers is
necessarily a problem but i do think marie baker would be a good addition.

finally, let me end by opening up the conversation with a quote from david
marriott. "language writing", as marriott understands it, "[breaks] down the
semantic and syntactical codes of discourse and representation at the level
of poetic form, [and by doing so] makes manifest the ideological workings of
realist discourse and representations." He cites Robert Grenier's slogan "I
HATE SPEECH" as emblematic. marriott critiques this as an "oppositional
political aesthetics" by arguing that "marginalized voices--black women and
men writers for example--have traditionally had their claims to
representation, their positions of performativity, silenced, ignored, and
oppressed. Grenier's dismissal of speech has a different ring entirely if
one's speech has not been a privileged source of positionality and
individuation but has been a source of an agonized attempt to make oneself
HEARD." Mark Nowak, i think, has made a similar critique of language writing
as "the wages of whiteness".

this explains, for me, some of the discomfort between those who possess
"marginalized voices" and those who seek to "[break] down the semantic and
syntactical codes of discourse and representation at the level of poetic
form". of course these categories overlap, but they also constitute a
serious difference in ideas about poetry as a field of politics.

love,

reg


Thanks for the clarification. I have a couple more questions:

I'm wondering if you could explain a little more why these (or other)
First Nations writers wouldn't be right for the colloquium.  I don't
think I can find a solution for you since it's not an individual
problem with an individual solution, but I would be willing to work
_with_ you to find a structural solution to what i think is a
structural problem (ie. the inadvertent reinforcement of neocolonial
divides). When I see the word "positions," the first thing I think is
land (claims), location, and how my status as a reluctant carrier of
what Juliana Spahr calls "the expansionist language" in The
Transformation, entails questioning that language in its conventional
hierarchies as well as finding ways to socially/culturally complicate
predictable divides.

[Rita]