Eddie Tay (b. 1974)
SELECTED POEMS
excerpts from Creative Practice as a Way of Life: After Barthes
The author’s clever lever intention (see Wimsatt and Beardsley):
The author function/dead author/zombie author speaks (see Foucault, Barthes, Max Brooks):
I am learning to write under the influence of Language poetry. I am trying for a Goldilocks language, under the influence. But I am not willing to let go of the confessional lyrical eloquent mode. Writing under the influence, I still love images. I still want to refer to something. I still want to speak. I still want to be I though there’s no such thing as an I. Can’t step into the same river and all that.
It’s not this or that but on a spectrum. It’s not black vs white but grey. Lighter grey. Darker grey. Black is darkest of the dark grey. White is grey without black. Think like that. Write like that. In the simplest but disruptive way so language remains fresh.
But what is fresh is also up to the reader, not just the writer. Seize the day with a bright sneeze and giddiness.
These are my e= x=t=i=m=a=c=i=e=s: as direct as possible like a needle; as obtuse as possible like skin.
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A portrait of an artist as a middle-aged man:
My grandmothers who named me have foresight.
My Chinese name is 郑竹文。
[This is the real author speaking ah.]
郑 = surname = name of a state during the Warring States period.
(See https://www.mychinaroots.com/surnames/detail?word=Tay).
竹 = bamboo文 = words/literary/culture
竹文 = “bamboo words/literati/culture”.
Words on bamboo, literati, China’s early books.
I am dam proud of my name lah.
[How to use the lah properly ah?].
They use bamboo scaffoldings in the Hong Kong construction industry.
Bamboo = rhizome.
Be like the bamboo – the higher you grow, the deeper you grow, the deeper you flow, the deeper you bow and bend and will not break when the storm breaks; a break in a storm and you pivot back quickly.
I drink ginger tea for lines of (f)light.
胸有成竹: if stuck, I go on the Internet to shop for images, for my wings, for my ideas, for a word for a labyrinth.
So many proverbs on bamboo on the Internet.
For Icarus in the sun.
For Dedalus inventing his labyrinth.
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by Eddie Tay
from Creative Practice as a Way of Life: After Barthes (2024)
