Misrepresenting The North

“Vice Versa: Poetry up Here” is written and directed by Josh Massey and Justin Foster. It was uploaded on vimeo.com—the video can be found here: http://vimeo.com/51248950—11 October 2012. This project was produced as a component for Massey’s Master’s Thesis (also available online via UNBC Library). The video is split into three parts dubbed Versas. It features Gillian Wigmore and Barry McKinnon (Versa I), Jeremy Stewart and Si Transken (Versa II) and Ken Belford and Derrick Denholm (Versa III). The finished video means to represent the north via its poetry “community”, but it fails to achieve its objectives.

The tagline claims “six northern poets face up to the realities and stereotypes of their society.” But how? 

     “[L]ooking back from the melt breaking up the ice/where the poems meet a moment of reflection” are two lines over laid on a shot of the Fraser River taken on the Cameron Street Bridge. The local pulp mill is framed in the upper right of the screen. This is followed by a shot of a snow covered river bank with white text: “northern dialect(ics) [sic.] a dialogue between the lines/6 poets ride an eddy at the confluence.”  Neither before or after the poems is there analysis of the “[h]arnessing [of] the transformative powers of shared words.” Was each poet to come to some realization by reading the work of another? What realization could this be? Maybe a different word would have been better here (if I had written it), or geez, I like this poem more than I thought, or when I say these things I feel like I am another’s work? “[A] dialogue between the lines” implies that the viewer is required to make an inference about what is going on in the film. At face value, the poets are “[riding] an eddy at the confluence.” Dare I ask, so what?

At this point the audience, I assume, begs to ask: what realities? What stereotypes have been faced up to? Are we to assume that by a man reading a woman’s poems, and vice versa, we have challenged something, anything?

Prince George, alternatively, is presented with a clear vision:  the footage is washed-out, eco-depressing: the camera tracks debris floating in salmon habitat, Mr. PG -- that symbol of resource exploitation/ jobs, a small organic garden with little produce. PG, from this film, looks a Zellers’ washroom (RIP Zellers). 

Gillian Wigmore

Gillian Wigmore and Barry McKinnon are the poets that make up Versa I. Wigmore reads McKinnon’s “Writing on the Ridge,” and McKinnon reads Wigmore’s “Ksan.” The theme of the poems are autobiographic curse (poem is life) and geographic observation (poem is mountain). Following the producers train of thought, I struggle to see how Wigmore reveals anything of McKinnon’s work, his intention, the meaning of the poem (if there is/are meaning) and vice versa. Why is there no context? Who are these poets, and why does this reading matter? Am I supposed to guess? Ok. I will. Based on the poem choices, I suspect that McKinnon is paranoid, and Wigmore is in touch with the pomo eco-poet gods. It is interesting that these readings are solely filmed inside – neither poet gets to go outside. In contrast to the other readings, this might mean something.

Barry McKinnon

It is interesting that Wigmore appears coy, occasionally looking up at the audience. McKinnon, in contrast, looks tense, especially at the poem’s conclusion when he looks up with a visibly tight throat. If there is meaning in these observations beyond the literal, I imagine they are discussed in Massey’s thesis. In the absence of analysis, commentary or context, the audience is left to guess. I think McKinnon’s in a tough position.

Versa II introduces Jeremy Stewart in traffic and Si Transken spray painting toys by a dumpster.   Both readings are affected by the elements, traffic and wind. Stewart looks and talks like a hipster, the kind that the government warns you about. His maroon cap and sleepy delivery are symbiotic with Transken’s casual, proletariat persona. Both readings are spliced with jump cuts to new locations (Stewart to a vegetable garden, Transken to her creative room, then to Mr. PG). Stewart reads “Casual Pleasures of Ageing Well” (the British spelling is Transken’s). Transken reads “theory of The North [sic.]” by Stewart. Versa II is when this video goes from slightly misguided and open to interpretation into complete nonsense. It’s interesting that Stewart uses a lowercase “t” and an uppercase “N.” Does this mean that theory is small in the north? Stewart begins his reading in front of the Prince George Hotel—which is now a vacant lot. Does this imply that Stewart or the poem he is reading is will disappear? Weird. The content of Transken’s poem: “But 2 of the worst are dead - 1 of a heart attack, 1 eaten by cancer” juxtaposed by the sunny day is also weird. 

Jeremy Stewart

The cuts jump from the community garden to the Civic Centre and finally to the Prince George Hotel, while Stewart repeats: “through distance in detachment.” What does this mean? Does moving from location to location represent geographic displacement? Of who? Stewart? Reassuringly, in the garden Stewart reads, “I can’t know everything. My life is too full of joy, learning, going forward and educating others.” Then Massey and Foster cut to Transken: 

So. It’s, it’s hard to be creative and functional. And to make changes in the world, and our own worlds. And not become like those other people, right? Those people that are, let’s say heartless, like in that one up there. [Transken points to something off-screen] Or who are mean, or bitter, or shutdown. [sic.]

