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An Interview with Stephen Watt
THE MUMBLE : Hi Stephen, so where ya from & where ya at geographically speaking
STEPHEN : Dumbarton, born and sandwich-bred.
THE MUMBLE : Its clear Dumbarton FC is in your blood, how did becoming club laureate come about
STEPHEN : About four years ago, I had written a poem ‘Boghead’ which won 3rd prize in The Pride & The Passion Football Anthology – judged by Ian McMillan and in association with Derby Country FC. My poem was then published in Dumbarton’s match-day programme vs Hearts in October 2014. At the time, it crossed my mind that a poet-in-residence would be an interesting concept, uniting football with literature. Not long after this, Selkirk FC appointed Thomas Clark, who had also appeared in the anthology, as the first Scottish football club poet-in-residence – and then St Johnstone FC appointed Jim Mackintosh – both of whom are now friends and exceptional poets. After a bit of coercing, I was delighted when Dumbarton FC said that they were open to the idea of appointing their first poet-in-residence, and confirmed this appointment in September 2016 for the home game against St Mirren.
THE MUMBLE : When did you first feel yourself getting into poetry
STEPHEN : 1999. I was assaulted twice within six months and I was in a messy place attending counselling, the court trial, suffering from depression etc. I was lying on my bed listening to a bin lorry rumbling down the street when I began scribbling something down into a little notebook. Although I was 19, I had often written short stories throughout my teens and knew that there was a creative side somewhere in me having previously dabbled with charcoal drawings and cartoons before. Anyone can write poetry – it was something I didn’t feel that I had to be tutored on (although, of course, it’s hugely beneficial when one reads, listens to other poets, and works at their craft) and I was delighted when I had my first poem published at the age of 20.
————–
Moors
(Appears on Neon Poltergeist EP)
Royal colours
appear to dissolve
the recondite dales
where only the hares
could tell
where the bodies are buried.
Butterflies taunt
like extinct murmurs,
agitated by the demi-suns
of police torches
pursuing
breath, blood, bone.
In prison, his soup
swills with broken glass,
piss, hepatitis
but he cares little,
used to fasting
in isolation.
Beneath the peat,
a suspended child
stretches up to Heaven
but is primed
to wait.
The light will find him.
———–
THE MUMBLE : What were your earliest poetic inspirations & what inspires you today
STEPHEN : Carol Ann Duffy was, and remains, one of my biggest inspirations. She is brilliantly talented and has a system which captures my imagination every time. But social narrators have always been the lifeblood of what I write about – Irvine Welsh, Anthony Burgess, Nick Hornby… directors like Danny Boyle, Ken Loach, Shane Meadows… musicians like Jarvis Cocker, Mike Skinner, Kate Bush… and poets like John Cooper-Clarke, Charles Bukowski, Ian Dury… I also love gothic/horror, as shown in the macabre E.P 55.862670, -4.231142 (co-ordinates of Glasgow Necropolis) released with sound engineer/musician Gareth McNicol last year under the guise of ‘Neon Poltergeist’ and have to credit Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein” with inspiring that part of my writing.
THE MUMBLE : You are an active member of the Scottish spoken word scene. Is at as thriving as it seems
STEPHEN : I had been writing for 11yrs before I first broached the stage in 2010, courtesy of Robin Cairns at his ‘Last Monday At Rio’ evening. In the past seven years, I have attended countless spoken word evenings, mostly in Glasgow but certainly across Scotland too, as well as festivals and fusion nights (cabaret, theatre, music, comedy, improv, spoken word, magic, etc) and met so many incredible talents that it is easy to forget how little there was to choose from at the start of the decade. What I am wary of is that poetry patterns demonstrate peaks and troughs, and that nothing lasts forever. There are good people involved, there are passionate people who are trying to get their message across, and that the upward trajectory in spoken word popularity (Nationwide adverts, Kate Tempest on Jimmy Fallon’s “The Tonight Show”, etc) shows that it is currently in vogue. Who can say when this will trail off but in the meantime, we are hugely enjoying the public’s approval.
