Never Mind the Beasts

Website of surreal-absurd writer Marcus Silcock

about

Born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, Marcus Silcock has made his home in such places as Turkey, Poland, Italy, South Korea, the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom – experiences that inform his surreal-absurd stories.

  • Morten Sondergaard

    we drift and dawdle and dart and Pit and Pounce and 
    gallop and glide and jink and jog and lope and leap and march and 
     meander and plod and prance and promenade and prowl and sashay and saunter 
     and step and shamble and shuQe and stalk and stomp and stride and stroll and 
     strut and swagger and tiptoe and tramp and trip and trot and trudge and wade and waddle 
     and wander.
     
    — Morton Sondergaard
     
    Morton Sondergaard is the best in Danish poetry.
    He writes about our glorious follies and glorious evolution and revolution.
    Check out his book A Step In The Right Direction. Available from Bookthug in Canada.
    Oh yeahhhh!!!
    and an interview over here with SJ Fowler:

  • WROGOWIE

    The Enemies project presents some of the finest contemporary poets from Poland collaborating to read original works of avant garde / literary poetry with British contemporaries. Multiple pairs of poets will present work that is cross language, cross media and truly groundbreaking, evidencing the innovative potential of collaboration in poetry and the force of European poets very much working in the 21st century. Featuring Grzegorz Wroblewski, Piotr Gwiazda, Adam Zdrodowski, SJ Fowler, Marcus Slease and many others.

    VERY EXCITED FOR THIS!!! RARE RARE RARE READING WITH GRZEGORZ WROBLEWKI. AND PIOTR GWIAZDA AND ADAM ZDRODOWSKI TOO!!! OH YEAHHHHHH!!! COME HERE POLISH POETRY. COME HEAR POLISH POETRY. IN ENGLISH AND POLISH.
    I will be reading with Grzegorz Wroblewski on the night. Some nomadic surrealist poems in progress.
    More info over here:

    http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/wrogowie-the-enemies-project-polish-poetry/

     
     
     

  • SPANISH FORK CHAPBOOK

    MY CHAPBOOK SPANISH FORK NOW AVAILABLE WITH COUNTRY MUSIC. DOWNLOAD FOR FREE .

    YOU DO NO NEED SPECIAL SPECTACLES TO READ IT!!

    THANK YOU SCOTT ABELS!!!

    CHECK IT

     

    http://countrymusicpoetry.org/media/Spanish_Fork.pdf

  • WONG MAY

     Octopus Books will publish Wong May’s first book of poems since her last was published in 1978. It will be edited by Zachary Schomburg and Brandon Shimoda, and it is called Picasso’s Tears.


    I am def gonna grab Picasso’s Tears!!

    check out some of her awesome poetry in the new Octopus Mag over here:

    http://www.octopusmagazine.com/Issue16/may.php

  • A REVIEW OF THE FOREIGN FLAVORS OF LAYS IN CHINA

    http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/a-review-of-the-foreign-flavors-of-lay-rsquo-s-in-china

    Check out the flavors from Peter Tieryas Liu over at Hobart!!

  • Ancient Chinese Poetry

    http://www.shampoopoetry.com/shampooforty/lee-swenhaugen.htm

    Yes I left my hat there
    over a series of summers
    at the bottom of a who knows
    how many bowls of wine!
    Marshall Walker Lee and Drew Scott Swenhaugen 

  • A LOVE SUPREME

    HERE IS WEE ONLINE PERFORMANCE OF MY POEM A LOVE SUPREME. IT IS AN ATTEMPT AT COMPASSION. MEDITATION, DHARMA. ETC.  WRITTEN AND PERFORMED IN EAST LONDON DOCKLANDS.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jkzwZiQ_Z8

  • What’s out there

    (first take, draft, whatever . .)




    It’s one day
    from new years.
    We are getting
    to the end
    of 2013 and everyone
    is making lists.
    I haven’t made a list.
    If I made a list
    it would be a list
    of books I loved,
    or books I still haven’t
    read, but really
    I’m thinking about
    what is still out there,
    meaning in here.
    I want to get less
    itchy and more artsy.
    It is raining and there
    is nothing I can do
    about it.
    The trees are dripping
    and the wind is blowing.
    Welcome back to London.
    Where do I want to go?
    I want to go to Amsterdam.
    And maybe Berlin.
    I want to wear loose fitting
    clothing and ride a bicycle
    down the street, maybe
    pick up an organic orange
    from some organic
    farmer’s market
    where everyone knows
    my name.
    It ain’t gonna happen.
    What is the difference
    between escape
    and entering?
    What am I entering into
    or out of
    when I escape on my bicycle?
    I want to travel to get out
    of my mind.
    I slept late in Poland
    and now here I am
    back in London
    waking up at 6 AM.
    I wake up in London
    and my mind immediately
    turn to things I could buy:
    a new laptop, a special
    massage machine.
    It ends quickly. I run out
    of things to buy.
    I think my mind goes
    there to rescue me,
    but from what?
    My mind needs
    somewhere to go.
    I’ve got to put it back
    into my body
    and then into the body
    of the world.
    I think I need both.
    I have to think of things
    to buy and check them
    off one by one
    by deciding I don’t
    want them.
    That’s one way to go.
    Do I need a bicycle?
    I need a bicycle to pedal
    metaphors.
    Then I can chuck it
    in the ditch
    and hitch a ride
    on some other
    contraption.
    I want to get
    more and more
    out of my ego.
    What is the energy
    that comes from getting
    rid of money?
    Maybe I want to feel
    part of the human race
    with everyone else,
    buying. What can I
    buy today?
    I wanna ride waves
    of compassion.
    I wanna see the world
    more clearly.
    I want to walk
    more mindfully.
    My green tea is boiling
    and I am listening
    to a daily meditation
    by Lama Kunga Rinpoche
    on supreme wisdom
    and compassion.  
    Is it working?
    What does it mean
    to cross over an ocean
    of suffering?
    My life is an ocean
    and I am crossing
    and crossing.
    I have crossed
    many times
    and I wake
    up dining
    on anxiety.
    I run around in the morning
    trying to distract myself
    or trying to fill up
    so I can get empty
    again.
    Here comes the wind.
    The trees are really
    shaking now
    and the windows
    are rattling.
    I need to go
    out there
    and buy toilet paper
    and soap.
    Maybe something
    to wipe down
    this computer
    screen. To touch
    the heart of all
    sentient beings
    suffering
    in all these
    realms of samsara.
    Samsara is beautiful.
    Samsara us ugly.
    What difference
    does it make?
    I am trying to write
    myself
    out of myself
    and into another
    awakeness.
    I buy books to become
    other people.
    I am here now
    at the kitchen
    table, listening
    to the boiler click
    on and click off,
    and the wind
    blowing
    and blowing
    the trees.
    Only a small
    part of my mind
    knows it is 2013.
    Only a small part
    of my mind
    knows my name
    is Marcus. I want
    to get to the larger
    part of my brain.
    I am turning
    the wheel
    of the dharma.
    It is an end of year
    sale and a beginning
    of day list.
    What does buying
    mean?
    It means what
    you want it
    to mean.
    But be honest.
    Buy safely.
    You cannot
    buy safety.
    What am I going
    to consume
    with my mind
    today?
    Dharma
    and gold almonds,
    a path
    of wisdom.
    I need to see
    more clearly.
    May all beings
    be happy.






