Author: Marcus Slease

The Green Monk Out Now!

MARCUS SLEASE POETRY, NOMADIC SURREALISM, the green monk

The Green Monk is out in the world. Collaborations with the paintings of Dali and Leonora Carrington. The green parrots of Garcia Lorca and Paul Celan. The queer erotics of swans. The mysteries of milk in Madrid. Soul suckings. Bazaars and border fluencies. Nomadic surrealist prose poems written in Krakow, Katowice, Madrid, London and more.

And not to forget the paper, the paper and design of Boiler House Press is succulent and rich and very textured. A good addition to your collections.

Available over here for ordering:

 

The Hacking Powders

MARCUS SLEASE FICTION, NOMADIC SURREALISM, The Autobiography of Don Whiskers

An excerpt from my novel manuscript, The Autobiography of Don Whiskers, is over at #thesideshow. Partly based on experiences in Katowice, Poland, Cercedilla (Spain), Madrid (Spain), and Palermo (Sicily). It is part of an ongoing trilogy of nomadic surrealist novels. Part autofiction, part magical realism.

This excerpt begins in Katowice, at the Zoo, with pagan deities:

At the back of the zoo, in the magic forest, once a year in deep night, the pagan deities are resurrected, painted faces & spooky howling, primal yelps, very good, it’s a start, it’s not enough. The zoo is full of highlights, for example, the invisible hippos, complete with diving boards and lifeguards, but no hippos, the hippos are in hiding. Also the sleeping lion, you can sit on the still warm bench and imagine the lion. The bees, however, in full force, non-invisible, landing on creamy mountains of ice cream.

Read/listen to the story over at Five:2:One

 

 

 

 

 

Bear Review

MARCUS SLEASE POETRY, NOMADIC SURREALISM, the green monk

Super happy to have my horse poem in the new issue of Bear Review.  It is from my book The Green Monk.

This poem, in the new issue of Bear Review, is surrounded by many other magical poems and art, and it is a poem, in part, about the garden of eden. It was written after immersing myself in the art and writing of Leonora Carrington. Carrington is one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, and into the 21st.

Is it also part hobby horse, from Tristam Shandy? There might be some hobby horse in there, but really it is asking for more wild horse, not the domesticated horse, although that is just one possibility. It is also whatever else you want to assign a horse.

One thing for sure. It is definitely a poem about a horse.

 

 

 

 

Psychic Marmalade

MARCUS SLEASE POETRY, NOMADIC SURREALISM, the green monk

The Green Monk is heavily influenced by Surrealist writers and painters who have lived or passed through Madrid in the first part of the 20th century. It is also influenced by nomadic surrealist wanderings around Europe. It has four movements:

  1. Built to Spill
  2. Psychic Marmalade
  3. The Green Monk
  4. Great Expectations

Here is an excerpt from the second movement: Psychic Marmalade. Written in Alchemia (Kazimierz, Krakow, Poland). A few days before Christmas 2016.

 

Dostoyevsky Wannabe Spotlight

INDIE PUBLISHING, MARCUS SLEASE POETRY, Play Yr Kardz Right

A nice spotlight on Dostoyevsky Wannabe over at The London Magazine by Robert Greer.

Greer describes the presses radical approach to publishing, in both design, distribution, and content:

“With their books retailing at around £5 each, accessibility seems to me an important part of Dostoyevsky Wannabe, and the most obvious comparison for me is the independent record label K Records in 1980s Olympia, Washington. Similarly to Dostoyevsky Wannabe, K Records ideology was based around using the technology of the day to democratise the process of making lots of art, by capitalising on the cheapness and malleability of cassette tape technology. For Dostoyevsky Wannabe, the 2018 version of this vision is to capitalise on the tools of late capitalism.”

The books are so beautifully designed. I feel very fortunate to have my book Play Yr Kardz Right with them. A terrific press with so much creative energy. One of the centres of the literary renaissance of small presses  and record labels. As Greer says, “The common strand between all them is a DIY spirit and an experimental ethic which makes Dostoyevsky Wannabe feel less like a traditional publishing house and more a platform for innovative artists and innovative literature.”

“There are so many that it is difficult to keep up, but it is worth keeping up with them on social media to see what they have going on. Their books are good, and cheap. Buy them, read them.”

