Website of the writer Marcus Slease
Some poems from my ms MILK TOP MAGIC HAT over at Map Literary:
http://www.mapliterary.org/marcus-slease.html
little men in my bathtub, rainy Bukowski southwest train to Reading, E.T. and rocket ships in Milton Keynes.
Some fantastic poetry and fiction over there. Like Anne Gorrick’s measurements to the sun for example.
Stellar!
It is part of my book in progress Play Yr Kardz Right.
READING FROM NEW BOOK RIDES IN MY FLAT IN EAST LONDON DOCKLANDS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obmm3xjknAc
“There is only seeing and, in order to go to see, one must be
a pirate”
There are mashups with train rides forwards and backwards all around the U.K.
Rides is part of my nomadic surrealist project.
AVAILABLE OVER HERE:
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.
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.
Influenced by NY School poetry.
Bernadette Mayer and Kenneth Koch
ALSO Philip Whalen (one of my favs)
Part of my Nomadic Surrealist project.
free pdf here:
http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/299099
cover painting: Grzegorz Wroblewski
A nice article today about some of the very best poetry coming from the United Kingdom. And it rocks. Big time! Brilliant!
Some influences of NY school poetry and more.
Check out the article in Jacket 2 magazine:
http://jacket2.org/feature/contemporary-english-poetry-and-north-american-influences
Spicy frozen pizza for Christmas dinner. A 4AM taxi pickup to Heathrow on Boxing Day. London-Paris-Salt Lake City. Drinking Melissa Tea. It was my favourite tea when I lived in Poland. I have finished The Fertility Show (formally Nerve Movie). Sent it off to a publisher or two. Will have to wait a few months.
The Fertility Show takes it cue from Phillip Whalen’s idea of a nerve movie and Bernadette Mayer (esp Midwinters Day). Written during my daily 3 hour commute on the London underground. It is a poetics of everything. Inside and outside. Biographical, narrative, expansive poetics, compact lyrics, NY School send offs, homophonic translations of Polish and German from overheard conversations on the Piccadilly Line etc. etc.
A poetics that attempts to narrow the gap between art and life. I don’t see any other point.
Another Godzenie (with many many more strategies, modes, attempts to reconcile). A practice in mindfulness.
The poems are written on the tube in London but “take place” in Poland, Turkey, London, Milton Keynes, Las Vegas, North Carolina, Bellingham/Seattle.
A continuous nerve movie.
The other manuscript Smashing Time is also finished.
Now I will continue part two of a manuscript I started last time I was in America. It is called Spanish Fork.
My poetics is a travel poetics. But not in any narrow sense of the genre of travel writing. Orally based But not bardic.
It is also a kind of surrealism.
Let’s call my life project a nomadic surrealism. If it has to be called something that is maybe the closest. There are of course various other elements.
It lives much more off the page than on (methinks). The rhythm of everyday speech is very central.
hm . . . . and the slippery mind . . . quicksilver . . .
I dabbled heavily in flarf in 2004. I dabbled heavily in conceptual poetics as well. Surrealism and political poetry were the entry points into writing poetry.
Now it is many many things. But mindfulness is especially central. And an expansive (rather than constricted) sense of the self and the world.
My chapbook Smashing Time is now available for free (digital version). Thank you MIPOesias.
This book was written shortly after returning to live in London. From 2010 to 2011. Influenced by NY School poets (Kenneth Koch, Bernadette Mayer, and Ted Berrigan mostly). Also the buddhism and writing of Philip Whalen. Also my poet friends Tim Atkins and Jeff Hilson.
Ah we are never alone my friends.
Smashing Time is part of my ongoing nomadic surrealist project.
I just purchased a ton of indie poetry books at a massive discount at the bookshop in London called England’s Lane. The bookseller in charge of poetry really knows their stuff.
I now have a big hoard of mostly innovative American poetry books. Terrific. Here are some of the poets:
Aram Saroyan, Bernadette Mayer, Bill Berkson, Clark Coolidge, Geraldine Kim, Glen Baxter, Piero Heliczer, Steve Carey.
It is like being reborn when you find gems of indie poetry books. It is one of my favourite activities. When I lived in North Carolina I would spend hours and hours hunting for small press poetry books. Indie presses are the best!
Here is a poem built of the indie books:
England’s Lane
American surrealism . . .
I need to get my hands on some of his books . .. and Cathy Wagner’s My New Job and Matthew Roher’s books . .. haven’t read Matthew Rohrer since 2005 when he came to Greensboro . . .
Just read Maureen Owen’s Zombie Notes and loved it . . .
take the tube for over two hours every day for work.
Tube reading for this week:
Tulsa Kid by Ron Padgett
Great Balls of Fire by Ron Padgett
How to Be Perfect by Ron Padgett
Tarantula by Bob Dylan
Poetry State Forest by Bernadette Mayer
I found a bit of paradise yesterday.
First, a very cool feast at an Iranian restaurant with my former student from Iran named Ben. Sauces and yogurt drinks and all kinds of amazing bbq’ed meat. Carpets on the ceiling and wall.
Second, cool exhibition of Felix Topolski called Topolski Century. Overground trains shook above us while looking at murals from the 20th century. He was everywhere in the 20th century. Amazing work.
Third, the poetry library on the firth floor of the Royal Albert Hall. Treasures galore! I wanna live in that place. Small press wonders from the 1960’s and beyond! Also a balcony with a view of the Thames and Big Ben. It doesn’t get any better!
Bummer is you can only check out four items. I borrowed:
1) John Wieners The Hotel Wentley Poems (1st edition)
2) A Bernadette Mayer Reader
3) A Secret Location on the Lower East Side (all about the small presses in the 1960-1980)
4) Memorial Day by Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman (Aleos Books 1971)
One day I want to start collecting my books again. But alas, I am on the move. A nomadic existence.
Really nice to have this amazing resource in London.
Today was uneventful. Off to get bread, cheese, coffee and other essentials then maybe some Six Feet Under.
Not ready for Monday. But who is????
