Frank Sherlock and Mark Lamoureux, Segue series at BPC, 1.13.07


Mark Lamoureux

Sifting baroquely through memory details and displaced descriptive riffs.

Lamoureux had an uncomfortable David Byrne-like stage presence, and a discomfort in the poetry too, so we get the alternate universe of response that springs from it. God knows there's plenty to be uncomfortable about, and though I haven't seen this work on the page, I get the sense that the war in Iraq and the nature of the present administration is never too far from it's concerns - and this set of discomforts mixes in interesting ways with other kinds of discomforts.

Lamoureux deployed sequences of vaguely political, graceful obscuritanistism which would sometimes be punctuated with humor and condense into something more solid: "A kind of gooey equity goes for a motherfucker's eyes."

In general he has a tendency to favor an emergent-type of vocabulary use, where the vocabulary tends to opt for the more obscure terms.

Sometimes pushing a fantasy-like vibe: "The master is a haughty buccaneer among scribes"


Frank Sherlock.

Sherlock read a long, highly engaging collaborative poem written with Brett Evans. About New Orleans/Katrina.

Interesting pairing - where Lamoureux moved in evocative socially retreating complexities, Sherlock investigated layers of social interaction and context that he intentionally complicated.

Once the context is established this way, abstraction is minimized, because anything you hear will be applied to what you know about Katrina.

Strong, niorish George Carlin-like delivery, and a good use of humor.

Too many memorable lines to quote, but here are a few:

"The suicide hotline goes to Bollywood"

"Tonight doesn't make sense, but don't steal my salad then tell be you don't eat vegetables.

"A flaming turkey-toss over a football field."

"Bioremediation is a trombone slide."

"Let the Shiite hit the fan."

"I'm hot for reaper."

"I need to have a conversation with the moon."