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DiscoverVerse: Cam Scott + ROMANS/SNOWMARE
Emerging out of his abandoned scraps of writing, Cam Scott’s ROMANS/SNOWMARE (ARP Books) exudes a love of language and experiment. Cam joins us in the All Lit Up DiscoverVerse today, sharing more about building a collection of words as a source of endless inspiration, being moved by sound and its various combinations, and more. Read on for the full interview and a poem from the collection!
An Interview with Cam Scott
All Lit Up: What did you learn writing ROMANS/SNOWMARE? Cam Scott: ROMANS/SNOWMARE started as a recollection of my own abandoned scraps of writing, in response to the sense that I was always scribbling but never completing anything, never arriving anywhere. So I simply transcribed the morsels of language that I’d been collecting and declared that the poem at once. Since then I add at least one sentence of interest each day, with the intention of continuing this writing indefinitely. Insofar as I continue to grow the poem, I feel like this project has taught me how to write when I have nothing in particular to say, and without end or inspiration. ALU: If you were a character in a Choose Your Own Adventure story, what kind of quest would you be on? What three things would you have with you on your journey?CS: As one might imagine, the journey would be circuitous and stalling. In a technical sense, I expect that I’m disqualified from questing because I am basically incapable of personal transformation, and my syntagmata are more grammatical than narrative. But let’s say that I’m an implacably wholesome detective, newly arrived in a small town perturbed by the murder of its model citizen, where nothing is as it seems. I’ll need coffee, a microcassette recorder, and a dark secret from the past. ALU: Where do you draw inspiration from outside of poetry?CS: I’m moved by a world of sound, which guides my writing and precedes any concept of what I might be doing otherwise. New and experimental music, the sonic envelope of cities, I’m quite open in this regard and sounds tend to blur in interesting combinations. Less fancifully, the world is clearly brutal, so a necessary encouragement comes from emancipatory political projects of the past and present. I think that poetry alludes to a world of meaningful work and distributed leisure that is nowhere the case—yet—and ought to take a certain amount of inspiration from actual revolutions. ALU: Help us with a poetry prompt for our readers. Can you come up with a writing prompt for our readers to write their own poetry? CS:- Pick a piece of instrumental music and a voice therein; write continuously whenever that instrument plays and hew as closely as possible to its decisions, stop when it stops.- Write an epigram for your favourite poem.– Record your dreams and title them after the day’s headlines for posterity. The more writing you can do for less, the better. Write down everything.ÂA poem from ROMANS/SNOWMARE
AFTER THE PARTYThe discipline of insignificanceInsists, you could be anyone’s collected senseImpression, even-handed plaint –Misplaced the pen amid proceedingsHad to dictate to the palmExecutively. In the toilet, on the trainTweet sweetly. I find readingTo require both hands. To knuckle under meaningAs in kneading. Any other Other, valuableAnd malleable, takes an impression–Smutty putty, wet cement. Swipe ultra-leftTo second-guess variety;Oneself. A storyboard for beddingAllergens lining the wind* * *
