Stephen Motika and Joanne Kyger Reading

Reading held at Dia: Chelsea and curated by Vincent Katz, May 12, 2015
Review written and edited by Peter Buller

Mood rarely factors into one's poetic canon. Poetry focusing on particular moods in one's life receives the scintillating stamp of confessionalism in literary circles or brings to mind the poor, angsty writings of a teenager. As a result, poets explored other themes in their writing, leaving the intricacies of mood to musicians, painters, and other artists. Mood in poetry frequently supports the thematic goals of writers or particular works. Rarely do writers utilize mood as their poetic centrifuge, a sentiment which lends itself to the works of Stephen Motika and Joanne Kyger.

Author and poet Vincent Katz describes Stephen Motika's work as employing an, "activism of syllables, sounds, and images." Reading mostly from Western Practice (Alice James Books 2012), his first book of poems, Motika forms a collage of moods through formalist play and referential images. His reading of "City Set: Los Angeles Years" interweaves Gertrude Stein's recurrent word choice with Frank O'Hara's penchant for names. He's "walking along a dry California riverbed" after an arrival "at Womanhouse in search of Group Operation," later noting, "stolen:/ B. Nauman: Perfect Door/Perfect Odor: Perfect Rodo." Nestled between these are meditations on "flexible reality" and "a syrup of scientific." What makes Motika's imagery so striking is its chronological context: the mood of L. A. during 1972. On this note, Motika concocts an intriguing mixture of sculpted images and chiseled sounds, which he renders beautifully in his elegant reading. Embodying the mood of a time and place allowed his reading to match the beautiful arrangement of his written words in casual strides.

Joanne Kyger's reading from her latest work, On Time (City Lights Publishers 2015) also flowed with casual confidence. In Kyger's case, the tone of her voice helped set the mood of her poetry. Musings on "the best thing about the past" and George Bush "walking... with a watermelon under each arm" rest within the emotional landscape of conversations on a homey front porch--which at one point serves as the setting of a poem of hers. Humour grounds Kyger's poems in this mood, a "vampire squid" referring to Goldman-Sachs and recounting the colours of rare gemstones as "an opportunity for a good education." On Time itself jabs at the tardiness implied in Bill Berkson's Expect Delays (Coffee House Press 2014). Kyger's poetry could easily stand on humour alone; yet pays attention to the profound as well. Meditations on mind and body--grounded in the spiritual pursuits of Eastern religions--flow in and out of humorous storytelling. An amusing quip on preferring the word mature "when referring to myself" trickles into thoughts on how "the old gods reach out with their stories and resentments." Kyger illuminates the fluctuating mood of friendly conversations in a poetics where "water becomes a state of being."

Although Kyger and Motika possess different backgrounds and interact with different people, their poetry nevertheless attest to the emotional landscape mood provides. Through images of Motika's "ball of red and orange and smoke," and Kyger's "riding on a wave of understanding... out of sight," a spectrum of emotions outlines the previously unplaced texture of life's moody roads.