NEVER MIND THE BEASTS

NOMADIC SURREALISM AND THE MOBILE IMAGINATION

“Slease refuses the comforts of rootedness, stability, permanence. In doing so, he represents what the philosopher Rose Braidotti identifies as the model of nomadic subjectivity “in flux, never opposed to a dominant hierarchy yet intrinsically other, always in the process of becoming, and perpetually engaged in dynamic power relations both creative and restrictive.” For many…

WHAT IS HOME?

There are so many places in the world and the grass is always greener. If we are lucky and live in rich countries with professional jobs, or live simply, we can migrate to many new countries for work. We can try to find that perfect new homeland for living, or if not a homeland at…

WHAT IS NAPLES?

The Grand Tour, back in the day, we based on John Dewey and experiential education, at least partially. It was also based on ideas of high culture, and the lack of it in England. Also class and privilege, since mostly it was some aristocratic females and of course upper class males. Get out of the…

IMPROV JAZZ WITH POETRY FROM THE BATHTUB

When Ewa and I first arrived in Madrid, Christian Pérez, his wife Megan, and their son Oscar welcomed us. Showed us around their neighbourhood of La Latina, lollies and neighbourhood festivals with sweet meats, up on their rooftop terrace, an introduction to mighty fine Spanish olives, wine, and cheese. And much much much more. They…

IF LANGUAGE IS A FINGER THAN WHAT IS THE MOON?

My writing is part of a life practice, using language as a means of travel, being in the flow, letting go. Language in motion, not attempting to impart stale or static knowledge. Maybe language is a little bit like a finger. If language is the finger, then what is the moon? The moon is a…

WHAT IS PLAY YR KARDZ RIGHT?

Las Vegas had a show on the telly, it was exotic and foreign, hard to imagine, and we were going there, as immigrant pioneers, for a better life, like immigrants and migrants the world over, changing their languages and also adding to the host languages, the big mixing bowl, maybe. Play Yr Kardz Right, my…

WHAT ARE HUNGRY MONSTERS?

I have never been comfortable with money. The chasing it, living my life for numbers. In America, as an immigrant, I was saturated with the lack of it. Lower middle class, chasing the American dream, the endless informercials and my family trying so many pyramid schemes, doing the grunt work to make someone else wealthy,…

HOW TO GIVE BIRTH IN A HOLE

A few years ago The National Poetry Library in London invited me to record a poem. I decided to read my poem”The Fly“. After the death of my brother Aaron, I began having a series of dreams about flies. Every night the flies came. One night, I tried to speak to one of them….

HOW TO RENEW YOURSELF WITH MINDFUL TRAVEL

Why do we travel? The weekend getaway. The summer and winter breaks. The islands and exotic locations. What are we looking for? The travel industry is one of the biggest on our planet. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), the travel industry generated 7.6 trillion U.S. dollars in 2016. We are looking…

WHAT IS INFLUENCE?

Super happy to have my poem “Feedback” in Poetry magazine. It is part of my manuscript The Green Monk, forthcoming from Boiler House Press in November 2018. It was composed while ingesting everything written by the great Lydia Davis. I can’t help wondering if some of her approach to writing leaked in there, but also other…

NOMADIC SURREALIST TRAVEL IN KAZIMIERZ

My partner Ewa and I visit Poland for Christmas every year. My partner Ewa is from Katowice so that is our home base. During our summer visits we explore mountains and villages, but at Christmas it is mostly family. However during Christmas 2016, after 4 months of living in Madrid, our new home base after…

WHAT IS NOMADIC SURREALISM?

Panmelys wrote a nice review of my nomadic poetry. She writes: “seeking otherness Of a soul, hungering after ‘Hiraeth’. Which means ‘A longing for something This World can never give’, Celtic source, with an Emphasis on ‘This’ as opposed to ‘Other ‘world” I like this very much. I think it gets at the seemingly contradictory…