Thank you, Mei mei So the authors
will take some questions now.
We have a mic which I can pass around.
So if you have questions for the authors.
This question is directed for Alice.
As you were reading, I was really
drawn to the quickness of your delivery,
particularly in the first piece that you read,
which seemed to create this sort of heightened
sense of emotional urgency.
And I wonder, for those readers who are picking up
your work for the first time who aren't
in this sort of intimate arena in which
the rich aural qualities of your work come across,
if you intend for them to have the same experience of speed,
does it matter how the work is read?
And what sort of visual cues do you rely on, typographical
or spatial, to sort of create that sense of pacing?
What you need to do is look at the book.
It's a very particular book and it's arranged
in a very particular way.
The words are very close together
and I think you're forced to read it fast on the page.
I don't know if you would necessarily
feel the same kinds of emotion that I was conveying,
and I don't know if I would convey the same ones
every single time.
Because it makes-- each performance is different,
and different kinds of shapes get made every time.
But in this book, this book is trying
to replicate the mind in action partly,
and partly, it's being something like a Byzantine church
with mosaics and icons in it.
And the words break apart because they're like pieces.
They're like pieces.
They're like mosaic pieces.
And the conception is very intricate.
But it's a particular book.
It's a special book.
And you have to look at the book to find out what I'm doing.
Does that answer it?
I have a question for Alice, and a question for Mei Mei Alice,
I'm wondering if you would talk about your writing process.
I certainly experienced your poems as, as you say,
replicating the mind in action, and it's so interesting
to try to wonder about.
It feels as though your writing is the mind in action
and there is no replication involved.
So I just wonder if you can talk about your experience.
You can't do the mind.
You always end up making art.
And that was what I did.
Prosody takes over, some form of prosody,
and you're inside that, and I'm not
sure the mind has that at all.
But on the other hand, I don't know what the mind is,
and I don't know what writing is,
and they're not very separate from each other
when you're the mind doing the writing.
I wrote very, very--
it was composed on the computer.
I wrote it very fast.
I was wondering about the pace.
Yeah.
And I started with a dream image usually and wrote very fast,
as fast as I could.
And then that was one day, and then the next day,
I would shape it.
It's in stanzaic shapes based on the number six,
which is the magic number for the Byzantines.
OK.
Good to know.
Thank you.
You're welcome.