How Yah Doon?

Spirit of the John Candy Man

2026-04-26T18:34:55.151+01:00

Introducing a Fun and Funny Guy: Habib Rehman. Do my own quotes Jokes talks and they come to me when I do my walks. Also poems / songs and word play

Botto Jelly

Chilly bottom

Botty jelly

Jelly botty

Jelly belly

Belly shaking like jelly

Looking at a painting of botto jelly

On the telly

Feeling my belly I have a flat screen

But my back end Is as big as the back end of an old telly...

R.I.P R.C. (New Poem from Janice Stephens)

2026-04-13T09:00:00.015+01:00

I am a novice poet who has a lot to learn. Having discovered in later life the real joy in poetry, I enjoy all types, particularly contemporary work. I have attended several one day and longer courses on writing poetry and am currently attending a course at Citilit in London. I self-published my first collection of 50 poems 'Fifty First Timers' last year with KDP.'

R.I.P. R.C.

Corpus Christi.

A sultry June day.

Bees buzz midst dandelions on the lawn

beneath the convent chapel.

Long before they learn how to swear

the five year olds,

hands clasped,

in hand-me-down white dresses,

fall onto their knees

on the gravel steps to pray.

Black robes swish up and down

the rows of white statues, keeping order:

“Don’t fidget”.

Then Benediction.

“Examine your consciences children”

And like troops for Jesus they march

to get a blessing.

Bedtime in the dormitory offers solace

as long as they hold their tongues and avoid the strap.

Adults now, they no longer go to church.

By Janice Stephens

Fur flies in Fez (eyewitness account of a cat fight)

2026-04-10T19:39:00.004+01:00

Description of a cat fight in the Medina in Fez.

Underneath the tablecloth the two cats inched forwards, pulled back their ears till neither a cuff nor punch nor hiss was left in them only a violent spasmodic side attack as if they were two skewed rhinoceroses about to battle for their calves' lives. They soon flew till intertwined, twisting, fur flying in clumps while Arabic teenage lovers watched in fascination and subdued alarm; underneath a cup of hajjira my wife, tilting to the side and raising her menu, was a picture of fear while the pair of combatants scratching at each other, face gripping to a point of puncture, twisted in the dust in their violent embrace and - looking for purchase at horrendous cost to themselves - went at each other for round two with kangaroo style scraping and punching till they were co-joined like one giant camel pillow or white ginger fur ball, a fleeting sinewy leather purse with no head - as it was now clear they were deeply biting each other; in the melee, this shapeless leather orb was topped by two separate sets of testicles and a clear red anus pulled in every direction. The waiter came with a menu or other and walloped the padded shape of cat/cats very hard, thudding at them like he was trying to remove a mushroom growth from a tree with a shovel, till like an oblong soccer ball the frenzied orb was pummelled into the back kitchen where it screeched and bawled and growled like a demonic entity that had manifested itself into fiery being. I never saw them again and do not know the final ending of those two cats because the noise stopped suddenly and I hope one ran away. At around this time another cat fight ensued above in a tree and two male cats, one like a black cougar and the other, a beige puma, chased each other up the overarching branches growling at each other with an inner deeply disturbing engine sound not possible to mimic which belied their size as adolescent cats. They faced off and stress clutched the tree completely oblivious to any danger of a fall or chance to fall into the busy lane below. The image in the dusk was akin to seeing the image of a cat against a skyline on the eve of Halloween crawling along as if stalking. Both cats remained oblivious of all other motion or affairs of trade below, singularly focused on each other, in limbo tails flicking neither willing to move till dusk when they may have come down or retreated and skulked onto the tops of the soup kitchen and restaurant.

Leaving MCHNCT

2025-09-24T20:06:00.001+01:00

‘So long Mr Wozniak…’ We can’t wave goodbye to Mr Jobs either for he is already off so we are left with the cautionary view of the poet, Paul Vermeersch, contemplating a future with a runaway computer typing along the screen and thumbing its nose at us NML (animal) creatures.

As a vision which parodies this future Vermeersch gives us his fifth book of poetry, knitting together statements, diagrams and images of an altering universe. Vermeersch challenges us to respond to his poems, ironically like a eighteenth century man set to duel; instead of drawing out his blunderbuss to challenge the local official on diminishing rights and freedoms, Vermeersch sets the tech Lords in his sights. The challenge in the book is to see if the light is still on inside the mind of the thinking man and the candle still raised to the poetry cause. ‘Inside a mirrored box,’ is a little test of commitment to this cause, an example of a poem cancelled out, literally with a line through it, repeated several times on the page and then offered up again as complete. Is this the message of NMLCT, that we are relinquishing control on our own ability to think critically to challenge and take a stance, a decision? Accompanying these poems which self-reference older works, ie ‘Second Piggy’, are Vermeersches dim view on modern life which show his love of words and art and science; ‘alphanumeric’ responses and ‘misanthropes’ send up up the fearful tone.

It is a collection of a gentle distopian reality, a slow burn, like dropping a frog in tepid water and then turning up the gas underneath. Animals (NML’s) previously felt the pain of living in the city (Between the Walls). Now the animals are pink of flesh, cowering in cubicles, programming Sat Nav’s to their final destination. I hail Vermeersch for writing to the Eden Fest to protest AI training and teaching of writing methods. During the pandemic it was hard to see how the writing industry would survive, how we would survive. But survive we do, revived we are.

The message of Vermeersch is prescient. When I saw the movie AI in the late 20th century I felt the movie was great because of the human nature of the robot played by Haley Joel Osmont. It occurred to me it was so good because of the human quality of the performance. Daleks do not reach the same level of human feeling, do they? Dr Who feels far more chilling to me now.

In the U.K. I attended a writers symposium that said that AI just simply turbo charged routine admin tasks so was a safe bet, but was no threat to creatives. Is this what it was like for the vaudeville acts and dance halls when television flickered on in the 1930’s? In the past living between two continents I have heard it said that North America, Canada in my case, is behind Europe. In this case isn’t it better to heed Vermeersches cautionary voice; you still have time to say so long Mr Wozniak, to create the world you grew up in.

High School Year Book Revisited Home Ec option

2025-09-17T11:51:00.003+01:00

That boy with the faded jeans
(... high school yearbook revisited)

By John Stiles

Sulky is a word for a pouting, fourteen year-old wimp who sits in
his room imagines quibble bibble to say at Inter-School Christian
Fellowship Meetings. He`s a cross little tosser with bandly legs, hides
a dog-eared Bible under his pillow 'mongst eight tracks he`s pinched
from The Box of Delights. To say he is mean sprited, small-eyed
thief is not correct, he`s a scholar of Mad Magazines

and thinks

Desperate Dan is the bees knees. If he ever gets a chance to
chew gum he`ll stick it under a plate. There he`ll let it sit, forever.

