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.
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 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
How are your Jollies?
Stealing a few hours, usually on a Saturday morning, for writing & revising The Dreamlife of Honey. Today it’s the jollies. How are your jollies?
From dentists in Turkey to the blowhards of Northern Poland, there are many travels. Dear readers & listeners & fellow travellers here are some journeys:
Asymptote
Five fresh poems by Grzegorz Wroblewski. Translated by by Piotr Gwiazda.
The Art of Everyone
” I take the train to Barcelona. The train enters a tunnel. A baby coughs very lightly, an older man clears his throat. The tunnel, that’s where we all go, light or no light no one is to know. My amphibian throat gurgles, will the language spill out of me, it is a great accomplishment. The people to the right of me are joyously trilling their tongues, dancing their hands. I intertwine my fingers, rub the knuckles of my right hand into the palm of the left, elevate feet, try not to slouch into the seat. My right hand, usually a refrigerator, is warming up nicely, middle age but not only, you have to keep the blood circulating correctly. Out the window, a blur of trees and small mountains, good foliage.”
My story, “cosy,” just published at The Art of Everyone. Part of my novel in progress The Dreamlife of Honey.
MOON HERMIT
Back in the day, when the days were longer, and then shorter, much like today but faster, I began to write poetry under cover of full moon during my Mormon mission. Bloating/unbloating. This was the beginning of my behind-the-scenes spirituality. Now part of my behind-the-scenes novel-in-progress, The Dreamlife of Honey. The second in my nomadic surrealist trilogy.
Behold, here is a reading:
LOVE IS TO SPOON AS ROCK IS TO CHIP
After Turkey, and a stint of dog walking in Italy, he moves to London, falls in love, lands a gig as an adjunct professor at an American style university in London. He feels a sense of community with the avant garde poetry community and starts to write a novel from his experiences living in various countries. Feels the joy of NY school poetry. His brother, in Utah, dies suddenly from an overdose and he visits his family for the first time in over seven years.
An excerpt from the first of my nomadic surrealist novels, Never Mind the Beasts, available now from Dostoyevsky Wannabe.
Four Poems by Grzegorz Wróblewski
Evolution
Humans and animals. Hittites, wolves, Charles Manson, bipedalism. What are we really? There is no great plan. Some terrific poems by Grzegorz Wroblewski over at Partisan Hotel. Translated from the Polish by Piotr Gwiazda.
Eric Chevillard
The novelist I pretend to be is a character invented, for the sole purpose of being obliterated, by the writer I am. The writer I am wants nothing to do with novelist. He suspects the novelist of wanting to restore to fiction the particular order of reality that suffocated him and drove him to write in the first place. The impossibility of swimming in a bathtub greatly increases the risk of drowning. Death is an archaic holdover from barbarian times. He eats nothing, and so his stomach will ascend to heaven after his death. Extraterrestrials exist, far superior to us technically and scientifically- and they will overrun the world. Everyone conceived tonight and tomorrow will be one of them.
The Best is yet to come
I’ve sunk myself deep into Norwegian and French, modern and postmodern, and my writing has grown a new tendril. The best is yet to come. I’ve moved away from words in music, the best is yet to come. I’ve grown naive and not-naive, the best is yet to come. I’ve sucked the marrow and plucked the daisies, the best is yet to come. I’ve baked the memories, stirred the sugar bombs, opened the hatch, de-wormed the cat, the best is yet to come. I’ve materialized my life with my language, the best is yet to come. Welcome to my hermit kingdom, the best is yet to come. What is the dreamlife of language, the best is yet to come.
Boiling two eggs, a simple procedure. The perfect boiled eggs, somewhere in the heavens.
What are you growing into?
I stole boxing gloves from K-Mart, it is not in the story. I masturbated to MiGs, it is not in the story. I scraped the edges of my sundae, it is not in the story. I read over my head in the library, it is not in the story. I was briefly in love with Duran Duran, it is not in the story. I identified, sometimes, with Boy George, it is not in the story. I identified, often, with E.T., it is not in the story. I beat myself with a stick, it is not in the story. My first smell in America was chlorine, it is not in the story. My father was a sly fisherman, it is not in the story. My mother was an argonaut, it is not in the story. I hid behind the wall, it is not in the story. I licked the creams, it is not in the story. I ate, sometimes, the tightly packed sausage, it is not in the story. I drank, often, the fruit of the vines, it is not in the story. I fear sterility, it is not in the story. I fear practice makes perfect, it is not in the story. I fear cold toes, it is not in the story. I fear hot coals, it is not in the story. I fear living too far, it is not in the story. I fear living too close, it is not in the story. In modern literature, I identify with the French (Michaux, Chevillard, Beckett), it is not in the story. In modern music the minimalist, it is not in the story. In modern clothing the mostly earthly, it is not in the story. The sentence is a gnasher, in the story. The words are primordial, in the story. The sounds are lubricants, in the story. An anti-novel, in the story. An anti-poetry, in the story. Me-not-me, in the story. A mismatch of everything, in the story.
Here is a reading of the story, just published by Lighthouse magazine in the U.K. Part of my ongoing novel in progress, The Dreamlife of Honey.
THEY USED TO CALL ME CHISEL FACE
They used to call me chisel face. Happy to have an excerpt from my novel in progress, The Dreamlife of Honey, in new body issue of Lighthouse magazine from Norwich.
