Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Hungerford Bridge at the Hammer and Tongue Final (video)
Performing Hungerford Bridge at the Hammer and Tongue Oxford grand Final. Really really pleased with how it went - huge thanks to James Webster for some very helpful tips.
Friday, 3 February 2012
Anna Percy
Some time later today you'll find an interview with the fabulous poet Anna Percy here. You can find her website here.
These are some videos of her reading - above, from 5 minutes, For Ruth Betty Blue..., a dabulous poem with echoes of Ginsberg
These are some videos of her reading - above, from 5 minutes, For Ruth Betty Blue..., a dabulous poem with echoes of Ginsberg
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Monsters (poem)
There are monsters on our streets.
I’ve seen their footprints,
Seen hints behind smoked glass,
Seen glints on paths
Like shards of broken condoms in the aftermath.
I’ve seen houses boarded,
Seen hoardings placarded with warnings,
And heard stories whispered on street corners.
I’ve seen the evidence they leave,
The detritus and the dross each morning,
The lonely and the lost,
The whores who count the cost in doorways
Scoring from the boys they babysat
Before their joy was drawn
Through the eye of a rich man’s needle.
There are monsters on these streets.
They roam in groups that loot and vandalise
And look their victims in the eyes
And spit their lies
About society
But the only thing that’s broken
Are the dreams they choked,
Flames of light put out like candles, trailing into smoke.
They took arteries of hope and opened them.
And watched a generation bleed out on the streets
And let its body rot like meat
And fester in the summer heat
While they discretely pocketed its cash
Planted stashes
And then called in the police.
There are monsters on these streets,
High priests of greed
In cashmere robes and tweed,
The seed of Adam Smith
Feeding myths of freedom
And the creed that the future of civilization’s in their gift.
There are monsters on these streets
But I will not be one of them.
When they see my hood
They may see an animal in me
But when I see their suit
I’ll see more than criminality.
I’ll see more than the brutality
Of narrow-mindedness
And I won’t be blinded by banalities
Like The Common Good and Shared Humanity.
There are only a billion individual histories
From the unreported to the unperturbed
From those distorted and disturbed by laziness
To those whose twisted thoughts we’d rather label craziness.
You see, the only monsters on these streets
Are those we choose to see.
I’ve seen their footprints,
Seen hints behind smoked glass,
Seen glints on paths
Like shards of broken condoms in the aftermath.
I’ve seen houses boarded,
Seen hoardings placarded with warnings,
And heard stories whispered on street corners.
I’ve seen the evidence they leave,
The detritus and the dross each morning,
The lonely and the lost,
The whores who count the cost in doorways
Scoring from the boys they babysat
Before their joy was drawn
Through the eye of a rich man’s needle.
There are monsters on these streets.
They roam in groups that loot and vandalise
And look their victims in the eyes
And spit their lies
About society
But the only thing that’s broken
Are the dreams they choked,
Flames of light put out like candles, trailing into smoke.
They took arteries of hope and opened them.
And watched a generation bleed out on the streets
And let its body rot like meat
And fester in the summer heat
While they discretely pocketed its cash
Planted stashes
And then called in the police.
There are monsters on these streets,
High priests of greed
In cashmere robes and tweed,
The seed of Adam Smith
Feeding myths of freedom
And the creed that the future of civilization’s in their gift.
There are monsters on these streets
But I will not be one of them.
When they see my hood
They may see an animal in me
But when I see their suit
I’ll see more than criminality.
I’ll see more than the brutality
Of narrow-mindedness
And I won’t be blinded by banalities
Like The Common Good and Shared Humanity.
There are only a billion individual histories
From the unreported to the unperturbed
From those distorted and disturbed by laziness
To those whose twisted thoughts we’d rather label craziness.
You see, the only monsters on these streets
Are those we choose to see.
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Alibi
Alibi
When you fail, you cry
Because you believed the lie
That if you try
With all your might
If you pursue a single line of sight
Looking neither to the left nor right,
Ignoring the distractions and delights
There is no height
You cannot reach
So when you don’t
You’re the failure, right?
Not them.
Your dreams provide their alibi.
But I know there are things I’ll never achieve
And I deceive myself if I believe I will.
My limitations are a bitter pill
Of stillborn expectations
And thrills I had to leave behind
But I was too blinded by stories
Of glory, fame and wealth
To see that I had whored myself
To the lie that I’m alone.
You see the only dream that counts
Is that we all count,
That every voice is heard
Every hope, anxiety, despair
Every tear you shed that no one saw
Because you turned away
And every desperate word
That you were too ashamed to say.
And I can’t do that on my own.
And that’s
OK.
Do not comply
With what they tell you to desire.
Defy the boundaries
They place upon your mind
And start a fire
That will not die
Until your whisper
And that of every brother, sister
Mother, father, lover,
Every angry fist in history
Unclenches and becomes a kiss
And every pair of lips becomes a choir.
Don’t let your dreams provide their alibi.
Make them accountable for every crime,
For every voice that they deny.
Look them in the eye
And let your rhymes and passion fight them.
Unite and let your love and the fact that after every disappointment you still believe in this sorry species indict them.
When you embrace humanity in its broken condition,
When ensuring those who cannot speak are spoken for’s your mission
And you chase the truth till every eye is open,
Every sleeping conscience woken,
Then your vision can incite them
To a revolution.
So take a moment, and your dreams,
And write them.
Go out into the alleys and recite them
And if humanity evolves
Sufficient to resolve
To make a reckoning
Of those who were involved
In lifting us from the mire
And those who just devolved
The choice to someone down the line
You’ll stand absolved,
Your head held high.
Their dreams,
The ones that you made fly,
With a whisper, quiet as a lullaby,
Those dreams will be your alibi.
When you fail, you cry
Because you believed the lie
That if you try
With all your might
If you pursue a single line of sight
Looking neither to the left nor right,
Ignoring the distractions and delights
There is no height
You cannot reach
So when you don’t
You’re the failure, right?
Not them.
Your dreams provide their alibi.
But I know there are things I’ll never achieve
And I deceive myself if I believe I will.
My limitations are a bitter pill
Of stillborn expectations
And thrills I had to leave behind
But I was too blinded by stories
Of glory, fame and wealth
To see that I had whored myself
To the lie that I’m alone.
You see the only dream that counts
Is that we all count,
That every voice is heard
Every hope, anxiety, despair
Every tear you shed that no one saw
Because you turned away
And every desperate word
That you were too ashamed to say.
And I can’t do that on my own.
And that’s
OK.
Do not comply
With what they tell you to desire.
Defy the boundaries
They place upon your mind
And start a fire
That will not die
Until your whisper
And that of every brother, sister
Mother, father, lover,
Every angry fist in history
Unclenches and becomes a kiss
And every pair of lips becomes a choir.
Don’t let your dreams provide their alibi.
Make them accountable for every crime,
For every voice that they deny.
Look them in the eye
And let your rhymes and passion fight them.
Unite and let your love and the fact that after every disappointment you still believe in this sorry species indict them.
When you embrace humanity in its broken condition,
When ensuring those who cannot speak are spoken for’s your mission
And you chase the truth till every eye is open,
Every sleeping conscience woken,
Then your vision can incite them
To a revolution.
So take a moment, and your dreams,
And write them.
Go out into the alleys and recite them
And if humanity evolves
Sufficient to resolve
To make a reckoning
Of those who were involved
In lifting us from the mire
And those who just devolved
The choice to someone down the line
You’ll stand absolved,
Your head held high.
Their dreams,
The ones that you made fly,
With a whisper, quiet as a lullaby,
Those dreams will be your alibi.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Valve Works
I recently had the pleasure of reviewing Rob Sherman's Valve Works, a collection of illustrated poems published online for free by the really rather excellent Philistine Press. There were one or two things I didn't quite "get" on first reading, so it was a pleasure that Rob was prepared to take the time to talk to me about Valve Works. The illustrations are by the fantastic Sarah Ogilvie.
Rob will next be working on a few plays, including one of King Arthur's bowel movements. He is moving back to London to continue writing music and producing as much material as possible. These are a few of the ways he can be found online.
