Permapoesis: North American Democracy

Permapoesis

Permapoesis is the portmanteau for permanent making, a term I've developed, incorporating permaculture principles and indigenous thinking, to define a practice of art that participates in what it represents; that is of its environment; that generates no waste.

Through developing processes of permapoesis I recognise Aboriginal intelligence (people not driven by technics but rather by the logic and spirit of country) as the means for future ecological functioning – reclaiming the sensuous, uncertain and intimate, composting anthropocentrism, moving from agriculture's fences, chemicals and motors to more chance orientated modes of existence such as foraging, gardening and hunting, on foot.

In this context permapoesis is a reclaiming of locavore sensibilities; a poetic of nearness; an economics of material accountability; walking for food.

My name is Patrick Jones. I live in Daylesford, Australia on a quarter acre permaculture plot with my girlfriend Meg Ulman and two sons Zephyr and Blackwood. Together, as Artist as Family, we are making the transition to food, water and energy relocalisation as part of the Hepburn Relocalisation Network and the Daylesford Community Food Gardens. My more pragmatic blog, showing the development of our family food garden, is called Garden Notes for Relocalisation.

My art and writing have appeared in various publications including Artlink, Meanjin, Cordite, Arena, Jacket, Trouble, Overland, Rabbit, HEAT, Going Down Swinging, Southerly, D!SSENT, The Material Poem and Arena. I have works included in recent issues of ecopoetics (US), Spiral Orb (US), Philosophy Activism Nature - PAN (AUS) and Angelaki (UK), and my work was featured in The Atlantic (US) in 2010. In 2012 my poem Step by Step was awarded joint runner-up of the 2011 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize. My collaborative street art practice with Jason Workman, called WorkmanJones (2006-2009), was featured in an exhibition titled Too Much of Me: 7 Paths Through the Absurd at MUMA in 2009. In late 2008 I published A Free-dragging Manifesto along side Peter O'Mara's subtext in a publication we jointly titled How To Do Words With Things - You can read Astrid Lorange's review in Jacket here or scroll down to read the book.

As the Artist as Family we installed Food Forest in 2010, a public artwork as community garden in Sydney, commissioned at the invitation of the MCA, as part of the exhibition In the balance: art for a changing world. Food Forest was funded by the Keir Foundation. In 2012-13 we are working on a similar project in Melbourne - we'll keep you posted.

I am currently on scholarship undertaking doctoral work at UWS within the Writing and Society Research Group, where my research involves the development of my concept, permapoesis.

In 2004 I edited the anthology Words and Things: concrete poetry/ supersigns/ multiple language, which was joint winner of the 2005 SCU National Artist Book Award. It was funded through the Regional Arts Fund. Click the below image for James Stuart's review in Cordite.