If his mother finds it she'll lift stars off his chores list so
he'll have to vaccuum his room and stand in the shadows
in the schoolyard saying things - to himself - like My Mummy
and Your Mummy are friends till your another feller says something and I
call Your Mommy at home

she says

my son would never do that you greasy, good-for-nothing old bat.
Fourteen year-old boys with their hands in the odds and sods bins
at Frenchies can get worked into a lather trying to find an OP T-shirt
or a pair of Converse High Tops. Look out in the middle of the
pack of crowd pleasers on the dancefloor they`ve been wanting to move and groove for a long time, not bad looking for nearing

forty years-old,

some of them have flown half way across the world to take back things they said or scribbled in the High School Yearbook.

Antidote to Solitude?

2024-06-08T15:53:00.012+01:00

from Fair bodies of unseen prose,

Why do so few words directly contain the antidote to solitude?

One day, to be determined. Ecumenical.

In sound, in fragments. This raft, of

inexplicable. In Orlando, withered.

Holding shape in the hand. What kind of

trees. The sentence, always. Whereabout.

A preliminary phrase. Lodged. If but to

bear witness. Translated, upon. Unwinds:

a river of symphony. This torn ground

will contain. It will not. This fiction of

history. I wrote the first word.

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. The author of more than thirty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. His most recent titles include the poetry collection World’s End,(ARP Books, 2023), a suite of pandemic essays, essays in the face of uncertainties (Mansfield Press, 2022) and the anthology groundworks: the best of the third decade of above/ground press 2013-2023 (Invisible Publishing, 2023). His collection of short stories, On Beauty(University of Alberta Press) will appear in fall 2024. An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics(periodicityjournal.blogspot.com) and Touch the Donkey(touchthedonkey.blogspot.com). He is editor of my (small press) writing day, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

author

Abdicted to Love

2024-01-14T19:08:00.010+00:00

By Adrian Phillips

Imprint: Pen & Sword History

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9781399065412

The First Royal Media War examines the behind the scenes intrigue of a dynastic old guard of politicos trying to placate a love sick left-leaning new King of a crumbling British Empire.

Dense in research and accomplished in portraying William Randolph Hearst, an overbearing Lord Beaverbrook, an evasive Prime Minister in Stanley Baldwin and a ‘swine’ of an Archbishop of Canterbury in Cosmo Gordon Lang, author Phillips is skilled at bringing to life the daily scuttlebutt and political posturing of press barons and politicians who circle each other like the dials of Big Ben while time ticks down on an unprecedented constitutional crisis and the King’s ultimate abdication.

The popular but obdurate King is less a stoic people's champion more a tragic figure here. The idea of subordinating a future wife to a diminished rank compels the narrative forwards and the various attempts to parachute an unpopular American divorcee into the title of HRH bring to mind the current state of the British monarchy and weirdly echoe Prince Harry’s and Megan’s current travails and fragile media relationship.

The relative innocence of 1930's media society is clearly overshadowed by the doomed fate of its lovers. The morganatic right of ancient aristocratic houses to accept lower born paramours into their circles is shuddered at in every level of 1930’s society and situation: in Welsh miners meetings, Canadian colonial outposts, through the halls and corridors of Westminster and the Cannes Riviera. The constitutional crisis facing twice divorced Wallis Simpson and the well-meaning but naive King reads as if it is happening now and the story is prescient in that is showcases a generational divide. The popular King is a success in the flesh at photo calls where he doesn’t lecture but is he is simply outmanoeuvred by self-serving industrialists, business magnates and stodgy empire loyalists who understand how to use the media to advantage. Knowing this dynastic terrain well and drawing on earlier writing Adrian Phillips has written an erudite, scholarly work which serves as an updated companion piece to earlier books on the subject.

Cherry Cola Juliet

2023-01-25T10:21:00.001+00:00

Not down in old Soho

If Juliet and Romeo woke up in the 21st century and obtained research fellowships after uni then they might well be reincarnated in post pandemic London as ‘caramelised’ 'boy' and 'girl' in poet Mara Nkere’s ‘Cherry Cola’ . So intense is the passion of these modern day lovers in this erotic and doomed tale of two opposites who don’t quite trust their tryst. So potent is the depth of feeling that it might be remiss to think of London as anything less than romantic purgatory. This is not a couple who meet down in old Soho for a laugh.

These vignettes and soliloquies written in a variety of forms show modern dating as a simmering and 'atomic' love assault. The union which starts as a cagey game of chess soon begs the question: Does ‘girl’ truly believe she can withstand her own misgivings? The Romeo and Juliet theme transcends time and hyperbole is also used with devastating effect. Planets fall from heights, overdoses loom, there is much here that echoes Shakespeare’s secondary school classic. Religion plays a part as well as ‘the girl’ tells ‘the boy’, there is no contest between him and Jesus, 'because please don't let me choose boy, because it'll always be Jesus' .

The war of words intensifies as the passionate pair use their work or post university scientific leanings to dissect their relationship. If Juliet Capulet's stars don’t quite align in time to save her life in R and J then the lead character 'girl' is a prisoner of her own blood moon and is ‘transfixed’ by the boy as he is a pendulum of a clock that stops her natural time.

The book is divided into halves, each narrator has their own POV and love lament and the book is written in a variety of narrative styles (letters, diary entries, statements) that work so you seek for clues to the mysterious ‘boy’ nicknamed Cherry Cola. ''Boy' meanwhile is more watchful and cautious but also feels himself being seduced into the bad torment of love. ‘Girl’who loves her blond blue eyed young lover’s ‘extraordinary mind’ commits early and with sexual intensity but perhaps predictably isn’t far off considering ‘cutting off his dick’ and grinding it into a potion. This exotic or more grown up ‘girl’ is less needy than Shakespeare’s innocent Juliet and will clearly make her own choices. However this reference to potions with body parts has literary echoes of Shakespeare’s other landmark Macbeth and Nkere’s book buzzes with personality. Funk, fusion, modern day riffs this poetic lament has a musicality with some classic cat fight put downs. This is Romeo and Juliet’s spicy 21st century cousin with no Benvolio to keep the peace. It is as if 'girl' has taken a page from cousin Tybalt in this 21st century love tango.

Lust for Learning

2023-01-17T12:57:00.018+00:00

Fall of Troy

Cambridge mediaeval literature scholar Charles Moseley brings us his philosophical and engaging memoir ‘HUNGRY HEART ROAMING’ which is now available through Black Spring Press.

The Lancashire native and passionate fen walker begins his personal journey (of sorts) by describing the singular starling that traces the dusk skyline before swooping back into the murmuration. This metaphor for the solo traveller is evocative because Moseley next introduces his impressionistic student self trudging in the dusty footsteps of Saint Paul through Greece, Corinth and Rome. Soon we are transported into this ancient holy world by a backpacking Cambridge Scholar who confesses to a 'hot lust for understanding ever just beyond your grasp.'