Twitter - http://twitter.com/robshermanmusic
Tumblr - http://bonfiredog.tumblr.com/
myspace - www.myspace.com/robshermanmusic
1. Why did you choose Philistine Press?
Philistine Press was recommended to me by one of those circular emails that come around and you pay very little attention to; however, I had been reading a lot about Creative Commons, Fair Use Licenses, censorship and ownership in relation to the internet. It was something I was passionate about. And Philistine seems to be somewhere that artists can produce and publish their work without compromise, for the joy of it, for the exposure; when money is removed from the equation it is quite liberating. Obviously money would be lovely, but poetry, as a singular product, makes very little money nowadays anyway. Philistine seemed to share my philosophy, and I was happy to work with them.
2. Can you tell me about the introduction, and how it fits with the rest of the collection? That's something that didn't quite click. It felt very contemporary, yet the collection feels like it has a very 18/19th century sensibility. On the other hand if the electricity reference were tied in to Frankenstein, that would make perfect sense... (um, and what do you say to people who say steampunk to you?)
The introduction, I will admit, is a bit of a strange thing; on its own, it is entitled "A Theory", because that is really all it is; a theory of behavioural constructs and human biology, albeit put much less professionally than that! I can understand the feel of different centuries at work; I guess that the introduction is fulfilling the role of an introduction like in any other form of media. It is the voice of the author, or the editor, in a much different voice than the poems, espousing the philosophy of it all. The body for me is terrifying and wonderful, and its baser elements are not to be ignored; the electricity compels us mentally and physically, to both reproduce and create. I suppose the metaphor was pleasing, rather than a concious choice. I would not go as far to say that it is steampunk, though I am a huge fan of the genre and it certainly informs my work.
3. The chimpanzee - Basement Jaxx?
Haha! Do you mean the drawing or the poem? It didn't come into my head; perhaps it came from Sarah's (the illustrator's) imagination. It does look similar though, doesn't it? Perhaps not as grumpy; I think he's quite cheery, with his gargantuan plug socket.
4. How did the illustration process work - did you simply hand over the collection, and take what you got back, or was there toing and froing?
Well, Sarah is my girlfriend, so it is a close working relationship to say the least! The poems were written a long time before the drawings were produced, and I was really starting to see what she was capable of as an artist. I asked her to do them, and we both benefitted, as they were part of the portfolio that got her a place at Camberwell art school. But yes, I pretty much left her to it, to let her put a mark on it herself. Her drawings are quite nightmarish, quite warped in a beautiful way, and I thought it suited the whole aesthetic of the piece. I also paid her back with fancy meals and flowers, so I think business was done properly!
5. Tell me a bit about the fascination with medical textbooks
I am a huge fan of technical language in poetry; one of my tutors, Andy Brown, is an ecologist and a poet, and the beautifully onomatopoeic technicalities of the various disciplines of science work so well; they should not just be kept for dry lab reports. Though it sounds clichéd, the human body is a fascinating subject for poetry, and the body of knowledge mankind has in relation to it can only aid creativity.
6. The actual poems felt at times as though they were almost like Keatsian odes. Is that fair?
I am not that knowledgeable on Keats, so I will just nod my head slowly... though I know what you mean. There is a grandeur to it, especially in "Hypothalamus"; I particularly enjoyed it there as the hypothalamus is such a vital yet obscure part of human anatomy; it has a hand in almost every bodily process, and yet is hidden under the brain, about the size of a pea. Such a poetic opportunity couldn't go to waste!
7. I see you are also a musician. Could you explain a bit about your approach to combining different arts in your work? Do you see boundaries between arts that you are blurring, or do you see it all as essentially aspects of the same?
To be honest, there is no method to it. Most artforms work very well together, drawing from similar themes, tropes, traditions and ideas. There are definitely boundaries; without the boundaries there would just be a huge mess of unprofessional, amorphous ideas; wonderful, raw stuff, but with no discipline they are of little use or importance. Music is music, and should be its own discipline, as well as writing, or theatre; but when they encroach on each other, whether slightly or massively, interesting things happening. They are aspects of experience, but it is important to me, that they remain distinct, and any blurring remains just that.
Rob will next be working on a few plays, including one of King Arthur's bowel movements. He is moving back to London to continue writing music and producing as much material as possible. These are a few of the ways he can be found online.
Twitter - http://twitter.com/robshermanmusic
Tumblr - http://bonfiredog.tumblr.com/
myspace - www.myspace.com/robshermanmusic
1. Why did you choose Philistine Press?
Philistine Press was recommended to me by one of those circular emails that come around and you pay very little attention to; however, I had been reading a lot about Creative Commons, Fair Use Licenses, censorship and ownership in relation to the internet. It was something I was passionate about. And Philistine seems to be somewhere that artists can produce and publish their work without compromise, for the joy of it, for the exposure; when money is removed from the equation it is quite liberating. Obviously money would be lovely, but poetry, as a singular product, makes very little money nowadays anyway. Philistine seemed to share my philosophy, and I was happy to work with them.
2. Can you tell me about the introduction, and how it fits with the rest of the collection? That's something that didn't quite click. It felt very contemporary, yet the collection feels like it has a very 18/19th century sensibility. On the other hand if the electricity reference were tied in to Frankenstein, that would make perfect sense... (um, and what do you say to people who say steampunk to you?)
The introduction, I will admit, is a bit of a strange thing; on its own, it is entitled "A Theory", because that is really all it is; a theory of behavioural constructs and human biology, albeit put much less professionally than that! I can understand the feel of different centuries at work; I guess that the introduction is fulfilling the role of an introduction like in any other form of media. It is the voice of the author, or the editor, in a much different voice than the poems, espousing the philosophy of it all. The body for me is terrifying and wonderful, and its baser elements are not to be ignored; the electricity compels us mentally and physically, to both reproduce and create. I suppose the metaphor was pleasing, rather than a concious choice. I would not go as far to say that it is steampunk, though I am a huge fan of the genre and it certainly informs my work.
3. The chimpanzee - Basement Jaxx?
Haha! Do you mean the drawing or the poem? It didn't come into my head; perhaps it came from Sarah's (the illustrator's) imagination. It does look similar though, doesn't it? Perhaps not as grumpy; I think he's quite cheery, with his gargantuan plug socket.
4. How did the illustration process work - did you simply hand over the collection, and take what you got back, or was there toing and froing?
Well, Sarah is my girlfriend, so it is a close working relationship to say the least! The poems were written a long time before the drawings were produced, and I was really starting to see what she was capable of as an artist. I asked her to do them, and we both benefitted, as they were part of the portfolio that got her a place at Camberwell art school. But yes, I pretty much left her to it, to let her put a mark on it herself. Her drawings are quite nightmarish, quite warped in a beautiful way, and I thought it suited the whole aesthetic of the piece. I also paid her back with fancy meals and flowers, so I think business was done properly!
5. Tell me a bit about the fascination with medical textbooks
I am a huge fan of technical language in poetry; one of my tutors, Andy Brown, is an ecologist and a poet, and the beautifully onomatopoeic technicalities of the various disciplines of science work so well; they should not just be kept for dry lab reports. Though it sounds clichéd, the human body is a fascinating subject for poetry, and the body of knowledge mankind has in relation to it can only aid creativity.
6. The actual poems felt at times as though they were almost like Keatsian odes. Is that fair?
I am not that knowledgeable on Keats, so I will just nod my head slowly... though I know what you mean. There is a grandeur to it, especially in "Hypothalamus"; I particularly enjoyed it there as the hypothalamus is such a vital yet obscure part of human anatomy; it has a hand in almost every bodily process, and yet is hidden under the brain, about the size of a pea. Such a poetic opportunity couldn't go to waste!
7. I see you are also a musician. Could you explain a bit about your approach to combining different arts in your work? Do you see boundaries between arts that you are blurring, or do you see it all as essentially aspects of the same?
To be honest, there is no method to it. Most artforms work very well together, drawing from similar themes, tropes, traditions and ideas. There are definitely boundaries; without the boundaries there would just be a huge mess of unprofessional, amorphous ideas; wonderful, raw stuff, but with no discipline they are of little use or importance. Music is music, and should be its own discipline, as well as writing, or theatre; but when they encroach on each other, whether slightly or massively, interesting things happening. They are aspects of experience, but it is important to me, that they remain distinct, and any blurring remains just that.
Tuesday, 6 July 2010
Beautiful Things that Happen Today!
It's here at last! The biggest Year Zero Live event to date. We have three amazing bands and four fantastic writers, and we have the complete run of one of the fabbest venues in London all night. Sarah was just fantastic last Wednesday, even after 30 sleepless hours after setting off from California, so she's set to be even more awesome tonight.