  • ATLAS 3

    Super happy to have my work in the new issue of The Atlas Review with CA Conrad and other fine folks. 

    It is available for pre-order over here:

    YIPPPIEEEE!!!

  • BLOG ALMOST AT 175,000

    thanks for reading, glancing, clicking, stumbling upon etc etc etc.

    itr’s a noisy world on the internet. and irl life too. but even more on the internet. the internet is the noisiest place on the planet.

  • LUNCH MONEY

    BY ROBERT DUNCAN GRAY

    IT’S GOOD.

    I LIKE IT.

    GIVE ME MORE ROBERT DUNCAN GRAY.

    read LUNCH MONEY

    AND OTHERS

    OVER AT THE CRUSHES

    OF POOR CLAUDIA:

    http://www.poorclaudia.org/crush/

  • katowice day 1

    christmas eve morning breakfast in poland: homemade pickled herring, lots of beautiful onions, soft warm bread, a coffee.

    a snowman with twenty five blinking lights.

  • THE LION’S FACE

    IT’S CHRISTMAS EVE. I AM IN POLAND READING THE LION’S FACE.

    THANK YOU

    TIM
    VAN
    DYKE

    AND

    TYPO

    and

    BAUDRILLARD

    http://www.typomag.com/issue16/vandyke.html

  • Agnes the Elephant

    One of my fav poets. Zachary Schomburg. Reading over here for Likewise Folio (based in Provo, Utah not far from my parents. Hm.)

    Likewise Folio has some good stuff. Gonna read more of Likewise Folio soon.

  • city lights podcast with Dodie Bellamy and Dennis Cooper

    Check it. City Lights podcast with Dodie Bellamy and Dennis Cooper:

    http://www.citylightspodcast.com/dennis-cooper-and-dodie-bellamy-celebrate-the-release-of-their-new-books-the-marbled-swarm-and-the-buddhist/

  • cunt norton

    interview with the great Dodie Bellamy. Sophistication is so conformist. Oh yeah! Love Cunt Norton. The Letter of Mina Harker.

    Can’t wait for her TV Sutras.

    Interview over at Bomb Magazine:

    http://bombsite.com/issues/126/articles/7454

  • PIPER DOWN

    poem for my brother Aaron Slease (15th Dec 1982-7th June 2012)



  • Anne Waldman and Ted Berrigan read their poem "Memorial Day," 1973

  • Sunday Night Saloon

    A picture of me and Ewa and Bandit at our friend Chris’s house last night. This picture was taken after four joints, six beers, and some Iranian food. We all watched the dog chew the ball and we all wished we had the teeth to chew a ball like this dog. I could hear the dog chewing the ball for at least 8 hours after he finished chewing the ball. It was a very good Sunday night.   


  • MOUTH GRENADE POP UP SHOP

    We will serve food in jelly. Mouth grenades.  A concentrated form of sustenance and subsistence.  This is all you need to survive. Our slogan is: ‘My cranium is a helmet of the universe’. Starting off with a duo of basic flavours: chicken  and rosemary (chicken being at the core), to then develop the menu into a kaleidoscope of tastes. Mouth granades will be given birth to in slow painless labour and voluntary yet obligatory fired into ‘the peoples’ mouths.You would get what you order until you begin to order what you get. You are in control of a constantly shooting catapult that forces (into) you, mandatory injections.
    The shop sign will consist of the mouth grenade between Thatcher and Bukowski. The projection of their silhouettes into the fireplace. In the fireplace there shall be two jellies, slowly moving against each other. Harnessing from the friction of the jellies we will create a free source of energy and a luminescence-warming light to what was once a cold room. What was previously cold will become warm.

    Free range and everything now in range of our grasp can belong to us because it’s free.

    Complementary website with photographs: spreading a live feed of 1000 images per hour, divided between 6 photographers. 1 photo a minute per photographer of the live preceding of the jellies in the fire place producing free energy through friction, warmth and luminescence light into… a previously cold and dark room.

    Later on: human sized jelly shaped humans that you can eat for breakfast.

    Jollyjelly jelly jolly jelly jelly jolly jolly jelly.

    The potential tyranny of jellyjolly. The tyranny of theology of jellyjolly. The priests delivering the body of Thatcher and the blood of Bukowski. Moving from private realm into the public domain, using the technology of 3D printer. Unclear why.

  • 75 Reasons to Live: Michelle Tea on Andy Warhol

    love this!!

  • HOW TO BE ALIENATION

    over at the fantastic OVERPASSBOOKS

    it’s

    How to be Alienation by Filip Marinovich

  • cool for you

    eileen myles. reading cool for you with a cool video of her dwelling space!!!

  • Le Tigre – TKO

    this makes me happy

  • eileen myles diary

    http://eileenmyles.com/blog/

    JUST WHAT I NEEDED THIS MORNING!