Indeed!

The counter culture is alive and well. Cheap and beautiful and mind altering. Long may they live!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE GREEN MONK

NOMADIC SURREALISM, the green monk

I am very happy and excited to announce my new book, The Green Monk, is now available for pre-order.

The Green Monk is a dreambox or a sweatbox of a sugar skull. A black hole full of hairspray and cigarette butts where the deer are twitching. It is the great urn of space dust where yellow yolk drips down the wall. These poems are migration and immigration across various physical and imaginary, spatial and temporal, fields. Journeys, healings, and transformations. The illusions of self that each new self is born into.

Written between London, Madrid, and Krakow, it engages thrillingly with various surrealist visions of artists and poets, including Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dali, García Lorca, James Tate, and Chika Sagawa. It concerns, variously, erotics, animism & magic, food, death & sublime nature, fairy tales & alchemy, & the wonders of everyday life. It is simultaneously contemporary and ancient, built on visual images and techniques of juxtaposition and collage, accompanied by entertainingly absurd narratives.

“When I read a Marcus Slease poem I am reminded that the world is made up of billions of parts, each with their own soul, each with a great ability to illuminate the sacred while also misbehaving. Slease is a poet who reminds us the wildness of life is not something we can control or even fight against but rather something we should witness and honour.”
– Matthew Dickman, author of Wonderland

Publication date is bonfire night. The 5th of November.

Boiler House Press is the best of what is happening in UK based poetry right now. I am super happy to be included with some stellar poets. And the design is absolutely brilliant. Tactile to say the least. You are gonna love these pages!

The Green Monk is part of a set of five books set to be released on the 5th November.

You can get all five beautifully designed books for £35. Or they are available for £10 individually from Boiler House Press.

THE GREEN MONK by Marcus Slease

RABBIT by Sophie Robinson

OF SIRENS, BODY & FAULTLINES by Nat Raha

SELF HEAL by Samantha Walton

SUB ROSA: THE BOOK OF METAPHYSICS  by Francesca Lisette

 

REMEMBER REMEMBER THE 5TH OF NOVEMBER!!

 

 

Adjacent Pineapple

MARCUS SLEASE FICTION, NOMADIC SURREALISM, The Autobiography of Don Whiskers

Super happy to have an excerpt from book 2 of The Autobiography of Don Whiskers in Adjacent Pineapple.

 

Book 2 begins in Spain (Madrid) and the move to Barcelona. This excerpt is all about the body. And also the great Madrid fiesta San Isidro. It is also about friendship and creating a hermit kingdom as an outsider in a foreign country. It is also “toxic masculinity, toxic femininity, toxic capitalism, toxic Marxism, toxic plastic consumer frenzies, the news, toxic, his leather shoes, toxic, there is too much meat in the world and not enough vegetables.”

 

It is also about port o potties and peeing troughs and trying not to step in anyone’s drippings. It is expansive maximalist content in minimalist packaging. It is death and life and everything between. It is hybrid like all the great art.

Take a wee read over here:

From Hermit Kingdom

A BEND IN THE RIVER

NOMADIC SURREALISM

Another childhood micro story. From my novel manuscript The Autobiography of Don Whiskers.

A micro tale of a six year old boy from Northern Ireland in London in the early 80’s. He is always unlatching the gate and singing songs in old English pubs along the river. He is a pub storyteller. Everyone loves his wiggle.

 

DESTROYER AND PRESERVER

NOMADIC SURREALISM, The Autobiography of Don Whiskers

“Destroyer and Preserver” was written in Madrid in 2016, near La Elipa metro stop. It was my first year in Madrid, and Spain in general, and it was a very windy day. The rats were scuttling behind the dumpsters and some older couples were linking arms leaning into the wind. I ducked under an awning and began scribbling. Of course the poet Shelley came to mind. He wrote “Ode to the West Wind.” Maybe you know it?

So yeah transience. Change. It is good to remember. Life. What is it. How does it blow?

The prose poem merged with my novel manuscript The Autobiography of Don Whiskers.

Then it became part of an album called Never Mind the Beasts (available over at Bandcamp). A collaboration with the U.K. musician, artist, and writer Stephen Emmerson.

Take a listen over here to the track over here:

Destroyer and Preserver