Here's our running order for the night:
7.30-8 doors open to a set from Rabid Gravy
7.30-8 doors open to a set from Rabid Gravy
8-8.15 Beautiful Things - Sarah, Dan, Marc reading pieces chosen by Sarah
8.15-8.50 Rabid Gravy running straight into
8.50 Dan Holloway reading SKIN BOOK
9.10 Becca Fenton
9.25 To The Moon
10.00 Marc Nash
10.15 Sarah E Melville reading her own set
10.25 Shirley Said
11 (or thereabouts) finish
Here is a little something about Becca, whom we're delighted to be welcoming for the night:
Becca Fenton likes words and playing with sounds and likes you too, for coming to listen to hers. She used to run the 'wordPLAY' spoken word night at The Good Ship and is very excited about the current spoken word and new writing scene in the UK. her favourite cheese in Lincolnshire Poacher and her favourite film is Truly Madly Deeply.
Becca Fenton likes words and playing with sounds and likes you too, for coming to listen to hers. She used to run the 'wordPLAY' spoken word night at The Good Ship and is very excited about the current spoken word and new writing scene in the UK. her favourite cheese in Lincolnshire Poacher and her favourite film is Truly Madly Deeply.
Thursday, 24 June 2010
Andromache: A little Corner of Excellence
Next month, I will be launching a new project, eight cuts gallery, to break down barriers between the arts, to act as an installation space bringing writers, artists, filmmakers and musicians together online and in the physical world around key questions, and to bring extraordinary writing to the world's attention. A week or so ago I sent out some very preliminary feelers, and I have already discovered some amazing people doing fantastic things. This week, I got to chat with one of them, Grace Andreacchi, author and managing editor at Andromache Books
1. I love the fact that Andromache is a tiny press yet you have music, and you have shorts mixed with poems, and novels and novellas, all in together. I imagine you looking at the work first, and wondering about the medium second. Would that be fair?
Yes, that’s how it is. The whole idea behind Andromache is to put things out there that are extraordinary, that deserve to see the light of day, and have no serious chance in a commercial environment. ‘A little corner of excellence’ – that’s what we strive to be. I became aware that music publishing has gone the same way as that of serious literature, as poetry and I thought – Why not? As a dedicated music lover, I felt a great desire to do something here as well. As a writer, I understand the imperative to write well and damn the consequences. I want to make a place for others who feel as I do, and are as dedicated as I am to their art and to their craft. Which sounds horribly solemn – but we’re not that!
2. I'm intrigued that Andromache's titles (and, indeed, their covers) feel as though they fall into two camps - there's the decidedly classical (in the Latin & Greek sense), as one would expect from the imprint's name; and yet there's also the black and white, Beat-feel of Clearout Sale and Out There. Was that conscious?
I’m very open-minded about genre, style – all of that. I try to match the look of each book as closely to the content as possible. I design all the covers myself, and there have been some headaches, but in the end each one is a thing of beauty, that expresses something simple and straightforward about what’s lurking inside.
3. You say you don't take submissions, but for people to get in touch if they feel their work would be of interest. I love that - it's exactly our policy at Year Zero. Can you explain why, and how you find material?
My first commitment is to write, I’ve very little time for editing and can’t afford to be overwhelmed by random submissions. One must draw the lines rather closely and stick to them. Having said that, I want to leave the door open for the happy few. I haven’t gone looking for material, writers come to me and if I love their work and we get along, then we’ll do a book.
4. Could you explain why you offer your ebooks for free?
This is right at the heart of my whole philosophy – ebooks are the wave of the future and there’s no particular reason to charge for them – they don’t cost us anything to produce. They cost us in time, to be sure, but everybody at Andromache is working for the sheer love of it, nobody gets paid for this. We can’t give away print books, obviously, because we have to pay the printer. But whatever you charge for a book, it is in fact a gift. There is no meaningful correlation between the money you pay for a book and the heart’s blood that went into it. Ebooks allow this equation to be made completely manifest. We are not a business at Andromache, we are a service to writers and to readers. We are giving you a gift. The whole electronic revolution in publishing has made it possible for serious writing to get up on its hind legs and do a dance! Here we are, look at us, how beautiful we are!
5. What's the one thing that drives what you do at Andromache?
I believe in the power of literature to affect us all at the deepest levels. And I believe that art should be uncompromising in its excellence.
6. One doesn't have to scratch the surface of today's literary world very much to find some incredibly exciting things happening. Does it bother you that by and large the public is utterly unaware of most of it?
Oh now, ‘the Public’, you know, that’s a very slippery concept, ‘the Public’. Who is this ‘Public’ whose unconsciousness should afflict us? I have no illusions in the sense, I’ve been round the block a few times, I’ve been published by a couple of very well regarded literary houses, and ‘the Public’ remained, to all intents and purposes, unaware of my existence. I’ve certainly attained a far higher degree of visibility in the two years since I’ve been working with Andromache than in the preceding twenty-five, struggling upstream in the commercial waters. There is a very intelligent, hungry Public out there, and they love what we do, and they read us, and we love them too.
7. Do you think we are in exciting or depressing times for literature?
Oh exciting, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Depressing was ten years ago… I remember how it was very well, having sent out one’s really rather good work to every conceivable and inconceivable destination only to be told the same old same old… ‘wonderful but there is no market for this’. All of a sudden we don’t need a ‘market’ for literature. We can connect directly with readers all over the world. It’s the biggest revolution since the printing press, and the results will be equally astonishing. Already those nay-sayers who were wringing their hands over the rubbish that would result from self-publishing are having to eat their words. Sure, some rubbish gets published, but nobody pays any mind to it. The power is back with the writer, where it should be.
8. In five years' time, Andromache will be...
A little corner of excellence in an ever more beautiful literary world.
1. I love the fact that Andromache is a tiny press yet you have music, and you have shorts mixed with poems, and novels and novellas, all in together. I imagine you looking at the work first, and wondering about the medium second. Would that be fair?
Yes, that’s how it is. The whole idea behind Andromache is to put things out there that are extraordinary, that deserve to see the light of day, and have no serious chance in a commercial environment. ‘A little corner of excellence’ – that’s what we strive to be. I became aware that music publishing has gone the same way as that of serious literature, as poetry and I thought – Why not? As a dedicated music lover, I felt a great desire to do something here as well. As a writer, I understand the imperative to write well and damn the consequences. I want to make a place for others who feel as I do, and are as dedicated as I am to their art and to their craft. Which sounds horribly solemn – but we’re not that!
2. I'm intrigued that Andromache's titles (and, indeed, their covers) feel as though they fall into two camps - there's the decidedly classical (in the Latin & Greek sense), as one would expect from the imprint's name; and yet there's also the black and white, Beat-feel of Clearout Sale and Out There. Was that conscious?
I’m very open-minded about genre, style – all of that. I try to match the look of each book as closely to the content as possible. I design all the covers myself, and there have been some headaches, but in the end each one is a thing of beauty, that expresses something simple and straightforward about what’s lurking inside.
3. You say you don't take submissions, but for people to get in touch if they feel their work would be of interest. I love that - it's exactly our policy at Year Zero. Can you explain why, and how you find material?
My first commitment is to write, I’ve very little time for editing and can’t afford to be overwhelmed by random submissions. One must draw the lines rather closely and stick to them. Having said that, I want to leave the door open for the happy few. I haven’t gone looking for material, writers come to me and if I love their work and we get along, then we’ll do a book.
4. Could you explain why you offer your ebooks for free?
This is right at the heart of my whole philosophy – ebooks are the wave of the future and there’s no particular reason to charge for them – they don’t cost us anything to produce. They cost us in time, to be sure, but everybody at Andromache is working for the sheer love of it, nobody gets paid for this. We can’t give away print books, obviously, because we have to pay the printer. But whatever you charge for a book, it is in fact a gift. There is no meaningful correlation between the money you pay for a book and the heart’s blood that went into it. Ebooks allow this equation to be made completely manifest. We are not a business at Andromache, we are a service to writers and to readers. We are giving you a gift. The whole electronic revolution in publishing has made it possible for serious writing to get up on its hind legs and do a dance! Here we are, look at us, how beautiful we are!
5. What's the one thing that drives what you do at Andromache?
I believe in the power of literature to affect us all at the deepest levels. And I believe that art should be uncompromising in its excellence.
6. One doesn't have to scratch the surface of today's literary world very much to find some incredibly exciting things happening. Does it bother you that by and large the public is utterly unaware of most of it?
