18 March 2012
revision from Hermit Kingdom
Flying Bird Teahouse (Insadong)
(special thanks Mr. Lautreamont)
the sun on our finches
the feathers in our cup
the brains of a fish
I contemplate this sight for some time
there were less plumbers
and many electricians
an evening performance
of fruit sellers
a kick on the bone of the nose
to breathe a different atmosphere
it looks like a pussy
under the tongue
when will you stop goading me
oh meister of travel
beer mugs
it’s all Korean in here
but the girl in pink
might be Polish
she looks like a birthday cake
pussies are too profound to die
I can’t put my finger on it
but I’m really sharp
on the inside
love is a soggy look
orange hair and cowboy boots
hold me in the sunlight
the handsomest
Korean in the bar
is picking his nose
if I could accommodate
a compelling record of feelings
off the top of my waves
of which I daily
in words unalienate
this self
from another one
the man on the left
has more oestrogen
than the man on the right
I will masterfully perform a thin
penetration
a linen coat drives away wrath
what does MY RESTORATION
look like?
I’m speaking out of my nose holes
there were no tapeworms
in the chamber pot
from Hermit Kingdom (south korea 2006)
Still revising The Heyday. Lots of re-seeings, re-readings, re-samplings, mixings and so on.
The Heyday (2005-2012) is travel writing. Basho. Walt Whitman. Herodotus. 18-19th travel handbooks, Buddhism, ethics and suffering and so on.
My experiences in South Korea, Katowice Poland, Elblag Poland, Ankara Turkey, Rome yadda yadda . . . .
Sometimes living in extreme circumstances without contact. Sometimes less extreme.
Creative translations from books and life and memories and experiences . .. blurring the lines . . . getting slippery . . . all writing as translation . . all words as already in the public sphere . . . including all poetry . .
The above picture is from visit to a Buddhist temple in South Korea in 2006 (Bongeunsa).
My hands are spread out for different turn-tables, mixing decks and so on.
Lots of books spread out on my table. Including my notebooks of travel notes and musings and poetry scraps. Travel handbooks from 18th century. Various 20th century books of poetry. Basho and Herodotus. Sometimes the music of what I am listening to makes it in the poem as well.
The present and the past collapse.
Here is one still in progress from one section of The Heyday called The Hermit Kingdom (South Korea 2006). Written 2006. Revised through the years.
A bit of Mr. Lautreamont in 2012 gave me the goading I needed . . .
He will perhaps goad me some more!! It is not yet finished:
less plumbers: many electricians
The Heyday (2005-2012) is travel writing. Basho. Walt Whitman. Herodotus. 18-19th travel handbooks, Buddhism, ethics and suffering and so on.
My experiences in South Korea, Katowice Poland, Elblag Poland, Ankara Turkey, Rome yadda yadda . . . .
Sometimes living in extreme circumstances without contact. Sometimes less extreme.
Creative translations from books and life and memories and experiences . .. blurring the lines . . . getting slippery . . . all writing as translation . . all words as already in the public sphere . . . including all poetry . .
The above picture is from visit to a Buddhist temple in South Korea in 2006 (Bongeunsa).
My hands are spread out for different turn-tables, mixing decks and so on.
Lots of books spread out on my table. Including my notebooks of travel notes and musings and poetry scraps. Travel handbooks from 18th century. Various 20th century books of poetry. Basho and Herodotus. Sometimes the music of what I am listening to makes it in the poem as well.
The present and the past collapse.
Here is one still in progress from one section of The Heyday called The Hermit Kingdom (South Korea 2006). Written 2006. Revised through the years.
A bit of Mr. Lautreamont in 2012 gave me the goading I needed . . .
He will perhaps goad me some more!! It is not yet finished:
Flying Bird Teahouse (Insadong)
(special thanks Mr. Lautreamont)
the sun on our finches the feathers
in our cup
the brains of a fish
a kick on the bone of the nose
to breathe a different atmosphere
there were no tapeworms in the chamber pot
less plumbers: many electricians
an evening performance
of fruit sellers
I contemplate this sight for some time
15 March 2012
Ordinary Sun, Coeur De Lion, Off Press, Calvert Gallery
The end of week is coming fast. It has been my spring break. I got an HIV test (negative), some blood tests for all sorts of goodies (awaiting), vision test (and a new pair of glasses coming in two weeks), 20 new poems (and revisions). So a health check and writing week.