  • EMILY TODER

    Up at the new Tenderloin. Waste. The city. The cows. The country.

    http://www.tender-loin.com/toder.html

  • reading from another kind of mission

    Reading from new manuscript ANOTHER KIND OF MISSION

    at Poet’s As Saints. Hardy Tree Gallery. Erkembode Exhibit. Nov 23rd 2013.

    photos by Alexander Kell

  • Marcus Slease Interview at The Volta

    A BIG THANKS TO JIM GOAR FOR THE GREAT QUESTIONS. WE TALKED ABOUT A LOT. LIKE NY SCHOOL POETS AND PHILIP WHALEN, AND POOR CLAUDIA. ALSO ABOUT NOMADIC POETICS AND TRAVEL AND SURREALISM.

    INTERVIEW UP NOW AT THE VOLTA/CONVERSANT

    http://theconversant.org/?p=5588

  • Mo-Dettes – WHITE MICE – RARE VIDEO

    TEXT

  • The Stranger or, Is Being a Female Anathema to Being an Absurdist?

    http://www.likestarlings.com/the-stranger-or-is-being-a-female-anathema-to-being-an-absurdist/

    TERRIFIC!! JUST WHAT I NEEDED TO READ HERE IN EAST LONDON TODAY!!

    YES! DARCIE DENNIGAN ROCKS!!!

     

  • ON THE ROAD FROM CANTON OHIO AND EAST LONDON

    Marcus Slease and John Estes. Over here. John Ashbery and Eileen Myles are in the conversation. Many others too. Canton, Ohio and East London.

    Check it out over here at Likestarlings:

    http://www.likestarlings.com/poems/marcus-slease-john-estes/#1

  • saint mayer saint spit saint myles and saint tea

    My reading at Hardy Tree in London on Saturday 23rd Nov 2013.

    pocket rubbings, aliens, mormons, boy scouts, a blooming tattoo, conversations with saints and work of Eileen Myles, Sister Spit, Michelle Tea, Bernadette Mayer and others

    from new ms in progress: ANOTHER KIND OF MISSION

    thank you Saint Erkembode! thank you SJ Fowler! Thank you Hardy Tree! Thank you fellow poets and friends and saintly travellers . .

    The poems are from my book in progress Play Yr Kardz Right.

     

    A video of the reading is over here:


    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3073DcMsjI0&sns=tw










    Held at the Hardy Tree gallery in Kings X, London on November 23rd 2013, for the Erkembode: not just another saint exhibition, a series of poetry readings from contemporary British vanguard poets who have collaborated or worked closely with the artist David Kelly http://www.erkembode.com including poetry from Marcus Slease, Holly Pester, SJ Fowler, David Berridge, Robert Kiely, Tim Atkins & Sarah Kelly.

  • Poems for Saints that are Poets as Saints

    http://erkembode.com/2013/11/23/poems-for-saints-that-are-poets-as-saints/

    THANK YOU SAINT ERKEMBODE!

  • POETRY AND SAINTS

    Saturday 23rd November, 7.30pm – Poets as Saints
     
    hardy tree gallery 
     
    near kings cross
     
    London
     
     
    Event specific poetry by avant-garde poets bouncing around the subject of saints. Poets/saints on board so far are Tim Atkins, SJ Fowler, Robert Kiely, Sarah Kelly, David Berridge and Marcus Slease.
     
     
     

  • Alexander Trocchi – A Life in Pieces

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVlF7mOZnKo

  • Erkembode exhibition: Marcus Slease – Bruce Andrews

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2BrSHygKfs

    CANNIBALS ON A DIET

    GETTING SMALLER GETTING SMALLER GETTING SMALL

    JIGGLE JIGGLE JIGGLE JIGGLE

    ETC.

    a reading of some of Bruce Andrews’ work

  • Joy Glows Where Confusion Was: A Film About, With, and Without Bern Porter

    http://vimeo.com/12884851

    wow

    and

    WOW

    and

    WOW AGAIN

  • DAY OF THE DEAD UNDER THE VOLCANO IN MEXICO CITY

    with SJ Fowler and Holly Pester.

    part of the enemies project.

    FAB FAB FAB COLLABORATION ALL THE WAY IN MEXICO CITY.

  • saints and ghosts

    http://erkembode.com/2013/11/18/photos-and-blab-from-saints-on-film/

    a film on the back of my ghost costume

  • LAHORE

    YOU’VE BEEN PUSHING SINCE LAHORE

    A COLLABORATIVE POST SURREAL TRAVEL STORY OF THREE SAINTS ON A MISSION!!!

     WRITTEN BY

    MARCUS SLEASE, DAVID KELLY-MANCAUX, CHRIS GUTKIND.

    BASED ON A TRUE STORY!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdaiuSEumzs

  • SAINTS ON FILM

    11th November 2013

    NOT JUST ANOTHER SAINT PERFORMANCE NIGHT AT HARDY TREE GALLERY IN LONDON.
    IT WAS CALLED
    SAINTS ON FILM
    I changed into a white robe and Saint Erkembode screened the film he made on my back while I read a collaborative story about traveling through London to find a Doom Drone concert. The film had a drone loop and featured some of the words from the story. The words from the story sometimes appeared on my back. On the white robe. I read the story to the audience with my back to them. I was on a step ladder so the film could be projected onto my back and my head.
    In the story I read we went through the USSR to get to the Doom Drone concert. We got lost. A lot. We rode kangaroos and looked for chunky ice cream and ate hot milk over chips etc. etc.
    it is based on a true story. The story is called YOU’VE BEEN PUSHING SINCE LAHORE (written by Chris Gutkind, me(marcus slease), and Saint Erkembode.
    S
    ome fun and interesting films on the night too. A Burroughs cut up film from 1966 and marshes and meshes and a crow surreal film and a man who played live organ electronic music to accompany his film live in the gallery.
    Outsider art. No academic bullshit!

  • saint sandwich

    http://erkembode.com/2013/11/10/saint-sandwich/

    This evening I am sandwiched between last night’s K R A M P U S NACHT and tomorrow’s S A I N T S  O N  F I L M events – both part of the NOT JUST ANY OLD SAINTS series for my current ERKEMBODE: NOT JUST ANOTHER SAINT solo exhibition at the The Hardy Tree Gallery.

