Rather than commissioning pieces, the fourth issue of Beat the Dust was open to all writers to submit work. No theme – anything was considered. So, expect blasphemy, a gravedigger in Disneyland, Mark Ronson having sex with Lady GaGa on a piano, a dwarf pissing on dolphins, an actual message in a bottle thrown off the Isle of Wight Ferry and a child killer. Yep, it's creamy literary goodness, folks.
O: Astrud Gilberto - Once I Loved P: Elliott Smith - Between The Bars E: Jeff Buckley - Mojo Pin N: Cake - Satan Is My Motor 2: Chet Baker - Easy To Love 0: Tom Waits - Bad Liver And A Broken Heart 1: Nick Drake - Way To Blue 0: Leonard Cohen - Dress Rehearsal Rag
Submission Date:
16 Jul 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
as if it wasn't crowded enough
Excerpt:
sometimes it feels like loss plants another skeleton inside of you
as if it wasn't crowded enough with one set of bones...
O: The Dope Show - Marilyn Manson P: Gimme Danger - The Stooges E: We Are The Pigs - Suede N: Suicide Bomb - Primal Scream 2: Get It On - Grinderman 0: Dropping Bombs On The Whitehouse - The Brian Jonestown Massacre 1: The Ants Invasion - Adam & The Ants 0: For Your Pleasure - Roxy Music
Submission Date:
16 Jul 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
Boneyard
Excerpt:
I placed two origami orchids in the hands of the dead child And a single kiss against the tape that covered his mouth The ghost trails of lipstick blurring into red vignette Under rain that flowed gun-blue through the gutters...
O: Tightrope - Janelle Monae P: Burial - Peter Tosh E: She Lives In My Lap - Andre 3000 N: Splurt (Sreamix) - Slaughter Mob 2: Take It Easy - Prince Buster 0: Feel Like Makin' Love - D'Angelo 1: She's Gone - Hall & Oates 0: I'm Ready - Dipset
Submission Date:
16 Jul 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
The Forgetfulness of Fire
Excerpt:
I witnessed a blaze.
Afterwards, while holding a wooden board covered with the photographs of all the local fire starters, a policeman demanded of me:
Tim’s latest poetry collection published by Donut Press is Rougher Yet. Here’s his Top 8 combat-related song list:
F: War On The Terraces - Cockney Rejects A: Ballroom Blitz - The Sweet C: Where Have All The Boot Boys Gone? - Slaughter And The Dogs E: Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting - Elton John /: Runnin’ Riot - Cock Sparrer O: Generation Of Scars - Terrible Twins F: Chaos - 4 Skins F: Gang Warfare - The Strike
Submission Date:
19 Mar 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
my nietzschean overcoming of culture
Excerpt:
‘And so the population was gradually led into the demoralizing temptations of arcades, baths, and sumptuous banquets. The unsuspecting Britons spoke of such novelties as ‘civilization’, when in fact they were only a feature of their enslavement.’
David's latest book published by American Mettle is American Means. Here's his Top 8 combat-related song list:
F: I Am The Warrior - Patti Smith A: Lawyers, Guns And Money - Warren Zevon C: Big Gun - AC/DC E: Tender Comrade - Billy Bragg /: War - Edwin Starr O: Tin Soldier - Small Faces F: Fight For Your Right To Party - The Beastie Boys F: Bang Bang - Nancy Sinatra
Submission Date:
19 Mar 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
moving on up (and into her)
Excerpt:
starved in my crack-of-dawn bedsit until the cock crowing needs a drain, dash, back in bed I lay contemplating conurbating, maybe with someone, anyone, a she preferably with long soft hair I can mend when it falls in the sink using glue stick and bits of blonde spaghetti string, she will have to be a musician so we can start a death-metal folk band, I’ll play chainsaw and she can burn books by Gordon Ramsay...
F: Bring Da Ruckus - Wu Tang Clan A: Fight Fight With Fight - Cats And Cats And Cats C: Wallop - Chas & Dave E: Fisticuffs In Frederick Street - The Toy Dolls /: Getting Evil In The Playground - Neil's Children O: Fight - Art Brut F: Temper Temper - Rodney P F: Kung Fu International - John Cooper-Clarke (from his Sony Album)
Submission Date:
19 Mar 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
how it plays out
Excerpt:
Waking again – still believing you're Barry, the yodelling, mobile deejay from Bury, who cut out the feature on his early retirement from the local newspaper to send to his mum...
Misti’s poetry collection, Sloppy Mouth is due out on American Mettle very soon. Here’s her Top 8 combat-related song list:
F: (There's Gonna Be A) Showdown - New York Dolls A: Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival C: My Way - Elvis Presley's version E: Pretend We're Dead - L7 /: Asking For It - Hole O: Catatonic - Babes In Toyland F: Long Haired Redneck - David Allan Coe F: No Feelings - Sex Pistols
Submission Date:
19 Mar 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
marshmallow witch
Excerpt:
Mother and maternal grandmother and sister and cousins see this evil in me and call it some kind of crazy not threatening really this brand of crazy ain't the dangerous designer kind won't see me behind the wheel of a big deal car blastin' the bad girl with sparkly polish lyrics that could lead me down that dark and oh so twisted Anais Nin Erica Jong Anne Sexton road of serious fuckin' descent...
Tim’s latest collection published by Donut Press is Caligula On Ice And Other Poems. Here’s his Top 8 combat-related song list:
F: Stone Cold Dead In The Market Place - Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five A: Alle Gegen Alle – Laibach C: Battle Of New Orleans - Lonnie Donegan E: Call The Army (I’m Alive) - Anti-Pasti /: Flashback - Ministry O: Staring At The Rude Boys - The Ruts/Young Mr Bizzle And His Chums The Gallows F: Ohio - Neil Young F: Trouble Trouble - Crazy Cavan
Submission Date:
19 Mar 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
bohemians
Excerpt:
You notice first a braying noise and then the public bar’s brimful of quirky hats and canvas shoes, ultra-skinny jeans and stubble...
John’s latest collection of poems published by American Mettle is Sodomy Is A City In New Jersey. Here’s his Top 8 combat-related song list:
F: Hurricane - Bob Dylan A: You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party - The Beastie Boys C: Eye Of The Tiger - Survivor E: We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister /: Ballad Of The Green Berets - SSGT. Barry S. Sadler O: War - Edwin Starr F: Eve Of Destruction - Barry McGuire F: Between The Wars - Billy Bragg
Submission Date:
19 Mar 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
a mountain of zen accusations
Excerpt:
north vegas sits just off the highway like a discarded sofa a mountain of zen accusations bathing in the glow of golden eternity a tourist biting kerouac's style in a kiddie pool with the ghost of elvis peaceful at 3:28am...
Liane Strauss on the virtues of vice and vice versa
Liane’s new collection of poems to be published by Donut Press in April is Frankie, Alfredo. Here’s her Top 8 combat-related song list:
F: Step On - John Kongos A: Eye Of The Tiger - Survivor C: War - Edwin Starr E: Get Up, Stand Up - Bob Marley /: I Fought The law - The Clash O: Fight The Power - Public Enemy F: Boy Named Sue - Johnny Cash F: Cows With Guns - Dana Lyons
Submission Date:
19 Mar 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
the vices of poetry versus the virtue of verses
Excerpt:
Homewards weaving in the glow of just gone noon-dawn, my red-carpet train spilling like champagne, my kisser a molasses of mascara, more than a little the worse for the fine transports of last night’s month’s worth of carpe diem odes...
Karl’s new collection of poems, Red Star Ascending will be published by American Mettle later this year. Here’s his Top 8 combat-related song list:
F: Two Minutes To Midnight - Iron Maiden A: The Trooper - Iron Maiden C: Run To The Hills - Iron Maiden E: Aces High - Iron Maiden /: Die With Your Boots On - Iron Maiden O: To Tame A Land - Iron Maiden F: These Colours Don't Run - Iron Maiden F: Masters of War - Bob Dylan
Submission Date:
19 Mar 2010
Category:
Poetry
Title:
guts to water
Excerpt:
sunlight detonates off a thousand splintered shards of glass like god’s stripper glitter strewn across the alley stiletto heels of honed fire pierce my eyeballs threatening to create a second migrainal sun lap dancing my brain...
Tony O'Neill on Untitled Poem, 2000: “This poem is an early one, written sometime in 2000 when I was at the height of some drug-induced madness. I would often get very productive when I was injecting crystal meth, and start grand projects - a series of paintings (I found a bunch of canvases in a dumpster in Hollywood, and shoplifted a set of oil paints), a novel, poems, and a screenplay based on the life of Joe Meek (for that story, you can read not quite joe meekhere – it’s the second story down). Of course, I never finished anything. This poem is one of the few to survive that I still like. I found it in a bloodstained notebook that somehow made it back from LA to London. I put it in my book, songs from the shooting gallery.”
Submission Date:
15 Jan 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Untitled Poem, 2000
Excerpt:
Hollywood You are a dirty whore I love you Lets get married
Lets get fucked up, lost, Take me down the worst parts Of Sunset Lets score crack at Donuts Unlimited Lets get bleeding tattoos Of the Virgin Mary
Tony on The Cure Is The Curse: “It’s no secret that I spent some time in the methadone clinics in LA, which were a pretty rough place. It did inspire quite a bit of writing though, including a long section in digging the vein and this poem. Having been a methadone patient in both LA and London, I can definitely say that things were much more humane in London. That said, it’s kind of like the choice between a kick in the balls and a kick in the teeth. This poem featured originally in songs from the shooting gallery.”
Submission Date:
15 Jan 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
The Cure Is The Curse
Excerpt:
the old Chinese points to his down-turned mouth and you say ahhhhh after swallowing: they own your balls they own your soul and now they own your spit...
Tony on Finisterre: “This poem originally appeared in Remark, a really beautiful poetry book. It was printed in an edition of 125, which came out 3 or so years ago and was guest edited by Brian McGettrick, who is a really great poet in his own right.”
Submission Date:
15 Jan 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Finisterre
Excerpt:
today feels like the dread realization at the end of every detoxification: I am clean, but the world is still a daily holocaust...
Tony on Park Avenue Motel Aria: “One thing I love about NYC is reading the gothic sounding accounts of violence in the newspapers. "Child stabbed multiple times, set alight in dumpster" - headlines like that. This poem was inspired by a murder in a sleazy motel called the Park Avenue Motel that happened a few years ago. A guy picked up a drunk girl on the street, took her back to the motel, and then in front of his girlfriend, he raped and murdered her. The girlfriend watched the whole thing, and helped to dispose of the body. Like everybody I guess I'm fascinated by human beings' capacity for cold blooded violence, and this poem was my way of wondering exactly what was going through people’s minds at the time.”
Submission Date:
15 Jan 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Park Avenue Motel Aria
Excerpt:
I told him don’t be bringing no bitches back here. But, he don’t listen
don’t be fucking that skinny bitch on this bed don’t be playing me like that. But he don’t listen...
