Daniela Elza & Arlene Ang/Harold Rhenisch

On spiritual photography by Harold Rhenisch and Daniela Elza:
The invitation was (is) al(read)y t(here). We had just (been) completed (by) a poem, which ended up in qarrtsiluni's issue on Mutating the Signature. It was Harold's turn to(o) begin. So he sent a few lines to Daniela.

We both continued this process of shuffling and (in) movement, of back and forth over (in) email, and within two days of tossing it back and forth we (were) had (by) a poem that was larger than we were (was). Most of what was (is) exchanged between us was (is) the poem back (and forth). Not much else (in terms of explanations). Now that we have (are) found(ing) a way to balance (begin) form with (in) improvisation, we will be writing (written by) many more.

On what fills our footsteps by Arlene Ang and Daniela Elza:
We met in the collaborative issue of qarrtsiluni, "Mutating the Signature", and became enthusiastic about writing together. Arlene set us up with a virtual room at etherpad.com where we would be free to experiment. Daniela tossed a line and we passed the poem back and forth adding a line or two each time. Once we had decided that was it for the length we went back and forth working with the whole piece smoothing edges, straightening out kinks, moving things around. It probably took a couple of months to work on this poem -- a real relationship -- until we were both satisfied. The only constraint was time, since we tend to both get busy in spurts. But the poem patiently waited for us. Towards the final stages, we mutated the embryo using a strand of Anne Michaels's DNA and thus brought our love child to this life.

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BACK

 

 

"When there are no places left for us,
we'll still talk in order to make things true:
Not only the years before we were born,
not only the names of our dead,
but also this life."
—Anne Michaels

(from the poem "What the Light Teaches")

 

what fills our footsteps

today the clouds move faster than I can swallow
apologize for their long vowels of blue.

over the radio the voices never stop fighting—
their asphalt arguments             scar across

sage country       deer paths      slopes of pine.
we leave behind dust animation          against

the horizon        speed through a new century
in expensive aerodynamic diagnoses.


powerless as condensation—        memory
on this side of the windshield         drips

as a throat would             cry.         when
there are no places         left for us


what are we         if not         separable?
throwing        disturbance shadows.


we'll still talk       in order  to make things
true
        borrow our velocity from crows

watch their hunger         hurtle through
not only the years before we were born

but the moment my hands touched your face
or the moment they curled back in the wind 

as you turned away—         left     not only
the names of our dead         but also   
    

the trees        scratched off             like scabs
the air —        a living wound.


we write ourselves into relentless flights
track mud on         white pages of

family trees     profit margins     sheets of music
while       a fragile midday quartermoon

threads longing through our umbi(b)lical eye
attempting           this life        this slit of sky.  

 

--A collaboration between Arlene Ang and Daniela Elza

 

 

Spiritual Photography

Three names is too many for anyone
in this world,         says this world.

Three names is how many names God has   in his kingdom
of ivory and crystal:     Yahweh, Christ,     and the fog,

says the fog. We proceed by quotations.    Words
wrapped in grave cloths become

our own night robes,        wrap
around the chimney, freeze on the glass.

Insistence         sketches grass blades into
stillness, flowers into  longing,  delicate stars.

What's the difference      we are. Small pieces of
God caught in our laughter. We say

we carry his name mostly in vain             except
when we freeze  into the frame     of a window.

Watch the mist pause in the elbow    of a mountain.
Are taken by a fan        of light.

Sudden light finds us
here,         on the edge of a stream. Where trees

lean in     for this
one moment. Our word is expectant,

    wrapping around spires
which is what? German for

the tip of a blade of grass. and again the Fog
that folds itself around the chimney

freezes on the pane in its multitude of fractal
names.   Who are our own mothers

and grace, says the night. but for practical    purposes
priests draw water over our faces

and like photographs our faces wrinkle up
turn sour      turn sour

turn sour under their grave hands.

 

--A collaboration between Harold Rhenisch and Daniela Elza

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Arlene Ang serves as a poetry editor for The Pedestal Magazine and Press 1. Her third full-length collection, Seeing Birds in Church is a Kind of Adieu, was recently published by Cinnamon Press. She lives in Spinea, Italy. Website: www.leafscape.org.

 

Harold Rhenisch has published eleven collections of poetry, a novel, and four books of bioregional essays. The latest, The Wolves at Evelyn, won the 2007 George Ryga Prize. He has won the CBC Literary Prize, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, and the National Playwriting Award. He lives in Campbell River on Vancouver Island. Motherstone: British Columbia’s Volcanic Plateau is forthcoming in October, 2010.

 

Daniela Elza has lived on three continents and crossed numerous geographic and cultural borders. Her work has appeared in more than 40 publications, most recently in Vallum, Matrix, ditch, educational insights, One Ghana One Voice, and 4 poets (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2009). Forthcoming: in the BluePrintReview, The Trumpeter, and The New Orphic Review. Daniela lives with her family in Vancouver. http://strangeplaces.livingcode.org/