Si Transken

When Transken says creativity is incongruent with productivity, it seems to undercut the project. When she points fingers at “those other people,” how do we know who they are? At the Farmer’s Market after she reads the line, “You and all your friends grew up with Peasant Vision in The North” I notice how Stewart’s poem jives thematically with Transken’s introduction. When a voice over is produced during footage of a disassembled mannequin, it seems to be a metaphor for dismemberment, maybe even violent crime. For example, Tranksen reads “The North will fuck you over.” When Transken is back on screen, she is standing between Mr. PG’s legs. Her reading concludes with her smiling into the camera.

Are Stewart and Transken “[harnessing] the transformative powers of shared words.” I don’t know. One interpretation of the progressive non-sensibility I managed to extrapolate from this section of the video is that Prince George is antagonistic towards the compassionate left in spite of the fact they are attempting to make the north “a better place” through poems, art and crafts and community gardening. 

The final section, Versa III, is by far the most convoluted of the three sections. Ken Belford reads “Dead Salmon Dialectics” (a nearly incomprehensible work) by Derrick Denholm, and Denholm reads “lan(d)guage [sic.]” by Belford. Massey and Foster begin this section with Belford flipping through a book and appearing somewhat confused as to what it is he is supposed to do. The scene is then cut to Belford in what is presumably his basement. The shot is framed similar to the scene in “A Beautiful Mind,” where Russell Crowe is pining up papers to a cork board. Belford explains that:

Ken Belford

I edit again, and again, and again, and I end up with pieces that look like this. And, for the time being, I have titles on them. Uh. And then when it comes time to edit, after I get the full length of the manuscript, the proposed book, on to a corkboard, then I print it all off again and I stand back from this. And I look at it, and I indicate in some way, or other, what I—a piece that I may think might be the first, or the second, or the third, or fourth. Ah. And I construct them, so that they kind of harmonically reflect upon each other, before. And what is to come. For the next. And, uh, so I take the pieces. Like here I have a new poem called “Textbook Pictures” and I just trim them close to the edge of the—the text. I sometimes think of these as semiotic textiles. And then I just locate it on the board like this [sic.].

Belford is the only other poet, besides Transken and a strange interlude by Denholm and Massey, who is allowed to speak before a reading. Denholm’s brief, seemingly out of place, conversation with Massey about his trip from Prince Rupert is at the tail end of Versa II. It serves no obvious purpose to the narrative structure of the film.

Belford reads in a monotone voice, droning out a series of words that mean, seemingly, nothing.  The reading is spliced crudely with shots of Belford standing on a river bank. In these shots, he seems like he is supposed to be reading, but his lips don’t move and he is voiced over. This is followed by a shot of a plateau and a matted Chroma key of a forest while the camera zooms out, as if it were drinking. Belford’s reading ends with a grumpy look on his face.

The lead up to Denholm’s section is by far the hardest to make sense of. There is a close up of rippling water, followed by a piece of driftwood caught in an eddy, which bears a strikingly similar resemblance to watching a turd being flushed down a toilet for 23 seconds. Excuse my humour. There is no context for this shot: is this “[facing] up to the realities and stereotypes” of the north? It does, however, announce Denholm’s second appearance – his second coming. 

Derrick Denholm

Throughout Denholm’s section there are three montages. His reading is spliced with cuts that include the camera pointed at the ground for a spell, a few matte Chroma key effects, a cross-faded sequence and a two frame shot that depicts boxcars in one frame and the other river bank in the other. Denholms reading is prefaced with an eco-montage of the poet walking along a river trail that shows garbage – an old motor, a discarded BMX, and dead fish, bright green leaves, and river rocks. Denholm – in plaid and denim – appears as the eco-poet personified when he reads directly to a patch of dandelions. 

“Trying to focus on many little parts and how they create many different wholes depends on who and what you are.” To summarize, if I may, Massey and Foster say nothing: many little parts create many different wholes – so what?

I think it important to comment on the soundtrack. It has elements of 1970s pornography as well grunge-inspired indy rock.

I am shocked that Massey and Foster believe this video represents northern poetry, specifically Prince George poetry. The video is amateurish and it is not intended for general audiences. “Vice Versa: Poetry up Here” is an unflattering and inaccurate representation of Prince George, its poets and vice versa.

A piece of driftwood caught in an eddy.