  • CRUGI SMEAR

    From the Italian Londoner Crugi Smear. His first collection in English. Available as kindle for only $1.23. It’s gothic. It’s zany. It’s bizarro! It’s sometimes a bit like the love child of Borges, Bukowski and Italo Calvino.

    It’s crazy!!

    CHECK IT OUT!!






    SMEAR! Vol I collects ten short stories by Crugi Smear, an independent London-based writer. These stories recount some of the events in the life of Roger Prandelli, a compassionate multi-faceted individual who confronts his own defeats with zany, dark humour, but never despair. The insanity of the modern world is presented with a fast narrative pace that is every bit as deranged and hilarious as a work by Bukowski or Vonnegut.


    http://www.amazon.com/SMEAR-Short-Story-Collection-Vol-ebook/dp/B00GFSR0MM

  • EILEEN MYLES

    One of my favourite poets and people of all time. She has a new website. It is very good. I go there almost everyday.

    http://www.eileenmyles.com/index.php

  • ONE BIG X

    POEM WRITTEN TODAY AND READ INTO WEBCAM.

    Contrasts with my writing 2000-2005. And writing 2014-2019.

    It is fun to change.

    My life! Your life! Whose life is it anyway?

    I am interested  in reconciling art and life (it is impossible).

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qOb4mRX5PI

  • NOT JUST ANOTHER SAINT!!

    Over at the Hardy Tree Saint Erkembode is opening his exhibition tomorrow. Near Kings Cross London. A nice intimate space. Outsider art. No academic bullshit!!

    check out the schedule . . some great collab between artists performers poets. Come Sat for Krampusnacht to kick it off!

  • Dani Sandal’s Sacrificing Billy

    OVER AT THE DOCTOR T.J. ECKLEBURG REVIEW

    1) As part of the mother’s mother family wisdom a baby boy has a slipknot around his ankle and tied to the cribpost

    2) Claude and Nellie are the baby’s parents

    3) Claude lusted over Nellie when she was milking a heifer

    4) Nellie’s mum whooped on Claude for something called bird-dogging

    5) Claude liked a small hole that made a white sphere in Nellie’s stockings

    6) Claude liked the way Nellie pulled on the teats of the heifer

    7) Claude courted Nellie with ham hock and wild flowers

    8) Nellie was swollen and auctioned off by her father at age 15

    9) Claude brought ham hocks and wild flowers to Nellie’s mother as a kind of dowry

    10) One day Claude untied the rope around the baby boys ankle

    Something goes very very wrong . .

    read it with your body here:

    http://thedoctortjeckleburgreview.com/2013/11/04/fiction-sacrificing-billy/

  • THE ATLAS REVIEW

    super excited for my poem “The Big Egg” to appear in issue three of

    THANK YOU NATALIE EIBER

  • All day Slease-Potter breakfast

    vine.co/v/hpFmUm9M07h

    thanks Erkembode

  • MY BAD








    Grzegorz Wroblewski, my bad . 26.5 x 39.5. Mixed media on paper [6.10.1990].

  • Camarade IV

    Mass collab happenin in London today. Gonna be reading some of my train poems. Forwards and backwards. Collab with Claire Potter.

    Yeah. Go London. Go Rich Mix. Go UK Poets!

    It’s gonna explode!

    http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/camarade-poetry-festival/

     

     

    Camarade IV – October 26th 2013  2pm to 10pm ​​at the Rich Mix arts centre

    The Camarade poetry festival is a unique and unforgettable one day explosion of dynamic collaboration in contemporary avant garde and literary poetics. 100 poets align in 50 pairs, each writing an original collaborative work, written specifically for the festival and premiered on the day. The 5th Camarade event, and the crescendo of the Enemies project’s first year, this ambitious exploration of the possibilities of collaboration in poetry will evidence the true width and depth of poetry that is happening now. 

    Featuring:
     

     

    ​​​​Kirsty Irving & Jon Stone
    Ahren Warner & Mark Waldron
    Stephen Connolly & Emily Hasler
    Chris McCabe & Tom Jenks
    Carol Watts & George Szirtes
    David Berridge & Mary Paterson
    Chrissy Williams & Nia Davies
    Giles Goodland & Alistair Noon
    Ben Stainton & Nathan Hamilton
    Sophie Collins & Rachael Allen

     

    Sam Riviere & Joe Dunthorne
    Becky Cremin & Ryan Ormonde
    Deborah Pearson & Tamarin Norwood
    Andy Spragg & Joe Kennedy
    Ollie Evans & Robert Kiely
    Stephen Watts & Will Rowe
    James Davies & Philip Terry
    Sean Bonney & Nick-e Melville
    Tim Atkins & Jessica Pujol I Duran
    Oli Hazzard & Caleb Klaces
    Ryan Van Winkle & William Letford

     

    Jeff Hilson & Fabian MacPherson
    Robert Sheppard & Robert Hampson
    Jack Underwood & Alex MacDonald
    Ekaterina Paronian & Sophie Mayer
    Sarah Crewe & Jo Langdon
    Matt Dalby & Steven Waling
    James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar
    Matthew Gregory & Robert Herbert
    Nathan Jones & Sam Skinner
    Sarah Kelly & Gabriele Lebanauskaite

     

    Mendoza & Nat Raha
    Rhy Trimble & Harry Gilonis
    Joel Shea & Ricardo Marques
    Pascal O’Laughlin & Scott Thurston

     

    Marcus Slease & Claire Potter
    Daniele Pantano & Nikolai Duffy
    Holly Pester & Emma Bennett
    ​Tom Chivers &Amy Cutler
    Marek Kazmierski &Wioletta Grzegorzewska
    ​Joanna​ Rzadkowska & Kristen Kreider
    Christodoulos Makris &Kim Campanello
    Zoe Skoulding & Ondrej Buddeus

     

    Reza Mohammedi & Ana Seferovic

  • THE WHALE BROUGHT TO SCALE

    Poems written while living in South Korea. Or shortly after. Or much later. But inspired or recollected in tranquility, or not, a few years later. In either case, these are my nomadic surrealist poems from South Korea. They are called Mu (dream) so (window). Available from Poor Claudia (from Portland, OR). Clark Coolidge and Philip Whalen were my spirit guides.

    https://soundcloud.com/marcus-slease/mu-dream-so-window

     

    The book is available from Poor Claudia over here:

    http://www.poorclaudia.org/chaps/mu-dream-so-window-marcus-slease/

  • romantic pornography

    These poems are train rides around the U.K.