Oh now, ‘the Public’, you know, that’s a very slippery concept, ‘the Public’. Who is this ‘Public’ whose unconsciousness should afflict us? I have no illusions in the sense, I’ve been round the block a few times, I’ve been published by a couple of very well regarded literary houses, and ‘the Public’ remained, to all intents and purposes, unaware of my existence. I’ve certainly attained a far higher degree of visibility in the two years since I’ve been working with Andromache than in the preceding twenty-five, struggling upstream in the commercial waters. There is a very intelligent, hungry Public out there, and they love what we do, and they read us, and we love them too.
7. Do you think we are in exciting or depressing times for literature?
Oh exciting, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Depressing was ten years ago… I remember how it was very well, having sent out one’s really rather good work to every conceivable and inconceivable destination only to be told the same old same old… ‘wonderful but there is no market for this’. All of a sudden we don’t need a ‘market’ for literature. We can connect directly with readers all over the world. It’s the biggest revolution since the printing press, and the results will be equally astonishing. Already those nay-sayers who were wringing their hands over the rubbish that would result from self-publishing are having to eat their words. Sure, some rubbish gets published, but nobody pays any mind to it. The power is back with the writer, where it should be.
8. In five years' time, Andromache will be...
A little corner of excellence in an ever more beautiful literary world.
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Beautiful Things That Happen to Ugly People
It's several months and considerably different weather ago since we launched the Year Zero Live tour at Rough Trade East. Now, we are coming to the tour's grand finale at another fantastic music venue, The Good Ship in Kilburn.
The event Berautiful Things that Happen to Ugly People brings together readings, music, and art, looking at those oases of beauty that spring up like unkillable weeds in even the most arid of lives. And hoping to be such a moment for everyone there. That stunning poster art is by Sarah E Melville, whose extraordinary moedern illuminated manuscript Beautiful Things that Happen to Ugly People is the centrepiece of the evening. You can also enjoy it forever on a commemorative T-shirt.
and we are delighted to welcome as our very special guest top London poet Becca Fenton
Becca Fenton likes words and playing with sounds and likes you too, for coming to listen to hers. She used to run the 'wordPLAY' spoken word night at The Good Ship and is very excited about the current spoken word and new writing scene in the UK. her favourite cheese in Lincolnshire Poacher and her favourite film is Truly Madly Deeply.
Art by Sarm
Featuring the international launch of the books:
Beautiful Things that Happen to Ugly People by Sarah E Melville
(life:) razorblades included by Dan Holloway
Friday, 11 June 2010
reading (poem)
cinched in the waist of a wholesome window
five streets from soho
ohso proper doorways
and strangers in sunhats with san miguels
and they've all got drinks and kisses
and they've all got slickety laughs
and they've all got smiles and cigarillos
and just enough friends
and just enough coke
and just the right words
and just the right names
and in streamers we tattoo the streetlamp black
and in velvet our tongues streak the glass
and we're all strung out for the smell of piss
and all the beers are someone else's
five streets from soho
ohso proper doorways
and strangers in sunhats with san miguels
and they've all got drinks and kisses
and they've all got slickety laughs
and they've all got smiles and cigarillos
and just enough friends
and just enough coke
and just the right words
and just the right names
and in streamers we tattoo the streetlamp black
and in velvet our tongues streak the glass
and we're all strung out for the smell of piss
and all the beers are someone else's
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Life
My new book (life:) razorblades included is now on sale!!The chapbook, with a beautiful wraparound cover made from Daisy's stunning image (a photograph she took of herself as soon as she had finished reading the book), is just £5 + P&P.BUY THE BOOK HERE
Most of the content can be found online in various places, but the fully curated (i.e. I actually thought up an order that kind of reads like a journey. Or something), collection, with introduction, is just 99 cents, for all ebook formatsBUY THE EBOOK HERE
(cover image copyright Daisy Anne Gree)
That's the promo bit. What I wanted to share here is the introduction to the book, which explains why I put together the pieces I did, and left others out. Of course, I hope it makes you want to buy the book. But I hope it's also something to think about.
"live"
Camus was wrong. Whether or not to kill oneself is not the only question. That would be as absurd as those old romantic novels that ended at the altar, as ridiculous as Ewan MacGregor walking into the credits choosing life. The difficult question, the one that matters, the one we have to answer in the real world and not the halls of learning, is what the hell you do next once you’ve decided to live.
For all that so much of the material in this book deals with death, this is a book about life. It has two starting points, the two things we wake up to every day – that it would be so much easier not to open our eyes, but to lie back down and slowly forget to breathe; and that we do not. We take that magnificent, exhilarating, impossible, anarchic, destructive, mind-boggling, terrifying decision to live.
Choosing life does not mean oblating oneself on the altar of beige. To live, in the belief that it is somehow easier to do so than to die; to live, and to believe every obstacle is thereby behind us; these are acts of self-deception I long to able to perform, but can’t. For many many people, making the choice to live means a daily struggle with, and embracing of, pain, hurt, and helplessness.
This collection is about the full implication of what it means to live, not just to breathe, but to grapple again and again with the effortless simplicity of death and the impossibility of life, but to choose, again and again and again, the latter. To choose life is to choose the unpassable course. To choose life is to live at the edge of the map of the human soul, in a place where every eyeline looks beyond the horizon, and to continue into that hot, chill, black, burning bright unknown regardless. To choose life means, on occasion, to choose the unacceptable, the inconceivable, the immoral, the ridiculous.
My writing has been called bleak, dark, and bereft of joy and hope. The first two of these I will readily concede. The latter two, never. In a world where the default setting is vanilla, acceptance, expectation, normal; in a world where the tragic few who wrestle with life full-on and fail are condemned when it is not they who are too sick for the world, but the world too sick for them; in a world where the grey, suited swamp of the billion walking dead is revered; in this world, anyone or anything that celebrates the full, damaged, despairing, fucked-up and spectacular reality of life is a shriek, a shout, a holler of joy to pierce the eardrum of death.
Open up this book, take a deep breath of it into yourself and smell and taste and touch the words and let them graze the inside of your lungs. Fill your heart and your blood and your head with its oxygen, and go out and live.
For all that so much of the material in this book deals with death, this is a book about life. It has two starting points, the two things we wake up to every day – that it would be so much easier not to open our eyes, but to lie back down and slowly forget to breathe; and that we do not. We take that magnificent, exhilarating, impossible, anarchic, destructive, mind-boggling, terrifying decision to live.
Choosing life does not mean oblating oneself on the altar of beige. To live, in the belief that it is somehow easier to do so than to die; to live, and to believe every obstacle is thereby behind us; these are acts of self-deception I long to able to perform, but can’t. For many many people, making the choice to live means a daily struggle with, and embracing of, pain, hurt, and helplessness.
This collection is about the full implication of what it means to live, not just to breathe, but to grapple again and again with the effortless simplicity of death and the impossibility of life, but to choose, again and again and again, the latter. To choose life is to choose the unpassable course. To choose life is to live at the edge of the map of the human soul, in a place where every eyeline looks beyond the horizon, and to continue into that hot, chill, black, burning bright unknown regardless. To choose life means, on occasion, to choose the unacceptable, the inconceivable, the immoral, the ridiculous.
My writing has been called bleak, dark, and bereft of joy and hope. The first two of these I will readily concede. The latter two, never. In a world where the default setting is vanilla, acceptance, expectation, normal; in a world where the tragic few who wrestle with life full-on and fail are condemned when it is not they who are too sick for the world, but the world too sick for them; in a world where the grey, suited swamp of the billion walking dead is revered; in this world, anyone or anything that celebrates the full, damaged, despairing, fucked-up and spectacular reality of life is a shriek, a shout, a holler of joy to pierce the eardrum of death.
Open up this book, take a deep breath of it into yourself and smell and taste and touch the words and let them graze the inside of your lungs. Fill your heart and your blood and your head with its oxygen, and go out and live.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
(life:) razorblades included
My new book is almost here!!
(life:) razorblades included is now on sale!!
The chapbook, with a beautiful wraparound cover made from Daisy's stunning image (a photograph she took of herself as soon as she had finished reading the book), is just £5 + P&P.
