Website of the writer Marcus Slease
Terrific review of Never Mind the Beasts in Idler magazine by Robert Greer.
“Stylewise it would appeal to fans of both abrupt American Lydia Davis and Soviet absurdist Daniil Kharms . . . A Portrait of the Artist for the Tyskie and Kimchi generation.”
Terrific review by Tom Jenks of my book The Green Monk. You can read it over at Stride magazine. Lydia Davis, Daniil Kharms. Yes please!
The Green Monk is available from Boiler House Press. It has a very nice design. Good to touch. And also read.
“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 years now this “world alien,” as he jokingly calls himself in the interview with Wetherington, has been writing poems that celebrate flexible identity and mobile imagination. Equally introspective and retrospective, Play Yr Kardz Right beautifully illustrates his nomadic poetics” (Piotr Gwiazda in Jacket 2).
The literary scholar, translator, and poet Piotr Gwiazda wrote a very thoughtful review of my nomadic surrealist work, especially Play Yr Kardz Right.
Also, there is a nice pic of Desperate Literature bookshop. Madrid’s answer to Shakespeare and Company in Paris and where Play Yr Kardz Right was launched.
The review of my work, entitled”Nomad Life,” is available over here at
Leaping the moon!!! My next book is coming soon from an exciting press out of Ireland. Beir Bua Press. It is called Puppy. There was loneliness and isolation in a foreign country. We all wanted to go for a walk. Out there in nature where we all belong. Having a puppy is not easy. There is lots to learn about training a puppy. We are in a big net full of jewels and each jewel reflects the other jewel. The puppy is a jewel reflecting our jewel but the puppy is also its own jewel. Puppy is on a growth spurt and I am on a down spurt. We all exit on the ground floor. This prose poem sequence is about life. Hearts emitting sparks to other hearts in deep space. Welcome to the world of puppy. Thanks to the editor Michelle Moloney King for publishing it. More info on their website here
Here is a little alien poem from my book Play Yr Kardz Right (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2017). The poem is called “Waking Leif.”
We are still here.
Some of my surreal-absurd poems (from 2010-2014) have been translated into Polish and Danish at Lyrikline, from various collections, most especially Rides (Blart Books) and Smashing Time (miPoesias).
These collage poems are influenced in part by NY School poetry. Folks such as Eileen Myles, Maureen Owen, Ron Padgett, Ted Berrigan. Also 70’s punk music, like The Raincoats. Lots of train rides, also, all over the U.K. (part of my book Rides). And also, Ali Pali, the local big park when I lived in Wood Green, North London.
Thank you Adam Zdrodowski and Louise Rosengreen.
Lyrikline (based out of Berlin) has an amazing collection of international poets in translation from all over the world. What a resource. Very happy to have some of my writing there.
Check em out over here
Here is a reading of four prose poems recently published in The Lincoln Review. From the streets of Barcelona (Gracia) and Castelldefels.
Happy to have some new work in issue 2 of The Lincoln Review. A literary magazine produced by students at the University of Lincoln. Some prose poems from my manuscript in progress (currently entitled Hermit Kingdom).
You can read the poems here.
Hairy time at hospital for seven days. Emergency operation. Death’s door creaked open, then shut again. I am still here.
Loving what I loved ever more!
Here is a prose poem about the universe. From my book The Green Monk (Boiler House Press, 2018).
This week’s surreal-absurd sampler is Hugh Behm-Steinberg. A very good absurdist story about squirrels and time travel.
Check it out here at Mercurius.
Here is Thursday’s microfiction. A little romantic story. It’s called “Mr Peabody.” From Hermit Kingdom. My book in progress.
Art and life are coming together. Puppy training is leaking into my micro stories. Here is one from today. It’s called Hand Signals:
This week’s surreal-absurd sampler is Matthew Haigh. Poems that use the cut up technique and “centre around cult television shows with a warm, gay-icon slant (The Golden Girls and Murder, She Wrote respectively). Utilising the internet movie database (IMDB).”
Check them out over at Mercurius.
