A Street in Morningside Heights in NYC

Morningside Drive

The View from Morningside Drive, NYC

Poetry in Motion, poetry on the buses

It was April 2004 when Poetry in Motion was launched at Paragraphe Books, located on McGill College Avenue. Organized by several local poets, poems by Montreal poets were displayed on buses.

This is the launch of Poetry in Motion at Paragraphe Books.

Here is Linda Leith, founder of Blue Metropolis, at the Poetry in Motion launch.

Here is Mohammed Togane in one of the buses displaying his poem. I reviewed one of Togane's books years ago, the review can be found at the Reviews section of www.stephenmorrissey.ca.

Visiting one of the buses...

My poem, "because reality is too much", in the display bus.

CFCF channel 12 filming the poems for that evening's news.

A bus, parked outside of Paragraphe Books, in which the poems were displayed, with the Poetry in Motion advertisement displayed on the bus.

The Eye of God

Cutting-up Atlantis (Ten)

This has been given. 1. The position… the continent between the gulf of Mexico on Mediterranean upon the other. civilization are to be found. of Atlantis occupied is the one hand and the Evidences of this lost in the Pyrenees and surface at the period of projections.” the first, or that known as Casian and Carpathian, or and which lies now much in and much in the rolling Northern portions were then polar regions were then more of a tropical and would be hard to describe into the Atlantic Ocean. an inhabited land and very portion of this country, then all in the ocean; only the regions that are now and Arizona formed the as the United States. That formed the outer portion , Yucatan and America. portions. . . that must have a portion of this great Indies, or the Bahamas, are be seen in the present. If the made in some of these mini and in the Gulf Stream may be even yet determined.” 2. This has been given. the beginning, or in the Garden of Eden, in that the desert, yet much in lands there. The extreme the southern portions, or turned to where they occupied semi-tropical regions; hence the change. The Nile entered What is now the Sahara was fertile. What is now the centre of the Mississippi basin, was the plateau was existent, or portions of Nevada, Utah greater part of what we know along the Atlantic Seaboard Morocco, British Honduras There are some protruding at one time or another continent. The British West a portion of same would especially, or notably in through this vicinity, these 

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Cut-up of an original text on Atlantis, by Edgar Cayce

Cutting-up Atlantis (Nine)

Many lands have disappeared and disappeared again and At that time, only the Tibet, Mongolia, Asia and Europe; that of the Peru in the southwestern of (present) Utah, Arizona, hemisphere then in the Sahara and the then entering the now region rather than flowing the Tibet and Caucasian Sea; those in Mongolia in the plateau entering the souls then in the earth plane and three million existence from the present million (10,500,000) years earth plane as the lord of in five places then at reasons, the five spheres, nations.” of man’s earthly indwelling , many have appeared again during these periods land now known as the Sah and Norway appeared in southern Cordilleras and hemisphere and the plane Mexico in the northwestern ____________________________________________ 

Cut up of an original text on Atlantis, by Edgar Cayce

Cutting-up Atlantis (Eight)

In the country, you must not be surprised I ought to warn you, that you must not be names given to foreigners. I will tell you to use the tale for his poem, enquired into early Egyptians in writing them down had he recovered the meaning of the several them into our language. My great- which is still in my possession, and was Therefore if you hear names such as are used I have told how they came to be, began as follows:— Yet, before proceeding further in the surprised if you should perhaps hear the reason of this: Solon, who was intending the meaning of the names, and found that translated them into their own language, names and when copying them out again grandfather, Dropides, had the original carefully studied by me when I was a child. in this country, you not be surprised, introduced. The tale, which was great Now the country was inhabited in those artisans, and there were husbandmen, and apart by divine men. The latter dwelt by all that they had as common property; nor anything more than their necessary food. A yesterday described as those of our Egyptian priests said what is not only were in those days fixed by the Isthmus, extended as far as the heights of Cithaeron the direction of the sea, having the district Asopus as the limit on the left. The land raised remnant of Attica which now exists may by various classes of citizens;—there were there was also a warrior class original set, and all things suitable for anything of their own, but they regarded they practised all the pursuits which we guardians. Concerning the country that in the direction of the continent they and Parnes; the boundary line came down in of Oropus on the right, and with the river as the best in the world, and was therefore able from the surrounding people. Even with any region in the world for the 