BUY THE BOOK HERE
Most of the content can be found online in various places, but the fully curated (i.e. I actually thought up an order that kind of reads like a journey. Or something), collection, with introduction, is just 99 cents, for all ebook formats
BUY THE EBOOK HERE
A HUGE thanks to Daisy Anne Gree for the cover image (and a note to all that this doesn't mean that I've turned my back on Sarah as my lifelong cover designer!)
It will be published by eight cuts gallery press, which is part of my new eight cuts gallery project.
Please spread the word, and if you'd like to interview me about it or review it that would be fantastic. Here's what the blurb ni my press release thingy says:
“Die living” urges the dedication to (life:) razoblades included. But just what does it mean to “live”?
Camus was wrong. Whether or not to kill yourself is not the only question. It’s just the start. Dan Holloway’s first collection of poems and short stories ranges from the lyrical awake to the transgressive SKIN BOOK; the Beat-inspired adam to the blankness of The Last Fluffer in La La Land; but they are held together by a single theme. The decision to live. Not the happy ever after that comes when deliberation ends, but the beginning of the joyous, energising, enervating, exhilarating, immoral, implacable, impossible decision to wake up, open your eyes, and truly live, with all the exhilarating, nightmarish consequences that decision brings.
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Spoons
I had coffee in Bar Soho
and imagined you were joining me later.
I had my usual espresso
and ordered you a capuccino so they'd come with different spoons
which I took home because I couldn't take you.
and imagined you were joining me later.
I had my usual espresso
and ordered you a capuccino so they'd come with different spoons
which I took home because I couldn't take you.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Adam
I lost my soul in the quarter mile from Foyles to Jerry's
or maybe it was Jerry's to Foyle's
and what I lost was my mind.
His name was Adam
or maybe I only call him that
because he was my first man
and he told me let's take some of this and we'll get caned.
It was the way his T-shirt stayed angel-white in the citygrub
and the way his tattoo moved but his teeth stayed still when he smiled
that pulled me across the street.
I'd never seen confidence or clarity like it
or maybe I had
and it was some wet-sheeted memory
he drew to him that sticky six o'clock
like a cloud of backflowed blood swilling round before the shot.
I would have studied at Cambridge
or maybe I wouldn't
and that was the lie I told myself
because I knew I needed guilt
and neither the junk nor the ejaculations gave me any.
I lost my life somewhere by Bar Italia
or maybe someone found it
and put it to good use
or maybe they wasted it
and now I haunt the shelves of Foyles, perpetually browsing
or maybe I'm outside Jerry's
and this absinthe in my blood is just too strong
or maybe it's not strong enough
because I can't stop thinking of Adam
or maybe I only call him that because he fell.
or maybe it was Jerry's to Foyle's
and what I lost was my mind.
His name was Adam
or maybe I only call him that
because he was my first man
and he told me let's take some of this and we'll get caned.
It was the way his T-shirt stayed angel-white in the citygrub
and the way his tattoo moved but his teeth stayed still when he smiled
that pulled me across the street.
I'd never seen confidence or clarity like it
or maybe I had
and it was some wet-sheeted memory
he drew to him that sticky six o'clock
like a cloud of backflowed blood swilling round before the shot.
I would have studied at Cambridge
or maybe I wouldn't
and that was the lie I told myself
because I knew I needed guilt
and neither the junk nor the ejaculations gave me any.
I lost my life somewhere by Bar Italia
or maybe someone found it
and put it to good use
or maybe they wasted it
and now I haunt the shelves of Foyles, perpetually browsing
or maybe I'm outside Jerry's
and this absinthe in my blood is just too strong
or maybe it's not strong enough
because I can't stop thinking of Adam
or maybe I only call him that because he fell.
Empty, Spent, Beat & Blank
If this is the last time we speak I'd like there to be tears
If this is the last time we kiss I'd like there to be smears
If this is the last time we drink coffee I'd like to have four sugars
If this is the last time we share a needle I'd like it to be blunt
If this is the last time we pass out on some stranger's floor I'd like there to be cheers
If this is the last time I see you I won't blink
If this is the last time we argue I won't think
If this is the last time we read together I won't talk
If this is the last time we walk together I won't wear shoes that pinch
If this is the last time we play chicken I won't sink
If this is the last time I should turn
If this is the last time I should learn
If this is the last time I should cry
If this is the last time I should die
If this is the last time I should burn.
If this is the last time we kiss I'd like there to be smears
If this is the last time we drink coffee I'd like to have four sugars
If this is the last time we share a needle I'd like it to be blunt
If this is the last time we pass out on some stranger's floor I'd like there to be cheers
If this is the last time I see you I won't blink
If this is the last time we argue I won't think
If this is the last time we read together I won't talk
If this is the last time we walk together I won't wear shoes that pinch
If this is the last time we play chicken I won't sink
If this is the last time I should turn
If this is the last time I should learn
If this is the last time I should cry
If this is the last time I should die
If this is the last time I should burn.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Awake
I woke up to a sweating sick-stained sun, locked in a lunacy of suited normals clacketing blackberries hum thrum hangover drum, happy transparent heads.
I woke up sodden, frozen, crusted with tears from dreams of desert spaces, neon electric amphetamine places, haunted keening faces, ant-crawling into undergrowth decaying nests flinging formic burial dance ejaculations at their dying queen.
I woke up homeless, skin grotesqued on John Lewis glass, caged in beige and cursed and coughed and incantated and deflated and scoffed and stoned and slashing, smashing crashing at the window for my outside home.
I woke up on the office floor sodomised by spreadsheet slutting gang-rape jargon-happy whores in shirts and ties and CK1 and stripped and mocked by flights of office angels careening heavenward-career kicks to my crotch.
I woke up staring at the eyes of Martin Luther King, the gaze of Kurt Cobain, the glaze of Janis, Jimi, Jack, the drug-drawn, the persecuted, spat on, the unvoiced, the bony-fingered, track-marked, the unwritten gospels, cracked canvas and dried-up colour-wombs.
I woke up staring at the billion unaccounted reasons not to die, slapped welts to make my cheeks too raw to turn away and cry and cursed the mornings spooling out towards the sunset, and the daily pill the act of will required to make the choice to live.
There is no more tomorrow
There is only an endless today strung out like a thousand junkies coming down the mountain cradling tablets carved with promises from their gods.
We woke up you and me, undreaming dreamers we bark out our caffeine chorus at the midnight sun
We run, fucked-up and spectacular, into the dervish hills singing flail-body ballads at the sky.
Heavy-legged triumphant we outrun the sunset,
slash our sinful eyelids,
fix on the skimming morning star horizon,
empty our birthing wail into the dawn
and wait and run and wail and wake and wait
and flash and fill with sheeting screams and answers build and burst and brightness comet-summoning shaman mummers flame the heavens burning relentless the dreaming drabness suits and skirts and office-dark nights and towerblock evening grey and paypacket veins and expectation gym kit briefcase jumpsuit duvet madness
and in the warm the wake they give we take the fireball dawn
we are awake.
I woke up sodden, frozen, crusted with tears from dreams of desert spaces, neon electric amphetamine places, haunted keening faces, ant-crawling into undergrowth decaying nests flinging formic burial dance ejaculations at their dying queen.
I woke up homeless, skin grotesqued on John Lewis glass, caged in beige and cursed and coughed and incantated and deflated and scoffed and stoned and slashing, smashing crashing at the window for my outside home.
I woke up on the office floor sodomised by spreadsheet slutting gang-rape jargon-happy whores in shirts and ties and CK1 and stripped and mocked by flights of office angels careening heavenward-career kicks to my crotch.
I woke up staring at the eyes of Martin Luther King, the gaze of Kurt Cobain, the glaze of Janis, Jimi, Jack, the drug-drawn, the persecuted, spat on, the unvoiced, the bony-fingered, track-marked, the unwritten gospels, cracked canvas and dried-up colour-wombs.
I woke up staring at the billion unaccounted reasons not to die, slapped welts to make my cheeks too raw to turn away and cry and cursed the mornings spooling out towards the sunset, and the daily pill the act of will required to make the choice to live.
There is no more tomorrow
There is only an endless today strung out like a thousand junkies coming down the mountain cradling tablets carved with promises from their gods.
We woke up you and me, undreaming dreamers we bark out our caffeine chorus at the midnight sun
We run, fucked-up and spectacular, into the dervish hills singing flail-body ballads at the sky.
