-
Blog: Rogue Embryo Topics:Collage, Photography, Poetry Camille Martin’s Author Page
My Books
Praise for Sonnets
In these taut, fast-paced, self-aware poems, the lyric meets 21st century paranoia and sparks fly.
—Rae ArmantroutThere is magnificence in these poems, a poetic magnetic, propelling you to turn the page.
—Jordan Scott”Intellectually fearsome and restlessly exploratory . . . rigorous and uncompromising . . . torqued high."
—Marianne Villanueva for Galatea ResurrectsThere’s none of the lyrical self-absorption one finds in too many collections. . . Martin has a very good ear, as in a fun, almost Hopkinsesque piece that flirts with nonsense, but stays syntactically coherent.
—Quill and QuireThere are so few who seem to know how to bring something new to an often-used form that when it happens, it’s worth noting, and such is the case with Camille Martin in Sonnets. Martin writes with the most wonderful sense of clarity, thought and play in these poems.
—rob mclennanSonnets is a delightful body of work. Even though we wander into the oblique there is never alienation. Incredible poetic craft.
—James Mc Laughlin, Stride MagazineCamille Martin’s poems shimmer with repetition deft as sweetest breath mid-spring.
—Sheila E. MurphyCan you pour new wine into old bottles? Well, if you are Camille Martin and the bottles are sonnets, the answer is an emphatic, "Yes."
—Carol Dorf, New Pages Book ReviewsPraise for Codes of Public Sleep
Codes of Public Sleep breaks open the code of private thought to modes of knowing catastrophe that defy insufficient isolating sagas. Camille Martin's poetry is the shattering signal from a laudably wild tongue that will not keep still for our death-drive culture. This is a remarkable collection.
—Carla Harryman[In Codes of Public Sleep,] Martin’s enjoyment of language is clear – every noun, verb, adjective, and adverb is pushed to contain as much meaning as possible. . . . The words are rich in connotation and definition. . . . Ideas, represented by unique word combinations, resonate. Sound is also key (as it should be in poetry), and Martin pays attention to assonance, as in “Trace Reports.” Martin provides visually or intellectually inventive and effective images, ideas and metaphors . . . Moments stand out and seem to perfectly capture a feeling.
—Danforth Review
Rogue Embryo- 13 Poetry Books on Neptune
- Robert Zend’s “Typescapes”: Concrete poetry from a Renaissance man of Canadian letters
- Photos! Camille Martin and Mark Goldstein at the Myopic in Chicago
- “Their species is finally getting somewhere . . .”: Angel House Press (National Poetry Month)
- The Toronto Quarterly: “perfidy shows up with its pleasant molecules”
Pages
Pick a category!
Acadian Cajun cognitive science collaboration collage concrete poetry critical theory dance digital art experimental film Katrina literary theory Louisiana Mardi Gras music New Orleans painting philosophy photography poetry poetry blog poetry magazine poetry press poetry reading poetry review poetry workshop travel Uncategorized Vispo visual artAnalyses of my Poetry
Blogroll
- A Tonalist Notes
- Aaron Tucker
- Adam Fieled
- Amanda Earl
- Amy King
- Angela Rawlings
- Anny Ballardini
- Arts & Letters Daily
- Bill Allegrezza
- Bill Knott's Poetry Blog
- Bill Knott's Prose Re: Poetry
- Books, Inq.
- Caroline Bergvall
- Charles Bernstein
- Compost Heap
- Cultural Blanket (Sheila Black)
- David Dowker
- functional nomad
- Gary Barwin
- Geof Huth
- Hallidd's blog
- Harriet / Poetry Foundation
- JC Reilly / Poeta Venum
- Jerome Rothenberg
- Jessica Smith
- Jim Johnstone
- Jon Paul Fiorentino
- Jordan Scott
- Kristin Prevallet
- Laura Jensen
- Maggie O'Sullivan
- Mairead Byrne
- Mark Truscott
- Mark Woods
- Nate Dorward
- Nathalie Stephens
- Nick Piombino
- Pearl Pirie
- Pearl Pirie
- Peter Ciccariello
- Pierre Joris
- Reb Livingston – No Tells
- rob mclennan
- Rod Smith
- Sharon Harris
- Sina Queyras
- Stuart Ross
- Swoon Rocket
- The power of h
Bookstores - Toronto
Camille Martin's links
Distributors
Magazines
- 5_Trope
- American Letters & Commentary
- BlazeVOX
- Capilano Review
- CEllA’s Round Trip
- Ditch,
- e.ratio
- eleven eleven
- esque
- From East to West
- Hamilton Stone Review
- Jacket
- KSW’s W magazine
- Literary Review of Canada
- Mad Hatters’ Review
- Misunderstandings Magazine
- Moria
- Other Cl/utter
- Prairie Fire
- PRECIPICe
- Rampike
- Stride Magazine
- Tammy
- The Capilano Review
- The Complete Review
- The New Quarterly
- This Magazine
- West Coast Line
- White Wall Review
- Word for / Word
- xStream
Publishers
Recent Publications
Resources
Archived Posts
-
Top Clicks
-
Top Posts
- Hypnagogic Dreams: John Franklin's Fig Newton on a Piano Stool
- St. Roch Chapel in New Orleans, a Parallel Universe
- Photos! Buffalo's Big Night featuring Camille Martin and Mark Goldstein
- The Lowly Eye: Samuel Greenberg's Platonic Argument
- And/Or: Word - Image - Provocation
- Alberta Turner: What do you mean, mean?
- Signifying the Tradition: Kaie Kellough’s Maple Leaf Rag
- Time-Sensitive Material
- Houston giraffe topiary
- 13 Poetry Books on Neptune
My Collages
Robert Zend’s “Typescapes”: Concrete poetry from a Renaissance man of Canadian letters