    They also deal with love & romantic pornography.

    They are from my manuscript in progress called Rides.

     

    https://soundcloud.com/marcus-slease/from-my-heart-is-shuffled-it

     

  • DOLPHIN MANIFESTO

    read it here:

    http://issuu.com/d_r_e_a_m_s/docs/d_e_p_t_h_s/11?e=0

  • COOL VALLEY

    Poem trying to deal with my brothers unexpected death a little over a year ago from overdose.
    “Cool Valley”

  • DRUIDS

  • Filip Marinovich

    LOVE THIS GUYS WORK! YES! WOLFMAN LIBRARIAN!

  • IT’S ALMOST PORN

    EILEEN MYLES IS COMING TO TOWN!! yipppiiieeee!!! ONE OF MY FAV POETS OF ALL TIME!

  • VLAK 4

    HAPPY TO BE IN THE NEW VLAK MAG WITH MY POETRY COMIC COLLAB WITH TIM ATKINS. LOTS OF GREAT STUFF IN THERE.
    Vlak is a nice avant garde art magazine from Prague. You can check it out over here:

  • MEL GIBSON’S BEAVER

    BY THE OUTSIDER ARTIST SAINT ERKEMBODE (aka David Kelly)

    https://vine.co/v/hXWbIMM739W

    part of an exhibition starting this weekend in Paris, Amiens, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme.

    Opening exhibition in London (Krampusnacht) at the Hardy Tree Gallery (near Kings Cross, London) on 9th November. Can’t wait!!

  • BARNYARD RELATED VIDEOS STARING PINKY

    Chris Gutkind over at the new Summerstock. Staring Pinky.

    http://www.summerstockjournal.com/2013/08/chris-gutkind.html

    https://myspace.com/outernet/video/pinky-39-s-violent-nature/2226141 

    https://myspace.com/outernet/video/pinky-39-s-love-of-heights/47469909

  • Mathias Svalina and the re-incarnated voice of not Richard Brautigan

     the beautiful voice of a re-incarnated Richard Brautigan but not Richard Brautigan:

    http://www.tender-loin.com/thedepression.mp3

  • MATHIAS SVALINA IS THE NEW TENDERLOIN



    Mathias Svalina is the author of three books, most recently The Explosions from Subito Press. With Alisa Heinzman, Hajara Quinn & Zachary Schomburg he co-edits Octopus Books. Big Lucks will release his book Wastoid in 2014.


    check out the new Tenderloin. Poems, interview, sound of the very fabulous Mathias Svalina:

    http://www.tender-loin.com/svalina.html

  • THE GOLDEN AGE OF INDIE PUBLISHERS

    A great list of indie publishers. Yes. It does seem like a golden age. The big publishers have lost touch, created a vacuum (we know what nature does with vacuums). These publishers are pushing the best shit right now in the English speaking world. There are others that they missed (of course) like Octopus Books/Poor Claudia, Civil Coping Mechanisms, Curbside Splendor (I am sure there are more). But this is a damn good list!!

    http://flavorwire.com/417838/25-independent-presses-that-prove-this-is-the-golden-age-of-indie-publishing/view-all/

  • interview with Johan De Wit

    The poet Jim Goar kicks off a fab interview series over at The Conversant. Check out his interview with the amazing British poet Johan De Wit:

  • FROM ON FATHERS > ON DAUGHTYRS

    One of a handful of mighty mighty good poets who live in the U.K. Here are some of Tim Atkin’s poems from his forthcoming book On Fathers> On Daughtyrs. Now online at Summerstock magazine (edited by Elizabeth Guthrie).

    Tim Atkins

    from ON FATHERS > ON DAUGHTYRS

    http://www.summerstockjournal.com/2013/09/tim-atkins.html

     

  • ETERNAL SERVER ERROR

    I keep getting this message. Over and Over.

    Sorry, something went wrong.

    A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.

    If you see them, show them this information:


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  • Lake Antiquity Promotional Slideshow, 2009

    TEXT

  • SOME TRAIN POEMS IN SUMMERSTOCK MAGAZINE

    Some of my train poems now published in the Summerstock Magazine. Riding trains forwards and backwards around the U.K.

    Thank you Elizabeth Guthrie!!!

     

    It is part of my manuscript Rides. Many more train rides to come. Forwards and backwards around the U.K.

    Check it out:

    http://www.summerstockjournal.com/2013/09/marcus-slease.html

    Livestock Editions is pleased as huckleberry pie to announce the release of Summer Stock, Issue 7: UK Poetry Dossier (Available at www.summerstockjournal.com). Curated by Livestock editor Elizabeth Guthrie, this year’s online poetry crop offers exciting explorations & currencies in experimental poetry from the United Kingdom.

    Issue 7 features wild woolly bully writing & literary multimedia from these Brit All Stars: Tim Atkins. Sean Bonney. Paul Buck. Becky Cremin. Laura Foster Twigg. Chris Gutkind. Alan Hay. Jeff Hilson. Peter Jaeger. Antony John. Sarah Kelley. David Kelly. Fabian Macpherson. Sophie Mayer. Richard Parker. Jessica Pujol. Nat Raha. Connie Scozzaro. Marcus Slease.  Linus Slug. James Wilkes. Steve Willey. & a collaboration between Steven Fowler & Tim Atkins.

    We dedicate this year’s issue to the memory of beloved poet/translator/critic/advisor Anselm Hollo, who passed away earlier this year. Anselm’s life of radical outrider poetry is a shining inspiration to all of us at Livestock. We love you and miss you, Anselm.

    Please help spread the word by passing this announcement along to your fellow humanimals. We hope you enjoy this year’s late harvest. The calendar may say it’s technically Autumn, but it’s always Summer Stock in our hearts!

    honk.gobble.moo.,

    The Livestock Editors

  • Enemies Book

    The new book of collaborations with SJ Fowler and British and European poets is out now from Penned in the Margins.

