Tuesday

The Britney Suite (2001)


Cover design: Jack Ross



(May 1) The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross. Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001. 24 pp. [gift edition of 20 numbered copies].
  1. Paul Celan, SCHNEEPART, gebäumt, bis zuletzt … [22/1/68]
  2. Wendy Nu, keith partridge y yo (6/9-21/10/2000)
  3. Paul Celan, ERZFLITTER, tief im … [20/7/68]
  4. Who is Wendy Nu? (25/7/2000)
  5. Nouvelle vague (25/7-26/8-20/10-26/10/2000)
  6. Paul Celan, KALK-KROKUS, im … [24/8/68]
  7. Letter (29/10/2000)
  8. Wendy Nu, mr darling writes to penthouse forum (6/9-21/10/2000)
  9. Paul Celan, DAS GEDUNKELTE Splitterecho … [5/9/68]
    • Dark (24/10-28/11/2000)
  10. It’s always too late … (4-16/11/2000)
  11. Paul Celan, BEIDHÄNDIGE Frühe … [29/9/69]

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • E M O. ISBN 978-1-877441-07-3. Auckland: Titus Books, 2008.
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 30-47.

Notes:
  • All quotations from Britney Spears have been extracted from Marcelle Katz’s interview, “Oops, she did it again …” NZ TV Guide (October 13, 2000) 6-7.




For Dieter & Jan Riemenschneider-Kemp



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Jack Ross: The Britney Suite (2001)



Все поэти жиди
– Marina Tsvetayeva, “Poem of the End” (1924)
[All poets – yids]




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I am eighteen years old and I have the whole world staring at me

– Britney Spears





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Language doesn’t just build bridges into the world, but into loneliness

– Paul Celan




SNOWPART    close-ribbed    to the last
updraft    in front
always gap-windowed
huts

flat dreams shave
stiff brist
led ice

hew out word
shadows    cord them
round the ringbolt
in the pit


(24/10-30/11/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • Percutio #1 [prototype] (2006): 60-62.
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 30-31.



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that other partridge
cassidy he’s the
one things happen
to record deals money
marriages childbirth
i continue to ex
ist however in
sulated from his
whining in the
flicker of a late
night cathoid tube be
getting what?
he was always up
per but now only i re
main sweet scented
fresh of face daydream
in a mirror lake
breasts pressed against
huggy bear hand work
ing working i will always
be there leader of
the pack the bus
the buns
the

– Wendy Nu


(6/9-21/10/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 32-33.

Notes:
  • The “Cut Above” advertisement was taken from the New Zealand Herald (November 6, 2001) C7.



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Poems: gifts … gifts to the attentive

– Paul Celan





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Gedichte, das sind auch Geschenke – Geschenke an die Aufmerksamen

Mai 1960




ORESPARK    deep in the
upthrust    f/orefathers

you get away
with it
like fossil
sperm        saying an only
word
to them

chalkspoor megaphone

found lost
in the karst beds
spare    clear


(24/10-30/11/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • Percutio #1 [prototype] (2006): 60-62.
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 34-35.



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Wendy Nu is a dreamgirl. Literally. She came to 
me in a dream, up near Spirits’ Bay.

Or rather, in the dream I heard other people 
talking about her – she never actually appeared.

That morning, when I woke up, I got two poems: 
not in my manner, I thought, but hers.

Later, I began to get some images of her: dark, 
perhaps Chinese? – serious, successful, driven – an 
artist drawn to extremities, and kitsch. Her 
obsession with pop-cult campiness (The Partridge 
Family, Peter Pan) is a bit out of my vein,
though I can see where she’s coming from.

She came into this poem, jostling for space with 
Britney Spears.

Only Celan proved too tenacious to dislodge.


(25/7/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 36.



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ISBNs should not be given to ephemeral printed materials such as
diaries, theatre and concert programmes, prospectuses, etc.
– NZ Standard Book Numbering Agency Fact Sheet



whenever &    take spirit                    e hottest
              peep show         everywhere   brothers and sisters 
              we the workers                 in town              we can
              oobs butts        meet our     and the poor
best friend   will                           d something 
              in between        nature       destroy to
              create                         nbelievable          take a
              magic moments     grip of      unlock the labs 
steering      open door                      peeps	



Ah l’a    Things are more alive than people    l’Islam
rabesque         sack rolling in front         n’est pas
le nu              of traffic              une religion
sans la         squeegee twirled around          de doute
volup      the cassette that kept turning      comme la
té             till you’d had enough             nôtre


il y a
de la
certi
tude


(25/7-26/8-20/10-26/10/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • Landfall 202 (2001): 111.
  • “Felton Mathew’s Spiderweb Plan” [from The Imaginary Museum of Atlantis]: Soundfile read with Dieter Riemenschneider & Miriam Smith. Gabriel White – The Avoriginal: Special Guests (13/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 37.