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Cut-up of an original text, Critias, by Plato

Cutting-up Atlantis (Seven)

primeval men of that country of the gods, that they distributed the and made for themselves temples and for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat in a part of the island, which I will centre of the whole island, there was a plain and very fertile. Near the plain again, of about fifty stadia, there was a mountain there dwelt one of the earth-born Evenor, and he has a wife named was called Cleito. The maiden had already died; Poseidon fell in love with her and inclosed the hill in which she dwelt all larger and smaller, encircling one another; he turned as with a lathe, each having its so that no man could get to the himself, being a god, found no difficulty land, bringing up two springs of water the other of cold, and making every I have before remarked in speaking of the whole earth into portions differing in extent, instituted sacrifices. And Poseidon, receiving children by a mortal woman, and settled them describe. Looking towards the sea, but in the which is said to have been the fairest of all and also in the centre of the island at a distance mountain not very high on any side. In this primeval men of that country, whose name was Leucippe , and they had an only daughter who reached womanhood, when her father and mother had intercourse with her, and breaking the round, making alternate zones of sea and land there were two of land and three of water, which circumference equidistant every way from the island, for ships and voyages were not as yet. in making special arrangements for the centre from beneath the earth, one of warm water and 

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Cut-up of an original text, Critias, by Plato

Cutting-up Atlantis (Six)

who had no eye to see true happiness Such was the natural state of the country by true husbandmen, who made husbandry of a noble nature, and had a soil best in heaven above an excellently attempered on this wise. In the first place the Acropolis night of excessive rain washed away the earth there were earthquakes, then occurred third before the great destruction of Deucalis Acropolis extended to the Eridanus and the Lycabettus as a boundary on the opposite with soil, and level at the top, except in one under the sides of the hill there dwelt artisans the ground near; the warrior class dwelt by Hephaestus at the summit, which moreover garden of a single house. On the north side erected halls for dining in winter, and had common life, besides temples, but there was they made no use of these for any purpose; and ostentation, and built modest houses in in the lost island of Atlantis; and this he following reasons, as tradition tells: For many in them, they were obedient to the laws, seed they were; for they possessed true and with wisdom in the various chances of life, they despised everything but virtue, caring lightly of the possession of gold and other neither were they intoxicated by luxury; but they were sober, and saw clearly friendship with one another, whereas by lost and friendship with them. By such a divine nature, the qualities which we have but when the divine portion began to fade much with the mortal admixture, and the being unable to bear their fortune, behaved grew visibly debased, for they were losing who had no eye to see true happiness ___________________________________ 

Cut up of an original text, Critias, by Plato

Cutting-up Atlantis (Five)

Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded sacred registers to be eight thousand years ago, I will briefly inform you of their particulars of the whole we will hereafter themselves. If you compare these very laws the counterpart of yours as they were in the of priests, which is separated from all the several crafts by themselves and do not and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen in Egypt are distinct from all other class themselves solely to military pursuits; looks to the unchangeable and fashions the pattern, must necessarily be made fair only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or called by this or by any more a question which has to be asked at the world, I say, always in existence and? Created, I reply, being visible and all sensible things are apprehended and created. Now that which is created a cause. But the father and maker of all this him, to tell him to all men would be down from above on the fields, having always which reason the traditions preserved here are The fact is, that whatever the extremity of mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes either in your country or in ours, or in any other were any actions noble or great or in any other down by us of old, and are preserved in our nations are beginning to be provided with letters after the usual interval, the stream from heaven leaves only those of you who are destitute of a tendency to come up from below; for the most ancient. they are in some way related to them. To great honour; he asked the priests who were and made the discovery that neither he nor mentioning about the times of old. On one antiquity, he began to tell about the most Phoroneus, who is called the “first man,” survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he reckoning up the dates, tried to compute speaking happened. Thereupon on of the Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never any among you. Solon in return asked him mind you are all young; there is no old tradition, nor any science which is hoary been, and will be again, many destructions greatest have been brought about by the innumerable other causes. There is a story, Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For unprovoked made an expedition against the city put an end. This power came forth out of Atlantic was navigable, and there was an island you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island and was the way to other islands, and from these opposite continent which surrounded the true of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow a tendency to come up from below; for the most ancient. frost or of summer does not prevent, in lesser numbers. And whatever happened region of which we are informed if there way remarkable, they have all been written. Whereas just when you and other and the other requisites of civilized life, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and education; and so you have to begin