Whether traveling for pleasure in the great museum of life that is Europe or as a sought after (but unknown) specialist guest lecturer in South America, Moseley is blessed with the poet’s eye and writes comic descriptive passages; as a young student in Crete he dodges a seismic 'twitch of the earth's skin' and later quietens as his wife tells him to stop talking and simply look out at the sea. Far from being ‘tediously loguacious’ the writer delights in piecing together world history. From Greek mythology, to European cultural appropriation, critical writing about the Bizantine empire, to saluting ancient poets such as Pope, Wootton, Donne, Dante, to witnessing the gloom of Tuetonic Tallin and then on towards symposiums in Albania and back, the old adage that once a 'lecturer, always a lecturer' rings true. What recurs is we are given insights into the dark natures of human existence which have plagued western thinking since the downfall of Troy. Moseley is a kindred sage to the poets he so admires.

There are serious undertones into these darker epochs as the author describes the nonchalant rise of power in Vienna of a failed art student by the name of Adolph and this insight into cultural and historical Vienna, Prague, Bucharest and other parts of Europe re-visited from the 60's till now describe a scholar and soul who is not blind to the atrocities humans commit in the face of the most civilised, noble or religious pursuits. Moseley's writes about Franciscan Friar Michele De Cunheo on the Columbus mission to St Croix in Antigua in the seventeenth century and the research is singularly harrowing and critical of man's willingness to indulge in sadistic pleasure.

Equally adept at mining a darker theme, the philosophical style also serves to ridicule the emptiness of the pursuit of power and a comic aside (of which there are many) imagines the lonely Greek gecko as if a childless old man, who 'contemplates whatever geckos contemplate'.

Fans of an off beat travelogue will not be disappointed. There is loads which will appeal to those who look for clues and secrets of ancient civilisations on obelisks hidden in the museums and libraries of the Bizantine era. Also there is an understated but mordant British wit and irony in this book including how friendly local Cretans in Greece preferred Brits to German tourists in the 1960's.

Moseley can sometimes get carried away with digressions but this is all part of the charm and we feel that we are in the hands of a wry observer but also a passionate and spiritual man on a quest for understanding life through history and world travel. Equally important is this role as a Cambridge scholar and poet who continually pushes to understand more.

In much the same way Claire Tomalin cast her meticulous eye towards Charles Dickens in 'A Life', Mosley shares his own inimitable interest in life in 'Hungry Heart Roaming'.

'Me and Lio' Reader comments

2020-09-11T11:53:00.013+01:00

Extracts of reader comments from ‘Me and Lio’ up to the quarterfinals of the 2020 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting in Los Angeles. Valued feedback and for those who have tried to adapt a short story to screenplay. #nichollfellowship

More here

@TheAcademy

A Pandemic Poem of Faith and Hope

2020-08-19T17:40:00.014+01:00

The Stations of the Cross

(for Fr Phillip Lemon,

Our Lady of The Assumption, Bethnal Green, London)

By Mike Parsons

“After the first death, there is no other.” Dylan Thomas

1.Jesus Is Condemned To Death

We adore thee O Christ and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

“ after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors”

Luke 2. 41-52

Death. Do I fear it? I am terrified, but there are moments, when in giving, you gain the incalculable.

So much is wrong, so much unnecessary.

Let me give.

We live lives dedicated to change.

“Ce petit monde est a refaire” says Emmanuelle Billoteaux

(This little world must be remade).

Who is to blame?

We can talk of specifics.

We should not talk of blame, but of understanding,

Evaluation.

We must identify the problems.

I take a walk with Christine's children in Umoja, Nairobi.

Flowers grow along the path; purple and yellow.

The corn has been harvested though there are still some ripening.

The whole field has been cultivated since I was here lst October,

Women were preparing the ground then, and planting.

They have worked well.

Some people are secure with their money and posessions.

Do they care only for themselves?

What Impels?

Please, help us with our lives.

Help us overcome our faults,

understand and change.

Forgive us our trespasses.

Lord Jesus, you are condemned to death a million times by greed and self-interest.

By power compounded with fear

in this vicious cycle of survival.

Condemned to death

and yet going beyond death.

Unstoppable.

You will not die,

“I will not die”.

We are left with the question, “Why does life destroy life

Why destroy that which will take the fear away?”

But their fear is not our fear.

We are not our bodies,

We are more than our minds,

more that our sense of “I”, Tyranical, fragile, fearful…

Quietly Confident

2020-07-10T19:13:00.002+01:00

Quietly confident?
Waiting in the wings?

An introverted woman's guide to life positioning
Carol Stewart

Filament

978-1913192693

Tackling and overcoming issues of quietness and shyness is the main premise of Quietly Visible and in its own way, the book pulls no punches in its focus of intent. The idea of being the quiet one at the party left in the shadows by the extroverts who can make small talk and shamelessly push themselves forwards may recall the 1980's movie Working Girl where the Melanie Griffith character has her quiet but clever ideas stolen by the louder and more assured character played by Sigourney Weaver. Talking about what exists beneath the surface in everyday life but may not be acted on is the enduring cautionary tone in this book and yet also serves as its gift of hope as well. After reading you might change your perception from 'watch out for the quiet ones' to 'watch and admire the quiet ones'.

Using character studies of persons who have impacted change in their own life, the book draws on the author’s own life experience as a single, introverted mum in the corporate world, raising an extrovert son. Counselling and differentiated assessment tools offer positive paths to those seeking to foster change through self-help initiatives, through courses offered by the author. The journey up the corporate ladder in this book is more about coming to terms with the self first and pinpointing individual strengths and doing the research instead of speaking for the sake of it, or being false to one’s true nature. It seems prescient to talk about this cause in an era of Pandemics, Black Lives Matter, and the Me Too Movement, as the cause of glass ceiling busting ideologies and lateral thinking are currently in vogue. Perhaps the successes of extroverts who broker deals in corporate power moves are inbedded in the psyche of those who came of age in the 1980's and 1990's and watched from the shadows the grandiose gestures of others, like the Donald Trump grandstanding and deal brokering in bombastic style.

This book is for the quiet ones who work their way up through the ranks, listening and waiting for their chance to shine. It is also about empowerment and feeling that there is a valued place for all members; after all it takes different strokes for different folks to make the world go round. WE know that. You only get one chance to pitch a producer in Hollywood, they say, so this book is about ensuring that you sharpen your skills and look into the reasons behind why projects are green lighted. The devil is in the detail and they do say watch out for the quiet one in the room. This book is about lifting the self-esteem off the floor in a world of loud rock music and letting the acoustics of the unplugged instruments be heard.

A great deal of the book speaks of Carol Stewart's experience as a single woman of the BAME community who has survived and thrived in traditional male dominated workplace. As a leader in the BAME community it is also inspiring as Stewart uses real like examples of being a single mother who took on a leadership position in a company and also because a successful life coach and mentor to others.

The self-reflection exercises speak to the layman who is looking to identify the strengths and weaknesses in past working relationships and the onus is on that person whom is looking to overcome their fears but also doesn't want to change their personality either. This book really spoke to me and seems a practical guide to moving forwards without all the showy emotions that garner quick attention but are ultimately unfulfilling and meaningless. It is metaphysical in spirit and a meditative in tone.

The title appealed to me because the author spoke of the quiet ones in the room and I have long thought that the quiet ones are the ones to watch out for.