Got two terrific books in the post today. Matthew Henriksen's Ordinary Sun (from Black Ocean) and Ariana Reines Coeur De Lion. Last week I got Destroyer and Preserver by Matthew Rohrer (Wave Books).
So when the madness starts next week with 3 hours of daily commuting, I am well armed with mighty fine books!!!
Next week I will be going to a Vispo celebration/exchange with 75 or so poets. SJ Fowler has put it together.
Ewa and I are working on Freudian supermarket comics (from Spanish Fork) for the occasion.
Tomorrow I'm reading some Grzegorz Wroblewski (translated by Adam Zdrodowski) and Yu Jian (translated by Ron Padgett) in East London. Calvert Gallery. Off Press.
I am reading in the second half as part of Steven Fowler's Maintenant Series. Other British poets reading translations are: Gabi Labi, Patrick Coyle, SJ Fowler, and Tim Atkins.
Here are the details if you around (from the main organiser Marek kazmierski from Off Press):
The event is the culmination of a two-month contemporary arts programme at the Calvert 22 gallery in Shoreditch, and we want to round things off with an intelligent and impassioned bang.
I will start by screening a tiny clip from a Polish political gangster film, using it to develop a discussion on untranslatability.
Next, we will have a slot called "Polish literature around the world in 80 seconds", looking at the myriad of Polish writers who went into exile in the 20th century (and mostly never came back), the literary, historical, gender, ethnic and other aspects of this flood of "lost" writers.
The following discussion will be led by Dr Ursula Chowaniec from UCL/SSEES, who has written a lovely critique of both Wioletta Grzegorzewska's book and the introduction in it.
Then we will read some of Wioletta's poems,
Then drink some wine, smoke some fags, sell some books...
Then we turn over to Maintenant Series - taking the celebration of translated verse beyond my tiny publishing house and opening it up to new languages, interpretations and possibilities.
marek kazmierski
www.off-press.org
Got two terrific books in the post today. Matthew Henriksen's Ordinary Sun (from Black Ocean) and Ariana Reines Coeur De Lion. Last week I got Destroyer and Preserver by Matthew Rohrer (Wave Books).
So when the madness starts next week with 3 hours of daily commuting, I am well armed with mighty fine books!!!
Next week I will be going to a Vispo celebration/exchange with 75 or so poets. SJ Fowler has put it together.
Ewa and I are working on Freudian supermarket comics (from Spanish Fork) for the occasion.
Tomorrow I'm reading some Grzegorz Wroblewski (translated by Adam Zdrodowski) and Yu Jian (translated by Ron Padgett) in East London. Calvert Gallery. Off Press.
I am reading in the second half as part of Steven Fowler's Maintenant Series. Other British poets reading translations are: Gabi Labi, Patrick Coyle, SJ Fowler, and Tim Atkins.
Here are the details if you around (from the main organiser Marek kazmierski from Off Press):
The event is the culmination of a two-month contemporary arts programme at the Calvert 22 gallery in Shoreditch, and we want to round things off with an intelligent and impassioned bang.
I will start by screening a tiny clip from a Polish political gangster film, using it to develop a discussion on untranslatability.
Next, we will have a slot called "Polish literature around the world in 80 seconds", looking at the myriad of Polish writers who went into exile in the 20th century (and mostly never came back), the literary, historical, gender, ethnic and other aspects of this flood of "lost" writers.
The following discussion will be led by Dr Ursula Chowaniec from UCL/SSEES, who has written a lovely critique of both Wioletta Grzegorzewska's book and the introduction in it.
Then we will read some of Wioletta's poems,
Then drink some wine, smoke some fags, sell some books...