Tony on Las Vegas Man: “This poem is based upon my last trip to Vegas. I've only been there twice. The first time I got married to a girl I had known for less than a week. The second time was two years later, and I was divorced from her and heavily strung out. I thought that if I drove to Vegas, where I didn’t have any dope connections, I would somehow be able to quit. I took a bag of magic mushrooms with me. When the withdrawals started I was in a room at the MGM Grand, a hotel which had a Wizard of Oz theme. I ate the bag of magic mushrooms and my brain almost melted. Lesson: heroin withdrawals + magic mushroom = instant terror. The result was me stalking the streets of Vegas half out of my mind trying to score dope. I ended up fleeing Vegas so I could get to downtown LA and my dope connections before I lost my mind. This poem is inspired by that trip.”
Submission Date:
14 Jan 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Las Vegas Man
Excerpt:
a dead coyote on the road a massacre of red and browns turned inside out by a speeding Dodge fleeing to the city limits...
Tony on An Honest Day’s Work: “This is a new poem about an off-the-books job I took when I first moved to New York.”
Submission Date:
14 Jan 2010
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
An Honest Day’s Work
Excerpt:
on a roof in Brooklyn the wind is trying to blast us over the edge breaking us on ice covered rocks and debris below. I am working with a drunk German chewing on garlic gloves to disguise the smell of stale booze and a kid missing 3 fingers, all of us trying to put a wrought iron fence around the perimeter...
J: The Exorcist (1973 – William Friedkin) A: Legend of Hell House (1973 – John Hough) P: Fearless Vampire Killers (1967 – Roman Polanski) A: Frankenstein (1931 – James Whale) N: The Blob (1958 – Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.)
Submission Date:
08 Dec 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
Zero Revolution (to Los Angeles)
Excerpt:
Blood it spilled all over the world. To a city that's already thoroughly festered and torn, In a recurring torment, The knife is brought down, And the bullet is driven in. There couldn't be any exceptions. The gangsta with the red bandana, Breaking into a West Hollywood residence. A thick, black, shining penis. Is all he has that he can be proud of...
J: The California Dolls (1981 – Robert Aldrich) A: 24 City (2008 – Jia Zhangke) P: Hula Girls (2006 – Lee Sang Il) A: Bombay (1995 – Mani Ratnam) N: The Bicycle Thief (1948 – Vittorio De Sica)
[Author photo by Naoto Kurasawa]
Submission Date:
08 Dec 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
Mohei’s Fire
Excerpt:
As soon as I got out of the station I was in front of a high-rise building under construction, two long construction crane necks lifting into the air. I walked down the left side of an excavated path through a town on the edge of old downtown Tokyo, with a bridge at my side where a carillon rings on the hour. I walked past shops selling jellied sweet potato cake and deli foods, and pressed the elevator button to an apartment with a teahouse on the ground floor. The door was dark green, far in the back. Takejirô-san welcomed me with his sturdy bare feet, bowing many times...
John Dorsey’s playlist prompted by seven words selected at random from Protest! – the debut publication from Beat the Dust Press:
P: Nature - Fake Wood Trim by Emmet Swimming R: Adrift - One is the Loneliest Number by Three Dog Night O: Face - Pretty One by Roy Orbison T: Happy - Shiny Happy People by R.E.M E: Vagrant - Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan S: Sea - Brandy by Looking Glass T: Nothing - Losers by Dave Van Ronk
Submission Date:
06 Nov 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
training wheels
Excerpt:
the 4th of july had come early that year when the space shuttle challenger exploded into a million little pieces of brilliant light like a chernobyl sunset...
David Blaine’s playlist prompted by seven words selected at random from Protest!:
P: Nature - Mr Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra R: Adrift - Cast Your Fate to the Wind by Vince Giraldi O: Face - So Far Away by Carole King T: Happy - Beautiful Day by U2 E: Vagrant - Better Days by Citizen King S: Sea - Ocean Pearl by 5440 T: Nothing - Never Ever by All Saints
Submission Date:
06 Nov 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
asshole’s pantoum
Excerpt:
My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. I would chalk that one up as a miscalculation. Well, you can’t anticipate everything.
We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. It must have something to do with his background, his upbringing. Well, you can’t anticipate everything; I did misspeak…we never had any evidence that he has acquired a nuclear weapon...
Jack Henry’s playlist prompted by seven words selected at random from Protest!:
P: Nature - Ode to Joy by Beethoven, from the final movement of his 9th Symphony. R: Adrift - Space Oddity by David Bowie O: Face - Walk Away by Kelly Clarkson T: Happy - The Middle by Jimmy Eat World E: Vagrant - Train to Jordan by Curtis Mayfield S: Sea - Tobacco Island by Flogging Molly T: Nothing - Hurt by Nine Inch Nails and/or Johnny Cash
Submission Date:
06 Nov 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the downtown café
Excerpt:
saul and i met downtown at a café on the corner of 6th and Los Angeles Street a no-name decrepit place where vagrants and transients linger for cheap coffee and a glimpse of smooth, shaven leg on a fucked-out 9 to 5 waitress named betty...
B: What’s My Name - The Clash L: Who Do You Love - Bo Diddley A: The Ballad of Hollis Brown - Bob Dylan C: Deuces Wild - Link Wray (instrumental) K: Oh Bondage! Up Yours! - X-ray Spex H: Judy is a Punk - The Ramones E: Boredom - The Buzzcocks A: Strange Fruit - Billie Holliday T: You Make Me Die - The Headcoats H: Love Comes in Spurts - Richard Hell & the Voidoids
Submission Date:
07 Oct 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
forget the romance of the bottle
Excerpt:
i have no desire to be a riter only to be happy lovesome and whole
theres no value to become somone only to be no one...
B: Shipbuilding – Robert Wyatt / Elvis Costello L: Jeane – The Smiths A: The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane – Jeffrey Lewis C: Ne Me Quitte Pas (If You Go Away) – Jacques Brel K: Strange Fruit – Billie Holiday (by Lewis Allen) H: Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash E: The State I Am In – Belle & Sebastian A: Hard Times – Baby Huey and The Babysitters (by Curtis Mayfield) T: Where Did You Sleep Last Night? – Leadbelly H: Sheffield Sex City - Pulp
Submission Date:
07 Oct 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
after dusk
Excerpt:
That first night, sticky from the Highbury train I’d made an extra effort (packed heels in my bag) I waited for you on the hot dusty pavements and searched for your face in a sea of Goya masks.
You were late. I remember your call as I queued at the news stand buying ten healthy menthols with my last five pound note...
B: People Who Died - Jim Carroll Band L: Motown Junk - Manic Street Preachers A: Exit Only - Fugazi C: Thirty Foot Trailer - Ewan MacColl K: Shame - Wu Tang Clan / Ol’ Dirty Bastard H: Crown of the Valley - Jets To Brazil E: Remember Me - British Sea Power A: Time for Heroes - The Libertines T: Survival of the Fittest - Desaparecidos H: Inertiatic ESP - The Mars Volta
Submission Date:
07 Oct 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the copper-bottomed stream
Excerpt:
The copper-bottomed stream carries messages from the mind of the troubled wood to the field’s green pages...
B: A Century of Fakers - Belle & Sebastian L: Three Wars - Momus A: Great Grimsby Literature Crime - The Nannas C: Friday Night, Saturday Morning - The Specials K: Yankee Bayonet - The Decemberists H: Fugazi - Marillion E: Canoe - Nosebag A: Laika - Arcade Fire T: Back Together - Babybird H: (Are You) The One That I've Been Waiting For - Nick Cave
Submission Date:
07 Oct 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
things we’ve lost
Excerpt:
to step back and drink together in a pub built for old boys now that would be something...
B: The Mercy Seat - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds L: Pirate Jenny - Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht A: People Who Died - Jim Carroll Band C: Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis / Alice - Tom Waits K: Our Anniversary - Smog H: Live Bed Show - Pulp E: Chelsea Hotel #2 - Leonard Cohen A: Tesla’s Hotel Room - The Handsome Family T: Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel H: Then She Did - Jane’s Addiction
Submission Date:
07 Oct 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
22nd november 1963
Excerpt:
34° 3’ 0” N, 118° 15’ 0” W Los Angeles, California. Aldous Huxley voiceless and dying in the morning, cancer of the throat, requests to his wife on a large sheet of paper, "LSD - try it - intramuscular -100 mmg"...
B: I am the Walrus - The Beatles L: A Town Called Malice - The Jam A: Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan C: Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks K: To Have and Have Not - Billy Bragg H: Night Club - The Specials E: Tramp the Dirt Down - Elvis Costello A: Walk Away Renee - Billy Bragg (same tune but different lyrics) T: God Save the Queen - The Sex Pistols H: Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
Submission Date:
07 Oct 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
magnetic field
Excerpt:
You were electric, magnetized. The corn, iron filings bowing, Your hand blessing the golden heads As waves shivered through...
Tim Wells is the author of Boys' Night Out in the Afternoon. His latest collection is Rougher Yet. Here’s Tim’s Top 8 book/shopping-related choons:
B: You Can't Judge a Book By the Cover - Bo Diddley O: Dracula, Prince of Darkness - King Horror O: S.Y.S.L.J.F.M. (the Letter Song) - Joe Tex K: The Book of Right-On - Joanna Newsom S: Ramble On - Led Zeppelin H: Jah Golden Pen - Sylford Walker O: Paperback Writer - The Beatles P: Sympathy For the Devil - Rolling Stones
Submission Date:
05 Sep 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
baby workout
Excerpt:
How he got here doesn’t really matter: the raw talent, hours of practice, the racism, the mob that’ll get you breaks but never let you rest, the girls, the hits, the hangers on …
David is the author of VS. Here’s his Top 8 shopping/book-related playlist:
B: The Book I Read - Talking Heads O: Paperback Writer - The Beatles O: Walt Whitman's Niece - Billy Bragg & Wilco K: Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits S: Books About UFOs - Husker Du H: Bookmark - Paul Westerberg O: My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors - Moxy Fruvous P: Album of the Year - The Good Life (this one actually mentions Dan Fante)
Submission Date:
05 Sep 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
be far better off than i
Excerpt:
I bought three donuts and plonked in the park. I caressed the look of them, mud chocolate and vital-organ pink. Massacring one, I detested the rest; a lard-carpet on my tongue...
Justin is the author of Down Where the Hummingbird Goes To Die. No playlist as yet for Justin so here’s the editor of BTD’s Top 8 Beat the Dust Bookshop-related toons:
B: Rebel Rebel – David Bowie O: Hummingbird – Eddi Reader O: Ring My Bell – Anita Ward K: One Man Guy – Loudon Wainwright III S: The Boys Are Back in Town – Thin Lizzy H: I Shot the Sheriff – Bob Marley O: Everyday – Buddy Holly P: Olivia – Edie Brickell
Submission Date:
05 Sep 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
rich and sheila
Excerpt:
too goddamned long in the face for saturday night, rich said and massaged my trapezius and bought me a kamikaze...