    It’s killar!!

    Must have!!

    I have a colloboration with SJ Fowler in there. It’s a poem play. In Kenneth Koch style. Staring Lisa Jarnot.

    check it out.

    http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2013/09/enemies-2/

    SJ Fowler has Enemies. And the Enemies of his Enemies are his friends.
    This ground-breaking, multi-disciplinary collection is the result of collaborations with over thirty artists, photographers and writers. Diary entries mingle with a partially-redacted email exchange; texts slip and fragment, finding new contexts alongside prints, paintings, diagrams, Rorschach blots, YouTube clips and behind-the-scenes photographs at the British Museum.
    Enemies includes collaborations with: Emily Critchley, Alexander Kell, Ben Morris, David Kelly, Sarah Kelly, Patrick Coyle, Sian Williams, Anatol Knotek, David Berridge, David Kelly, Lone Eriksen, Frédéric Forte, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Claire Potter, Tim Atkins, Marcus Slease, Ryan Van Winkle, Tom Jenks, Chris McCabe, Monica Rinck, Deborah Pearson, Matteo Patocchi, Sam Riviere and Samantha Johnson.

    Reviews

    “An overwhelming assault. The geography is unnerving, almost familiar, then stinging in its estrangement. Intensity crackles. Tension teases. At what point does collision become collaboration? When do the bandages come off?”
    Iain Sinclair

  • cities

    Cities are for
                     breaking you into several people
                                                              at once.”

    — Joshua Marie Wilkinson, Lug Your Body out of the Careful Dusk



  • SEXTS OVER AT THE NEATO MOSQUITO SHOW

    excerpts by Victoria Selavy from ‘The First Book of Philosophical Sexts’ by Victoria Selavy and Stephen Michael McDowell

    http://neatomosquitoshow.tumblr.com/post/57826168255/excerpts-by-victoria-selavy-from-the-first-book



  • WHEN WILL I NEXT OWN A MICROWAVE?

    by Crispin Best

    by Keep This Bag Away From Children


    “my ex-girlfriend came round tonight because she doesn’t want to poop at her new boyfriend’s house. hi, ex-girlfriend.”



  • writers and their daily routines

    Joan Didion creates for herself a kind of incubation period for ideas, articulated in this 1968 interview:

    I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. I can’t do it late in the afternoon because I’m too close to it. Also, the drink helps. It removes me from the pages. So I spend this hour taking things out and putting other things in. Then I start the next day by redoing all of what I did the day before, following these evening notes. When I’m really working I don’t like to go out or have anybody to dinner, because then I lose the hour. If I don’t have the hour, and start the next day with just some bad pages and nowhere to go, I’m in low spirits. Another thing I need to do, when I’m near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it. That’s one reason I go home to Sacramento to finish things. Somehow the book doesn’t leave you when you’re asleep right next to it. In Sacramento nobody cares if I appear or not. I can just get up and start typing.

    Susan Sontag resolves in her diary in 1977, adding to her collected wisdom on writing:

    Starting tomorrow — if not today:
    I will get up every morning no later than eight. (Can break this rule once a week.)
    I will have lunch only with Roger [Straus]. (‘No, I don’t go out for lunch.’ Can break this rule once every two weeks.)
    I will write in the Notebook every day. (Model: Lichtenberg’s Waste Books.)
    I will tell people not to call in the morning, or not answer the phone.
    I will try to confine my reading to the evening. (I read too much — as an escape from writing.)
    I will answer letters once a week. (Friday? — I have to go to the hospital anyway.)

    I’m always in a hurry to get going, though in general I dislike starting the day. I first have tea and then, at about ten o’clock, I get under way and work until one. Then I see my friends and after that, at five o’clock, I go back to work and continue until nine. I have no difficulty in picking up the thread in the afternoon. When you leave, I’ll read the paper or perhaps go shopping. Most often it’s a pleasure to work.
    […]
    If the work is going well, I spend a quarter or half an hour reading what I wrote the day before, and I make a few corrections. Then I continue from there. In order to pick up the thread I have to read what I’ve done.

    Anaïs Nin simply notes, in a 1941 parenthetical comment, in the third volume of her diaries:

    I write my stories in the morning, my diary at night.

    She then adds in the fifth volume, in 1948.

    I write every day. … I do my best work in the morning.

    http://blog.gabbybess.com/

  • YOU WILL FIND A PACK OF UNOPENED CIGARETTES ON THE GROUND THE DAY AFTER YOU DECIDE TO QUIT SMOKING or EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

    YOU WILL FIND A PACK OF UNOPENED CIGARETTES ON THE GROUND THE DAY AFTER YOU DECIDE TO QUIT SMOKING or EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

    Gabby Bess has work appearing in [PANK] Magazine, 3AM Magazine, The Scrambler, Two Serious Ladies, Thought Catalog and various other publications. She is the author ofAlone with Other People 

    gabbygabbypoetry@gmail.com


  • REDISCOVERED SMOG

  • ME THE TERRIBLE

    directed by

    JOSEPHINE DECKER

  • THE NEW TENDERLOIN

    The new TENDERLOIN is here. With Nate Pritts. It is very good. There are poems, an interview, and sound.

    It makes me feel less lonely. Much less lonely. They are other people out there.

    check it out:

    http://www.tender-loin.com/pritts.html

  • MOON TEMPLE UNIVERSE

    A cat is always more than a cat. This cat is named Cynthia. Read about Cynthia here. It’s a new story by Moon Temple and it moved me in all the ways I like to be moved:

    http://www.unrealityhouse.com/cynthia/

  • Mu Dream) So (Window) reading with Matthew Dickman

  • Marcus Slease Interview

    Marcus Slease sits down with Everest Magazine to talk craft, influences, Polish surrealism, Americana and THE HOUSE OF ZABKA, out now from Deathless Press.

    Just a few basic stats:

    Born: Portadown, N. Ireland

    Educated: Weber State Univeristy, Western Washington University, UNC Greensboro

    Favorite Author/voice: Richard Brautigan, Samuel Beckett

    Profession: Teacher of English as a foreign language

    http://everestonline.tumblr.com/post/53433193690/marcus-slease-interview

     
     
     
     

  • I Don’t Fix A Word (glitched remix)

  • FRANK O’ HARA AND DRAKE TOGETHER AT LAST

    FRANK O’ HARA AND DRAKE, TOGETHER AT LAST!