Then we turn over to Maintenant Series - taking the celebration of translated verse beyond my tiny publishing house and opening it up to new languages, interpretations and possibilities.
marek kazmierski
www.off-press.org
14 March 2012
12 March 2012
old blog post from 18th March 2006
Ｉ‘ｍ ｉｎ Ｏｓａｋａ， Ｊａｐａｎ
SLEPT in a capsule．More ｌａｔｅｒ．
Ｊａｐａｎ is ｖｅｒｙ ｃｌｅａｎ．
乗れ そおｎ
Ｊａｐａｎ is ｖｅｒｙ ｃｌｅａｎ．
乗れ そおｎ
4 March 2012
paul blackburn
the possibility of warmth & contact in the human relationship : as juxtaposed against the materialistic pig of a technological world, where relationships are only ‘useful’ i.e., exploited, either psychologically or materially. 20, the possibility of s o n g within that world: which is like saying ‘yes’ to sunlight. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- YES YES YES!!!! This makes me want to write! See more over at Jacket Magazine: |
nice review of Jim Goar's The Louisiana Purchase at The Rumpus
re-enjoying The Louisiana Purchase. Purchase The Louisiana Purchase if you haven't purchased it already!!!
fab review here (one of many):
review of Jim Goar's The Louisiana Purchase
fab review here (one of many):
review of Jim Goar's The Louisiana Purchase
2 March 2012
29 February 2012
review of from Smashing Time
A big thanks to Michael Zand for such an insightful review of my book and work and also Tom Chivers for publishing it in the magazine Hand+Star:
review of From Smashing Time by Michael Zand
review of From Smashing Time by Michael Zand
22 February 2012
16 February 2012
Pictures from Camarade II
me and Peter Jaeger at Camarade II. Photo by Alexander Kell. Special thanks to S.J. Fowler (Steven) for making it all happen!!
14 February 2012
Reading Wednesday 15th Feb in west London (Ealing)
The OPEN Ealing Arts Project (113 Uxbridge Rd, London W5) presents its first OPEN poetry event on Wednesday 15 February 2012, which will comprise readings from guest poets plus an open-mic session.
CHRISTODOULOS MAKRIS put together the line-up for this inaugural event - which OPEN aims to turn into a regular series - Christodoulos Makris, SJ Fowler, Marcus Slease and Cherry Smyth are reading.
Start time is 8pm and admission is free.
CHRISTODOULOS MAKRIS put together the line-up for this inaugural event - which OPEN aims to turn into a regular series - Christodoulos Makris, SJ Fowler, Marcus Slease and Cherry Smyth are reading.
Start time is 8pm and admission is free.
12 February 2012
Maintenant Camarade II: Peter Jaeger & Marcus Slease
Me and Peter Jaeger. re-worked 1950's science fiction story complete with hymn
Camarade II videos
fantastic night last night!!! Rich Mix in east London. In the heart of hipsterdom!
Collaboration of U.K. poets!!!!
Some samples above!!!
Special thanks to Steven Fowler!!! Fab poet plus event organiser extraordinaire!!!
Collaboration of U.K. poets!!!!
Some samples above!!!
Special thanks to Steven Fowler!!! Fab poet plus event organiser extraordinaire!!!
9 February 2012
from transparent shadows at the rim of the virtual (manuscript in progress)
The Dutiful Son
special thanks Joel Oppenheimer
tweedle de dum dum
this is a sliding pond sonnet
I should be hung but instead I’m horny
and doing research on celery
if you were a plum tree
if you were a peach tree
(to be continued)
special thanks Joel Oppenheimer
tweedle de dum dum
this is a sliding pond sonnet
I should be hung but instead I’m horny
and doing research on celery
if you were a plum tree
if you were a peach tree
(to be continued)
8 February 2012
5 February 2012
4 February 2012
Fight Night
reading at this tonight in Brixton. Revised version of Vale Tudo poems . . .
if you are out and about in Brixton come check it out:
fight night in Brixton
if you are out and about in Brixton come check it out:
fight night in Brixton
2 February 2012
More than TWO choices!!! Neither U.S. terrorism nor Islamic Terrorism
No War, No Economic Sanction, No Nukes, No Islamic Republic - NOT A WORD LESS!
The war propaganda of the West/Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is all over the map. People in the West rightly want to do something about it. In order to take the right position, a short analysis of the situation is necessary.