L: I will always love you - Dolly Parton O: Stardust - Billy Ward and his Dominoes V: Lonely weekends - Charlie Rich E: Don't let me lose this dream - Aretha Franklin
Top 4 hate songs:
H: Walk - Pantera A: Take 'em all - Cock Sparrer T: Turn me on Mr Deadman - Union Underground E: Hall of mirrors - The Distillers
Submission Date:
08 Aug 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
pictures
Excerpt:
That first night, lying awake on your bunk you noticed how the cracking plaster in the corner of the cell resembled a man’s face. With a little bored imagination,
you outlined the shape of his head, filled in the features and wrought the rest of his crouching form, from cracked and flaking plaster, damp patches...
L: These my dreams are yours - Marc Almond O: High - The Cure V: This is love - P J Harvey E: There is a light that never goes out - The Smiths
Top 4 hate songs:
H: Frank’s wild years - Tom Waits A: Tramp the dirt down - Elvis Costello T: Why’d ya do it? - Marianne Faithful E: Paranoid android - Radiohead
Submission Date:
08 Aug 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
i miss her
Excerpt:
I wondered at the moment. sometime in the dark hours. when this unknown hollow soul cracked and broke, picked up a can, perhaps intended to decorate the home they’d shared, and instead found this bleak, unloved space and declared their loss for anyone to see...
L: Be my wife - David Bowie O: Soul deep - The Box Tops V: Whole wide world - Wreckless Eric E: Ships in the night - Be Bop Deluxe
Top 4 hate songs:
H: Slash - Tuff Darts A: Glad to see you go - Ramones T: Don't want to know if you are lonely - Hüsker Dü E: It wouldn't have made any difference - Todd Rundgren
Submission Date:
08 Aug 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
i love i hate
Excerpt:
To listen to Steve performing I love I hate, the poem first aired at the Love & Hate lit gig, click the play button . To read a hard copy of the poem, take a look at the Love & Hate chap-book.
L: Way Over There - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles O: Oh Yoko - John Lennon V: When a Man Loves a Woman - Percy Sledge E: Hybrid Moments - The Misfits
Top 4 hate songs:
H: Junkyard - The Birthday Party A: TV2 - Ministry T: Am I Evil - Metallica E: Kerosene - Big Black
Submission Date:
08 Aug 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
ethic
Excerpt:
He kept working even after he didn't drive anymore. He'd get rides in to work because he didn't trust his hands, but he still spent 10 hour days machining.
His last year working (I think he was 42) he was wearing adult diapers to work...
L: Tomorrow is a long time - Bob Dylan O: Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen V: Hurt - Johnny Cash version E: Some day you will ache like I ache (Doll Parts) - Courtney Love + Hole
Top 4 hate Songs:
H: Strange fruit - Billie Holiday A: Ballad of a thin man - Bob Dylan T: Du hast! - Ramstien E: Du gamla, du fria - Swedish National Anthem. (Hate the place!)
Submission Date:
08 Aug 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
it helps
Excerpt:
No one said you have to cut off your right arm and feed it to the pigs Who were already starving No one said you had to shout it from roof tops or speak to the sea...
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Poems: Forced Poem - Melissa Hansen and Surreptitiously Kissing - Denis Johnson Novel: A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole Songs: Idiot Prayer - Nick Cave and Big Balls - AC/DC Film script: A Christmas Story – Jean Shepherd
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
little kindness
Excerpt:
I’d been fishing around for a compliment for the better part of a week, ever since we consummated our affair
and I thought I’d fucked her for all I was worth, sweating out nearly three pounds of water weight during the night
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Favorite novel: Journey to the End of the Night - Celine Poem: Bluebird - Charles Bukowski Song: Tomorrow Is Such a Long Time - Bob Dylan Play/film script: I honestly can't think of anything
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the nature of the oozing material
Excerpt:
Ray has a weeping hole in the back of his head. He thinks a spider bit him. The hole is about the size of a penny and his hair is matted up around it. Ray is thirty eight years old, about five feet tall with his cowboy boots on and maybe a hundred pounds with his knife on his belt.
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Poem: The Strongest of the Strange – Charles Bukowski. Novel: The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Song: Ain't Talkin' - Bob Dylan. Film: There Will Be Blood – Paul Thomas Anderson based on the novel Oil by Upton Sinclair.
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
battle island
Excerpt:
At Black Hawk Recreation Park I crouch with my six year old nephew and gaze into Bad Axe River once tainted red with the blood of fleeing Indians
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Song: Hope There's Someone - Anthony and The Johnstons Film: I'm Not There - Todd Haynes and Oren Moverman Poem: For Jane - Charles Bukowski Novel: Vanity Of Dulouz - Jack Kerouac
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
before she left me
Excerpt:
but now the bones in the ground are crying for us you aren't dead just in another bed but i'm grieving
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Poem: Old Dust - Li Po Novel: Journey to the End of the Night - Celine Song: Avalanche - Leonard Cohen Play: Breath - Samuel Beckett
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
a world class customer focused organisation
Excerpt:
The cunt clocks me before I'm even through the door. He ostentatiously examines his cheap wristwatch before raising his arm, beckoning me with a come hither motion like he's fingering an omniscient G-spot.
The song, poem, play/script and novel I’d like to hear on my death bed:
Poem: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock – T.S. Eliot Novel: The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway Song: Desolation Row – Bob Dylan Film script: Barfly – Charles Bukowski
Submission Date:
03 Jul 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
untitled
Excerpt:
I order a boilermaker dressed in My blue-collar worker garb Eye the old swamper With a wheel barrel stomach Who pays me no attention
Rob Plath identifies the things he’d like to hear read/sung on his deathbed:
Poem: Song - Allen Ginsberg Play: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams Novel: On the Road - Jack Kerouac Song: I'm Gonna Live Till I Die - Frank Sinatra
Submission Date:
07 Jun 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Two poems by Rob Plath
Excerpt:
my cousin leonard was in a bar fight in mexico & locals murdered him at 26 years old & left him in a shallow grave
Edward Lucie-Smith identifies the things he’d like to hear read/sung on his deathbed:
Song: In diesen Heilgen Hallen - Sarastro's aria from The Magic Flute Play: Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett Novel: The Crystal World – J G Ballard Poem: Love and Life - John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Submission Date:
07 Jun 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Ambition by Edward Lucie-Smith
Excerpt:
Ambition took her To that high window – She flew through it, And broke.
You could say Ambition broke her, Shattered her plan To be the first…
Adrian Manning identifies the things he’d like to hear read/sung on his deathbed:
Poem: So Now - Charles Bukowski Play: The Dumb Waiter - Harold Pinter Novel: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson Song: Tiger Mountain Peasant Song - Fleet Foxes or Surf's Up - Brian Wilson
Submission Date:
07 Jun 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Two Poems by Adrian Manning
Excerpt:
you reach towards sunlight pull down slivers throw them into my eyes a real god at last
you grip chunks of laughter and stuff them into my open mouth
Salena Godden identifies the things she’d like to hear read/sung on her deathbed:
Song: Get It While You Can – Janis Joplin Poem: Roll the Dice – Charles Bukowski Novel: Cider with Rosie – Laurie Lee Play: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams
Submission Date:
07 Jun 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Five Poems by Salena Godden
Excerpt:
When I awoke I was perfectly confused until the night before slowly flooded my mind did I dream him? no he had gone my house was bedraggled booze stained and smoky I stared at the hole in my empty bed I reckoned he must have gone to the pub or something
Stuart Crutchfield identifies the things he’d like to hear read/sung on his deathbed:
Song: Truth is Marching In - Albert Ayler Poem: Today! - Steve Richmond Play/Script: Krapp's Last Tape - Samuel Beckett Novel: Suttree - Cormac McCarthy
Submission Date:
07 Jun 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Church of Yuh! by Stuart Crutchfield
Excerpt:
dockside doles out
free jazz from a tin can whilst walking home through
Geoff Hattersley identifies the things he’d like to hear read/sung on his deathbed:
Song: There Ain’t No Santa Claus On The Evening Stage - Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band Novel: Dreaming Of Babylon - Richard Brautigan or Pulp - Charles Bukowski. Play/Script: I can’t really think of a play or script I’d like to hear read. A performance (rather than a reading) of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros would be brilliant, but I’d need a bigger bedroom. Poem: Anything long and pointless by Rupert Loydell, just to remind me that there are worse things than death.
Submission Date:
07 Jun 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Poem for Kylie by Geoff Hattersley
Excerpt:
She had long hair, one of the shits had hold of it, dragged her round by it while the other two took turns to boot her in the face.
Danny King identifies the novel/play/poem/song he wishes he’d written
Novel: Animal Farm by George Orwell. Perfection is simplicity (Also, I can’t see The Burglar Diaries making it onto the schools curriculum any time soon).
Play/script: Thieves Like Us. Sitcom on BBC Three. In actual fact, I did write the scripts for that show. I just wish some people had fucking watched it.
Poem: The boy stood on the burning deck, his pockets full of crackers… etc” because again, perfection is simplicity.
Song: That single note that plays when you start an Apple Mac, as long as I get a PayPal penny in royalties every time it’s played.
Submission Date:
08 May 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
quentin kirk by Danny King
Excerpt:
Quentin Kirk, a library clerk was bored at home and bored at work
A wife two kids his life was nice but Quentin Kirk desired spice
So each night he'd kneel and pray to make his life change day by day
Jenni Fagan identifies the novel/play/poem/song she wishes she’d written
Song: There are so many songs I wish I’d written I think I’ll go for Time of the Season by the Zombies, as its one of the few I would have covered.
Novel: I genuinely can’t think of any novels I wish I’d written. I don’t know why. I just want to write what I write and when I read I just like to read. Perhaps I should go for a bastardised amalgamation of the Malleus Maleficarum and the Bible being shit down the neck of Sartre on the sixth day Burroughs gave up junk.
Poem: A poem I wish I’d written is On Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens. The stanza ‘Among twenty snowy mountains, the only moving thing, was the eye of the blackbird’ is enough to make me wish I’d written the whole thing.
Play: The 1604 version of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe is a play I’d like to have written. It was rumoured that actual demons were seen on stage at some of the performances and also, that some members of the audience went irrevocably mad after seeing it.
Submission Date:
08 May 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
she's in my dream by Jenni Fagan
Excerpt:
The gypsy girl, she thunders by on a runaway rock horse
her mustachio’d cigarettes twitch, quit nicotine, refuse matches.
In Montreol the whisper Ménage e trois, si vou plais?
Dan Fante is interviewed by Mark SaFranko (continued)
MS: Isaac Singer once said that he wouldn’t cross the street to meet Tolstoy because everything a writer has to say is in his work. I happen to feel the same. Meeting an influence or an idol would have to be an anticlimax, if not a disappointment. You made a point to meet Hubert Selby. Why? Was the result worth the effort?