detail from Robert Zend’s typescape Peapoteacock
A few months ago, I wrote a brief essay about Daymares, Robert Zend’s collection of stories, poems, and concrete poetry, one of his few books still in print. Zend (1929-1985) was a Hungarian-Canadian writer who immigrated to Canada in 1956, the year of the Hungarian Uprising. He settled in Toronto and worked for many years for the CBC. He was one of the most versatile Canadian writers, producing poetry, concrete poetry, novels, short fiction, essays, and plays. He was also a composer, a filmmaker, and a creator of mertz-like sculptures made of found objects.
While researching the Toronto Reference Library’s holdings of Zend’s works, I came across a thirty-year old treasure in the Special Art Room Stacks: Arbormundi (Tree of the World), a portfolio of seventeen of Zend’s concrete poems created on a typewriter, for which he coined the word “typescapes.” Although Zend didn’t invent typewriter art, he did seem to have created it without knowledge of any forebears in that genre. Below is the cover page. Following this brief essay are five more samples of typescapes from Arbormundi.

Zend’s typescapes are remarkable for their meticulous execution, which often involves superimposed shapes and figures. At the areas of intersection of these shapes, the effect is far from being muddied or heavy. Instead, they retain the delicacy that is characteristic of the whole.
Part of the beauty of these concrete poems is the ethereal effect produced by the transparency of the overlaid shapes. The result of this diaphonous quality is that it is difficult to determine which object is in front or behind the other: The objects seem to blend into one another, a visual legerdemain made possible by the open spaces of the typed letters and symbols: a superimposed “x” and “p” gives little hint as to which was typed over the other. Therefore the realm in which the ghostly forms interact spatially and symbolically is flattened into a plane of shared patterns and meanings. Zend’s often punning titles also reflect this idea of blending, as for example in “Peapoteacock,” where he brings “teapot” and “peacock” into verbal and visual contiguity so that one is contained within the other.
Another aspect of the beautiful intricacy of the overlaid objects is that the areas of intersection naturally produce darker areas, which form shapes of their own consisting of outlines of both objects (as overlapping circles in a Venn diagram produce a shaded area formed with arcs from both circles). The interplay of the shapes of each object with the shapes produced by their overlay creates an impression of both dialogue and unity between the objects.
The miracle of these concrete poems is that from what must have been a slow and painstaking process of planning and execution using paper inserted into a clunky machine come visions of airy lightness and delicate movement.
All of these effects harmonize with Zend’s recurrent themes of commonality and universality: the Other within the I, and the endless cycle of creation and destruction. They seem to be part of Zend’s spiritual expression of the continuities of life and death; as Zend puts it in Daymares, from the “prenatal . . . to the land of time-spacelessness; to the tiny centre point of our individual self which strangely coincides with the three-billion other human centre-points, with those of the dead ones, with those of our more ancient ancestors: swimming, crawling and flying creatures, rooting-stretching plants and perhaps even with the centre-points of other alien-living-units, of agitatedly swirling atoms and majestically rotating galaxies.”
Below are five typescapes from Arbormundi, which was published by blewointment press in 1982. A note to the portfolio states that “Zend creates them with a manual typewriter; no electronics, computers or glue involved.”
Following this sampling is a tribute to Zend by Istvan Vigh, a portrait using Zend’s own typescape techniques.

