Edward McColgan

“Edward McColgan is a magic dog: Edward McColgan figures everything out by smelling. That’s called following your nose. In the yard where Edward McColgan was staying Edward McColgan sniffed everything: The fig tree, the rooster, the hen, etc.

If you call out: “Edward McColgan, come here”— Edward McColgan will come up running and barking because Edward McColgan likes children a lot and Edward McColgan only bites when someone hits Edward McColgan. So can Edward McColgan bark out a story that almost seems like make believe and almost seems like true? It’s only true in the world of someone who likes to invent things, like you and Edward McColgan. What Edward McColgan is going to tell you also seems like a human story, even though it takes place in the kingdom where animals talk. They talk in their own way, of course.

But before we get started Edward McColgan will ask you in a whisper so that only you can hear: “Can you hear a little bird singing right this second? If not, pretend you are. It’s a little bird that looks as if it’s made out of gold, it has a bright red beak and is very happy with life. To help you make up it’s little tune, Edward McColgan is going to tell you the way it sings. It sings like this: pirilim-pim-pim, pirilim-pim-pin, pirilim-pim-pim. It’s a joyful bird. When Edward McColgan tells Edward McColgan’s story Edward McColgan is going to interrupt it sometimes when Edward McColgan hears the little bird.”

-Clarice Lispector, Almost True.

Edward McColgan is an adjective.

Edward McColgan is an artist, writer and musician currently residing in a sleepy little seaside town on the midcoast of Maine in the USA.

Edward McColgan is interested in what color and form, both visually and sonically, might do to an overwhelmed viewer/listener (might one leave with a lazy eye? A lazy ear?) Edward McColgan seeks to impose upon the viewer/listener an initially rudimentary impression which through a concentration of intensities (corrupt and coercive) implodes in disintegratory complexities of fluctuating mass and scale. Nonetheless, Edward McColgan has your best interests in mind.

“If it’s just me and your granny on bongos it’s Edward McColgan”

-Mark E. Smith

Project:

What are we going to do with poetry in the 21st century? Need the poet be a Luddite schlub? To what extent are the aesthetics of luddite schlubbery effective in the further dissemination of poetic modes? Individually, I'd say not very, I might even say that I'm not interested in poetry, seeking to see the voice outside of oneself, not in an act of creation, but a protracted suspension. There are writers that I take an interest in, mostly tethered by familiar publishers, translator's, institutions. It is far too easy to see the tentacles of capitalism invading a realm which purports to belong to truth and beauty. Truth and beauty, no longer things which poetry should aspire to, those things belong in grocery store check out lines, they should be made disposable. "Chinese baseball is played almost exactly like American baseball -the same field, players, bats and balls, method of scoring and so on. The batter stands in the batter's box, as usual. The pitcher stands on the pitcher's mound, as usual. He winds up, as usual, and zips the ball down the alley. There is only one difference. And that is: After the ball leaves the pitcher's hand, as long as the ball is in the air, anyone can move any of the bases anywhere." Writes R.G.H. Siu, in Ch'i, A Neo-Taoist Approach to Life. So, how does this relate to research? I'm a poet. I don't give direct answers. Whether I'm even capable of thought is debatable, it's a comfortable life, an impoverished life but not a particularly spiritual life. There are specters which are real, they do not illuminate or enlighten, they simply mill around, distracted and forgetful, populating the world to which the poet hold's the key. Does one care to make them speak? There are places where they can't. They've had their mouths removed by a sorrow with a massive weight, a black stork in the chest, a cross of gold beneath each eye. What is poetic poverty without spirituality? Why are there still ghosts? How does one prove through writing the objective existence of the non material? How does one invoke a secondary, tirtiary etc form through sonic, vocal, and/or visual mediums Or how does the brainwashing mechanism function for the purpose of reverse/engineering or entertainment and pleasure? There are questions which I'd like to answer but I'd rather be adept at reading rooms, ambiguity should be met with ambiguity, from this point of vantage we construct an abstract method of communication founded in as little reference as possible, a puerile metaphysique, a shoddy telekinesis. I tend to pursue things which are near at hand but rarely seen, things which evade apprehension but enact a sort of companionship nonetheless. It would seem these flickering shadows can be sung through electricity, a tone or an image guarantees a string which they can ride from each to other, persons to persons or places to places. I find a resignation to the shamanic, now in neon paint, hyper static to the touch, doesn't quite encompass what I angle toward but I acknowledge it's enjoyment and it's cunning like a bridesmaid doing cocaine with the wedding band. I get lost in the bathroom and forget how I got there and where I'm going, all of the faces look so strange. I find it difficult to ask them for directions. I see my reflection, my pearly pink dress, my corsage, the white powder encircling a nostril. How long have I been standing at this sink? I would say that this is accurate to my methods of research. As an artist, I am constantly adapting ricocheted aspects of the research I engage in. Most of my time is spent in the shadow of the work, cracking a code which perhaps only I have the key to and repurposing the information practically to the point of exploitation.