I will certainly be intrigued to know what Carol Stewart will write about next as this guide goes on to become a bible for the shy and quietly visible leaders in the new millennium.

Nato A-Z Annapolis Valley A-Z

2020-06-15T10:32:00.000+01:00

NATO: A-Z ----------------ANNAPOLIS VALLEY A-Z

A: Alpha ---------------- A: Apple... Blossom Festival
B: Bravo ---------------- B: Boys ...Oh, boys
C: Charlie -------------- C: Charlie ...Lemon
D: Delta ---------------- D: Dandy...Apple
E: Echo ----------------- E: Eh...Wha?
F: Foxtrot ---------------F: Friggen…Rights (by rights)
G: Golf ----------------- G: Gravenstein…Apple
H: Hotel ---------------- H: How…Yah Doon?
I: India ------------------ I: I…Wun’t touch em with
J: Juliet ----------------- J: Jumpins …Oh, my
K: Kilo ----------------- K: Killer…Karl Krupp
L: Lima ----------------- L: Lamb...Oh, my
M: Mike ---------------- M: Magin’
N: November ---------- N: Nice...Some nice
O: October ------------- O: Over...Shoulder boulder holder
P: Papa ----------------- P: Prix…Wrasslin (Gran Prix)
Q: Quebec ------------- Q: Quite...The rig now
R: Romeo -------------- R: Right…Wild
S: Sierra ----------------- S: Sumpin … Isn’t that?
T: Tango ---------------- T: Terble…Some terble
U: Uniform ------------- U: U-Pick...Potatoes you say?
V: Victor ---------------- V: Village…Stripper.....
W: Whisky --------------W: Wha?...Wall we’ll see yus
X: X Ray ---------------- X: X …Tra scoop Moon Mist?
Y: Yankee ---------------- Y: You...Wanna spend night in jail?
Z: Zulu ------------------- Z: Zinck’s...Transport

Under the Volcano

2020-06-09T10:35:00.002+01:00

Under the Volcano

Wild Abandon

'You can package the wild and sell it but it may still turn around and bite.’ Jennifer Barclay.

There's a sense of stoicism in the voice of narrator Jennifer Barclay as she rambles through the deserted towns and villages of the Greek Islands of the Docadenese. There is also something of Robert Graves' introspection and isolation in Barclay's resolve to convey everyday life on Tilos, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Rhodes, Kos and Nisyros to understand why many former thriving villages have become deserted. As Graves was trusted to report from Majorca through his poetry and sagely wrote about Claudian Iberic exile in his 'I,Claudius' novels Barclay, is entrusted with her patch in Greece to give a sense of an idyllic world far beyond the yawning gape of a developer's back hoe. However as cracks and fissures appear in the ancient landscape of her travels a question remains: What lies beneath the surface of such an Idyll?
Through Barclays' spare, impassive prose the sights are revealed; ferries are taken at night; goats, cats, fishermen stare and bonds formed by speaking the local language ease the reader in; after over ten years of living and moving on the Island chain, Barclay has watched events evolve. Is there an element of the survivalist in her, getting lost in darkness up remote mountains? This is the question which is hinted at in Barclay's clear love of the natural world. The writing does have an old-fashioned quality and sometimes the quiet humour evokes the idea that the author is tending a vast garden pulled along by her dog.

The ease at which Barclay is able to convey the pace of life and make friends, aided by her trusty dog Lisa, as well as her friendly encounters and observations of locals who tend bees in urns and her ability to interpret the regret of those who have had to make their lives in Australia and the USA is tempered by the fact that these Islands have been fought over for centuries; many islanders in the past century were forced to leave due to economic hardship and more sinister reasons. The Italians and 'Il Duce’ have had their way, leaving crumbling opera houses to rot as have had the Turks and the Templar Knights leaving imposing edifications proclaiming authority over the Aegean Sea. These abandonments pose more questions than answers, though, leave ghosts in the mind as well. The Nazis left their cruel stamp in Rhodes during the Second World War when the occupying military forced out the Jews. Conversely the influx of immigrants and displaced Syrians are viewed through the eyes of an observer and not native. However there is a sense of everyone making things work in the community and an intrinsic spirit of living together on the connected islands of the Docadenese.

The love for the land rings clear and we identify with each ‘interesting arrangement of stones’ and urn which turn up. However with each house and ruin Barclay passes, pulled along by Lisa, we are further reminded that many of the Islands fortunes have been made and lost at nature's whim as the region is part of a dangerous Aegean microplate. On western Nisyros for example, the spas which have made the town are also a source of dark humour to the locals. Like the inhabitants of modern Napoli, who live in the shadow of Vesuvius, the volcano could erupt at any time. Steam rises from small cracks in the surface. Barclay relates the local myth that ‘the God Poseidon crushed a giant under a rock here, and his hot breath surges out from time to time.'

Wild Abandon is a well-researched read and Barclay a formidable travelling companion. The idea of that dormant trapped giant plays on the mind as Barclay walks in the footsteps of Greek history and we marvel at a place which has somehow resisted major development. We are intrigued to know how she fares and what next tale she will spin in her late night ferry rides and rambles cross country in the shadow of the Volcano.

Bit of Bovver

2020-06-05T06:23:00.000+01:00

‘The graves (in Abney Park Cemetery) heave up from the ground like the teeth of a badly dentisted but black-hairedand winsome girl.’ Gothic scenes and a fearsome wit infect Tim Wells’ Skinwolf in London tale:Moon Stomp.

Bit of bovver

The debut novel begins innocently as protagonist Joe Boshover, prefers suspenders and red gingham to any 'bovver' and lives with his parents in Stoke Newington. Things rapidly build to a head when Lena Lovich infects Joe with a lover’s bite at a heaving punk show though and the young printer is soon howling through the cobblestoned streets from Hackney to Smithfield’s Market. Moon Stomp is not late night Hammer Horror thriller filler or schlocky 60’s/70’s era kitsch either. "Wotcher," is word on the street in the ‘never quite sure who is behind you’ world of young bovver boys on the town. The mindset is Thatcher-era early 1980’s; punks, rastas, skinheads pack in clusters around Farringdon clubs. Essex bands like Puncture and punks The Ruts keep the heaving sex and thrill seeking Joe and mates Dennis and Irish Philip, 'Flipper' sated in their nightly escapes from union jobs in the print trade. Story aside which drives ahead with the pace of a mosh pit, narrator Joe Boshover imparts the story with a likeable but take no prisoners working class narrative which by the second chapter has Joe inhabit the form of a menacing, snarling, hirsute, prowling beast of the Hackney Marshes. Teen Wolf this is not and any memory of cheeky Michael J. Fox be damned. Joe has ‘tude in spades. He sizes up competition, is opinionated about the company ‘e keeps like a poet early doors at a gig. This works well and the humour sparkles. ‘He was keen on fanzines, which Joe liked about him, but also Adam and the Ants, which Joe didn’t.’ A narrator ready to trade zingers but also not looking for trouble either is a winning start and we soon side with Joe as his alter ego chomps through Abney Cemetery with howl at the moon, abandon. Although a slim volume, ironically not much bigger than a book of poetry, Moon Stomp is a page turner with some eyebrow and hair-raising scenes. The London poet's spare style works in the new leap into fiction.