DF: Selby was not a nice guy. He was cantankerous and could sting you. But he was alternately very kind, especially when he found out I was a writer. When I’d run into him or call him on the phone I was always wary of who he might be that day. I’d say a few words then wait…
Submission Date:
03 Apr 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
shepherd hill
Excerpt:
Dan introduces his poem, shepherd hill:
Shepherd Hill is a poem I wrote circa 1974. At that time the fellow I was a chauffeur for owned a house in upstate New York. He also owned a firm in Manhattan that designed office space interiors for large buildings. Marv was a wealthy, successful guy. He remodeled a home and grounds in Pound Ridge, New York. I wrote Shepherd Hill and gave it to him as a gift to dedicate to the country house. The poem was taken to The Metropolitan Museum of Art where the curator of ancient documents inscribed it on parchment. He then sealed it between two pieces of glass and certified it would last 500 years.
Dan Fante is interviewed by Mark SaFranko (continued)
MS: As a musician, I was surprised to discover that you were once the manager of a professional singer, as well as his lyricist. What happened to your career in that industry?
DF: Cocaine happened - alcohol happened. A nasty mouth happened. Friends and business associates scattered to the winds. A nice career took a large shit.
MS: And what music goes through your head on a daily basis? For me, for some reason, probably because it hit me at a critical moment of adolescence, it’s the opening measures of strawberry fields forever. I know you’ve mentioned a connection to the punks. For me that’s a very limited area, though. What other music or musicians do you actually like?
DF: The blues. I’m invulnerable to the blues. Bettye LaVette, some Van Morrison, most of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and all of Jimmy Reed. I was twelve when I first heard Little Richard. It changed my life forever. Much the same way as seeing my first Eugene O’Neill play did.
Submission Date:
03 Apr 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
untitled poem – photocopy of an old hand-written poem from a 1975 notebook
Excerpt:
Dan introduces his untitled poem:
Here is a poem fragment from my days as a New York City cabby. For a few years I carried notebooks with me on my shift. If some lines for a poem came to me I would pull over and write them down. I threw most of the stuff out – as a matter of fact almost all of it. If the shit wasn’t brilliant – Dylan Thomas – I didn’t want any part of it. The poem fragment here somehow survived my destruction of it.
MS: I’ve always had a need to express myself in many different ways: writer, musician, actor, painter, and so forth. If you weren’t a writer, what kind of artist would you be?
DF: A musician. My books feel like the blues to me.
MS: Being raised in Hollywood with a movie-connected family member, you couldn’t have been untouched by cinema. Do you share my own feeling that moviemaking should be left to the Europeans since so they’re so much better at it? (This of course is a heretical statement to those who purvey the American film product.) What films are your favorites?
DF: American: dr strangelove, aliens and one or two pink panthers. Italian: Fellini’s la strada is a stunning piece of art. Swedish: the virgin spring and the seventh seal. (I once spent the afternoon with Bergman.) French: jean de florette
Submission Date:
03 Apr 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Selected poems from a gin pissing, raw meat, dual carburettor v-8 son-of-a-bitch from los angeles
Excerpt:
Dan introduces a selection of his favourite poems from his first collection:
I wrote some poems before chump change, years before. A few survived and made it into my collected poems, a gin pissing, raw meat, dual carburettor v-8 son-of-a-bitch from los angeles. I’ve selected four from this collection, including my favorite poem that begins, "Now that I've written...'
Remembered for his scathing wit and utter inability to seduce women with his glowering good looks, Karl Koweski died as he lived, discombobulated. From the gutters of Chicago to the forested meth labs of mountaintop Alabama, Karl cut an intimidating figure as a man unafraid to use words he had no definition for, and only a shaky pronunciation of. He leaves behind a confused family and a bunch of chapbooks you wouldn't really want to buy.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
undefined
Excerpt:
the divorce was finalized two weeks ago an amicable split which is to say we were both tired of looking at each other after so many years...
Dead Man’s Pockets - things found in the pockets of Tim Wells, Saturday Night, 28.02.09:
Right coat pocket – mobile phone (Liquidator as ringtone), spectacles.
Ticket pocket – a dozen of his own business cards, business cards for Niall O’Sullivan, Alice Gee and S. Reiss Menswear, return train ticket to Epsom.
Left coat pocket – keys – England fob, poem entitled Self-Portrait as a P G Tips Chimp, flyer for 14 Hour 14th March show with Karen Hayley, Ashna Sarkar, Amy Blakemore and others.
Inside coat pocket – an Elvis pen.
Right trouser pocket - Ł8.56 in assorted change.
Left trouser pocket – empty
Hip pocket – Oyster card and wallet
Wallet (black leather) - Ł160 in twenty pound notes, dry cleaning ticket, Leyton Orient FC membership card from 87/88 season, Visa and cash card, picture of Joan Collins in window nook, horoscope stating ‘The first thing you have to ask yourself is what has to go; the second is what is going to take its place; and the third is where will I go to celebrate. Day done.’
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
cooling the scene
Excerpt:
The broken whiskey and beer bottle glass grinds into my soles as I step over another used condom lying limp on Fleur de Lis Street. A spray of hair is caught in the chain link fence...
David E. Oprava died, but rose again in a cheap motel room sore, yet wiser. After a good breakfast he reflected on everything that could have been, but abstained from finding any fruition so he discarded it all as heresy. The new way to be was unaccustomed sobriety bent on an ethos of existence without anxiety, a veracity to one’s natural propensities, and a goal to view the whole from a vantage higher up the moral food chain than slug. With that in mind he excised all manner of detritus remains and lived in a manner more akin to a tortoise whose movements may have been slow, but metered from a Darwinian perspective, enjoyed all the more for its measured approach to the no-choice conundrum of living. Happier, he swayed from occasional eggs Benedict Arnold to fuzzy water flushes, gushing with internal pride that once delayed, death has a way of becoming a friend whose Christmas cards are put on the mantle to be savored from a distance. When he dies again it will be in approximately thirty-five years and the tears shed by the gathered few as they imbibe all the whisky he denied his latter life, will be of joy that the reformed son-of-a-bitch is finally gone to whatever unfathomable new place fate has decided. Stay tuned. It could get interesting.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
nietzsche’s morgue
Excerpt:
...The barely warm body of the word lay broken on the table, cracked consonants and a steaming, hollow O where her soul used to be...
J: Any music recommendations? j: The Gaslight Anthem.
J: Books? j: A biography of Thomas Paine by Craig Nelson.
J: Any shenanigans lately? j: Various women shredding my heart and tossing the pieces out of windows like confetti.
J: Are you an outlaw motherfucking poet? j: I'm an outlaw motherfucking poet, baby. I read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, cover to cover, all 700 pages, twice.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
myriad
Excerpt:
the hiring manager at UPS had never seen anyone use
BTD: Describe where you’re sitting right now to answer these questions. JN: I am in Highpoint Prison in Newmarket. I’ve got two tables pushed together, which I use to write on, next to a barred window that overlooks fuck all. Mind you I can see the grass now, which I didn’t have the nine months I was in Bedford Prison. The window shelf to the left of me is where I keep all my books: the ones my mate Joe sent me – Cendrars, Fante Dad and Jr, Brautigan and SaFranko; as well as Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis – which is wonderful and beautiful. The last paragraph I read everyday – Ted Hughes, Corso – who I love and always will even tho he was a ponce – Solzhenitsyn, George Jackson’s Soledad Brother, Bukowski and a big dictionary.
BTD: Along with the Ł1.5 million worth of drugs seized by the police, they also took the books you’d collected over a 15-year period. Tell us something about that collection and which books from it you will miss the most. JN: My collection of books was the bollox, collected with love; ten crates worth of everybody you could think of. I used to hunt down little obscure bookshops that had that lovely old book smell; one in Covent Garden that’s gone now and one above a clothes shop down Columbia Flower Market. I used to go there on Sundays, buy my flowers and a couple of books, a few beers; it was nice. I miss that day the most. I love everybody and everything the most on a Sunday. I had every single one of the Beats, all Bukowski’s, Daddy Fante, Jack London, Corso, Rimbaud which I bought for my mate Joe then stole back, Spengler’s Decline of the West – a lovely old edition I had and one of the few I hadn’t actually read – Carlos Williams, Ginsberg, Sartre; all the French really. So so many. The first editions I’ll miss the most tho. I had a great plan that each birthday I would buy my daughters a first edition so when they were twenty-one they’d have a nice deposit for a house or whatever. I guess it’s something I can do again once I’m out, just not with money accrued from breaking the law. You can read the full interview with Jeff North in the March 09 Beat the Dust Chap-book.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
smile (even thou yr heart is breaking)
Excerpt:
How they do it I’ll never know The fourteen and fifteen year men Still Smiling As they play pool and ping-pong “It’s only four world cups” They say Sixteen fucking Christmases I think No booze Birds Or freedom...
David McLean was Welsh but lived in Sweden from 1987 till his unlamented death. He lived there in a cottage on a hill with a woman, five selfish cats, and a stupid puppy. They ate him when the food ran out. Shopping would have involved a short bus trip. Details of his three available full length books, various chapbooks, and 750 poems in or forthcoming at round 310 places online or in print over the last couple of years, are at his blog. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, whatever that was. He would have liked you to buy his books so maybe you took an OD of nihilism and died too. A posthumous chapbook "of dead snakes" is due at Rain over Bouville in Feb 2009, and one from Poptritus Press in the summer.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
making lies
Excerpt:
making lies from words is easy for words are lies already, born wanting to be this nothing and pretending that there are relations, that relationships of reference are hidden in them, and yet they are everything, a lonely soul's invention...
Misti Rainwater-Lites, despised poet/novelist/baby mama/photographer/collage artist/letter writer/blogger, died at the age of 36 of ennui. In lieu of tacky carnations, please send donations to the Keep Instant Pussy Alive Fund.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
fuck is still my favorite word
Excerpt:
Oh fuck that and that too and weight loss secrets and who gives a laxative induced shit and your poems are so edgy and dark and twisted and my poems are so Richard Simmons disco ass explosion and who has lived more and who has delved deeper let's compare scars freak marks who has more credit in the straight world who fucking cares who stripped in Los Angeles who fucked truckers in Oklahoma who gave blow jobs in the alley where Kerouac once puked his ebullient vomit...
Born alone, Ford Dagenham bit through the umbilical rope like a sandwich. He wore homemade trousers to school and made a mockery of the opportunities of higher education, instead visiting Mo’s, a local off licence. On moving nearer to Mo’s, Ford wrote the edgy novels Whisky Matters and 200 Bottles of Wine. Both were repeatedly denied publication on grounds of cohesion and quality. However, a number of poems will be published in cyberspace and small anthologies after his death. A string of low paid menial jobs led to an extended period of sick leave in 2006 when he embarked on spellchecking the interweb. In March 2009 Ford was killed when a D reg Fiesta ran him down at 53 mph in a 30 zone. It is believed that Ford was on his way to Mo’s, where he was ‘probably after scotch’. The driver fled the scene but was later apprehended and returned to the circus. Only loved by obvious people, he was burnt and stored. A plaque placed in the grounds of the crematorium overlooking the Thames read a favourite phrase: ‘What do want from me? I’ve HAD a shower.’