THE MUMBLE : When it comes to OTHER poets, who should we be looking out for
There are so many exciting lights on the scene that it is difficult to whittle that list down to a few. Liam McCormack blazed out of nowhere and slayed the London BBC audiences…. Calum Bannerman remains a firm favourite… Loud Poets are the hardest-working unit in the country…. Katharine McFarlane is as beguiling as her character, a stunning writer (Katharine has supported me at both my ‘Optograms’ book launch and Neon Poltergeist EP launch)… and then there are seasoned campaigners who we all know are just wonderful additions to any bill – Jenny Lindsay, Kevin Gilday, Sam Small, Ross McFarlane. And then across in Ireland, Matthew Rice is captivating. I get more excited about seeing these guys in action than I do my own turn, frequently.
———————
Wobble
Mid-February, at a Jah Wobble gig in Nice n’ Sleazys,
watching a metallic-haired raver
wrap himself around one of the greasy
pink hard-boiled sugar poles
declaring it to be “ma best pal in the world”,
listening to a rendition of the Get Carter theme,
I slip into a gig-dream
back in your chic-shack
with the Get Carter soundtrack playing
as we shared a pack of cigarettes on a mattress
discussing how typically us
to be single on a Saturday night
savouring nicotine, Michael Caine, and our teens
together.
No-one takes pictures at this gig
because it is an older audience
who know how to appreciate here and now
without the constant need to document
every tremor of a performer’s eyebrows
and I wonder how
you are getting on; whether or not
you would like the reggae-bass or steel drums
or call me a wanker for being out
enjoying this song without you.
My thumb presses record on my phone,
warrants the burn of all eyes around me;
tapes a handful of seconds to show you
in case you ever get in touch.
——————–
THE MUMBLE : You have just returned from performing at Stanza 2017, can you tell us about the experience.
STEPHEN : Oh. Wow. I was sharing the lunchtime bill with Katharine McMahon at the Byre Theatre. We had hoped to sell 20-30 seats and then we were advised by the Glasgow makar Jim Carruth that he couldn’t get in because we had sold out! It was a fun experience – very professional for what we are used to in ‘Poetry World’ (agendas, transport, registration – all very official) but a real treat to visit such a beautiful town and perform to such an attentive audience. I was supported by friends made at Bloody Scotland crime writing festival, former makars of the Federation of Writers (Scotland), the afore-mentioned Jim Mackintosh, but equally as wonderful was a new audience tuning in to my little insecurities that I like to pen down. I only wish I could have stayed longer, but I found StAnza to be a very warm, supportive, and poetry-passionate experience for which I am grateful to the director, Eleanor Livingstone, for inviting me to.
THE MUMBLE : You also chaperone your poetry into print. Can you tell us about your two collections.
STEPHEN : “Spit” was published in 2012. Looking back, it’s a farrago of punk, nostalgia, romance, and social commentary – but in the most favourable terms. I have incredible memories associated with that book – and it produced perhaps the strongest piece I have ever written, ‘Rubik’. “Optograms” was published in 2016 and is a lot darker – it certainly counters social issues with a helpline number attached beneath every title which is indexed towards the back of the book. Issues include homophobia, eating disorders, drug misuse, prisoners’ rights, noir, miscarriage, and more. I’m not trying to paint any fairytale ending to these poems – the helpline number is supposed to be the shining light at the end of the tunnel. I was fortunate that punk photographer Peter Gravelle agreed to produce the cover for the book, and I can only hope that it helps someone during a bleak period in their life.
THE MUMBLE : What does Stephen Watt do when he’s not musing into the aether
STEPHEN : Right now I am preparing for my wedding – less than 11 weeks to go. But usually I am planning – whether that’s my social life (attending Dumbarton games, friends’ birthdays, visiting my wonderful niece), working within the housing sector, or matters of a poetic-nature. I’m also a reviewer for The Mumble, Louder Than War, Pat’s Guide to the West End, and attend a number of music gigs which, in essence, is my first love. As soon as New York was chosen as our Honeymoon, I was straight online to check if any favourites are playing in the state when we visit. I’m also a fan of crime fiction and have read books recently by Sandra Ireland, Amanda Fleet, Craig Robertson, Chris Brookmyre, and several others which really get the creative juices flowing.