Beatific and a bit bent in Soho

2020-05-31T09:36:00.001+01:00

With the recent passing of Glen Carmichael, here is a new review of the cult novel: STILL SEARCHING FOR THE BIG CITY BEATS co-written with his friend, Kevin Evans. Available now from Burning Eye Books.

Carmichael, Evans and co.

The spectre of Jack Kerouac casts a knowing eye over Glenn Carmichael and Kevin Evans’ cult novel ‘STILL SEARCHING FOR THE BIG CITY BEATS’ which is now reissued from Burning Eye. Dean Moriarty is reincarnated in 1980’s London as dangerous driving ‘Gene Campbell’, a scene stealing, hard living poet with an eye for the ladies - and men. Echoing the role of Kerouac’s beatific, Sal Paradise and riding shotgun along Constitution Hill in their dented Vauxhall Victor is Gene's sidekick, Spike, straight man and word perfectionist searching for meaning in the repressed, Thatcher-era miasma they inhabit. It is straight man Spike's literate, self-deprecation and parody which invests our interest as the two friends careen around the Buckingham Palace roundabout trying to make their gig. The excitement builds through the tension and eyes of Spike as he wonders if he is really 'ready to.... swallow dive into the maelstrom' with this flamboyant self-seeking apostle, Gene, bent on taking them into the top tier of performance poetry.

Cult novel reissued

The novel is fuelled by the friends' failures; a prior musical incarnation as 'The White Brothers' died with a spat on Denmark Street and the tension builds with one man’s desire to transfix the clubs over pubs of 80's seedy Soho London. The 'commissars of the quatrain' take the stage with a vengeance in The Red Lion to breath new life into a dying and abandoned art form. Seizing on the energy vacuum the young friends control the mic and soon 'words richocheted around the walls'. Suggestions that Gene is going to be the 'lifeguard' to a dying scene play on the mind of the more introspective Spike and his fixation on this messianic figure, is the power of the novel's first few chapters. (After speaking with Kevin Evans by phone I was informed that the opening of the novel won a literary prize, and it was the conviction of the two friends Evans and Carmichael to finish the novel as a consequence of this). As 'poetry' is The Big City Beats mutual calling, Spike’s concerns about the very strange nature of poetry assault the opening like beats on a drum in a jazz club: poetry as life tonic is a succession of metaphors expressed as frenzied mind skipping through a Rolodex. Poetry Is everything and nothing, a tired ‘gentlemen’s club’, a ‘wild beast’ a ‘queer fish’. After all, with Spike seeking a release from a stifling Civil Service day job, poetry is all consuming. But in the same space of days it is also ‘an atrophied corpse’ and the rewards are not money nor fame perhaps. Spike admits, ‘Poetry, who needs it?’ The answer and driving force comes from the relentless but unreliable form of charismatic ‘Gene’, who wills Spike to memorise their lines and beat back their audience into full submission to their ‘heavenly light’. The style of writing moves from metaphor to simile and 'that queer fish' poetry never suffers from a lack of time in the spotlight. In the world of the Big City Beats, ‘poetry’ needs a kick up the arse as it is as ‘flaccid as a eunuch’s dick, as dull as dishwater’. Like an odd couple band eschewing definition you wonder how this will all tap out. ‘Your best is not good enough,’ Gene yells at the audience.

If you consider that 'STILL SEARCHING FOR THE BIG CITY BEATS' is a co-authored novel it may be appropriate that this ‘fictive book’, based on real life, asks you to go deeper to try and figure out which poet wrote which part (Evans or Carmichael)? My gut feeling is that the opening, based on the observations of a sidekick, is written by Evans and the descriptions of the lack of organisation at a poetry reading show the point of view of a young passionate man whose anger resonates with his search for meaning. Have the action scenes been penned by Carmichael? How would the novel fare without its clever plotting? The poem ‘Distance’ at the end is a clear example of Carmichael's work and there are readings of it online. It is hard to really know who wrote what but the book is able to easily blend an obviously mutually understood world and the characters crackle, fizz and pop. There’s is humour in the book, when show boating Gene waltzes into an East End caf and sits quietly ‘glum’ while both girlfriends, ‘Maria’ and ‘plain Claire’ hold court over the spoken word poetry scene.

"What is wrong?" asks Spike to his friend who just stares ahead and mutters hollowly that ‘Carver, Raymond Carver has died.’

BIG CITY BEATS

This revelation floors Spike as he never knew his friend was a fan of Raymond Carver and the spare response and style may be a homage to the American master of 'less is more'. Spike never knows what Gene is going to do next and despite them seeming to be best friends it shows how little they know about each other outside of the desire to be the next big thing in spoken word poetry. There is a 'Withnail and I' quality about the book, though at times, the admitted ‘angry at the world tone’ is played on frequently. What the book s great at is showing how little we do know about the people we spend time with. The action scenes are comic, perhaps penned by Carmichael (who has recently passed away) but again I don’t know. The scenes of drug taking have maximum impact and show the debauched side of drug addiction, poverty, sex for sale, etc. The celebration of Spike’s birthday on February 14th is filled with pathos and terrible sadness as the boys veer from name checked East End watering holes, like The Blind Beggar, to Murphy’s which is their secret name for the White Hart, all culminating in a quite debauched downward spiral as things literally go south after a disastrous reading at the posh Chelsea Arts and Crafts Fair.

Danny Boyle, would you option this?

There is lots of great funny writing about working class observations of ‘Taffs’. The figure of Rhys a kind of stoned bully from hell who persecutes Spike for maximum comic effect is particularly effective as we want Spike to stand up for himself, which he never does. Rhys, described as ‘the blond pale shit-bag, a neurosis and crisis written scumbag’ is over the top so we delight in the mad caper of his sadistic advances. The sadness of the book permeates through but the book has a page turning quality, and would make a decent film as the set pieces, all based a round London landmarks like Pall Mall, Soho, The Red Lion Pub, Soho peep shows, The Blind Beggar, evoke a certain era of East End versus West End rent boys, scenesters, poets and lowlife's of 1980’s London.

I see this book as a film. The scene driving around Buckingham Palace is a page right out of classic cinema and the characters are rip snortingly real, as if the writer had put it down here to get the characters right when the book is filmed. This book has a very dark soul but is honest in its account of real life events which may have occurred at The Hard Edge Club from 1989 till 1995 and it features award winning writing (the first chapter won the East Side Writers award in 1998) and the comedy is there. If there were a sequel I would call it something like Spiked: Withnail’s uncle pops his clogs in Soho.

After speaking with Kevin Evans by phone recently and in light of the recent death of his old friend Glenn Carmichael, I asked Kevin whom he would like to direct the film of this book. One particular person was in my mind but I asked Kevin anyway. "Danny Boyle or someone like that, would do a great job." Are you a director looking for a book set in 1980's London. This one has it all, and deserves its beat, cult status.