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
ode to klaus dinger, if I was a band I’d be neu!
Excerpt:
Klaus I knew Neu! were for me. dammit Klaus Neu! WERE me!
I knew it when I read those words in Mojo a long time ago . . .
Klaus I am reading your obit out loud. its Thursday; I just found it...
Travis Jeppesen: What are you working on at the moment? TJ: Avoiding talking about myself.
Travis Jeppesen: What are you current concerns? TJ: What constitutes the shadow.
Travis Jeppesen: What is your favorite animal? TJ: Cat.
Travis Jeppesen: What reading material is in your bedroom? TJ: Fortean Times, Newsweek (issue with the cover headline “We Are All Socialists Now”), Byron: Life and Legend by Fiona MacCarthy, Lordotics by Peter Sotos, Richard Foreman: Plays and Manifestos ed. Kate Davy, Things I Didn’t Know: A Memoir by Robert Hughes, Reported Sightings by John Ashbery, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Art in Renaissance Italy by Evelyn Welch, Donald Judd’s Complete Writings 1959-1975.
Travis Jeppesen: Favorite purchase of the season? TJ: Philips Original EnergyLight.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
anal bailout plan
Excerpt:
...Paintball feral cat chasing my shadow ray – give him something he is lacking in the dessert tray. The key is health and beauty patented so as to de-class the middle; a mouthwash that replicates the taste of your favorite CEO’s flaccid penis.
KW: So, Mr Williamson, how does it feel to have spent fifteen years of your life writing a first collection of poetry, did I say writing, sorry, I meant sweating blood and tears and destruction and joy and oblivion into every last porous sentence, allowing more important things, real things, things from the exterior life, to become secondary, sidetracked, inconsequential, only for said book to be studiously ignored in your native country of birth, that being Bonnie Alba of the mists and mountains, just two reviews in print, only one national newspaper, none in England, ha ha, and that was your lot, how does it feel to be so invisible, ignored by your peers, sneered at by the local criticatti, out there on your own, not part of any scene, unwelcome in the neon poetry covens of Dalriada, shunned by academia, festival organisers, anthology curators, having gone so far underground only the worms can hear your heart beat?
Mr Williamson: We're the mental Hibees, baby we've got class.... Hi-bees ya bas.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the colour out of space
Excerpt:
Some of my stories are quite cheerful he mumbles eyes like pish holes in the English snow. But it’s a chilling tale.
Mark E Smith reads HP Lovecraft. HP Lovecraft told by Mark E Smith. You can’t make this up but you can. Somebody has to...
Joolz Denby, the polymathic 'Queen Of British Spoken Word' and latterly, 'The Mambo Queen Of The Sandstone City' died today aged 163 at the enclosed Pagan convent of The Little Sisters Of Beltaine, where she had spent her declining years. Her gigs were legendary, both uplifting, comic and profoundly chilling, with a voodoo edge that set her apart from her contemporaries. Her work with legendary rock bands such as New Model Army, New York Alcoholic Anxiety Attack, Velvet Shank and of course, rock superstars Bohemian Mosaic, earned her the respect and admiration of legions of rock fans worldwide, not least for her uncanny ability to spin a ten minute support set into twenty-five minutes. Her writing won her many awards (including a shortlisting for The Orange Prize for her novel Billie Morgan) from a literary world she was profoundly disinterested in - 'The Orange Prize - I never even got a new phone off the cheapskates,’ she was widely quoted as saying. Her spoken-word was rewarded with the prestigious US Earphone Award, which she won for the audio book she recorded of her novel Stone Baby. She was also an illustrator working within the music industry. Her cover of New Model Army's 'Thunder & Consolation' won her a gold record. Alongside these endeavours, Joolz was also professional tattoo artist and exhibition curator. Latterly Joolz interested herself in raffia work for which she won the Mrs. Joyful Prize. She will be sadly missed by approximately three people and four cats.
Submission Date:
06 Mar 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the word
Excerpt:
...The facility with words is a whore’s kiss, never for sale, seldom bestowed and never on punters hot and sweaty with desire. Words are the Sign and signal the cherry-blossom fate, the inky absolution. Communication by indication, the shivering shamanic two-step: first comes the thought, electrically transmitted to our quivering headmeat, then comes - the word...
Geraint Hughes 1967-2061. An author of little note, he briefly flirted with free form poetry before retiring in 2008 shortly after the death of his father. He will be better remembered for his independent publishing exploits. Hughes launched blackheath books in 2005, in those halcyon days before the web bubble burst and arguments were rife over the death of paper-based publishing. At a time when the rampant capitalist consumerism of Borderstones dominated the ‘supermarketisation’ of British literature, many saw him as a foolhardy maverick, but now in retrospect he is credited as a saviour of the printed word.
From humble chapbook beginnings, supported by nothing more than an ever-increasing and discerning readership, blackheath books snowballed. They moved to perfect bound editions in 2009 and went on to publish some of the greatest writers of the 21st century. Highlights of a distinguished publishing career include Joseph Ridgwell’s first three pre-abstinence novels, one of those the Booker winning Barcelona Bar (2010), the collected works of Poet Laureate Adelle Stripe (2026) and all twelve volumes of Zack Wilson’s Lescar stories. blackheath books launched the careers of many of today’s best loved authors, who will be forever indebted to him.
For many years Hughes continued to hand-print and bind his books on recycled paper and card using last century technology and equipment. However, at the age of 87, failing eyesight and arthritis saw him sell the business and back catalogue to Harper Pan Macmillan for an undisclosed seven-figure sum. blackheath books are now printed in China by crippled children on paper made from virgin rainforest. Donations in his memory can be made via PayPal at blackheath books.
Submission Date:
07 Feb 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
art of poetry #1
Excerpt:
everyone has an opinion ‘you gotta work on those poems more man’ it’s...
Protocol of last Tuesday's Séance in which deceased poet Ann Cotten speaks through the trumpet. Three dots stand for a longer pause in which nothing but static is heard on the tape.
- Welcome to our circle! - Cwrrn ya move ze twampat pleez. - Is this better? - Yup. - Would you be so kind as to tell us your name? ... - Maybe. - Mable! And your last name, Mable? ... - Whyontcha teckoffya glasses soyacan heyamah betta. - Is that what you are known as over there? - Whaddaya mean over there. Ima right here butchorna lissening tomeareya. - Aren't you Ann Cotten? … - I will repeat our question: Are you Ann Cotten? - Ima bored. Goodthing I gotouta there. - Oh, please do stay a minute longer. We know it is very strenuous for you. ... - Is there something you would like to say to us? A message perhaps? Something left undone? ... - Yorshoesuntied. - Ah, Ms Cotten, you haven't changed a bit. The world is deeply indebted to your humour. - Walifyacould seeme ya mightasay ima look kinda funny. - What is your form at present? Can you describe it in words we can understand? ... - Agotta new tattoo. ... - Boxa unburnt CDs, onma leff kneecap. - You still have kneecaps up there? ... - You're pulling our leg again, Ms Cotten. - Jus helpingya hitchupya tights. - Are you a Seraph? - Yeah. I think so
Trumpet dies.
Submission Date:
07 Feb 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
nächtliche inania
Excerpt:
Wüstenartige Rückenstriche, wie als wäre er in seiner Jugend mit Hoffahr...
Bonnie Parker was the female half of the notorious crime duo, Bonnie and Clyde. She was born on October 1, 1910, in Rowena, Texas. She and partner Clyde Barrow died in a hail of machine gun fire from law enforcement officers on May 23, 1934.
Submission Date:
07 Feb 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the trail's end
Excerpt:
You've read the story of Jesse James Of how he lived and died If you'...
Ford Dagenham is interviewed by Melissa Mann (inadvertently, without her knowledge – ha!)
MM: Hiya, I run Beat The Dust . . . FD: I know it. MM: Just pulling together the things we need for Joe’s edition of the litzine. FD: Coolio. MM: Thanks for supporting Joe with this by the way. FD: Coolio. He wrote Ode To Beer. MM: Very pleased to have you on board here at BTD. FD: Developed an allergy to beer this year. No joke. Not coolio. Makes my throat feel like a foot. MM: To go with your sub we need a pic, a mug-shot or an image relevant to one of your poems. FD: But it’s New Years Eve! I am getting my drink-on. This is happening? Right here? Right now? Happening to me? MM: You’ve got till Saturday. FD: It's Wednesday already! This is off the chart! Only just found this email you know, broken laptop. MM: I sympathise. I need a punchy Q&A interview with yourself being interviewed by a well known person or a famous character. FD: That’s on your ownself. MM: Relax, you can check out past examples at BTD for ideas. FD: OK. Look, I’ll see what I can do . . . opening organic vodka right now you know, won’t even have a hangover. MM: Alternatively you can write you own obit. FD: What! You want me to fake my own death? MM: Christ no; a mock obit. Whichever you choose though keep it short, no more than about 250 words max, ok? FD: Ok. Be in touch.
Erin Reardon suffocated inside of a cake she was supposed to jump out of last Thursday. She was best known for her Apples to Apples and flip-cup playing abilities, as well as her notorious predilection for amputee fetish pornography. We ask that in lieu of flowers, guests send sharpened number two pencils and half pints of Sailor Jerry rum. She will be greatly missed in homeless shelters and dive bars throughout the state of Massachusetts. We ask that everyone purchase a copy of her chapbook "The Tightrope" from Covert Press so that she may live in glorious infamy forever.
Submission Date:
10 Jan 2009
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
three poems by Erin Reardon
Excerpt:
unanswered There’s some unanswered prayers to attend to <...
Ed Makowski had a real passion for making the best sandwich. Eddie's Delicatessen kept Tuscaloosa, Alabama well fed for over 52 years. Up until his last days he was creating new things to eat. Eddie is famous for saying, "If you can't swallow my salami, I'll buy you a Buick!" He is survived by a small farm of animals he lovingly tended and butchered himself. The Tuscaloosa Optimist Society is currently researching options for where the animals will end up. In lieu of flowers, feed can be left at his farm on Branske Road.
JPS: Can I call you 'Jacques?' JTM: Sure, if I can call you 'Dog Breath.'
JPS: Um…okay. So, tell me, what makes you write? JTM: An aversion to not writing.
JPS: I mean to say, what inspires your work? JTM: The absurdity of the human condition.
JPS: Tres bien! Do you consider yourself to be an existentialist? JTM: No, but I did when I was a teenager.
JPS: Vraiment? JTM: I'm sorry, but we don't parlez vous much Français here in Texas.
JPS: Sorry. Is there anything in particular that you'd like to say about your writing? JTM: Yeah. You can read some of my poetry in Gloom Cupboard, decomP, Instant Pussy, Underground Voices and Word Riot. And at my website .