"At one pole, there stands the most enormous machinery of state terrorism and international intimidation and blackmail. This camp includes the American government and ruling elite, the only force, which has used nuclear bombs against people, reducing hundreds of thousands of innocent and unsuspecting people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki into ashes within seconds. A state that slaughtered millions in Vietnam and razed and ruined their country for many years by chemical bombardments. It includes NATO and coalitions of Western governments who from Iraq to Yugoslavia, have destroyed people’s homes, schools and hospitals and have taken ransom the bread and medicine of millions of children. It includes the Israeli bourgeoisie and state. They occupy, seize, slaughter and deprive. They bomb and shell refugee camps and shoot scared ten-year-old children taking shelter in their fathers’ arms and at school gates. From Hiroshima and Vietnam to Grenada and Iraq, from the killing fields in Indonesia and Chile to the slaughterhouses of Palestine, the track record of this international pole of state terrorism and imperialist intimidation is obvious and irrefutable for all the world to see."(1)
At the opposing pole, there stands Islamic Republic of Iran, the strong head of Islamic terrorism and the reactionary and vile political Islam. This force that was once created and nurtured by the US and the West themselves during the Cold War as a means of organising indigenous reaction against the Left in Iran, have now become an active pole of international terrorism and one contender in the bourgeois power struggle in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic of Iran's resume includes a wide range of barbarity, from state and state sponsored killings in Iran to a war waged against the whole 80 million population of Iran for 33 years, from the creation of a miserable life through extreme poverty and exploitation to the gender-apartheid, child abuse, racism, and homophobia, ..., from the bloody suppression of political and intellectual opponents to imposing reactionary and anti-human Islamic laws on people, particularly women, from Islamic beheadings and mutilations, to daily executions and stoning.
These are the highlights in the track record of these reactionaries. The minimum framework for a civilized response to both forces of reaction is this: "No War, No Economic Sanction, No Nukes, No Islamic Republic - NOT A WORD LESS! ".
If you're against war you MUST spell out that you're against both sides of this conflict or else you fall on the lap of one or the other reactionary forces. Anti-imperialist folks (generally speaking) have proven that they side with Islamic reaction. Islamic Republic goal in this conflict is nothing but to establish its barbaric model in the region. That is, an ultimate suppression of millions upon millions of people (the 99%) for cheap labor via Islamic rules. However, since its model is not quite desired by other states in the region, the IRI seeks the military hegemony via atomic bomb. The US-led objective is to tame the IRI (the US has not a problem with the suppression of people), it seeks an acceptance of the US hegemony. This objective is disguised with the nuclear program of the IRI.
What exactly is there to take a side for?
A war between states is always against the benefits of the population of either side. So, we need to be against all involved parties. If you are a resident of US-led bloc,
* demand the immediate stop of Economic Sanctions,
* demand an end to the war propaganda,
* demand abolition of all forms of nuclear application (be it nukes or energy),
* be supportive of the anti-IRI movement in/outside Iran.
There is no room for pacifism, ie abstract "peace". What peace is there to start with? Is the current situation a "peace" that we need to defend? If so, why did such a propaganda of war start in the first place? How exactly can demanding "peace" benefit anyone including the stoppage of a potential war? Did the demand of "peace" stop the US-led war against Iraq in 2003? I believe that we need to take an ACTIVE stand rather than the pacifist "peace" position. If we mean business we need to puruse our anit-war/anti-sanction cause to the point of threatening the overthrow of both Western and the Islamic Republic of Iran governments altogether.
That's why the people in Iran seek to overthrow the IRI, which would:
* Cut the war that IRI have waged against them for 33 years
* An end to the unbearable suffer resulted from the economic sanctions
* An end to the threat of a war with the West/Israel
* An end to the Nukes threat.
The war propaganda, what’s the use after all?
The mere stand off between the West/Israel and Iran is beneficial for both sides of the conflict. Holding the issue of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in Qom, Natanz, Isfahan, Arak, Bushehr and possibly Yazd “on table”, as a possible move by Israel, and yelling it outloud everyday allows the IRI regime to use it as an excuse for harsh handling of its opposition. Both Israel and the IRI are depended of having an external enemy in order to keep the “War alert” button on to continue with their oppressions. Without the mentality of being threatened by foreign hostility they have to face a great deal of vital opposition!