Vivarbor (May 16, 1978)

Detail of Vivarbor

Orientopolis (Eastern city) (June 1, 1978)

Uriburus (April 13, 1978)

Rhumballion (May 14, 1978)

Peapoteacock (May 16, 1978)

A “Zendscape” by Istvan Vigh
Camille Martin
Photos! Camille Martin and Mark Goldstein at the Myopic in Chicago
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
Camille Martin
Posted in poetry, poetry reading
Tagged Camille Martin, Larry Sawyer, Lina ramona Vitkauskas, Mark Goldstein, Myopic Books, Myopic Poetry Series, poetry
“Their species is finally getting somewhere . . .”: Angel House Press (National Poetry Month)
Posted in poetry, poetry magazine, poetry press
Tagged Amanda Earl, Angel House Press, Camille Martin, Looms, National Poetry Month, Shearsman Books
The Toronto Quarterly: “perfidy shows up with its pleasant molecules”
Camille Martin
Posted in Uncategorized
Arc Poetry Magazine: “In the badlands of the vernacular . . .”
What I want to offer in this post is a short selection of lines from other poets represented in the magazine, lines composed of language that crackles with static electricity and nudges improbable likelihoods awake. I could have included many more but here’s just a sample . . .
Adam Sol, “Note Found in a Copy of Midsummer Night’s Dream
. . . .
Through the windows of the library
the leaves shiver to the tune
of Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy.
It all tastes of the jammy fingers
that last handled these headphones.
Elizabeth Bachinsky, “I Want to Have a Chuck and Di Party Like My Parents Did in the Yukon in the 80s”
–for Jamella Hagen
But where will I get the helicopter?
Who will make my dress
out of garbage bags? And where
will I find the good-sized rock
for our game of rockball?
How will we climb to the ridge
of the glacier? Who will dig
the trench to the fuel pump? And where
will we get the kleig lights?
. . . .
Andrew Faulkner, “Tumour”
. . . .
Indifferent continent where metaphors go:
zebra mussel, surgeon’s golf ball,
a connect-the-dots dot with the image
filled in. Death on a rusty tricycle.
. . . .
Adrienne Gruber, “Reasons To Choose the Leafy Sea Dragon as Your Lover”
Narrated by Jim Carrey you were featured in a slow motion 3D IMAX. Relative of the sea horse; same delicate trumpet nose, same philosophy of child rearing. Found in shallow pools, spindly body hovering over brown kelp beds.
. . . .
rob mclennan, “grief notes: glass,”
. . . .
we sit
& echo out less
serious remarks; a language
made of snarks & sneers
;what matters?
what’s the (even) point?
sky turns black; the dishes
come to forefront,
broke,
Matt Schumacher, “The Sea Spider Suppositions”
. . . .
Suppose the sea spider in its mind
always climbs a sleek ladder
whether in the Antarctic or Mediterranean
and peers out of its eye turret
as if it were a walking underwater castle.
. . . .
Camille Martin
And/Or: Word – Image – Provocation
A few days ago I received my contributor’s copy of And/Or, Volume 2 of the perfect-bound indie journal dedicated to experimental writing and graphic art. I have to admire a magazine that embraces the word “experimental” in its description—I’ve never had a problem with that word, not least because it shares a Latin root with “peril.” And what’s not to love about perilous poetry?
I hope there will be many more issues of And/Or—it’s beautifully produced and edited and it has a focused mission. Its 144 pages feature poetry, prose, and visual art, plus work in the aptly-named category “and/or”: hybrids that don’t neatly fit the usual slots. Contributors come from places as diverse as Sugar Tit, South Carolina (yes, the author may be punking us, but such a hamlet actually exists), and a more believable “old house in Kolkata, India.”
I read magazines for some of the same reasons I read anthologies—I’m likely to encounter the work of people I know and admire, but there’s also the excitement of discovering voices previously unknown to me. My copy of And/Or is already marked up with checks next to the names of writers whose books I’d like to follow up with in the future. And—not incidentally—creating a palimpsest of the page with your own pencil is one of the joys of print journals.
A poetic salute (however you want to envision that) to Editor-in-Chief Damian Ward Hey, Managing Editor Mike Russo, and the other editors. The admirably indecisive And/Or can be ordered here.
Below are a couple of samples that snagged my attention. I deliberately chose younger writers whose work I’d never read. First, an excerpt from Kelley Irmen’s short prose sequence, “This Is Not Voyeurism.” The whole sequence is worth the price of admission.