Submission Date:
03 Nov 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
somniphobia
Excerpt:
the ancients said that sleep is the twin sister of death
Me: Hey, Bill. How ya doin'? Me: What do you want now? Me: Just a quick little interview. Me: If we must. Me: Whatcha doing right now? Me: Having a fantasy where Sarah Palin falls from a helicopter while aerial hunting and is torn apart by polar bears and arctic wolves. Me: Nice. What else you working on? Me: I'm creating my own Myspace quiz to circulate, though rather than the usual “who is the last person you kissed” type questions, it will be more geared towards adults, with such queries as: You have failed at most things in your wretched life, and your death is imminent. Deep inside you know there is no afterlife or silly god man to forgive you your sins...how does that make you feel? Stuff like that. Me: Uh, nice. I think. Anything else? Me: A new book of my poems, called The Hunger Season is due out from Sunnyoutside Press early next year. Me: Okay. Great. I gotta pee now. Me: Me too! Bye.
Q: How did the collaboration with Hollowblue come about and what’s it like working together? A: I met Hollowblue through the singer Anthony Reynolds (of Jack fame). We do concert tours where I read two poems and they play two songs. It's a lot of fun.
Q: For those who haven't yet read 'Kissed by a Fat Waitress', what can they expect from your latest collection of poems? A: Readers can expect honesty. And intensity, I suppose. I'm always told that my stuff is intense. They're recent collected poems, so, in terms of where I'm at, they're pretty current.
[Ed’s note: Dan’s opening poem in ‘Kissed by a Fat Waitress’ (which you can buy here) mom at eighty-nine, featured in the first issue of Beat the Dust in October 2007.]
Q: Obama versus McCain - which way do you feel the American people will vote in the Autumn and why? A: Ralph Nader said if the Democrats don't win the election by a landslide then they should change the name of their party. I agree.
Q: What poem, novel, play and song do you wish you'd written? A: ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night’ by Eugene O'Neill. Damn brilliant play. ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’ by Hubert Selby Jr is the novel that changed my life. Brilliant. Lucille by Little Richard was an amazing rocket from Mars to me when I was twelve. Richard was sooo out there. So extreme in 1956. He rocked my world. Poetically I like Hank Bukowski as the best contemporary poet. But there's a line from W.B. Yeats that kills me: It goes like this:
...and bending down beside the glowing bars murmur a little sadly how love fled and paced upon the mountains overhead and hid his face amid a crowd of stars
Q: Tell us something about the poem we’re featuring in this issue of Beat the Dust. A: It was written a week ago [beginning of Aug 08] in my grandpa's home town in Italy, Torricella Peligna.
Submission Date:
02 Sep 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
august 2008
Excerpt:
Up here in Torricella Peligna a thousand years from Rome where you ca...
Jack Henry, Poet Laureate of Toad Suck, California, population 23, literate population, 2 is interviewed by Arden Moore
AM: What’s your favorite color? JH: Black AM: Isn’t that a shade, not a color? JH: It’s subjective. AM: Are you always so argumentative JH: Yes. AM: Are you really this boring? JH: Yes. AM: When was the last time you had adult relations? JH: Thirteen years.
Submission Date:
02 Sep 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
book of henry, 1:2-5
Excerpt:
2
i saw christ carrying the Olympic torch in Ecuador
this juggler won the lottery and reached out for counterculture gravitas he told the world he wanted peace with the bombs of the ira imagined no possessions from his temperature controlled furarium called right on revolution from his luxury apartment the whole world gaped and he couldnt stop feeding performance protest sex drugs art he fucked a pig in a wimple in the butchers shop window went from geek to speke via radical cheek fooled the brown rice and super noodles worlds but he didnt fool god or holden caulfield lord no hieronymo he had a good run but the karmas virtually instant
It was 1995. He had Superman wallpaper and wore Adidas tops. He had white drainpipe chords and scuffed Gazelles. We used to go dancing to These Animal Men at Ziggy’s nightclub on Micklegate and drink cheap lager as the sun came up. Thing was, he sang really loudly and had the worst voice I’ve ever heard. If X-Factor had been around back then he’d have entered it and everyone would have laughed at the audition. But, he was very sweet and made me laugh a lot. He was my first proper boyfriend.
Submission Date:
01 Aug 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Because You Always Hurt The One You Love
Excerpt:
Running through Shadwell’s industrial lights into the night, away from M...
Ben Myers, poet, journalist and author of Dreams of Luminous Lines asks Adelle:
If you were to make a choice on a desert island, which would it be – tea or coffee?
I have deliberated on this and it’s a tough choice. On the one hand, coffee – well, without it I can’t get up in the morning and, ahem, it keeps me regular. But, how could I go through life without a cup of Yorkshire Tea? It’s a king of drinks. Yorkshire Tea has this lovely deep orange tannin colour and with limescale, causes a film of dark brown to collect on the top. It punches you in the face after a cup. You can even drink it at night. And what coffee offers a top class token service like Yorkshire Tea does? Even on my desert island, I could still collect the tokens and save them up in the hope that, after a few years, I could send off for an apron, hard water tea caddy and a tea towel. I like the design too; they manage to capture everything that is great about Yorkshire in a nice sensible water colour on the front of the box. Brimham Rocks, Masham, stone walls, sheep, even Bolton Abbey. If I’m feeling flush I’d buy a packet of Yorkshire Gold. The thing I like about the tea is that you only have to mash it for a minute and do the five squeeze teabag tip then bingo, a perfect brew. Apparently Booths have launched a ‘rival’ tea…called ‘Lancashire Tea’ – the bloody nerve of it, eh?
Matthew Coleman, film maker, poet and author of the Provocative Pages asks Adelle:
What shining relics would you like to be remembered for? What deeds done would you like to leave, like a statue for people to marvel at?
I hope that some of my books will make it into the archive at the Poetry Library in the RFH and maybe some in the British Library. I hope to complete my life as an obscure poet of the northern underground, leaving a few books for people to read in a couple of hundred years’ time. I love rifling through old chapbooks in the Poetry Library by people I’ve never heard of, some from countries all over the world, dating back to the turn of the century. I think that’s one of the best things you can bequeath as a writer, just knowing that a copy of your book is locked away in an archive for people to stumble upon one day. I don’t have any other ambitions and would be mortified if anyone built a statue of me. I would hope that the local kids would deface it and decapitate me.
Submission Date:
01 Aug 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
Eiderdown
Excerpt:
Nothing beats waking up with you on a sunday morning b...
If there were only 24hrs left in the world, what would you do and who would you do it with?
I would go and sit under the old Oak Tree in the paddock outside of my Dad’s house. I would make sure I had a gingham blanket, English strawberries, a Victoria Sponge and my portable record player. I think I’d play some records, eat cake and make daisy chains. I’d be there with my dog Seth and drink a malt coffee mocha milkshake flown in from Ed’s Diner. I would invite my parents, my sister, Ben and my cousin Emma. If any of us could get a word in edgeways I think we’d probably end up taking the piss out of the whole situation and wondering how the hell we’d ended up covered in cow pats in a field just outside Tadcaster.
Submission Date:
01 Aug 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
I Can’t Kick This Feeling When It Hits
Excerpt:
That night, on the hill I dressed as Cleopatra, gold eyes, black kohl...
Beat The Dust asked Tim for a bit of info about himself and so he said he'd dip his hand into the ‘All Killer, No Filler’ record box and talk about the first ten tunes he pulled…
Nothing Can Stop Me – Gene Chandler
A real floor filler from Gene Chandler ‘the woman handler’. A quintessential Northern Soul classic written by Curtis Mayfield from opening fanfare to solid beat, as with so many working class classics; a song about overcoming. I had a skinhead girlfriend who was a mad soulie, she used to change into hot pants and loafers halfway through an all-nighter and this was just the sort of tune that would have her gliding majestically across the dance floor. More please…
Shame, Shame, Shame – Jimmy Reed
London always had a bit more R&B to its selections than the Northerners. This is typically Jimmy Reed; lazy, loping and insistent. Jimmy Reed was an outstanding alcoholic, he even sounds drunk when he sings, but also an epileptic and illiterate. Like so many of us, taking that pain out on the dance floor…
Love Is All Right – Cliff Nobles
This is the vocal cut to its better known flip, ‘The Horse’. Earl Young really makes this record with a blistering break. I picked this up, along with a pile of other belters, on a recent poetry and records foray to Noo Yawk City.
To see the rest of Tim's ten tunes including pics of chicks with discs, go here.
Submission Date:
01 Jul 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
keep the faith
Excerpt:
This smile on my face Ain’t from steering a desk All workday long.
Q) What is the most disgusting thing you're ever done? A) A 'pokey'. I worked in a hospital between school and university. I won't explain, but it involved surgical gloves.
Q) What's the cleverest thing you think you've ever said? A) 'Sacrifice your pride on the altar of expedience.'
Q) Why do you (still) write poetry? A) Because it's pointless and has no financial value. And it's short.
Q) Why are you not writing a novel? A) Because novels are obvious. And long. And life is short.
Submission Date:
01 Jul 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the seventh of july
Excerpt:
‘Their clamor for a millennium is shot through with a hatred for all th...
Freddy N: Why are you so wise? Steve Ely: Thank you, Freddy. That would be a by-product of a lifetime of full-on geektensity, enabling me to run the gamut in both breadth and depth. Freddy N: Why are you so clever? Steve Ely: Thank you, Freddy. I fence daily, both sabre and foil. The cut and thrust prepares one most adequately for the ... well, the cut and thrust. Freddy N: Why do you write such excellent books? Steve Ely: Thank you, Freddy. I eschew the conventional virtues and cleave to the violence of love. Freddy N: Why are you a destiny? Steve Ely: Thank you, Freddy. Because every day is a good day to die. Freddy N: Thank you, Herr Stephanus. Alles das ist. Steve Ely: Freddy, may I now ask you a question? Freddy N: Zweifell - certainly. Steve Ely: Who poxed you up, the Genoese rent boy or the Swabian whore? Freddy N: First one, then t'other. But the one I really loved was that Clydesdale in the piazza Carlos Alberto. Steve Ely: Nay lad! Freddy H: Ecce Homo.
Submission Date:
01 Jul 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
pc
Excerpt:
so its hot in class and jones this broke down peckawood hippy ass english t...
BW: What do you wear while you're writing? SR: I wear Berlin wool work slippers and a silk robe, raffishly tied about the waist. When it is drafty in my writing quarters I wear a smoking cap. The cap is handcrafted using the latest advances in Victorian needlework. It is embroidered with red dragons and is particularly fearsome. I like opium. BW: Who hasn't influenced your writing? SR: Arthur Stanley Eddington has had very little influence on my writing. BW: Have you ever eaten squid ink? SR: I neither eat nor drink squid ink. At times, however, I do take mouthfuls and spit it at people. This usually occurs when I'm pretending to be a squid. I wave my arms quickly to give the impression that I have more than two of them. Afterwards, I yell 'hooka-hooka' and climb back into the tree. BW: If you were a girl, would you 'do' Yeats? SR: I wouldn't even do Yeats with your vagina! BW: If Yeats came over for dinner, what would you serve him? SR: Steakum sandwiches would be in play. There would also be opium and iced tea and tomatoes and pie. Yeats likes pie. BW: Do you pick your nose when no one is watching? SR: Yes, and for this I use either a crab's claw or the severed and embalmed gorilla's finger sent to me by my Congolese friend, Paul, in celebration of my birthday.