Also, note that after a set of recommendations by the IMF in 2010, the Islamic regime of Tehran cut the subsidies on basic needs (food, gas, and similar) and made the capitalist system wide open for free, savage market economy. The IRI implemented all IMF's recommendations; the IRI was praised by the IMF as the first country in the world that coulds successfully implement all the recommendations (http://www.imf.org/external/
This set of recommendations was enforced on the working class of Iran by means of killings and imprisonment of workers, intellectuals and political opponents. In order to understand the reasons behind the war propaganda, see the above report. In fact, the chances of a war with Iran is very slim, if at all. The real war on working class, however, has already started by the Islamic Republic via implementation of the IMF policies.
Abbas Goya
February 2, 2012
==============================
(1) Mansoor Hekmat, the World After September 11
1 February 2012
Grzegorz Wroblewski paintings!!!
A STUDY OF A HORSE FOR DOCTOR MARABOUT:
http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2012/01/grzegorz-wroblewski.html
check it out!!!
http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2012/01/grzegorz-wroblewski.html
check it out!!!
29 January 2012
tube readings for week of 29th Jan
books checked out from the British Poetry Library for the week:
1) Prose of the Trans-siberian by Blaise Cendrars (trans by Tony Baker)
2) Just Space by Joanne Kyger
3) Kodak by Blaise Cendrars (trans by Ron Padgett)
also re-reading for third time:
3:15 by Bernadette Mayer, Jen Hoffer, Danika Dinsmore, Lee Anne Brown
(amazing book!!!)
1) Prose of the Trans-siberian by Blaise Cendrars (trans by Tony Baker)
2) Just Space by Joanne Kyger
3) Kodak by Blaise Cendrars (trans by Ron Padgett)
also re-reading for third time:
3:15 by Bernadette Mayer, Jen Hoffer, Danika Dinsmore, Lee Anne Brown
(amazing book!!!)
25 January 2012
essays on the poetry of Araki Yasusada
read the preface here:
new shearsman book on the poetry of Araki Yasusada
A little background here:
http://jacketmagazine.com/09/yellowbody.html
IN SEARCH OF THE AUTHENTIC OTHER: THE POETRY OF ARAKI YASUSADA by MARJORIE PERLOFF
Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada was one hell of a book. A must for the collection.
Buying this book of essays soon!!!
new shearsman book on the poetry of Araki Yasusada
A little background here:
http://jacketmagazine.com/09/yellowbody.html
IN SEARCH OF THE AUTHENTIC OTHER: THE POETRY OF ARAKI YASUSADA by MARJORIE PERLOFF
Doubled Flowering: From the Notebooks of Araki Yasusada was one hell of a book. A must for the collection.
Buying this book of essays soon!!!
11 January 2012
25 December 2011
christmas day 2011
Spicy frozen pizza for Christmas dinner. A 4AM taxi pickup to Heathrow on Boxing Day. London-Paris-Salt Lake City. Drinking Melissa Tea. It was my favourite tea when I lived in Poland. I have finished The Fertility Show (formally Nerve Movie). Sent it off to a publisher or two. Will have to wait a few months.
The Fertility Show takes it cue from Phillip Whalen's idea of a nerve movie and Bernadette Mayer (esp Midwinters Day). Written during my daily 3 hour commute on the London underground. It is a poetics of everything. Inside and outside. Biographical, narrative, expansive poetics, compact lyrics, NY School send offs, homophonic translations of Polish and German from overheard conversations on the Piccadilly Line etc. etc.
A poetics that attempts to narrow the gap between art and life. I don't see any other point.
Another Godzenie (with many many more strategies, modes, attempts to reconcile). A practice in mindfulness.
The poems are written on the tube in London but "take place" in Poland, Turkey, London, Milton Keynes, Las Vegas, North Carolina, Bellingham/Seattle.
A continuous nerve movie.
The other manuscript Smashing Time is also finished.