Second, a work by Joshua Ware classified in that undefinable “and/or” rubric. A short poem is followed by absurdly pedantic exegesis and nested footnotes. It’s tongue-in-cheek tone and process reminds me a little of Gass’s Willie Master’s Lonesome Wife, or Nabokov’s Pale Fire, in miniature.
Lastly, a painting by the inimitable Bunny Mazhari, who was kind enough to send me a jpeg of the work to share on Rogue Embryo.
Oodles more great stuff have found a home in this issue, including poetry by Dawn Pendergast, Christophe Casamassima, and Donna Kuhn; and art by Danielle Tunstall. And much more.
Kelley Irmen, from “This Is Not Voyeurism”
His boots are unlaced and he says, “You have to write this in fragments. Fuck a beginning. There’s no beginning. Fuck their middle—because there’s no middle, we’re in the middle; you can’t catch it while it’s happening. And fuck, fuck the ending because there won’t be an ending either. These are scenes. We come here to eat, to bullshit with you and a few other people. These are scenes. And you writing about Eddie and how he shot the moon out of the sky at five in the morning—that’s a scene that won’t mean shit to anyone but the person who saw it fall out of the sky, you know what I mean?”
Joshua Ware, “cities, / thought becomes”
Noetic cities
empty into assembly
line after
noons.
Swirl
sing sounds
index im
possibility.
A
symmetrical
words fade in
two hysterics
____________
The above poem attempts to undermine rational thought through a series of clever interactions between form and content. Such tactics are problematic, in that “cleverness is becoming stupidity,” and moreover, “clever people have always made it easy for barbarians, because they are so stupid*.”
Given this fact of cleverness, it may be of more interest to discuss an aesthetic concern unrelated to the above poem**. The EXPLANATORY NOTE for “Moonrise Paints a Lady’s Portrait” states that “poetry is the act of metamorphosing disparate images.” While certainly correct, this is but one aspect of poetry***. Poetry can also be thought of as sensation, or that which has “one fact turned toward the subject, and one fact turned toward the object. Or rather, it has no face at all, it is both things indissolubly . . . at one and the same time I becomes sensation and something happens through sensation, one through the other, one in the other (Deleuze, Francis Bacon 25).” Sensation, in other words, is the process of becoming faceless****; to this extent, sensation is not the subject nor the object, but the movement that takes place between the subject and the object: a transitive state: a verb that creates ephemeral and conditional nouns as effects of its action in highly specific contexts. Poetry, stated differently, is the movement of the subject (i.e. the poets as writers or readers) through and within the object (i.e. the text, whether materially, linguistically, or conceptually) that perpetually alters them both. As such, one may claim that “sensation is realized in the material,” while the material, concomitantly, “passes into sensation (Deleuze and Gauttari, What is Philosophy? 193).” If and when the movement ceases, both the subject and the object territorialize into rigid loci of the State; there is no longer poetry, but something else (e.g. stagnated nouns, information, communication, order words, commodities, exchangeable goods, etc.).
“While the poets agree that there is a certain amount of cleverness in the above poem, they do not necessarily agree with the EXPLANATORY NOTE’s assessment of cleverness, nor do they believe that it is the poem’s overriding concern.
**The poets do not believe that the aforementioned “aesthetic concern” is unrelated to the above poem. In fact, they are of the impression that it is very much related.
***Poetry, indeed, should be considered a multiplicity if one has any chance of understanding it, or better stated, moving comfortably through and within it.
****Foucault once wrote: “I am . . . not the only one who writes to have no face (Archaeology of Knowledge,19).”

Bunny Mazhari, Francis Bacon
Camille Martin
Posted in concrete poetry, digital art, poetry, poetry magazine, Vispo, visual art
Tagged And/Or Magazine, Bunny Mazhari, Christophe Casamassima, Damian Ward Hey, Danielle Tunstall, Dawn Pendergast, Donna Kuhn, Joshua Ware, Kelley Irmen, Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov, William Gass, Willie Master's Lonesome Wife