Submission Date:
01 Jul 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
on william butler yeats
Excerpt:
1. Yeats walks into a room backwards and turns slowly. 2. Yeats likes th...
Left Brain: How did you get the name Puma? Right Brain: I had a Puma knife. It’s a long story. Left Brain: Why do you write? Right Brain: It beats the alternative. Left Brain: Where will you be in five years? Right Brain: Ooh, look, you can see the moon, it’s a crescent. Left Brain: What would you do if you won the lottery? Right Brain: God, it’s fucking hot in here. Left Brain: Anything else you want to say? Right Brain: Buy my book. When I write it.
Submission Date:
01 Jul 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
billy pray
Excerpt:
Billy Pray was a tough guy He woke one morning at five His tooth hurt...
TON2000: Shit man, you look good. You've shaved. TON2008: Yeh. You look... uh.... TON2000: Oh I know. So what’s up? You're alive. That’s kinda nice to know. Whatcha doin' these days? TON2008: I write. TON2000: Write what? Rubber checks? TON2008: Nah, books. I got one coming out on Harper Perennial in November 08. "Down and Out on Murder Mile" TON2000: Fuck off! Don't you have to finish college to do that? TON2008: Apparently not. TON2000: You get high still? TON2008: Well, not by your standards. By your standards I'm kind of a monk these days. TON2000: So you got old and sold out. You gonna tell me you got an SUV too, and a nice little picket fence? TON2008: No car, no fence. Not yet anyway. I'd take the car and the fence over what I know is coming up for YOU though, smart ass.... TON2000: OK, OK. I hear ya. Hey.... listen, I hate to ask, but can I borrow a few bucks? I'm a bit short now and I have this thing I need to do.... TON2008: I know, I know. Here take it. You can pay me back when you meet the old me in 8 years time. TON2000: Uh, yeh. Sure. Time travel is so confusing. I think I gotta lay off the coke. I think I'm burning out some brain cells. TON2008: Yeah. That sounds about right.
TON2008's latest book Hero of the Underground just debuted at #33 on The New York Times bestseller list. For more info, go here.
Submission Date:
05 Jun 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the sound of jeffrey lee pierce singing 'yellow eyes' floating out of a busted tape player
Excerpt:
under threadbare sheets in kilburn a story began, then concluded and ...
Q: What is something you are ashamed of? A: The way I treated a young woman with cancer. She was twenty, I was twenty-six, we were dating. Her name was Amanda.
Q: What is your attitude towards your parents? A: I think they did the best they could. If I hadn’t had the childhood I did I’d probably be an accountant or civil engineer or designer of gazebos instead of a poet, so I’d like to thank them for that.
Q: Is it true you won a triathlon? A: Yes, but that was seven years and fifty-pounds ago.
Q: Shameless plug for your first book of poetry? A: ‘Down where the hummingbird goes to die’, available from the Outsider Writers bookstore.
ZA: In his introduction to Lounge Lizard, Dan Fante talks about being "pissed off" at the American publishing industry for failing to acknowledge your talent. Why do you feel it has been difficult for your work to be published in the U.S.? SaFranko: God bless Dan. But first of all, it’s only been my novels that have been unwelcome in the United States. I’ve published well over 50 stories in many different types of American magazines, from the commercial and mainstream to the marginal and offbeat. My plays have been seen on many New York and Irish stages over the years. But when it comes to my novels, no. I think that the reasons for this are complex. First, I don’t fit the profile of the typical successful American novelist. No MFA, no writing workshops, no Ivy League degree. Moreover, the writers I’ve admired are either European, Simenon and Balzac and Hamsun, or American exiles, like Highsmith, Paul Bowles, Henry Miller. If the editors at the big houses are largely young females and I’m seen as a misogynist, that’s not a great match, right? If the vast majority of readers in the US are women –- and that’s a fact – then I don’t fit into the plan. If most of the books published by men in America are "ladies’ books" – in other words really intended for a female audience whether or not they’re written by women or men – then I’m in trouble. Those, I believe, are at least some of the reasons I’m not wanted in the US. What’s enormously frustrating for me is that the vast majority of my novels, another eight or ten, haven’t been able to find a home. And that’s a lot of unread work.
Submission Date:
19 May 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
hard logic
Excerpt:
Can we ever understand the pattern of a life? Or is it a rank illusion to s...
ZA: How much of Max is based on your own lived experiences or psychopathology? SaFranko: All of Max has at least some basis in my own experiences. Sometimes there is distortion, exaggeration, for effect. On the other hand, a great deal, perhaps the most important material, is left out, sacrificed to pace. Both Hating Olivia and Lounge Lizard were significantly longer books before I took the butcher knife to them. As for my psychopathology, only a shrink could answer that.
ZA: Max is an aspiring writer, although failing at his craft. Despite this, his comments on writing and "authenticity" pervade both Hating Olivia and Lounge Lizard. To what extent did you intend the reader to accept his voice as "authority" on the creative process and writing? SaFranko: None whatsoever. I would never expect anyone to follow my advice regarding anything. Everyone is different. So this is just Max talking to Max. That said, you can always tell a real artist from a long way off, can’t you?
Submission Date:
12 May 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the flies
Excerpt:
Being the sort of person who writes plays and film scenarios I know my f...
Q: What keeps you from flinging yourself out of the nearest window? A: Whiskey. Comrades. A red-haired Irish woman. Cabaret songs, murder ballads, carnie tunes, dustbowl laments and other forms of popular music.
Q: Where are you? A: An attic flat in the city of Edinburgh, in a street where there's a gramophone emporium, a cheese mongers, an antiques shop, three pubs and a church for your sins. There be dragons beyond that.
Q: What literary figure could you beat in a fight? A: I asked Craig Davidson that question and he said Hemingway, who he'd no doubt give a run for his money. I'd hedge my bets and go for Maeve Binchy, Helen Fielding…J K Rowling at a push, though it'd be touch and go.
Submission Date:
05 Apr 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
icon
Excerpt:
My step-grandmother, gone now and turned to bones, (a Reubens night...
Michael Grover: So how are you? M.D.G: What are you talkin' about? This is ridiculous. You know how I am.
Michael Grover: How did you get into poetry? M.D.G: It started when I was born. I have always been a writer. My father noticed my interest in writing and started passing me down his old books. Ginsberg's "Howl", "The Communist Manifesto", James Kavanaugh, stuff like that. I grew up in South Florida which is a really oppressive place. I kept my writing to myself or started zines and published myself. When I moved to LA in the late nineties I started meeting real poets that really performed their stuff with a lot of passion. I went to the same readings as them and started working hard so I could perform beside them. I got into underground publishing around the same time, and here I am.
Michael Grover: Tell us how Covert Press got started. M.D.G: I started just publishing my own chapbooks on it. Then a man who I consider one of the best poets alive, John G. Hall of Manchester, England asked me if I would publish and edit a collection by him. I couldn't refuse. Since then I've published another chapbook of my own and John Dorsey from Toledo, Ohio who's kind of an underground press legend. We are planning on publishing Dorsey's second manuscript on Covert Press.
Michael Grover: What are your influences poetically? M.D.G: I'm more influenced by the oral poets that use sound as much as they do written word. Poets like Bob Kaufman and Amiri Baraka. I'm also very influenced by hip-hop.
Submission Date:
15 Mar 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
currency
Excerpt:
As a Poet I understand The value of words. I don't waste many; Not...
Q. David, first let me say I really enjoyed your work on that TV show. A. That wasn’t me.
Q. Ya, sure it was. I remember names alright: David Cross – you’re a funny guy! A. That’s a different fellow
Q. Oh, I see…you create a different persona for yourself when you’re writing, like Chinaski. A. No, it’s just me. Another guy has the same name but without the “S” in the middle.
Q. And what’s his name? A. Who?
Q. The other David Cross A. Yes
Submission Date:
08 Mar 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
are we there yet?
Excerpt:
I always felt I was never quite there Where I wanted to be Where I...
CF: You’re a limey square john never done a bit in your life. The hell gives you the right to write about the joint, about guys like me? SE: I write about what I have to. It’s where my head lives, where my heart takes me. Something grabs hold of me, an idea, an experience and that’s it, I run with it, transform it in the imagination, make it mine. By the time pen hits paper, it’s not about guys like you – you’re just content - it’s about me. CF: Just content, huh? You better watch your mouth, fake-ass tough guy. You got to be makin’ a million from this. Where’s my end? SE: Up that cell-bitch’s ass, what I hear – remember Lewisberg? CF: (Leaps up from his chair.) MUTHAFUCKA! I’ll tear out your fuckin’ windpipe - SE: Hey bro’, cool it. Don’t forget, you’re dead, up there in heaven with those monks that turned you at Springfield. You’re supposed to be setting an example. CF: I guess. Shit. (Resumes sitting.) That goddamn temper of mine. SE: That was always your problem bro’. Isn’t that what I have you say in JerUSAlem? CF: Yeah. (Sighs.) JerUSAlem. That’s the greatest literary work of the twenty first century. I know that for a fact because I’m in heaven and I got a kick-ass overview. You gotta have a publishin’ deal for that by now? SE: It ain’t happening bro’. CF: Those guys are assholes. SE: Yeah.
Submission Date:
01 Mar 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
J-A-C-K
Excerpt:
“I would just like an apology of some sort. A little conside...
soul: yr just rotting meat straight jacketed to a skeleton body: but you sure love it when i chug bottles of wine & gather smoke into my lungs soul: yeah but you only drink to forget what you are - vertical road-kill body: hey i don't even believe in you - yr just some romantic idea soul: now you really need a fucking bottle...
The Incredible Hulk: Bah. Why stupid puny human write stupid words? Hulk no understand.
William: I guess writing is a way to discover myself and how I relate to the world, and then sharing it with others is a way of communicating on a different level than the usual everyday interaction. There is a beauty to be found in that, I think.
The Incredible Hulk: You talk with big words and try to trick Hulk. Words not pretty, just stupid and boring.
William: Well, you may well have a point there. But I guess the act of creation in general is making something strong, that, with a bit of luck, will live after we are gone.
The Incredible Hulk: Hulk no understand all your stupid words. Puny humans always trying to confuse Hulk with words. Stupid words are not strong. Hulk is strong. Hulk is the strongest one there is!
William: That may be, but...
The Incredible Hulk: Shut up, puny human. Hulk is tired of talking with you about stupid poems. Hulk is angry now. Hulk Smash!
(the transcript of the interview ends abruptly here.)
Submission Date:
03 Feb 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the fortune teller
Excerpt:
An old woman has a shop on the corner of my block where for a fee...