Now I will continue part two of a manuscript I started last time I was in America. It is called Spanish Fork.
My poetics is a travel poetics. But not in any narrow sense of the genre of travel writing. Orally based But not bardic.
It lives much more off the page than on (methinks). The rhythm of everyday speech is very central.
hm . . . . and the slippery mind . . . quicksilver . . .
I dabbled heavily in flarf in 2004. I dabbled heavily in conceptual poetics as well. Surrealism and political poetry were the entry points into writing poetry.
Now it is many many things. But mindfulness is especially central. And an expansive (rather than constricted) sense of the self and the world.
The Fertility Show takes it cue from Phillip Whalen's idea of a nerve movie and Bernadette Mayer (esp Midwinters Day). Written during my daily 3 hour commute on the London underground. It is a poetics of everything. Inside and outside. Biographical, narrative, expansive poetics, compact lyrics, NY School send offs, homophonic translations of Polish and German from overheard conversations on the Piccadilly Line etc. etc.
A poetics that attempts to narrow the gap between art and life. I don't see any other point.
Another Godzenie (with many many more strategies, modes, attempts to reconcile). A practice in mindfulness.
The poems are written on the tube in London but "take place" in Poland, Turkey, London, Milton Keynes, Las Vegas, North Carolina, Bellingham/Seattle.
A continuous nerve movie.
The other manuscript Smashing Time is also finished.
Now I will continue part two of a manuscript I started last time I was in America. It is called Spanish Fork.
My poetics is a travel poetics. But not in any narrow sense of the genre of travel writing. Orally based But not bardic.
It lives much more off the page than on (methinks). The rhythm of everyday speech is very central.
hm . . . . and the slippery mind . . . quicksilver . . .
I dabbled heavily in flarf in 2004. I dabbled heavily in conceptual poetics as well. Surrealism and political poetry were the entry points into writing poetry.
Now it is many many things. But mindfulness is especially central. And an expansive (rather than constricted) sense of the self and the world.
21 December 2011
20 December 2011
New "Kent Johnson" book (BlazeVOX Press)
These various pieces, initially published in journals by Craig Dworkin under the name of “Kent Johnson” (with exception of the tour de force Afterword, presented here for the first time), follow from his call, in the Introductory essay to Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing (Northwestern UP, 2010)
13 December 2011
immigrating back to where you come from . . .
Cold toes and cold hands in Wood Green. Trying to save on heating.
Smashing Time is done and needs to find a home. I am 60 pages into Nerve Movie (poems written during my commute on the underground from Wood Green to Hammersmith then Hammersmith to Richmond).
When I first came to London in 2008 I had high expectations. Expectations of home. Expectations of coming back to the world of poetry. It was tough year. I had to adjust my expectations. I had lived too long in North America to expect to find a sense of home. Something about coming back to where you come from and finding it is not the same place at all. My mind creating narratives and images of Northern Ireland and the U.K. Childhood. No matter if we stay in the same place all our lives we still travel. Childhood.
On my second return to my country of origin (in December 2010) I had less expectations. I wanted to re-connect with the poetry world. I wanted to do readings. I wanted to settle down and get more comfortable and re-start my library. I missed having a library in my world travels. I missed having a sense of place. At the end of six years of world traveling and living very feebly at times out of one suitcase, I wanted to just allow myself to feel some of the comforts of a more settled life.
So here I am. One year into my second go at London. I lived in London when I was seven or so. First in a homeless hostel. Later in Elephant and Castle. This was the 80's. It wasn't a good time to have a Northern Irish accent.
This time I have found some good friends. I have found what I love about writing and poetry. Call it a world view. An epistemology? Kenneth Koch, Philip Whalen, Bernadette Mayer, Tim Atkins, Lisa Jarnot, Jeff Hilson, Cathy Wagner, Peter Jaeger, Steven Fowler (especially Minimum Security Prison Dentistry and his Maintenant Series of collaborations and readings of U.K. and European poets).
These are a few of the writers and artists that matter most in terms of living my life. Their work is intimately connected to how I experience life.