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Cut up of an original text, Timaeus, by Plato

At Blue Bonnets Racetrack, Montreal (One)

A Sunday at Blue Bonnets racetrack here in Montreal was always fun. Even for someone like myself, with little interest in gambling or betting on the horses, it was fun. A table at the Centaur Restaurant, the breakfast buffet, being with CZ and our friends, Patrick and Linda, watching the races and planning which horse we'd bet on next; studying the race forms, how many races won, how many lost, how much money made for the owner. Then excitement of winning $50.00 and then losing $25.00. Going home ahead. Friends winning $500.00! And just people watching--and being with people that are different from my usual life--watching through my binoculars the horses and then walking around the other areas of the track, taking photographs, more people watching, and being out on a Sunday afternoon when there was nothing else to do and the track only a few miles from where we live, the famous (for us) Blue Bonnets which the government bought and renamed Le Hippodrome de Montreal, and equivocated on its future and considered a future off-island location before closing the place down. Blue Bonnets, an enormous building and usually less than half empty, and eventually a combination of changing demographics and the government running the track has lead to its recent closing. What a piece of real estate they're sitting on! And the fact that most people aren't interested in going to the track anymore, not here in Montreal, not when you have the casino, Loto tickets, and online gambling. Remember when the only lottery was the Irish Sweepstakes? It was a simpler life then. You can't reinvent the complexity of a track culture, you can't reinvent this again when it's gone; we all lose as the diversity of life is reduced. When it's gone, it's gone for good. In just about every way, diversity and complexity make life a lot more interesting.

Cutting-up Atlantis (Four)

the fairest and noblest race of men nothing of what happened in ancient times, either a boundless continent. Now in this island of those genealogies of yours which you just now empire which had rule over the whole island and than the tales of children. In the first place you and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had were many previous ones; in the next place you of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe your land the fairest and noblest race of men into one endeavoured to subdue at a blow whole cities are descended from a small seed or region within the straits; and then, Solon, you was unknown to you, because for many her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She died, leaving no written word. For there was skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the city which now is Athens was first to stand alone, after having undergone the of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from of any of which tradition tells, under the faced, and generously liberated all the rest of us who the order in which we have arranged our occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and who is the most of astronomer amongst us requested the priests to inform him exactly and special study, should speak first, beginning are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the creation of man; next, I am to receive of your city, and above all , for the sake of the will have profited by the excellent education parent and educator of both our cities. She founded and make them citizens, as if they were those receiving the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of record recovered from oblivion, and of which constitution is recorded in our and fellow citizens. perfect and splendid feast of reason. And now disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud of the island. aged Critias heard from Solon and related to us about your city and citizens, the tale which I have and I remarked with astonishment how, by almost every particular with the narrative. For a long time had elapsed, and I had of all run over the narrative in my own mind, to your request yesterday, considering find a tale suitable to your purpose, and that on my way home yesterday I at once I remembered it; and after I left them, during As touching your citizens of nine thousand laws and of their most famous action; the exact through the leisure in the sacred registers with ours you will find that many of ours are olden time. In the first place, there is the caste; next, there are the artificers, who ply their mix; and there is the class of shepherds; and you will observe, too, that the warriors and are commanded by the law to devote the weapons which they carry are shields the steeds in his father’s chariot, because he burnt up all that was upon the earth, and this has the form of a myth, but really the heavens around the earth, and a great after long intervals; at such times those places are more liable to destruction than. And from this calamity the Nile, who is our. When, on the other hand, the gods purge in your country are herdsmen and shepherds you, live in cities are carried by the rivers nor at any other time, does the water come ____________________________________ 

Cut-up of an original text, Timaeus, by Plato

Cutting-up Atlantis (Three)

from an aged man; for Critias, at the time of age, and I was about ten. Now the day and the poems of several poets were of Solon, which at that time had not he thought or so to please Critias, said of men, but also the noblest of poets. The at hearing this and said, smiling: Yes, made poetry the business of his life, and from Egypt, and had not been compelled, found stirring in his own country when he he would have been as famous as I will tell an old-world story which I heard of telling it, was as he said, nearly ninety years was that day of the Apaturia which is called the to custom our parents gave prizes for recitation recited by us boys, and many of us sang the poem gone out of fashion. One of our tribe, either that in his judgement Solon was not only the wise old man, as I very well remember, brightened up Amynander, if Solon had only, like other poets, had completed the tale which he brought with him by reason of the factions and troubles with came home, to attend to other matters, in my Homer or Hesiod, or any poet. ____________________________________ 

Cut-up of an original text, Timaeus, by Plato.

