[The interview took place by email between Friday, 01 March 2002 and Monday, 04 March 2002]

LU: When and in what circumstances did you first meet Alaric Sumner?

CP: I first met Alaric in the first week of my studies in Performance Writing at D[artington] C[ollege of] A[arts]. This was in September 1997. As a class of, mainly, wannabe poets (I'm not sure when you stop wanting to be), Alaric shook us up a bit. I think we were all struck by his enthusiasm and vigour that made his suggestions hard to refuse. He asked us to engage with a number of different writing exercises, which seemed quite unusual at the time; sitting next to a place in the lecture room and writing that space, we were then asked to incorporate the text we had produced into the space. I remember that everyone was being pretty resistant to the process, but Alaric's sense of urgency and vitality encouraged one to tackle the task. I remember leaving that first class confused and inspired. I'd realised, although I could not vocalise it at the time, that inspiration could be found in unlikely spaces, and that text is everywhere, it is just that often it is buried and scarcely visible or intelligible, and that this gives the world an intensity which makes writing, well tricky sometimes. 

LU: Was it always like that? What other things did he get you to do and what sort of feedback did you get?

CP: It was nearly always like the that when Alaric was 'teaching' us in the early days. I think he was trying to get us to look at things in a fresh way. I remember him rolling out a giant roll of paper and asking us to place objects on it, whatever we had on our person, or could see lying around, then writing around it, then removing the objects. It was all very playful and sometimes did not seem to work at all, but that did not seem to matter. It was not the product that mattered, it was the process, or more the way we engaged with the process. He did not seem to mind as long as we engaged. The only time I remember seeing him pissed off was when the whole class just ridiculed what he was asking us to do ('how can we write with remote microphones, a dictaphone, and not use speech' 
'why can't you' 
'writing's words!' 
'Is it?!') 

No-one took the opportunity to try something new seriously, we were all trying to stay inside some kind of literary comfort zone. He was quite morose about it, and most of us felt a bit guilty for some reason.

The feed back he gave us was nearly always positive however. The smallest idea, or turn of phrase would be met with giggle or him muttering 'interesting' under his breath. He was not positive just for the sake of it, and whether he personally appeared to like the work or not he would drill you on it. 'Why did you do that?'. He would encourage us to take an idea and run with it as far as possible, until it became separated from itself and lost its way, then had to try and find itself again.

'Where is the text?' he would ask.

'I had the text and you encouraged me to lose it.' 

'Did I? But where is it now?' 

On other occasions he would stop you mid flow, and ask you to pare it down. I think that sometimes his criticisms or questions sometimes seemed arbitrary. He intended to frustrate, or as someone put it- befuzzle. This either pushed you in a direction you had not considered before, and he was pleased, or it made you incredibly bloody-minded and determined to hold onto your idea, or your text, or your process. 'It doesn't matter that it's not original; but everything is unique, and this is unique, and it is interesting because...'

In summary, we got up to a lot, and it did not seem predetermined and scripted. He was not trying to get us writing a certain way or a certain style. His feedback was never about closure, and it often encouraged one to produce work that would make new work, that would produce new work, that documented itself through its continuation, until it reached a point down the line where it became, oddly enough, something hermetic, and something that could be identified as belonging to you.

LU: What about theory? Alaric had a lot of theory in him. How did he and you approach that?

CP: I think Alaric did carry theory around, but he never seemed overladen with it (he may have been but did not seem to be). He never tried to saddle us with theory. I think it is important not to misinterpret this, he did encourage us to theorise our work, but kind of in reverse.

I said earlier, 'not everything is original, but everything is unique' and this was in response to a wider debate on the nature of the author. Alaric had been arguing that because a script I had produced was an interpretation of a visual art piece ('Self Something' in Saatchi's collection and the artist was called Sean), I could not claim authorship. It was a very vocal debate that we had, and Alaric welcomed open discussion, and sometimes would suffer ostensible fools gladly. After we had disputed this, in relation to my practice, he suggested that I read Barthes' Death of The Author. I did, and the next day begrudgingly admitted that he (Alaric) had a point, but it was not his point to prove. The point at which we can claim ownership of a text, or even stranger, a cannon, seemed to fascinate Alaric (but he could have been responding to the wider Performance Writing syllabus, I don't know). I remember him saying to another student 'good poets borrow and great poets steal.' Perhaps he was quoting someone else at the time, but I think he meant it.

This exemplifies the way Alaric tutored me. He would introduce theory at the end. As a way to frame things. It was the work itself, rather than the discourse, that was focussed upon. Without the theory, however, the work could not hang in the same way, and it was important to realise the context. He once said to me that one can be inspired by a piece of theoretical writing... and I think he was right.

I like to look at it, in retrospect, like a man shouting in a desert. If he speaks in the language of gods and priests he will be called a prophet, if not he will be called mad. The question of where the language of the gods originates, and what if no-one has heard the language before (a stranger for example), leads to rich and difficult terrain.

What are the meeting points for theory and 'not theory'? And once you start asking these questions can they ever be divided? And yes! These things do matter I think. Before I met Alaric (amongst others) I did not. I hope it is a healthy legacy.

LU: And now how in general do you view it, if you can separate what you got from Alaric from what you got from the whole course. Are you going to be a writer?

CP: This is a challenging question. This interview is, about my experience of Alaric as a student, and therefore it is very difficult for me to distinguish Alaric from the course. [I would feel a bit of a con if I claimed otherwise]. I did not know either himself or his work before studying at DCA so it becomes hard to separate the two. This leads me into thinking, having commented on Alaric's energy, enthusiasm, combined with his critical awareness, that he was undoubtedly an important factor in determining the PW syllabus and making the course a success. He brought his knowledge, skill, and vitality, into the class and imparted it to us. I think my experience of the course, and my interests afterwards, are very influenced by working with Alaric. I worked with him more than any other lecturer or tutor there. The way in which writing manifests itself in a live experience, and also what we bring, and why we engage, with that process is what I have taken from Alaric. 

I'm not sure at what point you 'become a writer' {maybe when it becomes your primary interest and activity) I know that I write however, and I have every intention of continuing to explore the relationships between spoken, written, and temporary texts; through performance, through writing, and the awkward but definite interchanges between the two. Things (people, places, ideas) are only ever present momentarily, and we should engage with them whilst we can. Alaric got me thinking that this can be seen as a performative and textual process, and worth taking forward.

LU: OK. Thanks for the interview