And writing through what I love. I have seen this especially in the work of Tim Atkins. And getting out of the way. I have seen this in the various exciting conceptual work of Peter Jaeger. And being child-like in terms of curiosity. Letting everything come in. Including the risk of humour. I have seen this in the work of Jeff Hilson and Tim Atkins. Plus the punk poetics of Cathy Wagner. And the life writing life of Bernadette Mayer. And letting in the multiplicity of voices in the work of Hannah Weiner. And the nerve movies (quicksilver moments of being) of Philip Whalen.
I am having mint tea. It is time to grade final exams. London is not really a home. Perhaps it never will be.
But then again my mindfulness practice has benefited a lot since I have been here for the last year. And I have grown much more comfortable with the North American part of my cultural background. I have learned to create my own America through exile. I thought myself an exile from Northern Ireland when I lived in America. Now I realise my choices are much wider. Much more varied.
I am from the Milky Way.
Good friendship are vital. Writing is vital. Books are vital. Love is vital. Mindfulness and compassion are vital.
And so it goes . . . .
Smashing Time is done and needs to find a home. I am 60 pages into Nerve Movie (poems written during my commute on the underground from Wood Green to Hammersmith then Hammersmith to Richmond).
When I first came to London in 2008 I had high expectations. Expectations of home. Expectations of coming back to the world of poetry. It was tough year. I had to adjust my expectations. I had lived too long in North America to expect to find a sense of home. Something about coming back to where you come from and finding it is not the same place at all. My mind creating narratives and images of Northern Ireland and the U.K. Childhood. No matter if we stay in the same place all our lives we still travel. Childhood.
On my second return to my country of origin (in December 2010) I had less expectations. I wanted to re-connect with the poetry world. I wanted to do readings. I wanted to settle down and get more comfortable and re-start my library. I missed having a library in my world travels. I missed having a sense of place. At the end of six years of world traveling and living very feebly at times out of one suitcase, I wanted to just allow myself to feel some of the comforts of a more settled life.
So here I am. One year into my second go at London. I lived in London when I was seven or so. First in a homeless hostel. Later in Elephant and Castle. This was the 80's. It wasn't a good time to have a Northern Irish accent.
This time I have found some good friends. I have found what I love about writing and poetry. Call it a world view. An epistemology? Kenneth Koch, Philip Whalen, Bernadette Mayer, Tim Atkins, Lisa Jarnot, Jeff Hilson, Cathy Wagner, Peter Jaeger, Steven Fowler (especially Minimum Security Prison Dentistry and his Maintenant Series of collaborations and readings of U.K. and European poets).
These are a few of the writers and artists that matter most in terms of living my life. Their work is intimately connected to how I experience life.
And writing through what I love. I have seen this especially in the work of Tim Atkins. And getting out of the way. I have seen this in the various exciting conceptual work of Peter Jaeger. And being child-like in terms of curiosity. Letting everything come in. Including the risk of humour. I have seen this in the work of Jeff Hilson and Tim Atkins. Plus the punk poetics of Cathy Wagner. And the life writing life of Bernadette Mayer. And letting in the multiplicity of voices in the work of Hannah Weiner. And the nerve movies (quicksilver moments of being) of Philip Whalen.
I am having mint tea. It is time to grade final exams. London is not really a home. Perhaps it never will be.
But then again my mindfulness practice has benefited a lot since I have been here for the last year. And I have grown much more comfortable with the North American part of my cultural background. I have learned to create my own America through exile. I thought myself an exile from Northern Ireland when I lived in America. Now I realise my choices are much wider. Much more varied.
I am from the Milky Way.
Good friendship are vital. Writing is vital. Books are vital. Love is vital. Mindfulness and compassion are vital.
And so it goes . . . .
8 December 2011
4 December 2011
what is poetry and what is it good for??
Every entry on this blog starts with a hyperlink called text. It is the default setting.
1 December 2011
28 November 2011
poems from smashing time in issue 2 of La Granada
some of my poems from manuscript Smashing Time in new issue of the Norwegian magazine La Granada
conceptual slab for Poetry Foundation Chicago
The poetry foundation . . . KEEP OUT . . . pic by Tom Raworth . . . 
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