Upstairs at the Atwater Library

Photos taken upstairs at the Atwater Library, located at Atwater near Ste. Catherine Street, Montreal. Their website reads:

The Atwater Library and Computer Centre (ALCC), located in a 1920s heritage building in western downtown Montreal, is a community-oriented facility with a library, a multi-faceted computer centre, and an auditorium seating 100.ALCC was founded in 1828 as the Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal, and it is the oldest lending library in Canada. The building is a National Historic Site. Officially known as the Atwater Library of the Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal, ALCC is an independent facility open to all residents of Canada. Funding is primarily by private donations and internally-generated activities. ALCC is a registered charity.

The Atwater Library and Computer Centre (ALCC), located in a 1920s heritage building in western downtown Montreal, is a community-oriented facility with a library, a multi-faceted computer centre, and an auditorium seating 100.ALCC was founded in 1828 as the Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal, and it is the oldest lending library in Canada. The building is a National Historic Site. Officially known as the Atwater Library of the Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal, ALCC is an independent facility open to all residents of Canada. Funding is primarily by private donations and internally-generated activities. ALCC is a registered charity.

Cutting-up Atlantis (Two)

The voyage is still touristic now, Voices, baggage, Anyone who travels sees others Every object a word There is more than a literal transcription Who knows where meaning. magic carpet of cold. (the place does not matter) prototype—in a mirror— we city people What does it mean? Travel is the life knee, a poem, a fiction distant, obscure And then you ask language, the record we make ___________________________________ 

Cut-up of an original text by Louis Dudek, Atlantis, Delta Canada, Montreal, 1967

Reading at Haven Art Gallery, NYC, September '08

Last September '08, CZ and I read at the Haven Art Gallery on Bruckner Boulevard in the South Bronx, NYC. It was 100 F in the shade... Above: Haven Art Gallery, .





CZ at the podium...

Stephen Morrissey reading...

Here is Carol Novack who organized the reading. Carol is the publisher and editor of the widely read Mad Hatter's Review.

Cutting-up Atlantis (One)

I think that now everything will go on here an identity, is what we really are. in the body, with things and men. it is the whole reality something that we are, I think. that now everything will go on here And yet I know that is always there; live at all. cannot know or share. This voyage is almost it is now (as all we do), as before. As it must. bird of paradise. for good—or I do not There will be always true, and each living thing There were sixty people at present lost in the placards were sent out their prayers drowned by “Othello” and “The Merchant” precincts of The Globe) to the ground? I looked for the past to the ground? (in the Borough Should I ask that tree? for Listen with my ear right by the Study a flower for a sign? This is all new to me. Univac The half of a moon. The sound of feet. Not an individuality I will take it all in and wait That continues, as it live until like a High Mass in Southwark great vault, Underground.

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Cut-up of an original text by Louis Dudek, Atlantis, Delta Canada, Montreal, 1967

Stephen and Walt

Visiting the home of Luci and Adrian King-Edwards the other day, I noticed "Stephen and Walt", dated October 1976. It's the kind of thing I would have done then, always some humour in the background.