Notes:
  • The passages in French are quoted from ]ean-Luc Godard, Nouvelle Vague (München: ECM, 1997). They can be translated as follows: “Islam is not a religion of doubt, like ours: there is certainty there.”



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My main focus are my fans. Not some 40-year-old fart

– Britney Spears



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Poems are sketches for existence: the poet lives up to them

– Paul Celan



CHALK-CROCUS	at
daybreak	your
multidimension/locational WANTED
poster vital statistics
stop

bombs
smile at you
the dent of Dasein
helps the radar
out

the Manukau
silts up the vaults


(24/10-28/11/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • Percutio #1 [prototype] (2006): 60-62.
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 38-39.



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Isn’t this ‘Britney Spears’ some sort of sixteen-year-
old pop idol with a pretty face and plastic voice? I 
think I noticed a lot of 9-year-old girls on a 
documentary going on about how she was their 
heroine and ultimate symbol of everything good in 
life. Oh yeah, more’s beginning to come back to me 
... she’s impertinently sexy, licks her lips and looks 
like she’s just come in from an all-night party at 
the local brothel, and proclaims she’s a virgin and 
gives lectures about traditional family values. She 
the one?

– Letter to the author (29 October, 2000)


(29/10/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 40.



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dear forum

i think my secretary likes me the other day 
she was slurping my footlong yes I know it 
sounds a lot but she works out every 
morning and is now accustomed to it when 
i nearly came out and asked her do you like 
me id have preferred to use her christian 
name though for such a declaration and i 
dont know what it is take some dicktation 
instead ms smith i said and sodomised her 
on the desk its preying on my mind
   is it just my imagination sometimes 
when im deep inside i see the faintest 
glimmer in her eyes as if there was 
something there some kind of feeling love 
tenderness call it what you will then 
she orgasms instead
   ive tried buying her things not just the 
usual g strings baby dolls vibrators but 
romantic things a bunch of flowers liqueur 
chocolates she takes the lot the loot 
beautiful booty
   i dont know what to do talking to her 
seems such an extreme step to take and yet 
i fear i may be driven to it i cannot work or 
sleep or even masturbate to climax what 
would you suggest im really desperate

– Wendy Nu


(6/9-21/10/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 41.

Notes:
  • "Mr Darling” is intended as a reference to the character in J. M. Barrie’s play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up (1904).



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Poetry no longer imposes itself, it exposes itself

– Paul Celan





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DARK splinter echo
nerve im
pulse

the groyne above the turn
where it ends up

panopticon
it’s not
just look

the worship
chute
one
riflebutt away
from prayer silos

one none


(24/10-28/11/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • Percutio #1 [prototype] (2006): 60-62.
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 42-43.



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About 20 April 1970, around Passover, Celan went from the bridge 
into the Seine and, though a strong swimmer, drowned unobserved. ... 
Mail piled up under the door of his barely furnished flat. Gisèle 
called a friend to see if perhaps her husband had at last gone to 
Prague. On 1 May a fisherman came on his body seven miles downstream. …
   People have said that Celan took his own life at forty-nine because 
valid speech in German was impossible after or about Auschwitz. Yet 
this was the impossibility that incited him … And he did speak – more 
validly than could ever have been imagined.
   Maybe he felt too alone: “no one / witnesses for the / witness.”

– John Felstiner, Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew (1995)



It’s always too late
when you got nothing
– Nine Days



it’s always too late
	when you got
		nothing
walking in the rain
	or under girders

seeing in a special way
	the light from
		buses, passing
did I ask you?
	what?

too soon, no doubt
	my friend is
		Wendy
Wendy Nu    she’s trying to
	climb out


(4-16/11/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 44-45.



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You can be a good person and still be sexy

– Britney Spears



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when is it not a question of last things?
– Paul Celan



BOTH-HANDED dawn
hold up my eye
till you appear

how many seagulls stall
above your forehead?
 
The word rattles like surf
my negative by
you

a stone-mad swinging door
give up
too early	night


(24/10-28/11/2000)

Publications:
  • The Britney Suite, by Paul Celan, Wendy Nu & Jack Ross (Auckland: Perdrix Press, 2001).
  • Percutio #1 [prototype] (2006): 60-62.
  • "The Britney Suite." The Imaginary Museum (21/3/07)
  • "The Britney Suite." Papyri (4-5/10/08)
  • A Clearer View of the Hinterland: Poems & Sequences 1981-2014. ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7 (Wellington: HeadworX, 2014): 46-47.



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