  • On the Freedom to Offend an Imaginary God

    On the Freedom to Offend an Imaginary God : Sam Harris

  • Alan Watts by South Park creators (All in one in HD)

    LOVE ALAN WATTS. HERE IS SOUTH PARK DOING ALAN WATTS. ALAN WATTS IS IN THE MACHINE. HE HAS THE BEST TALKS ON YOUTUBE.

  • THE BOOK OF FRANK POETRY COMIC

    Cut random images from a random film on my hard drive. The film turned out to be THX 1138 by George Lucas.

    I forwarded the movie nine times with the slidebar. I created a film still from each forward.

    Nine frames.

    Then flipped through the Book of Frank by CA Conrad. Copied seven random lines.

    Flipped through The Trees The Trees by Heather Christle and copied two random lines.

    Shuffled the nine lines from CA Conrad and Heather Christle in a magic hat.

    Took each line out of the hat and placed them under the film stills.

    Will keep playing.

    Sometimes interesting things happen.

    Other times maybe not.

    It’s like life.

  • POLISH PROSE POEMS AT BRITISH LIBRARY

    Gonna read some new Polish prose poems at the British library tomorrow. Maybe ones about vikings.

    The British library is a nice place. If you become a member they give you some white gloves and you handle some really really old books.

    Looks like an interesting line up.

    It’s called:

    Dear World: Editors, Poets and Trans-Cultural Practice

    Dear world. Trans-cultural practice.

    YES!

    I am thinking of the time I ate some very good noodles with my San Gyup Sal in Seoul in 2006 at 6AM. It was a good night and a very good morning. That was trans-cultural. Or trans something.

    Here is a link:

    http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event151941.html

  • Loving the Polish: Grzegorz Wróblewski’s "Kopenhaga"

    Nice review of Grzegorz Wroblewski’s Kopenhaga over here by Chad W. Post:

    http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=8022

  • Some New Paintings of Grzegorz Wróblewski


    1) Muzeum 1 Kolyska Cindy 2) Muzeum 2 Pomieszczenia i ogrody 3) Muzeum 4 Razem

    1) Cindy’s Cradle, 2) Rooms and Gardens 3)Together

    These paintings are part of a Grzegorz Wroblewski’s exhibition at the Museum of Literature in Warsaw in 2014. His first Polish exhibition after 29 years of living in exile!!!

  • Typhoon

  • letters from the milky way

    Kopenhaga by Grzegorz Wroblewki is one of those touchstone books for me. I mean the kind of book that sits on my best shelf with my favourite books of all the ages.

    Surreal rooted in the everyday. Surreal rooted in the historical. Letters from a human being from the Milky Way but currently somewhere between Denmark and Poland (and many other places too).

    The absurd grounded in memoir, in theatre, in language play, in characters, in setting, in personal suffering, in alienation, in existentialist philosophy, in punk music, in animals and shamanism and in underground documentary films. And more. Much more.

    These are prose poems!

    The absurd grounded in play. In NY School Poetics and the Brulion group that emerged in Krakow. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brulion)

    But it is also not Brulion or any other movement or group.

    It is nomadic surrealism. Outsider writing.

    It moves through this Brulion group and the surge in creativity in the city of Krakow to emerge on an immigrant ship in Copenhagen full of folks from Asia, Africa, central and eastern Europe etc.

    It is the desire to start anew but never being at home.

    It is also partly the punk aesthetic of 70’s and 80’s Warsaw.

    It is cooked and it is raw. It is classical and it is energised rock and roll. It has some of the NY School Poetry the light touch of say Ron Padgett, the urbanism of Frank O’ Hara, and all the best of the Greek classics. 

    It is amazingly and lovingly translated into English by Piotr Gwiazda.

    Piotr Gwiazda is one hell of a translator. 

    I even liked the introduction. I rarely like introductions. Kopenhaga has a nice introduction to the genius of Grzegorz Wroblewski.

    It is an unlikely book.

    I mean no machine could have wrote this book.

    It is also folk music. I mean deep down folksy blues music.

    Imagine a mix tape of all your favourite music in blues, folk, rock, punk. This is Kopenhaga.

    Imagine Kafka in the late 20th and early 21st century mixed with your favourite 1st or 2nd generation NY School poet. This is Kopenhaga.

    Imagine your favourite 1st generation European Surrealist (French, central European, or eastern European). This is Kopenhaga.

    Imagine if Norman Rockwell wrote punk music. This is Kopenhaga.

    Imagine a national geographic special narrated by Camus. This is Kopenhaga.

    It sticks. It bears many many re-reads. It is not stuffy. It is heavy and light. It is everything I have always wanted from art. And more! Much more!I feel like re-doing most of my star reviews on Goodreads and reducing them to 4 stars so that this book is one of the few with 5 stars.

    That’s how much I love this book.

    I felt less alone after reading this!
    Buy it here:
    or here:
    (Statistics and Informatics by Grzegorz Wroblewski)

  • DANI SANDAL GIVES US THE BIRD!

    Have you ever had a hit and stick?

    I had a pigeon that came to die on my balcony before I left for Spain. It wasn’t a hit and stick. It just came to the balcony during a storm. It was wet and smelly.

    I thought it would fly away. It did not.

    Here’s what I wrote in my day book:

    There’s a pigeon dying on my balcony. I went out on the balcony for a smoke and there it was. I tried to shoo it away but it wouldn’t move. So there it sits. Shitting all over the balcony. It is very wet from the storm. All I can think about is diseases. Bird diseases. I have a hard time developing love for pigeons.

    Eventually I took the pigeon away in a small tupperware container and left out outside. No lid. Just in case it still had some life juice left to fly away.

    The next morning, on my way to catch the three trains and two buses for my daily commute, I passed by the spot. The pigeon was gone. But so was the tupperware.

    I like to think the pigeon flew away. But I doubt it.

    Enter Dani Sandal. She has a bird story.

    It is a scary bird but also a beautiful bird.