Cutting-up Atlantis

Cutting-up Atlantis uses excerpts from four texts that all deal, in one way or another, with the lost continent of Atlantis. Each of these texts has been cut-up and the cut-up texts from each of these are included in this new work. The first text that was cut-up are pages from Atlantis, a book length poem by Louis Dudek, published by Delta Press, Montreal, in 1967. Dudek is an important Canadian poet whose vision extended beyond his native country to Europe, to Atlantis, and finally to the infinite. Two important Socratic dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, written around 500 B.C. by Plato, are the oldest historical and literary references to Atlantis. Whether Plato meant these to be read as allegory or as historical fact is not known. Pages chosen randomly from these two dialogues by Plato have also been cut-up and reassembled. The fourth text is taken from Edgar Cayce on Atlantis, written by Cayce’s son Edgar Evans Cayce, and published in 1968. This book offers an overview of Cayce’s psychic readings on Atlantis. From this text I have cut-up quotations by the “sleeping prophet,” Edgar Cayce, that are included in Edgar Evans Cayce’s book; nothing written by Edgar Evans Cayce has been used in Cutting-up Atlantis. In Cutting-up Atlantis, derived from texts by Louis Dudek, Plato, and Edgar Cayce (a more disparate group is difficult to find!), I have created a new text that has something of the feeling of an ancient document that has survived from antiquity. Cut-ups remind me of skimming a text; reading only a fragment of the complete text discovers meaning. Cut-ups, the act of cutting-up and reassembling the text, are a kind of editing without an editor. Cut-ups are also “found texts,” the poetry in them is recreated and revisioned in the cut-up process. Reading the cut-ups, the mind looks for meaning—it looks for consistency, a coherent thesis, and connections between ideas and images—even though there may be, in fact little or no meaning in the cut-up text. Meaning—what is meaningful, what gives meaning and connection to life—can be found even in the randomness and apparent meaninglessness of a cut-up text. Stephen Morrissey Samhain; Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, 2008 Sections One and Two: Cut-up of an original text by Louis Dudek, Atlantis, Delta Canada, Montreal, 1967

Sections Three to Five: Cut-up of an original text, Timaeus, by Plato

Sections Six to Eight: Cut up of an original text, Critias, by Plato Sections Nine and Ten: Cut up of an original text on Atlantis, by Edgar Cayce

"Drummer Boy Raga" and Cut-ups

Vehicule Poets at Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University
giving a group reading on 26 April 2018

Like a collagist, selecting and snipping, Stephen immersed himself in the text, emerged with bits and phrases words, even syllables. Sometimes, his selection was to introduce fragments of what was to come, sometimes a reflection (refraction) of what had just passed. His breaking up the text in this fashion turned the piece in on itself, its meditative aspect. The work was now reaching inward as well as outward. He did not add one original phrase, not one external element, yet his contribution was instructive. In visual terms, he zoomed in on the fabric, the material, offering the work as “object”, built with breaths, words, thoughts. 

                                                    —Tom Konyves on “Drummer Boy Raga: Red Light, Green                                                         Light” (Poetry in Performance, The Muses’ Company, 1982) 

By chance, I just reread Tom’s commentary on my participation in “Drummer Boy Raga: Red Light, Green Light”, a poetry performance we gave at Vehicule Art Gallery, on April 16, 1977. I believe the project was originated and coordinated by Tom Konyves; the performance included John McAuley, Ken Norris, Tom Konyves, Endre Farkas, Opal L. Nations, and Stephen Morrissey. My participation in writing the text amounted to cutting-up what others were writing. Then the cut-ups were assembled and returned to Tom who distributed the new work to the next person. These were my first published cut-ups. Finally, as a group, we performed the completed “Drummer Boy Raga: Red Light, Green Light”. Thinking back, this must also have been our first written group project as the Vehicule Poets; the next group collaboration would be A Real Good Goosin', Talking Poetics, Louis Dudek and The Vehicule Poets (Maker Press, Montreal, 1981). This was an interview or dialogue between Louis Dudek and the seven of us young poets. We were known as the Vehicule Poets because we all hung out and organized poetry readings at Vehicule Art Gallery. Our first group anthology, The Vehicule Poets (Maker Press, Montreal, 1979) wasn’t a collaborative work as such; it was an anthology of our work as individual poets, not work written in collaboration with each other. And now, here is Tom’s text, from above, cut-up: 

Like a collagist, selecting and snipping turned the piece in on itself, its meditative emerged with bits and phrases words, inward as well as outward. he did not add was to introduce fragments of what was element, yet his contribution was instructive (refraction) of what had just passed. His fabric, the material, offering the work as Stephen immersed himself in the text thoughts. even syllables. Sometimes, his selection aspect. The work was now reaching to come, sometimes a reflection. In visual terms, he zoomed in on the breaking up the text in this fashion “object”, built with breaths, words,