St Patrick's Basilica, Montreal (one)

Exterior and interior photographs of St. Patrick's Basilica in Montreal.

This plaque celebrates the baptism of one of Canada's greatest poets, Emile Nelligan.

St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal (three)

The fountain behind the Oratory.

St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal (two)

St. Joseph's Oratory is not only one of the largest churches in North America, it is a dominating feature on the Montreal skyline.

This small chapel was the original church at this location. It is a short walk to the present-day, much larger Oratory.

St. Joseph's Oratory, Montreal (one)

Montreal's St. Joseph Oratory seen from Cote des Neiges Cemetery.

Inside the small chapel adjacent to the Oratory.

The Cut-up Technique

John Cage poem by Stephen Morrissey

The process of making cut-ups is fairly simple. Take a page of someone’s writing—for instance Arthur Rimbaud or Blaise Cendrars—and cut the page into four, eight, ten, or whatever number of pieces one chooses. Then, randomly assemble the cut-up pieces of text by gluing them onto a fresh sheet of paper. Now, you have a new piece of writing by the same author, but changed, the words altered, a new voice speaking through the random assemblage of fragments of their work. The linear writing you began with has been re-visioned in a non-linear way, often producing surprising new phrases that contradict normal rational logic. As a variation on this process, you can take two authors, cut-up their writing, and assemble a new, single, and combined page of, for instance, Rimbaud-Cendrars.

I learned of the cut-up method in William Burroughs and Brion Gysin’s book Minutes to Go that I read in the early 1970s. I was just beginning to read my work in public and the cut-ups made a huge impression on me at the time. Indeed, the writings of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs, and others, spoke to many of us in a personal and relevant way. Writing poetry was our journey and these older writers were our mentors. I also read all of Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, and other writers that Henry Miller recommended in his The Books in my Life; indeed, that’s where I first heard of Blaise Cendrars and, possibly, J. Krishnamurti. At the time of these early public readings and performances, I was also involved with the writings of John Cage that emphasized silence, randomness, coincidence/synchronicity, and non-linearity in art.

I have always liked several things about making cut-ups: For instance, 1) the physicality (or non-cerebral aspect) of the cut-ups, using scissors and glue to create new writing; 2) the relationship of the cut-ups to making collages, which are really visual cut-ups; 3) I have always been intrigued by the randomness of the cut-ups, allowing a new voice to emerge from the writing; 4) the connection to visual art (painting, film, etc.) interested me; 5) avoiding the imposition of the ego in the writing, always seemed to me one of the objectives I was attempting to achieve in my experimental writing; 6) cut-ups can be performed using several voices, or a room full of voices, or the reading/performance can have several cut-ups read simultaneously.

The cut-ups remind us of a serious ambition in poetry, in sound poetry, in visual poetry, and in printed poetry. In my writing since the cut-ups—writing concerned with redemption and witness—the context has always been living in an existential world in which insight and affirmation of life has been hard-won. The cut-ups affirm life, they show meaning and creativity in randomness and coincidence.

A final note: you can't escape the jester archetype in all of this. The idea of new, intelligible poems coming from the cut-up remains of someone else's poems suggests a supreme act of jesting. Are our poems so slight, or so dense, that a new and possibly significant text can be found after its cut-up pieces are randomly assembled? Is the cut-up up technique also some kind of jest or put-on? Of course, the jest is a part of the process...

SM, 30 October, 2008

The Shaman’s Tune

Shamanism is as old as primeval sea life that has not yet been thrown onto the distant shore of consciousness—consciousness that is about to experience an evolution that takes more years than we can imagine.

A Walk on the Lachine Canal

The Lachine Canal extends from Old Montreal to Lachine; these photographs were taken in Lachine. The early explorers thought they had discovered China, and gave the area the name "La Chine," China...

St. Agnes Church, from the Lachine Canal, in winter.

One of the oldest Anglican Churches in Quebec, St. Stephen's Church is just off the canal.

Molsons at Mount Royal Cemetery

The rusted doors to the Molson mausoleum with their famous, once rather erotic, depiction of naked women angels just above the Molson name. The Molson family mausoleum, located at Mount Royal Cemetery here in Montreal, is modelled after their original brewery. The Molson family is prominent in Montreal and Quebec history, now including the endowment for the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. (Note: Last week I noticed that the old ornate doors of naked mermaids, or are they angels? have been removed and plain steel doors installed.)

St. Michael's, Mile End, Montreal (three)

Stephen Morrissey and the guide.

Inside photographs of St. Michael's.

St. Michael's, Mile End, Montreal (two)

St. Michael's seen from Mount Royal.

St. Michael's seen from St. Urbain Street.

Inside St. Michael's.

An upstairs room at St. Michael's.

St. Michael's Church, Mile End, Montreal (one)

St. Michael's is difficult to photograph because of the size of the church and that it is surrounded by residential and commercial buildings.In this photograph, the dome of the church has recently been cleaned.

The church entrance from the street.

As you enter, Father Luke Callaghan's name can be seen written on the ceiling, with the names of other people who were prominent at St. Michael's at that time.

The inside of the church, facing the entrance.

Another view of the church interior.

The famous stained glass windows on either side of the dome.

A painting of St. Michael on the done of St. Michael's Church.