Joyelle McSweeney


Spectacular Attacks
When you hear of spectacular attacks,
recall how they will appear in night vision —
green, blooming into the sky,
tight-sprawling Easter sprays.
This is the heat the building yields:

a familiar production. When the bear pedals short,
the cloth clown climbs a wire
to defuse what's perched
atop the telephone pole.
This is the confusion of a volatile formula,

the outflowering of nourishment
bad and good for you both. You clutch
at what flies from you. You watch
from the outside, wandering brick.




Then you go here:
http://www.bornmagazine.org/projects/spectacular_attacks/

The problem as I see it

If I smushed a banana into the side of a bottle of rum and called it bananas foster, I'd be a laughing stock. The juxtaposition of Joyelle McSweeney's poem with Kevin Cornell's flash animation is a good idea, but just smushing them together is not the way. It's difficult to appreciate the poem while watching the animation. You end up simply watching the flash over and over again in order to read the poem. And why not just read the poem—separately. Meanwhile, the purity and impact of the animation, which is incredible, is lessened by having what amounts to a contrivance of free-floating text compete for your attention. In Tarkovsky's Mirror, when his father reads his poetry, the visual onslaught is temporarily halted in order for us to actually listen to the poems. Then, it resumes. Tarkovsky knew what others have apparently forgotten. What should happen here is the two works should simply be placed together and let the surfer consume both separately in whichever order he so chooses. The right choice is animation first, then the poem. Or wait...

Ok I just had another theory. Maybe the problem isn't the way the two works are mixed together. Maybe it is simply a matter that the poem isn't as good as the animation. I think that could be the problem. "Bad and good for you both..." What is that? That's bad. The animation doesn't need that. It also doesn't need "outflowering." Essentially. It could work. If just a few fragments of the poem were injected. But not the whole thing. Not the whole thing.




>When the bear pedals short,
>the cloth clown climbs a wire
>to defuse what's perched
>atop the telephone pole.

this is from when that bear climbed up that telephone pole, and for some unknown reason, the people apparently couldn't wait for the bear to just climb down. so they shot him with a tranquilizer dart while he was still atop the telephone pole. then the bear passed out and fell about three stories. it was one of the most awful things i've ever seen. it made me want to hit someone, or write a poem.

>This is the confusion of a volatile formula,

Love this line.

>bad and good for you both

not so much.

>You clutch at what flies from you.

Full Metal Gadget

>wandering brick.

“...for whom it is reserved...the black lace, the dark lace, the leather...” (listen, fool)

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