Long Dark Summer of the Soul

There have been half-hearted attempts at starting some short stories. There have been half-hearted attempts at starting a novel. There have been half-hearted attempts at writing some poetry. There has been no attempt to keep up my blog entries.

So much for the summer!

Duff

A long time ago I loved poetry. I read poetry, I wrote poetry, I breathed poetry. I learned word rhythm from the poets of old. I learned playfullness of language with the new poets...

But I was left cold by Andrew Motion's promotion some years back, as I am today by Carol Ann Duffy's appointment. I would want a real poet laureate to be at the Prime Minister's side during important press conferences, with a few words to underline prepared statements. The Press would have to report the poem as part of their editorial, the Media would have to show B-roll of it in their political round-up... Poetry would become a truly essential part of life, instead of the marginalised affectation it is.

Working In A Vacuum

I am working in a vacuum. That is, an atmosphere where no-one reads what I write, hears what I sing, listens to what I play. How does the creative artist continue like this? Complete and utter refusal to engage with the non-receptiveness of a nonplussed public. Sometimes the best work is created in this hermetic bubble, though it is seldom appreciated at the time of conception - but years, perhaps even decades later. Will my blog, this blog, be read by future generations - if it still exists? Will it lead them to my works? Are you, dear reader, the nonplussed public of now - or the student of the future?

Not quite twenty years ago today

1989 was the last year of my degree and after I'd left Uni and moved back home I "put the band back together" as Jake Blues would say. I can hardly believe it's twenty years since all this happened. If only we'd had the internet then, and been able to create myspace and facebook pages for Carrillion perhaps we'd have gotten somewhere. Equally the comedy group I was in could have done a lot more in terms of promoting ourselves by posting our work on You Tube. Damn!

Still, I think older and wiser as I am, my crative work is more relevant now than it was then, mired as it undoubtedly was in a young person's angst. All the same I think that early work of mine is ripe for rediscovery, and I intend to make it available at some point.

+ support...

Been busy scanning in old band posters and paraphenalia from my earlier career as a 'rock star'. Following sixth form I did not immediately go to Uni, but chose instead to pursue my musical passion which had begun as a school band a couple of years before. In hindsight I think I was a little ahead of my time - the early 80s were a time for New Romantics and my unique brand of poetry and rock rhythms had yet to find to find an audience.

This poster here probably didn't help. It was drawn by an old girlfriend from school who was actually in another band and is far too New Romantic to convey to the audience the unusual genre of music Carrillion was about. Later I designed my own posters and covers, but after a couple of years I decided I should go to Uni anyway, and the first incarnation of Carrillion broke up.

Carrillion Group

Today I created a group on google groups for an archival anthology of the music I have produced under the name 'Carrillion' since 1983. I intend to upload some MP3's and other archival pictures and cassette covers as well.

You can find it here.

Dark Nights

I was asked if I wanted to watch The Dark Knight at a friends house who has just bought the DVD. And Dark indeed is the night that The Dark Knight inhabits. Too dark, really. Too much shadow. Ledger is mesmeric, though.

Superhero comics and graphic novels is an area I once ventured into - writing an outline story for a friend of mine who wanted to draw a comic but couldn't write a story. It was called 'Com Sat Angel', after the 80's band, but although I spent some weeks working on the story, my friend never got around to drawing much beyond the cover and the first couple of pages.

I think I still have some of the artwork somewhere and if I find it I will post it here,

New Wor(l)ds 10

A little later than usual, New Wor(l)ds volume 10 is out containing the cream of my recent short fictions and poetry.
I elected a type only design this time to emphasize the power of the word over the image in writing. I am concerned that culturally we seem to be veering away from text toward sound and image. Can this really be the beginning of the end for pure literature?

I guess that as long as me, and people like me, continue to carve away our literary niches there will always be Words.

Fictions:
Tight Fist
Deep Blue Devil
Raking the Earth
Boomerang Babies
Tidiness in Purfleet

Poetry:
Ful(l)filled i
Ful(l)filled ii

Sorry seems to be the easiest word, at least in Oz

I was struck yesterday by the text of the apology made by the Australian government to aborigines for the systematic removal of generations of infants from their families and place of birth. The full text is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations and what struck me was the certainty that we will never see a British government apologise so unconditionally; Blair will never say 'sorry' for Iraq and WMD's.

I am working on a short story based on my research into this Stolen Generation issue called 'Boomerang Babies'.

Don't twitter about it, write it.

As if writers were short of excuses not to actually get down to the business of writing, I have noticed an alarming new development where lazy writers end up writing nothing more than their own blogs... which ironically are all about writing! Because of the connectivity of the awfully-named blogosphere, these 'writers' end up in perpetual connection with each other, Twittering away about how marvellous these new social medias are and fretting over how they 'as writers' are going to fit their work around those medias, all without actually generating any new original writing, unless it is more twaddle on the 'nature' of writing in this new dangerous digital age. Christ!