Heavy-legged triumphant we outrun the sunset,
slash our sinful eyelids,
fix on the skimming morning star horizon,
empty our birthing wail into the dawn
and wait and run and wail and wake and wait
and flash and fill with sheeting screams and answers build and burst and brightness comet-summoning shaman mummers flame the heavens burning relentless the dreaming drabness suits and skirts and office-dark nights and towerblock evening grey and paypacket veins and expectation gym kit briefcase jumpsuit duvet madness
and in the warm the wake they give we take the fireball dawn
we are awake.
Sunday, 21 February 2010
Poem
The First Night I didn't Think About Killing Myself
"That razor blade looks rusty," you said. "You wanna watch it."
"What the fuck do I care?" I replied.
You looked at the skin above my wrists.
I clasped a hand over each.
I looked at the skin inside your elbow.
You looked straight back.
"This is clean," you said. "And sharp.
And you won't feel a thing."
I don't know what I did think
But I know I didn't think about killing myself
And when I woke up and looked on the ground beside me I thought
That razor blade looks rusty.
"That razor blade looks rusty," you said. "You wanna watch it."
"What the fuck do I care?" I replied.
You looked at the skin above my wrists.
I clasped a hand over each.
I looked at the skin inside your elbow.
You looked straight back.
"This is clean," you said. "And sharp.
And you won't feel a thing."
I don't know what I did think
But I know I didn't think about killing myself
And when I woke up and looked on the ground beside me I thought
That razor blade looks rusty.
Thursday, 18 February 2010
Freakshow
I lie
Lip-reading the liquid crystal drumbeat.
Red slashes strafe the ceiling;
Hours minutes seconds,
The tick tock triptych
Flickers faces of a pulsebeat promenade,
A pageant scarred
From the egg-pan scraps and rancid lard
Of my life.
One by one they hide their whispers in the roar,
The crowdsourced maw
The thousand mouths
That pound and gouge
Their silent cries
Inside my skull,
Behind my eyes,
Repeating
Repeating
Repeating, repeating:
Freakshow.
Freakshow plays a nightly Columbine zoetrope tamazepam blur, rejubilant slur, infinite whir, sleep now bullet-hole smack-rush joy lie there the deserving dead and never stir
Freakshow wears a wrist-slit wristlet of his meds, rosary recites and plucks each bead and tongues each name, each holy mother treat me beat me amen
Freakshow has fuck-dream fantasies of Mary Bell, folds her in a skin book blanket to protect her from a living hell
Freakshow prowls the corners of the pheromone cage he constructed in his own front room
Freakshow says if you don’t see the secrets of Gannymede, pulsars, galaxy dust beginnings striated out in Jack White’s riffs then what’s the point, and mashes grandma’s pumpkin chowder cool between air guitar fingers
Freakshow’s life is so important to your lace chintz gimp mask vibrator conscience you waterboard torture throttle each word before it leaves his throat
Freakshow finds stillness in the million iPod ears scrumming a chaos concertina; in the neon thrum the bass and drum, the car horn and hawker, the cortisol scent of slickers bonus-bent and rent boys, hookers, a thousand faces more lost than his in cardboard houses, peeking out from Prada blouses, empty, drawn, transparent, barely bulging the bubble of his self-absorption as they brush by towards their Waterloo nothing
Freakshow harvests cancer daydream sinews, tans and tenderises, chemo anaesthetises them with his keypad club till each page hollers at the star-pricked unpolluted sky grazing the night for kitten candy innocents to scrape, for stopped-up pelmet ears to rape
Freakshow needs a passport to leave the prison of his head, increasingly infrequently collects his border guard refusal stamps and shuffles back to his squalid camp to wait his patient turn
Freakshow lives in a candle joint hotel room darkness world, shrinking down to the wrinkled dragons beyond the body boundary of his collagen-culled and crippled skin
This sicked-on Soho sidewalk night slithers toward amaretto coffee dawn, turns off the torture porn of spooling self-derision, the prophecies, the visions, the pharmacy and fallout from a fissile life, and bares its wrists to the drab diazepam day,
The lithium grey
The fog, the fug, the cigarette-smoke grey
The sacred grey
The damnèd grey
This daylight veil
I wear like dust
This calico skin I push through the pores from an endlessly replenishing stuffcloth innards mind
Is me
I’m
Your border control, your lintel lychgate ash-filled heart
The skin that shrink wraps and vacuum packs you
The barcode that tracks you
The pudenda the sphincter that sucks in your boredom excretia
The white sand shore that laps on your drabness
That traps the flab and flaccid slab of your normality.
I’m the cock, the gash
The pox the rash
The stenching slash to your screaming throat, your pleading bleeding hands that wrote their foul graffiti on the wall, the great stone empty hall;
The echoes in your ears, the reflections in your tears, the flea bite fingers that pricktease your skin for eighty seven years
Repeating
Repeating
Repeating, repeating
Freakshow.
Lip-reading the liquid crystal drumbeat.
Red slashes strafe the ceiling;
Hours minutes seconds,
The tick tock triptych
Flickers faces of a pulsebeat promenade,
A pageant scarred
From the egg-pan scraps and rancid lard
Of my life.
One by one they hide their whispers in the roar,
The crowdsourced maw
The thousand mouths
That pound and gouge
Their silent cries
Inside my skull,
Behind my eyes,
Repeating
Repeating
Repeating, repeating:
Freakshow.
Freakshow plays a nightly Columbine zoetrope tamazepam blur, rejubilant slur, infinite whir, sleep now bullet-hole smack-rush joy lie there the deserving dead and never stir
Freakshow wears a wrist-slit wristlet of his meds, rosary recites and plucks each bead and tongues each name, each holy mother treat me beat me amen
Freakshow has fuck-dream fantasies of Mary Bell, folds her in a skin book blanket to protect her from a living hell
Freakshow prowls the corners of the pheromone cage he constructed in his own front room
Freakshow says if you don’t see the secrets of Gannymede, pulsars, galaxy dust beginnings striated out in Jack White’s riffs then what’s the point, and mashes grandma’s pumpkin chowder cool between air guitar fingers
Freakshow’s life is so important to your lace chintz gimp mask vibrator conscience you waterboard torture throttle each word before it leaves his throat
Freakshow finds stillness in the million iPod ears scrumming a chaos concertina; in the neon thrum the bass and drum, the car horn and hawker, the cortisol scent of slickers bonus-bent and rent boys, hookers, a thousand faces more lost than his in cardboard houses, peeking out from Prada blouses, empty, drawn, transparent, barely bulging the bubble of his self-absorption as they brush by towards their Waterloo nothing
Freakshow harvests cancer daydream sinews, tans and tenderises, chemo anaesthetises them with his keypad club till each page hollers at the star-pricked unpolluted sky grazing the night for kitten candy innocents to scrape, for stopped-up pelmet ears to rape
Freakshow needs a passport to leave the prison of his head, increasingly infrequently collects his border guard refusal stamps and shuffles back to his squalid camp to wait his patient turn
Freakshow lives in a candle joint hotel room darkness world, shrinking down to the wrinkled dragons beyond the body boundary of his collagen-culled and crippled skin
This sicked-on Soho sidewalk night slithers toward amaretto coffee dawn, turns off the torture porn of spooling self-derision, the prophecies, the visions, the pharmacy and fallout from a fissile life, and bares its wrists to the drab diazepam day,
The lithium grey
The fog, the fug, the cigarette-smoke grey
The sacred grey
The damnèd grey
This daylight veil
I wear like dust
This calico skin I push through the pores from an endlessly replenishing stuffcloth innards mind
Is me
I’m
Your border control, your lintel lychgate ash-filled heart
The skin that shrink wraps and vacuum packs you
The barcode that tracks you
The pudenda the sphincter that sucks in your boredom excretia
The white sand shore that laps on your drabness
That traps the flab and flaccid slab of your normality.
I’m the cock, the gash
The pox the rash
The stenching slash to your screaming throat, your pleading bleeding hands that wrote their foul graffiti on the wall, the great stone empty hall;
The echoes in your ears, the reflections in your tears, the flea bite fingers that pricktease your skin for eighty seven years
Repeating
Repeating
Repeating, repeating
Freakshow.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Poem!
Whilst writing SKIN BOOK, and swearing blind to anyone and everyone who'd listen that it WASN'T A POEM but a flash novel, I got a terrible sinking realisation that maybe in 2010 I OUGHT to write a poem.
So I entered up to do a live reading at a local arts festival in the poetry category to make myself write something.