    It is a broken hearted- lark. The speaker feeds it

     the wrong things: bits of Wonder Bread and salted bacon, sips of distilled water from a jelly-jar, tainted with gin

    The bird is also called Gabriel and shot down:

    with the pill of birth control blue

    What is in a bird? 

    Everything is in a bird!

    Check out the messengers here:


    http://madhatlit.com/messenger-by-dani-sandal/

  • Driving Our Car-Bianca Stone and Ben Pease

  • A GOOD PLACE FOR A VIKING

    (A dream. Katowice, Poland. 25th August 2013)

    Marcus Slease 


  • good morning valencia

    I drank horchata and looked at the gargoyles for three days. On the fourth day I re-discovered my curly locks.Valencia is a very fine city with a park down the middle. The park used to be a river. There are many bridges.

    AUGUST 13TH 2013. VALENCIA, SPAIN.

    marcus slease

  • GOOD MORNING KATOWICE

    In ING bank Katowice. Hoping to poo soon in Poland.

    There is a lot of pork in Poland . Some chicken. Very little beef. Sometimes fish. I am not really a meat man. I am fish man. A fish meat man.

    Ewa is trying to close her account from two years ago. They take over two pounds a month for nothing. They are trying to convince her not to close . There is a lot of talking in Polish and the woman sounds very official. This has been going in for 20 min. I wonder when the lady will give up and let her close her Polish account. I am glad I am not there speaking broken Polish with my dictionary. It would take a very long time.

    I want to release three days of polish kielbasa. Then I want to eat a polish donut . Maybe today we will go to downtown Katowice for real coffee. We have to find a place to buy a bus ticket. Everything is orange here in the ING waiting room. I am not sure about orange. I am learning how to type notes on my iPod in Poland. This us one of the notes. I still don’t have a smart phone. Maybe I will get a smart phone in 2014.

    Sent from my iPod 10.41 AM. 27th August 2013.

    At PKO Bank  Polski.  Ewa is transferring a building renovation savings toddler scheme into brothers name. It might take longer than ING bank. It is a polish bank. There are a lot of stamps and it is run in the old way . Before the fall of the wall . Or the parting of the iron curtain. I once had a bank account here at Pko bank polski. When I lived in Poland in 2007. In a smallish town called Rynik. One summer rybnik made their own money. It was rybnik money. Rybnik is related to fish in Poland. So it was a kind of fish money. Fishy money.

    It took almost an hour to open my bank account at PKO in the little town of Rybnik. There was a lot of stamps and pages and pages of signatures. It was all in Polish of course. I had no idea what the Polish old ladies were saying. It takes a lot of work to do anything official in Poland. It takes even longer in broken Polish.

    I ate at a milk bar every day in Rybnik. Meat, potatoes, carrots. Fruit drink with old fruit called Kompot. I like Kompot.

    We have left PKO bank and are walking into the estate. The estate is called Manhattan. Two old men just walked by with a pram full of empty cans of beer. They are probably going to sell them to get full cans of beer. Another old man is at a fence cooing at chickens with a little girl. There are mothers on the playground with very tight jeans. They have solarium baked bodies.

    Sent from my iPod. 12.59PM. 27th August 2013.

    — marcus slease

  • THE FUTURE

    In downtown Katowice, on Mariacka Street, we met a woman on stilts. We were in a pub called Kato. Kato had well designed street art inside its plywood walls. It was a make-shift pub.

    I drank my cold yellow beer. It was very fizzy and sweet and I held it by the handle. The Polish ladies around me drank their beer with long blue straws. Some of them had a thick sweet syrup added to their beer. In other words, the men were men. And the women were women. Mostly.

    After my beer we went inside the plywood pub and I saw a large mural. It was a make shift mural in a make shift pub. It said: bear with me. It was a big picture of a friendly bear.

    The young woman on stilts walked by and everyone got out their smart phones. I don’t have a smart phone but I have an ipod. It is only 5 megapixels but I took some pictures. Shortly after after the clicking of smart phones a gray bearded man walked by. He had about seven young people behind him. He yelled into his megaphone in Polish. In Polish he said: the image is the future. The image is a future. He said this many times and waved his arms like he was flying.

    — marcus slease

  • Homeless as a fly

    Homeless as a fly

    you lactated on my tongue

     – — – ———

    a pillow by night

    and a sack by day

    now my petals

    begin to fall

    (from Mu (so) Dream (window). Written while living in South Korea, 2006. Published by Poor Claudia in 2012: http://www.poorclaudia.org/print_slease.php

  • WHO GETS YOU WET?

    Last Christmas in Katowice, Poland I met a girl named Megi Szu and Lola in a Polish pub called Presja. They are Polish but they used English names. Or half English.

    Szu = shoe

    Megi = Maggie

    ——————————

    maggie shoe

    Lola = Lola

    We sat on an old couch with plastic flapping in the wind. We talked about rice patties and being wet. Megi Szu lived with a man in Nepal. They both told me about getting wet. It was a mysterious wet. I learned a lot.

    Here is a wee excerpt picked up by Thought Catalog:

     http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/who-gets-you-wet/

  • a room of one’s own

    last time I was in Katowice it was Christmas. I sat in a little room with a giant snowman and lots of Russian dolls and wrote a flash fiction about Polish beavers. It was a story about my impressions of Poland and globalization. The Poles can do Gangnam style like no other. The story is in the mag Sprung Formal. It’s called I love Beaver:

    The little room has been renovated. It has merged with the front room. The giant snowman is hibernating in a box somewhere. There are still lots of Russian dolls. I am looking at hundreds of Russian dolls as I am typing this and sipping Turkish coffee.

    This morning I finished American Gods by Neil Gaiman. It was an OK book. Somewhat entertaining. Not fully satisying. I had to finish it to get to the good stuff. The good stuff is Sam Pink. I am ready to read Sam Pink in this room full of Russian dolls in Katowice, Poland. It is a good place to read Sam Pink.

    The room is part of flat which is part of a block of flats in many blocks of flats in an estate called Manhatten. It is not Manhatten. It is nothing like Manhatten. It is the Queens of Poland.

    It’s time to finally wash my hair in Poland. The last time I really washed my hair was in Alicante Spain three days ago.