Word Cairn

by Chris Gylee and Ruby Louise Rose

Note: 

Word Cairn is a collaborative sound-poem by poet Chris Gylee and artist-musician Ruby Louise Rose. The words originate from a series of poems by Chris entitled Songs for Our Future Selves while sound is produced by the Damiá Modal Music Machine developed by Ruby from a set of seven distinct modal scales created by Aslan for Damiá, a constructed language spoken only by Queer people. Word combinations complement the five pentatonic and two tetratonic scales each with their own distinctive progressions of intervals and chords and evoking a particular range of emotions through the elements of air, earth, and water. 


Transcription:

Word Cairn
Tired Grief
Melt Rain
Grief Melt
Anger Grief
Swallows Forgiveness
Tired Grass
Rain Forgiveness
Forgiveness Breath
Shame Forgiveness
Breath Snow
Rain Melt
Work Grass
Holding Birds
Grass Swallows
Rain Anger
Swallows Rapture
Anger Rain
Swallows Prayer
Grass Work
Tired Grass
Snow Anger
Swallows Birds
Birds Breath
Holding Work
Melt Grass
Prayer Swallows
Rain Forgiveness
Prayer Rapture
Cairn Soil
Grass Melt
Rain Shame
Forgiveness Forgiveness
Cairn Anger
Grief Grief
Snow Grief
Shame Grief
Grief Snow
Melt Shame
Melt Rain
Melt Melt
Grief Anger
Melt Snow
Work Prayer
Grass Swallows
Holding Soil
Soil Tired
Breath Cairn
Swallows Prayer
Rapture Holding
Tired Rain
Shame Soil
Anger Grief
Melt Grass
Shame Forgiveness

Chris Gylee (he/him, Stockport, 1983) is a queer writer and artist living in rural Finland. His poems include the online collection FORTY, and micro-chapbooks Ten For ‘A’ and Songs for Our Future Selves (both Ghost City Press). Chris was long-listed for the Cúirt New Writing Prize 2023.

Ruby Louise Rose is an artist who works with sound, text and performance. As a working-class autodidact and recently out trans woman, her work is an exploration of process, transformation and hidden truths. Often humorous, it playfully uses rhythm, repetition and extremes of duration to tackle ideas around desire, compassion and communication.