What Patrick saw (and wrote about)

2020-04-15T09:20:00.002+01:00

Performed by Mama C

Star Mining Machinery of an Alien Kind?

2019-09-29T17:01:00.003+01:00

Review

Caw of the wild

2019-09-21T10:32:00.004+01:00

A review of Scott Andrew Christensen’s word play poetry debut.

Like a mind grasping at life’s absurdity Nova Scotia poet Scott Andrew Christensen’s spare and taut poems cast lines across the page like a fly fisherman, flirting with a canny and yet unconquerable mid-size Atlantic Salmon. The sense of wit and tension is perhaps reflected in the idea of that eye fixed on that infernal fly (or bird thumping against the window pane) or perhaps the inner psychology of a soul in reflective mode, catching inspiration in nits in the sunlight. If the metaphor of water is used it is with great effect and the channels of thinking and questioning permeate numerous word play poems which pay homage to nature like a late night voice at the cottage speculating not on life but at the etymology in life itself. ‘Buckets of Buffed Caw’ is stand alone study in the singular originality of the poetic voice. Seek this one out to catch a glimpse of Elizabeth Bishop and a ghost of George Elliot Clarke. Unexpected and a delight to read and reread for its obscure and at times brilliant dead pan humour. The Turkish influence also resonates in strange and beguiling ways.

Review

East Beat anight?

2019-01-17T21:23:00.003+00:00

Does the ghost of Kingsley Hall haunt the east end?

Shakespeare's Ripper: Templar Knights, East End Frights

2018-11-27T20:27:00.001+00:00

'You are the first,' a shadowy brother whispers to a terrified actress before clasping his large hands around her neck and throttling her before dissecting the young body to mimic the crimes of Jack the Ripper.

So begins Naomi Asher Wallace's novel blending the unsolved mystery of the East End's most diabolic denizen Jack the Ripper with a modern Shakespearean tale of shadowy Masonic lore. While the novel is admittedly inspired by Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and borrows hypothesis from the Johnny Depp film, From Hell, the delight of this mystery lies in the understated charm of the novel's academic protagonist, brainy but unlucky in love Dr Arden James and her American Theatre student protegé Charlie Leder.

Opening up Shakespearean London like an insider tour guide, the novel's stagey protagonists sleuth in London's lower caverns of the Thames and Globe theatre. The passionate students continue their cat and mouse love interest in an annex of the London School of Economics where, Dr James confesses a little possessívely that Leder is her sole pupil; as bars and bridges are scoured, London is revealed the way a well meaning but mysterious Good Samaritan may take an American student under their wing.

Clearly mortified and distancing herself from loud and brash American student, Mary Jo, Dr James takes her magnifying glass and wide eyed student and sets to track down her unpublished academic essay which as gone missing from the archives of Shakespeare's Globe. The gift in Asher's writing is that you feel Dr Arden's sense of outrage and want the essay back for her.

The side characters of Mary Jo and the undercover clutzy cop Peter feel like real life walk ons from musicals of a bygone era, with undercover lover Peter speaking in a Dick Van Dyke/Sam Wellerian mockney (Blast!) and Mary Jo speaking in a voice which would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. The comedy works.

At one point you may be forgiven for hoping Mary Jo is the next victim of the accursed 'brothers'. However the understated and humble tone of Dr Arden and her naive but insightful sidekick charts the story's course and we are coaxed into James and Leder's love story and hidden back alleyways around the Thames as they hunt for that missing thesis.

Although at times heavy in plot which suggests the power of the Templar Knights as Masonic puppet masters from the crusades and Elizabethan era through to now, Shakespeare's Ripper is full of intrigue about potential divisions within the secret society which adds to a palpable narrative: is an extremist religious zealot stalking the back streets casting sinister designs and perverting the cause of sacred Masonic secrets?

Careful not to offend (excusing any possibility of Masonic involvement in the Jack the Ripper murder), the dense plot is given vibrancy and wit by the solidarity of the two relentless students while Mary Jo offers stand alone comic relief and steals many a scene, a la Bronson Pinchot in Beverly Hills Cop.

If people have quibbles about Dan Brown taking poetic license with the facts, it hasn't affected his sales and Shakespeare's Ripper is an entertaining ride through the centuries, a winner featuring enduring wit and a sequel would not be out of place and surely find its own slot in a crowded thriller marketplace.

2018-11-18T17:11:00.001+00:00

An Interview with Naomi Asher Wallace author of: Shakespeare's Ripper. A romantic modern day thriller featuring Shakespearean sights, Templar knights and East End frights.

New York book launch: November 28th

Naomi,
Congratulations on your book and what a spine tingling read!

Thank you!

Q: I can see you have studied a wide range of subjects in your time in university in London and the UK. Did you have a plan to write all along and choose your university qualifications as a way to gain experience or did you plan to study theatre etc and then move into a career in music and did the urge to write take over? How do you conjure characters and where does your muse come from?

A: I seem to always have a lot to say! When I find a subject interesting, I need to know everything I possibly can about that subject. When I was growing up, that involved my memorizing large passages from the World Book Encyclopaedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Now, it’s more that I spend ages googling something. My passion for all things ‘English’, especially musical theatre and drama came from a very young age. I grew up watching Joan Hickson as Miss Marple every Sunday on Masterpiece theatre. We would go to afternoon tea (there were places that did ‘English’ afternoon teas in Los Angeles!), and when I was 10, my parents took me to London for the first time. I was completely hooked. We saw three shows when I was 10; Phantom of the Opera (which has literally just opened 32 years ago), Les Miz, and Into the Woods. I had to know everything I could about British Theatre. And the chain reaction from that point on significantly changed the course of my life. When I was in undergrad in the USA, I did as much theatre as possible and spent a Summer at the Globe doing an education course, which I loved. It is what made me interested in the Staging Shakespeare Degree program that Exeter offered. I actually was accepted to the Actors Studio in New York for Directing, but I found out about that three months after paying Exeter my deposit so I am probably one of the only people who can say I had to turn the Actors Studio down!

My fascination with Jack the Ripper came out of my own interest in Victorian history. I was reading quite a bit about the Freemasons and the Da Vinci code came out, and with the film, From Hell… I just wanted to know myself what was true. Of course I became obsessed and needed to become an expert. I was going to pursue a PhD in Cults and Secret Societies in Elizabethan Drama when I initially moved back to London but that didn’t work out. Probably for the best!

All my characters come from something around me. I can hear them talking (that sounds a lot weirder than it is) but I sort of make them three dimensional in my head. Often I base them on real people. Both Arden and Charlie are based on real people. Peter is based on a real person, as is Mary Jo. My ‘Muse’ sort of comes from anything and anywhere!

Q: From the beginning of Shakespeare’s Ripper, you do a great job of showing hidden London to the first time visitor and there are comical moments which accurately describe new visitors to London. The ‘American in London’ subtext haunts the opening of book and you open the secrets of London like a tour guide? How does the London you remember from your time as an American student in 1999 influence your tale?