The problem was, I soon realised it was impossible to turn off my story-writer's plot brain. And my OCDish feeling that every rhythm must be carried to its resolution. So filling the 3 minute time slot seemed pretty nigh impossible. Instead I decided to commit myself to a proper, full-length poem that I'll perform at a dedicated reading later ni the Spring. It's called Freakshow.
But, after days and days of agonising, wondering if I could just do a chapter of SKIN BOOK (ignoring the fact IT'S NOT A POEM :p), deciding the local blue-rinses would actually physically expire if I did, I came up with something. The product of torture, pain, despair, it goes by the delightful title:
A bordello in the chambers of my heart
Life says
There’s a bordello in the chambers of your heart,
Under the eaves
The semi-dark breeze
The pigeon scat and bat-soaked beams.
Life takes off its come-stained raincoat
In the orange-grey
Hot rock melting-sweet-syrup-smack
Cigarette bud light,
A thousand sweat stench scents
String out on the scab slab floor
Seep spores leaching into gravestone paving.
Life looks up at me,
Dangling skirt flap,
Bird crap,
Taps
Its palm and fans me a light
And scans
And whispers
Is that right?
I spark up
Draw
And hum
Yeah, that’s my price.
So I entered up to do a live reading at a local arts festival in the poetry category to make myself write something.
The problem was, I soon realised it was impossible to turn off my story-writer's plot brain. And my OCDish feeling that every rhythm must be carried to its resolution. So filling the 3 minute time slot seemed pretty nigh impossible. Instead I decided to commit myself to a proper, full-length poem that I'll perform at a dedicated reading later ni the Spring. It's called Freakshow.
But, after days and days of agonising, wondering if I could just do a chapter of SKIN BOOK (ignoring the fact IT'S NOT A POEM :p), deciding the local blue-rinses would actually physically expire if I did, I came up with something. The product of torture, pain, despair, it goes by the delightful title:
A bordello in the chambers of my heart
Life says
There’s a bordello in the chambers of your heart,
Under the eaves
The semi-dark breeze
The pigeon scat and bat-soaked beams.
Life takes off its come-stained raincoat
In the orange-grey
Hot rock melting-sweet-syrup-smack
Cigarette bud light,
A thousand sweat stench scents
String out on the scab slab floor
Seep spores leaching into gravestone paving.
Life looks up at me,
Dangling skirt flap,
Bird crap,
Taps
Its palm and fans me a light
And scans
And whispers
Is that right?
I spark up
Draw
And hum
Yeah, that’s my price.
Monday, 28 September 2009
The View From the Shoe: Paul Squires (Gingatao)
Paul is a poet and a thinker. He has the ability to shed the clearest light on things with the fewest words.
You can find his wonderful poetry-based blog at
http://gingatao.com/
and follow him on twitter at:
http://twitter.com/gingatao
Over to Paul:
Thank you so much for your time. So, Louboutin or Converse?
I could look Louboutin up but I am notoriously lazy. Con verse definitely.
What do you do?
React.
Why is there no one in the world who does it quite like you?
There are plenty who do it better, no one else would want to do it like me.
What do you really, really love about it?
It's fun.
A bit more time in the day, or a bit more money in the bank?
Time is the only commodity. Money can buy time.
Imagine you “make it”. You wake up, and imagine the day ahead. Tell us about breakfast.
If I'm making it, it will bacon and eggs. Otherwise, leave it up to the chef.
What’s your Jimmy Choo? And what’s just cobblers?
Is Jimmy Choo some kind of a hipster? I'm an old man, I don't havetime for this question, it's cobblers.
Tell us about the last time a fan made you feel 100 feet tall.
I don't have fans, they blow an ill-wind.
Independent and poor, or under contract and rich?
A completely different world in which we all can be independent and generating just enough surplus to be happy. Why is that so difficult?
Do you remember that bit on Play Away where Brian Cant stood behindpeople and did the actions whilst they spoke? If you could chooseanyone to stand behind you and do the actions to your sales pitch, who would it be and why?
No I don't, I must have been drunk that night. Takeshi Kitano is under contract for the job already.
Frocks or socks?
Clothes are for wimps.
You can find his wonderful poetry-based blog at
http://gingatao.com/
and follow him on twitter at:
http://twitter.com/gingatao
Over to Paul:
Thank you so much for your time. So, Louboutin or Converse?
I could look Louboutin up but I am notoriously lazy. Con verse definitely.
What do you do?
React.
Why is there no one in the world who does it quite like you?
There are plenty who do it better, no one else would want to do it like me.
What do you really, really love about it?
It's fun.
A bit more time in the day, or a bit more money in the bank?
Time is the only commodity. Money can buy time.
Imagine you “make it”. You wake up, and imagine the day ahead. Tell us about breakfast.
If I'm making it, it will bacon and eggs. Otherwise, leave it up to the chef.
What’s your Jimmy Choo? And what’s just cobblers?
Is Jimmy Choo some kind of a hipster? I'm an old man, I don't havetime for this question, it's cobblers.
Tell us about the last time a fan made you feel 100 feet tall.
I don't have fans, they blow an ill-wind.
Independent and poor, or under contract and rich?
A completely different world in which we all can be independent and generating just enough surplus to be happy. Why is that so difficult?
Do you remember that bit on Play Away where Brian Cant stood behindpeople and did the actions whilst they spoke? If you could chooseanyone to stand behind you and do the actions to your sales pitch, who would it be and why?
No I don't, I must have been drunk that night. Takeshi Kitano is under contract for the job already.
Frocks or socks?
Clothes are for wimps.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
The View From the Shoe: Banana the Poet
I first came across Banana on Authonomy, but only got to know her well on Twitter, where her tweeted verse has lightened up many a day. In her own words:
banana the poet aka Michele Brenton – was born and brought up in Swansea, South Wales and now lives on the Greek island of Kefalonia. Despite a deep seated hankering to be a 'serious' writer, she finds that the words which pour from her end up as either silly or serious poetry or lyrics. Her silly poetry is mainly rhyming observational comedy and her serious stuff worries her a little. She suspects that it might be unintentionally even funnier than the intentionally funny poetry and may be the sort of thing that 'real' poets love to read so that they can feel good about their own work.
The Great Novel she has always hoped to write stays firmly stuck on chapter ten where it is likely to remain for the rest of her life. She also has much difficulty writing about herself in the third person and is going to stop now before she frightens herself into thinking she might be developing a split personality.
I can be found on Twitter at @banana_the_poet
and on my blogs
http://poetry4fun.blog.co.uk/ – silly poetry by banana the poet
http://banana.blog.co.uk/ – Banana waffles
http://poems-to-share.blog.co.uk/ – 'serious' poetry by Michele Brenton
http://thealternativepoetry.blog.co.uk/ – info & progress reports about my books
Oh and I forgot – I'm just about to publish the first of a seven book series of poetry. It is the Yellow edition of the Alternative Poetry Books series and contains funny poems on the odd pages and 'serious' poems on the even pages in a desperate attempt to bring balance to the unbalanced.
· Thank you so much for your time. So, Louboutin or Converse?
Oh dear :( I think I may have said everything when I admit that I had to Google this question to find out what it meant. The sort of shoes I know about are figurative shoes like the one the Old Lady in the nursery rhyme lived in and who gets a mention in my 'What's in a name?' poem or the slipper in the Cinderella story which got modernised in my 'Get Real' poem.
I am strictly about finding the most comfortable utilitarian footwear at the lowest possible price sort of person. I think my feet might actually reject designer shoes in the same way some patients reject donor organs. Then again it might be the other way round and a designer shoe would refuse to spend one nanosecond on my chubby square tootsies. Just imagine Frodo or Bilbo Baggins in a designer outlet trying on designer shoes and you should get a reasonable idea of what it might do to the fabric of the time space continuum if I were to venture into such an establishment.
· Why is there no one in the world who does it quite like you?
Because everyone else has got more sense.
· What do you really, really love about it?
I love to laugh. I love laughing more than anything. I have very little self control and have been told by my teenage son that he suspects I may have some form of comedy Tourrettes syndrome. If a joke occurs to me I have to say it. It is extremely annoying at times (not to me – I'm oblivious) and if I didn't know better I might think that I might be the secret love child of Timmy Mallett.
I can restrain myself in 'company' but not for long periods which is why I tend to be somewhat of a recluse.
Being reclusive and prone to fits of evil scary (mwahahahaha) laughter seems to fit in with writing the sort of poetry I write. It also fits in with being on the internet a lot where I can find people who kindly indulge my sad personality defects and seem to get some entertainment from it.
