Poetry. Jonathan Ball's CLOCKFIRE is a suite of poetic blueprints for imaginary plays that would be impossible to produce--plays in which, for example, the director burns out the sun, actors murder their audience or the laws of physics are defiled. The poems in a sense replace the need for drama, and are predicated on the idea that modern theater lacks both "clocks" and "fire" and thus fails to offer its audiences immediate, violent engagement. They sometimes resemble the scores for Fluxus "happenings," but replace the casual aesthetic and DIY simplicity of Fluxus art with something more akin to the brutality of Artaud's theater of cruelty. Italo Calvino as rewritten by H. P. Lovecraft, Ball's "plays" break free of the constraints of reality and artistic category to revel in their own dazzling, magnificent horror.

Author City: Winnipeg, MB CAN

Jonathan Ball is a writer, filmmaker, scholar, and teacher. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Calgary, with specializations in Canadian Literature and Literary Theory, and a focus in Creative Writing. He is the author of two books of poetry: EX MACHINA (BookThug, 2009) and CLOCKFIRE (Coach House, 2010). Jonathan is also a screenwriter and director. His film Spoony B aired on The Comedy Network and he is the co-author of an original screenplay, Way of the Samurai, which was rewritten by the director as the independent feature film Snake River. Jonathan is the former short films programmer for the Gimli Film Festival and the former editor of the literary journal dANDelion.

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