William S. Burroughs: What makes you think you can write? Scurvy Bastard: As usual, you've got it backwards. It's writing that makes me think. WSB: I can see the slinking virus in your eyes. Do your mugwump masters allow coition? SB: Only while wearing kelvar. WSB: Is technology the new Uber-Deity? SB: Like in Yahweh or the (information) highway? Don't ask me, ask your Algerian tea-angel. WSB: Have you ever shoved kif up your ass? SB: No, but I'm sure Jagger did at some time. WSB: Why are you naked? SB: I thought we were doing lunch.
Submission Date:
03 Feb 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
666 bibles
Excerpt:
It took Mr. Vernon Tucker late of Mingo County, West Virginia 14 year...
The late John Lennon interviews Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
JL: Luis, good to meet you mate. Now let me see, Paul or John? LCB: John, of course. You're the best.
JL: What the hell is wrong with your eye, mate? LCB: I think I got the pink eye, John. I'm not a doctor, but that's what my family says it is. So don't get too close. I'll see the eye doctor in the morning.
JL: I heard that happens when someone farts directly into your eye or on your pillow? LCB: John, that's from Knocked Up. I don't know if that's how it happens, but I'm certain no one farted directly into my eye. I did fall asleep sitting down on my pillow last night, but I'm not sure if I let loose. I did eat some amazing Peruvian beans yesterday.
JL: What's this rubbish, Lola And Victoria? It looks like you combined two Kinks songs and threw in some words. LCB: John, that's why you're the best. I mean, what are you, clairvoyant? I was listening to some Kinks songs, Lola and Victoria, and was also listening to The Kinks’ the Village Green Preservation Society album. That's where "The Village Green Tavern" came from.
JL: If you could go back in time in The Flux Capacitor, what would you do, where would you go? LCB: John, I would probably find my way to New York when you were still alive and beat the dust out of that bastard, Chapman, and save your life. I can only imagine what incredible music you would have created. Like I said before, you're the best.
Submission Date:
19 Jan 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
lola and victoria
Excerpt:
Lola and Victoria, Cross-dressers, Fell for each other At the Vill...
Q: What are your politics this voting year? A: Sarcastic-Communist. Q: What's that mean? A: One believes in good pay but not taking their job seriously. Q: Do you believe you have a chance. A: I eat two bananas a day to soften my poop.
Submission Date:
08 Jan 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the italian princess
Excerpt:
In the low-income apartment in Liberty, Maria lay in bed.
Q: What remuneration have you received for your poetry? A: A Starbucks’ card from Jack Micheline’s son and complete ostracization from my wife’s family.
Q: Why don’t you have a Myspace or blog or website? A: Unresolved ambivalence relative to your throats and my cock.
Q: Is it true you were involved in a bar fight around 12:17am on Xmas morning. A: Yes.
Q: General thoughts? A: Being an existentialist doesn’t give you the right to piss on herd creatures, but it’s a good reason to drink.
Submission Date:
08 Jan 2008
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
my wife and her best friend
Excerpt:
are inside with the babies trying to talk each other into believin...
Me: Hey Bill, how're you doing today? Me: Fine, just fine. Me: Whatcha up to? Me: Listening to Gram Parsons and submitting some sad little poems here and there. Me: Why? Me: I can't imagine what else there is to be done. Me: Fair enough. Anything else? Me: I need to go to the dentist soon but probably won't. Visit me here.
Submission Date:
06 Dec 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
our last 5 dollars
Excerpt:
The clever know their way about the world while the rest of us drift wit...
Q: Why bother? A: I don’t know anymore. There was a purpose but I can no longer remember what it was. Q: If the writing stopped tomorrow would you get a job? A: No. I would rather live on the streets. My favourite line of Rimbaud poetry actually wasn’t one of his poems. It was in a letter to Verlaine. He said, “Work is as far from me as my fingernail is from my eye!” Q: So you would say you are a lazy bastard? A: It’s an aesthetic choice. Q: Best job you ever had? A: Shoplifter. Q: Worst? A: Human being. Q: Thank you. Anything else? A: Please buy my books, and visit me here.
Submission Date:
26 Nov 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the ammonia angels
Excerpt:
Paco says “the only good cop is a dead cop” three dollars for a crackpip...
Q: I hear around fifty percent of people who grow up in the country have sex with farm animals, what do you think of that? A: Well, if the farm animal’s being a tease . . . Q: What do you think about murder? A: If the monkey would learn to swim the tiger wouldn’t get him. Q: Why do you write? A: Why do you live. Q: Do you believe in cannibalism? A: If the setting’s right. Q: Is your poem going to be anything like this questionnaire? A: No! Beat The Dust should have taken the other two I sent them, also . . .
Submission Date:
18 Nov 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
memorial candles
Excerpt:
Sometimes my heart hurts not because the vessels are clogged but beca...
q. Why are you interviewing yourself? a. Because no one else will and I still think I'm interesting even though I'm broke, going bald, and gaining more weight. That and I really, really want my work in Beat the Dust. q. Why Beat the Dust? a. Because I'm a submission junkie. I write and I write and I submit and I submit because I crave attention, adoration, fame. q. Are you famous? a. Hell no.
Mark SaFranko is a novelist, short story writer, playwright and actor. His novel Hating Olivia (2005, Murder Slim Press) has garnered rave reviews and won a cult following in the United Kingdom. He has been cited in Best American Mystery Stories 2000 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His latest novel, Lounge Lizard is published this week by Murder Slim Press.
Submission Date:
11 Nov 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
trapped
Excerpt:
It’s my belief that all great artists do their best work in...
Q: Why do you write? A: So the words leave me alone. Q: Did you go to college? A: Not really, I just take random classes when I have time. Things like French and capoeira and art history. Q: What are you listening to right now? A: Disorder off of Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division. Q: What do you want people to know about you? A: To understand what I write? If people have to know something about me for the poems to make sense, then I've failed at writing them. Q: Do you like to be asked questions? A: Questions are fine, but I rarely have the desired answers.
Submission Date:
02 Nov 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
not broken yet
Excerpt:
some days are just broken, you know this from the first eye-open ...
Q: Where were you born? A: East London. Q: Why do you write? A: Out of Sheer Desperation. Q: Who is your biggest literary influence? A: It's an even split between John Fante and Charles Bukowski, but there’re plenty of others. Q: Any favourite new writers on the scene? A: Tony O'Neill and Adelle Stripe. Q: Favourite phrase? A: Not sure if this is a phrase, but: All the sadness in the world stalks the land like a death heron in winter. Q: What type of woman do you go for? A: What's that got to do with writing? Q: Not much, but I was curious. A: Okay. I like blondes, brunettes, ginger, well stacked, and who recite spontaneous haiku whilst making love.
Submission Date:
02 Nov 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
the young die screaming in the land of broken dreams
p. i'm slightly embarrassed. k. i heard you were shy. p. slightly. k. music. p. mozart's don giovanni. k. book. p. james joyce's ulysses. k. there's a connection there. p. quite correct. tell me about your book. k. go here. p. i will, thank you. k. no, thank you.
Submission Date:
02 Nov 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
i blame darwin
Excerpt:
Maggie mocked my virginity I fucked her while she slept off the booze
Q: Are you a Bukowski copycat? A: Not by design or premeditated intent. I feel more kinship with Raymond Carver than I do Bukowski. Q: What the hell are you doing in Iowa? A: Shell-shocked and debauched by what my friend Sartre called the “practico-inert” just like the rest of us. Q: Why do you write? A: It’s an ephemeral way of reconciling our philosophical impotence. The heat of the creative act allows us to get some distance from it. But like I said, it’s ephemeral. Q: Do you like to use big words to sound smart? A: No, but the language of philosophy has given me a framework for battling the absurdity of our existence. Q: What is something nobody knows about you? A: I flunked English my junior year of high school. Q: Seriously? A: Yes.
Submission Date:
20 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
cobbling days together like torn kites
Excerpt:
every couple of months i need a solid week on the couch in my cool...
Q: So who the hell are you? A: I'm a happily married happily knocked up bat shit crazy writer of poems, blogs, novels and grocery lists. I'm a maker of collages. I'm a karaoke Mexican beer road trip MySpace fanatic. I'm a lulu.com freak. I'm Kim Wu and Koko Loko. Q: Where do you live? A: I currently reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico but will soon return to my native land, the Lone Star state. Don't hate me for that, please.
Submission Date:
19 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
sympathy for the scrappers (jay’s monologue)
Excerpt:
unlike you, these girls don’t have a mommy and daddy to run back to in s...
Dan Fante was born and raised in Los Angeles. At twenty, he quit school and hit the road, eventually ending up as a New York City resident for twelve years. Fante has worked at dozens of crummy jobs including: door to door salesman, taxi driver, window washer, telemarketer, private investigator, night hotel manager, chauffeur, mailroom clerk, deck hand, dishwasher, carnival barker, envelope stuffer, dating service counselor, furniture salesman, and parking attendant. Fante is married and has a two year old son named Michaelangelo Giovanni Fante. He hopes eventually to learn to play the harmonica. Visit his website here.
Submission Date:
13 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Chap-book
Title:
mom at eighty-nine
Excerpt:
Today at the home I read her some of my new stuff while she squin...
Interviewing myself didn't work out too well. I was a total asshole:
Q: How old are you? A: 38. Q: Aren't you old enough to know better then? A: Fuck off and die. Q: I mean, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? A: I wouldn't even know where to begin.
Submission Date:
10 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
footnote from the decade of burnt toast
Excerpt:
december when you find your father in a room no bigger than a bad d...
Q: Luis, where were you born? A: I was born in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. Q: Where can I find poems, like Crazy Fuckers, influenced by people struggling with mental illness? A: My first book, Raw Materials. It was published by Pygmy Forest Press. Also, Kendra Steiner Editions published my first chapbook, Without Peace in July 2007. Q: Where can I read samples of your work? A: I have a blog at myspace.com/cuatemochi.
Submission Date:
10 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
crazy fuckers
Excerpt:
I like to take small steps when I walk around here. You never know...
Brain: Hmmm, why do I write? Bones: Because I bully you into it! Brain: But my neurons contain the language and the skills. Bones: Yeah, but I make you not bullshit like other poets. Brain: That's true I must admit. Bones: You better say that, the skull is made up of 14 bones, you're outnumbered, you bastard!
Scurvy: Why do you write? Bastard: To keep from going sane. S: Is it true that Shane MacGowan, among others, was a regular in your DJ booth at Dingwalls during the early 80's? B: Shane was never a "regular" anything but he was often in the clutter and that booth had more chopping going on than the French Revolution. S: Speaking of The Pogues, Ron Kavana wrote that you were,"The world's greatest roadie and party animal." Have you mellowed? B: Mellowed, yellowed and the banana's gone acoustic. S: You have been living in Northern California for the last 10 years. How do you like it? B: A truly beautiful slice of the sphere. Downside is that it's full of Californians, but the gods are working on that. S: Whose round is it anyway? B: Ours.
Submission Date:
10 Oct 2007
Category:
Poetry
In Podcast and Chap-book
Title:
blood train
Excerpt:
Mama can't sus the new-speak Silver bitch gotta rusted switch Your mi...
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