I have to say that I really, really love meeting new people online and sharing my silly and serious poetry with them. They are so interesting and warm and welcoming and I am incredibly grateful to them for paying attention to me and my offerings.
· A bit more time in the day, or a bit more money in the bank?
How about a LOT more money in the bank? LOL
Time in the day I have plenty of – but time in my life? I would love to be certain of a good long innings. At 47 I'm just about getting to point of knowing what I want to be when I grow up.
· Imagine you “make it”. You wake up, and imagine the day ahead. Tell us about breakfast.
As I'm imagining, I'm imagining I've 'made it' collossally. The first billionaire poet! Oh yes!
Poetry readings in packed stadiums! Ticket sales outselling Madonna! Bill Gates asking me to teach him how to write poetry so he can be truly successful!
Let me tell you about breakfast....
The light shines in through stained crystal glass
and musicians tiptoe in
playing chamber music
to signal my day's begin.
A handsome muscled stripling
bared gleaming to the waist
carries a tray of morsels
chosen carefully for my taste.
I yawn and stretch whilst sitting up
in silken gold-thread sheets,
handed a glass of chilled green tea
to sip before I eat.
My husband, already bathed and dressed
in clothes all ironed and clean
informs me that our teenage son
has gone to Aberdeen
to give a concert to his fans
who think his music rocks
and therefore won't be home for days
and neither will his socks.
I always said that huge success
would never change this bunny.
I've always been this decadent
but now I've got the money!
· What’s your Jimmy Choo? And what’s just cobblers?
My Jimmy Choo is being asked to do this interview for your blog.
Just cobblers is having a cold with a stuffed up nose and a temperature and not being able to find a cool place to put my toes in bed.
· Tell us about the last time a fan made you feel 100 feet tall.
I don't have fans. Anyone who reads my stuff and likes it – they've got me for a fan. But one lady told me that she liked reading my funny poetry because it took her mind off the chronic back pain she'd been suffering for years. That made me feel like there was a real point to what I was doing and helped me feel a little bit less irrelevant to the world.
· Independent and poor, or under contract and rich?
Independent every time. You might be under contract and have a ton of money, but in my opinion no one is rich unless they are free. I see contracts as intellectual imprisonment. I don't need money to feel rich. I just look out of the window at the view, or go for a snorkel in the afternoon.
· Do you remember that bit on Play Away where Brian Cant stood behind people and did the actions whilst they spoke? If you could choose anyone to stand behind you and do the actions to your sales pitch, who would it be and why?
Well you did say anyone, can I have God please? Failing that I'd have to say Oprah Winfrey as the next best option. They seem to be the two most influential forces on the planet and as long as it is make believe I might as well go for the best.
· Frocks or socks?
Definitely socks. But not smelly ones.
banana the poet aka Michele Brenton – was born and brought up in Swansea, South Wales and now lives on the Greek island of Kefalonia. Despite a deep seated hankering to be a 'serious' writer, she finds that the words which pour from her end up as either silly or serious poetry or lyrics. Her silly poetry is mainly rhyming observational comedy and her serious stuff worries her a little. She suspects that it might be unintentionally even funnier than the intentionally funny poetry and may be the sort of thing that 'real' poets love to read so that they can feel good about their own work.
The Great Novel she has always hoped to write stays firmly stuck on chapter ten where it is likely to remain for the rest of her life. She also has much difficulty writing about herself in the third person and is going to stop now before she frightens herself into thinking she might be developing a split personality.
I can be found on Twitter at @banana_the_poet
and on my blogs
http://poetry4fun.blog.co.uk/ – silly poetry by banana the poet
http://banana.blog.co.uk/ – Banana waffles
http://poems-to-share.blog.co.uk/ – 'serious' poetry by Michele Brenton
http://thealternativepoetry.blog.co.uk/ – info & progress reports about my books
Oh and I forgot – I'm just about to publish the first of a seven book series of poetry. It is the Yellow edition of the Alternative Poetry Books series and contains funny poems on the odd pages and 'serious' poems on the even pages in a desperate attempt to bring balance to the unbalanced.
· Thank you so much for your time. So, Louboutin or Converse?
Oh dear :( I think I may have said everything when I admit that I had to Google this question to find out what it meant. The sort of shoes I know about are figurative shoes like the one the Old Lady in the nursery rhyme lived in and who gets a mention in my 'What's in a name?' poem or the slipper in the Cinderella story which got modernised in my 'Get Real' poem.
I am strictly about finding the most comfortable utilitarian footwear at the lowest possible price sort of person. I think my feet might actually reject designer shoes in the same way some patients reject donor organs. Then again it might be the other way round and a designer shoe would refuse to spend one nanosecond on my chubby square tootsies. Just imagine Frodo or Bilbo Baggins in a designer outlet trying on designer shoes and you should get a reasonable idea of what it might do to the fabric of the time space continuum if I were to venture into such an establishment.
· Why is there no one in the world who does it quite like you?
Because everyone else has got more sense.
· What do you really, really love about it?
I love to laugh. I love laughing more than anything. I have very little self control and have been told by my teenage son that he suspects I may have some form of comedy Tourrettes syndrome. If a joke occurs to me I have to say it. It is extremely annoying at times (not to me – I'm oblivious) and if I didn't know better I might think that I might be the secret love child of Timmy Mallett.
I can restrain myself in 'company' but not for long periods which is why I tend to be somewhat of a recluse.
Being reclusive and prone to fits of evil scary (mwahahahaha) laughter seems to fit in with writing the sort of poetry I write. It also fits in with being on the internet a lot where I can find people who kindly indulge my sad personality defects and seem to get some entertainment from it.
I have to say that I really, really love meeting new people online and sharing my silly and serious poetry with them. They are so interesting and warm and welcoming and I am incredibly grateful to them for paying attention to me and my offerings.
· A bit more time in the day, or a bit more money in the bank?
How about a LOT more money in the bank? LOL
Time in the day I have plenty of – but time in my life? I would love to be certain of a good long innings. At 47 I'm just about getting to point of knowing what I want to be when I grow up.
· Imagine you “make it”. You wake up, and imagine the day ahead. Tell us about breakfast.
As I'm imagining, I'm imagining I've 'made it' collossally. The first billionaire poet! Oh yes!
Poetry readings in packed stadiums! Ticket sales outselling Madonna! Bill Gates asking me to teach him how to write poetry so he can be truly successful!
Let me tell you about breakfast....
The light shines in through stained crystal glass
and musicians tiptoe in
playing chamber music
to signal my day's begin.
A handsome muscled stripling
bared gleaming to the waist
carries a tray of morsels
chosen carefully for my taste.
I yawn and stretch whilst sitting up
in silken gold-thread sheets,
handed a glass of chilled green tea
to sip before I eat.
My husband, already bathed and dressed
in clothes all ironed and clean
informs me that our teenage son
has gone to Aberdeen
to give a concert to his fans
who think his music rocks
and therefore won't be home for days
and neither will his socks.
I always said that huge success
would never change this bunny.
I've always been this decadent
but now I've got the money!
· What’s your Jimmy Choo? And what’s just cobblers?
My Jimmy Choo is being asked to do this interview for your blog.
Just cobblers is having a cold with a stuffed up nose and a temperature and not being able to find a cool place to put my toes in bed.
· Tell us about the last time a fan made you feel 100 feet tall.
I don't have fans. Anyone who reads my stuff and likes it – they've got me for a fan. But one lady told me that she liked reading my funny poetry because it took her mind off the chronic back pain she'd been suffering for years. That made me feel like there was a real point to what I was doing and helped me feel a little bit less irrelevant to the world.
· Independent and poor, or under contract and rich?
Independent every time. You might be under contract and have a ton of money, but in my opinion no one is rich unless they are free. I see contracts as intellectual imprisonment. I don't need money to feel rich. I just look out of the window at the view, or go for a snorkel in the afternoon.
· Do you remember that bit on Play Away where Brian Cant stood behind people and did the actions whilst they spoke? If you could choose anyone to stand behind you and do the actions to your sales pitch, who would it be and why?
Well you did say anyone, can I have God please? Failing that I'd have to say Oprah Winfrey as the next best option. They seem to be the two most influential forces on the planet and as long as it is make believe I might as well go for the best.
· Frocks or socks?
Definitely socks. But not smelly ones.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)