A: Even now, every day I’m reminded to some extent that I’m American and this is not America. It’s funny really and I’ve always accepted and loved British culture but I think that one mistake many Americans make when the come here is, because the language is largely the same, they think the culture is the same. If they were in Spain for instance, I think there would be some sort of reckoning with the idea of ‘I’m in Spain- I must speak Spanish- it’s a different country’. However, they get off the plane here and think, ‘ Why can’t the signs say ‘Exit’ instead of ‘Way Out’?’. I’ve seen it really upset many of my fellow countrymen and when I was a student, there were other students that had a horrible time here because they couldn’t understand why things weren’t working in the American way. It was a bit like – well, we’re not in America, now are we. That being said, I live in London which is a very international city. When you go out of the city, things can be much different. My best friend lives in the lake district and her family could not be more welcoming but I went to a wedding in Stockport and the guests were so rude to my mother and I, didn’t speak to us, and had this – “oh, it’s the ‘AMERICANS’ way about them no matter how friendly we tried to be. There is a ‘dumb American’ stereotype that is not easy to shake no matter how hard you work or how many degrees and certifications you achieve. But we’re not all Mary Jo (and to be fair, the fact that character has a passport really says something). It would be impossible for me to write anything therefore without coming at it from an ‘American in London’ perspective. Also, being American, I find I don’t dance around subjects. British men in particular can be very polite, but don’t know how to, or have been taught not to, say what they feel. I often can’t stop myself from saying what is on my mind and that can highlight the cultural difference in nearly every aspect of life.

Q: Have works featuring historical figures re-imagined in a murder mystery setting been any sort of inspiration?

You do mention the Da Vinci Code and The Jack the Ripper film ‘From Hell’ in the book when you tackle conspiracy theories. Do you have books which cover this genre which have inspired you? I’m thinking here of Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor.

A: Absolutely. Dan Brown’s books and the film ‘From Hell’ were both inspirational to some extent. I love Phillipa Greggory and Peter Ackroyd. I’m generally a sucker for historical fiction. Also, I love Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens. I also love how Terry Pratchett’s Ankh Moorpark was a sort of sci-fi version of London. Everything I read and watch influences me to some extent.

Q: I’ve imagined the Porter speech an Macbeth a early take on the Knock knock jokes but had not imagined it may be a Knights of Templar or Masonic Code. How hard is it to weave a tangible and believable narrative when dealing with trying to link up such well trodden historical subject matter ?

A: When I wrote the first drafts of the book, I was saturated in masonic lore. This was one of the prime ‘examples’ if you will, of the connection to the Knights Templar. I had spent such a long time, sponging up these sorts of examples, they were going to come out somehow. When I wrote the first draft, I was teaching in Baltimore. It was a crazy winter and we had 9 snow days. I was bored out of my mind so I took my laptop to a café around the corner from my house and basically sat there and wrote for the whole time. It was as if I could just release all of this information that I had ingested and by creating this fictional story, it gave me the freedom to release it in any way I wanted. If I was writing a dissertation, I would have had to prove this example for instance, but because it was something I was weaving into a story, I could let it be another piece of a different puzzle. I love the fact that so many people have spent time working to prove Shakespeare was a freemason and that things like the Porter scene are evidence of that. I don’t want to prove anything- I just want to tell a good story.

Q: You have some great comedic moments with the appearance of the loud American Mary Jo and the cop Peter’s interesting East End mockney accent which sounds to me like a cross between Sam Weller (Pickwick Papers) and Dick Van Dyke. Peter’s regular use of the use of the cuss ‘blast’ proves a nice comic touch too.

How hard is it to make the characters come to life and where have you found the inspiration?

A: Both Mary Jo and Peter are based on real people. It’s funny because being from LA, there really aren’t any people like Mary Jo in my life but when I moved to DC at age 16 and I met the person she is based on, I was shocked that such people exist. As a west end theatre manager, I saw a lot of ‘Mary Jos’. Because I find that type of person so comical, it’s really my writing an exaggerated version of a specific stereotype. It’s the same with the Peter character. That character is based on someone I met 14 years ago when I was doing some promotional work in Leicester Square. He was a real ‘geezer’ and suddenly I knew what Dick Van Dyke had based his accent on. In both these cases, when I write them, I sort of hear those specific people talking in my head and write what I hear. That sounds creepy – I’m not hearing voices- but more that I am picturing those people in that situation and remember their sound and their manner and create the words from that. If that makes sense?

(Reading later - Yes, deninitely!)

Q: Any plans on reading London soon or any other readings coming up leading up to the holidays and New Year? If so can you give details? Where can we get copies of the book?

A: The book is available on Amazon! We are doing an event in New York at the end of this month. I would love to do more in London but nothing is planned at the moment.

Q:Finally, as you have weaved a compelling and tantalising tale which taps deep into the psyche of Londoner is there a chance of a sequel or are you working on something completely different?

A: At the moment I have a lot on my plate with work and such, but I would love to write a sequel! Stay tuned!

Naomi Claire Wallace Asher Biography

Originally from Los Angeles, CA, Naomi moved to the UK in 1999 after completing her BA in Art History and Theatre at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. After receiving an MFA in Staging Shakespeare from Exeter University in 2000, Naomi spent three years as the head of the Drama Department at Owings Mills High School near Baltimore, Maryland before moving back to the United Kingdom where she has lived ever since. Naomi worked in the West End first as a box office manager and then a theatre manager before joining forces with her cousins and owners of WixenMusic Publishing, Inc., Randall and Sharon Wixen, to open Wixen Music UK LTD of which she is a co-owner and President. She recently received a PDip with Merit from Kings College in EU, UK and US copyright Law and also recently co-founded the Independent Alliance for Artist Rights for Neighbouring Rights Representatives.

Naomi has been writing her whole life. Her play, Madman William has received critical success internationally in both the US and the UK. November 2018 sees the release of both Shakespeare’s Ripper as well as the UK edition of Randall Wixen’s The Plain and Simple Guide to Music Publishing, of which she is a co-author. In addition, her functionalized autobiographical novel, By Page about her year as a United States House of Representatives Page, is self-published on Amazon. She is a loving mother to her two boys and could not follow her every whim the way she has done without the unwavering support of her family.

Philosophy, Trekking and a little tomb robbing, by Zeus!

2018-10-30T22:07:00.001+00:00

When the wine is bitter.

I really like this writer's ode to thinking, writing and a little rakiya. His name is Ian Smith.
Walking Greek Peaks, Bulgarian Rhodes?

How Festive the 'Cultural Acclimation' or the #$@&%*! in FU

2018-05-09T21:43:00.001+01:00

If it be the job of the poet to capture the zeitgeist of the moment or reflect the feeling of the times in the same way that Shakespeare captured Jacobean society (or more certainly the language of Elizabethan England) or the way that the Psalms captured Biblical times then a modern poet must capture modern times surely?

In How Festive the Ambulance, an incisive stab at the quest to be heard (on several continents) the ambition of Kim Fu's assured début may put off many veterans of poetry who see poetry as a higher art form. That is not to say that the book falters because it is not finely written but more to say that poetry can be so many things. Alternatively if poetry is 'a trick on the page', or has a foot in both worlds as entertainment and enlightenment then surely somewhere in the arrangement of words the reader must be intrigued to search for deeper meaning. This book achieves this quest in a subtle way by placing the voice deep in the text, like the voice of a plotter heard through a wall who may or not be saying: ' If you haven't caught it yet no one believes what you want them to believe: the message in many cases could be an unequivocal Fuck You!! If protest be the food of modern life, is it fair to ask what the protest is against? HFTA seduces quietly by starting with offhand remarks.

'Winnipeg has the highest density

of mosquitos per square mile

on earth'

So starts the introduction to the world of FU in 'I READ SOMEWHERE'.

This Winnipeg trivia, which would equally get a laugh in a pub as elicit a wry smile from a child in a Grade seven class, makes the reader feel like a fly on the wall spying on a group of passive aggressive millenials or singletons.

In the title poem, the poet's ability to arrange the words in a detached cadence is showcased:

How Festive the ambulance looks

studded with jewel coloured lights

ruby and amber on the outer rim of the Ferris wheel

The meaning of the poem is obscured by the slow style until we realise in DEAR RACHEL, I BORROWED YOUR CAR, that Rachel, has been put in 'neutral' has rolled off the pier in her car and the ambulance may or may not be there for her. Is this the little sense of outrage in these times in which language is forgotten as if the Rosetta stone or translation services to the world have left us reduced to a simple stifled expression that no one can be bothered to respond to?

The delight of FU is that she is able to show this by taking stabs at the meanings of being alive and fighting to say I see you but perhaps you don't see me. Is the neutrality of the world there in the actions of the people, shrinking away from each other left to communicate through digital means, separated by miles and miles of email and data breaching?

In SMALL ROOMS IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD

'A teacher says I would be punished

for my mediocrity with a tiny apartment

in the land of the dead'

So is there anything here other than a strange arrangement of words? If the poet must commit, then FU does a good job of keeping you ready, like a teacher hearing inane conversations before the class erupts and all the year nines have pen and ink on them. Speaking of teaching, how many high school students would tactfully restrain themselves before they picked up on the #$@&%*! in FU?

FU has a beleagured sense of modern life (and one may imagine the myriad electronic gizmos that accompany it).

'You left Buenos Aires for New York, New York for Bombay, Bombay for Paris. I am trying to find beauty in an overturned bread bowl.'

In COMPLEXITIES OF AN INSULT:

'That he addressed her in English: Don't

though his accent was Francophone...

...

Somewhere through all of this conversation there is a light bulb going off and the readers gets a sense of the silent subversive joker laughing at the world but also looking at the boredom and apathy around us.

ANY NUMBER OF REMARKABLE THINGS

I stay up late

because the act of brushing my teeth

and laying my glasses on the bedside table

means there is nothing left to see.

The self awareness is also palpable for someone who may prefer not to be seen as well.

THE PIG MAN/ I HAVE A FORGETTABLE FACE

I have a forgettable face. It allows me to belch in public, to fart, to wipe snot on my sleeve, because I don't know these people and they won't remember me.

The poems talk about the end of the mind, the end of the reliance of the mind and the simple protests that are there in daily life to shriek out against this, in little stabs and knocks at the great slumbering muse in all of us.

Revenge of the Battery Hen or...If poetry is a magic trick on the page what does poet David Alexander conjure for the mother hen in all of us?

2018-04-26T21:58:00.001+01:00

If you've seen the recent McDonald's commercials (er at least ad vertz in the UK) you'll know that big business will go far to ensure the chicken on your plate is either Kosher, Halal, hand reared or otherwise plucked and de-clucked with kindness. Whether or not you believe this to be true is another thing and David Alexander's book of poetry, After the Hatching Oven, Nightwood Editions (2018) debunks a few of these myths and puts the pathos of henny penny back in favour of the persecuted pullet.

For those working at the Egg Boards of Canada Pluckers, how many may recall a shadowy janitorial figure with a late night case of the munchies, ambling into a 'bright, tiled place, (who) chewed through spicy tendons and veins and dropped bones onto the rain kissed sidewalk'? How would the tragic end of a cybernetic fowl register with a child who watches with interest a beak peck through a brown egg in a primary school incubator? If poetry is a magic trick on the page, what does the poet David Alexander conjure for the Mother Hen in all of us?

Alexander is philosophical the plight of the innocent fowl and considers a chicken who may have 'rebel'led and perhaps fomed a 'language for revolution'. That is not to say this is a glib critique of the consumer society, although it is certainly a celebration of the place in history of the beloved farm yard hen. Many of the poems in the collection pay tribute to pheasant's domesticated cousin, gallus gallus, through literary forbears, or friends: H.G. Wells, Bp nichol, Ted Hughes, Dani Couture, Elizabeth Bishop, Kate Sutherland; those familiar with allegorical tales may delight in nods to Animal Farm or tales from Brother's Grimm. The art of the poems is to put the lens on the hen from different vantage points: public health advisories, recipes, parables, terrorism acts. Crossing time zones and states of mind each poem is an individuated, self contained-riff on how we got to cram all those birds in small heated spaces and forgot our own modest beginnings in the doing. From a Review of the London Poultry House, an online course on chicken behaviour and welfare, the recurring theme is our little red hen friend, and their quiet existence in our lives under duress. In Elegy a rooster crows 'who was she, was she yours?'

If you have even lived on a farm you know the cluck of a contented chicken like the purr of a contented cat. You may also know about the weird sense of itchiness that comes when you visit a chicken battery, an "Auschwitz for hens" a Jewish family friend once remarked. Is this the subversive protest of a friend left behind?

The sensitivity for the beloved bird which has been subsumed in Knorr Cubes and deep fried wings is relayed as if slogans or calls to arms, pasted on a Town Hall wall. It is as if these carefully chosen pastiches of separate comic, existential or biblical poems is addressing a separate audience but asking the same question: would chickens be as kind to us if the roles were switched? If chickens were as big as a Tyranasaurus Rex, if they could spread an avian flue epidemic, if they could show love to us, would they? Or is the yolk really on us? Idiomatically, chickens as a subject, can't be topped surely? After all, you don't have to be a good egg, to know this is chicken soup for the soul, no? But is this book of poetry a simple run of cliches on our feathered friend?

No. This is a late night behind the barn with two people who are going to duke it out for the rest of the village because there is no better way to express the rage of oppression. This is the pamphlet that lies in the corner, the newspaper, the spitoon bucket, each sheet of paper a leaf of anti-hen slavery rhetoric.

This is a warning to multinationals and those persons seeking to exist on fast food. What goes around, flies right back in your face and conscience. Is it really better to persecute or beloved bird and claim ignorance and run afowl of our own conscience? After all when we drive through the KFC, isn't it better to ask how we got to this point or, seeking to bury our heads in modern convenience do we even know that if we are not careful about how we look at familiar things – surely for the benefit of our own souls – our own goose may be cooked, our own chickens may come home to roost as well?