————–
Vladimir Komarov
In the lapsed nugatory of space,
the milk of the moon melts into atoms,
gasps of stars
exhaled
from aliens with green, rubbery faces
and kinky wit, eager to see what happens.
It transpires in slow motion.
From thister
to lustre, the sheen of the Milky Way
reflecting like false teeth
in a bedside glass of water;
the hypothetical future
toasting his lungs, heart and organs
towards where his wife and children
shelter their eyes from the sun
as the present rips their world apart.
—————–
THE MUMBLE : Will you be performing at any festivals/events throughout the summer
STEPHEN : I’ll be reading at Stowed Out Festival in August which will be an opportunity for the three football club PIR’s to meet together for the first time. I will also be appearing at various festivals as part of the Ten Writers Telling Lies project I am part of in association with musician Jim Byrne. If you want to see the perfect festival poet though, I recommend Mark McGhee of The Girobabies – but do toddle along to whatever stage I’m on if you find yourself between any bands and ice-cream.
An Interview with Nicky Melville
THE MUMBLE : Hi Nicky, so where you from & where ya at, geographically speaking
NICKY : I am from Dalkeith, just outside Edinburgh & now live in the city.
THE MUMBLE : Edinburgh is quite a poetic city to look at it – is it as poetic to live there
NICKY : Well, it’s a great place for poetry these days, loads going on, much more than when I started. But anywhere would be poetic at the moment I reckon, cause, for me, poetry comes from what’s going on in the country and the world, and there’s lots of shit going on at a local and global level right now.
THE MUMBLE : When did you realise you were a poet
NICKY : When folk started to publish my work I guess, such as Jim Ferguson away back in 1997!
THE MUMBLE : What poets inspired you then & who inspires you now
NICKY : Believe it or not, but I was inspired to write poetry in the vernacular after reading Irvine Welsh – which is the point, I think, when I began to write stuff that was no longer teenage juvenilia. Not long after that I found the work of Tom Leonard, which was, and still is, a great source of inspiration and encouragement. I’m also inspired by Peter Manson, Pavel Büchler, concrete poetry, William Carlos Williams, EE Cummings, the artist Louise Hopkins and Charles Reznikoff. More recently I’d say Sean Bonney and Jo L Walton, who’s now on poetry strike, which is a shame. The state of the world inspires me more than anything now.
THE MUMBLE: One of my favorite pieces of yours was the book which contained short accounts of prisoners ritualistic days. Can you tell us about that project
NICKY : I was working as Writer (not) in Residence at Saughton and the book, routine, was inspired by the structure of the prison day. There are ten times when prisoners are mobilised, cells opened (7.30 am), the route (8.30 am) when the prisoners are moved to their worksheds, and so on. I created a template of these times and asked 15 prisoners to respond in any way they liked to what these times meant. I then removed the times, so it would just be 10 statements about their day, with each one isolated on the verso page of the book, just as the prisoners are isolated to a cell. I also used their names and numbers to make it more bureaucratic, or official looking, to reflect the rigid way that prisons work and how it treats prisoners. And it’s hand finished: I have to remove two names and numbers, as I didn’t get permission from two prisoners to use that info before they were released. I usually burn those two corners.
THE MUMBLE :You are just about to release, ABBODIES. Can you tell us about the inspiration
NICKY : As a poet and subject of the UK, horrified at the swing to ugly nationalism that was manifest in the country, both before and after the Brexit, I felt it was imperative to respond somehow. In my ruminations I thought of ABBA, perhaps because of their many associations with Europe, Waterloo, Eurovision, etc., and it dawned on me that many ABBA lyrics could be used to describe what had happened: ‘blue since the day we parted’ – unending Tory rule; ‘when you’re gone, how can I even try to go on,’ and so on. I worked on the poem on and off from June to December, adding new ABBA lyrics that seemed pertinent, and, of course, during that time Trump won the US election. The (il)logical extension to the shock of Brexit, it reinforced some of the things I had been thinking about as I listened to ABBA songs, over and over again, driving my partner demented in the process. I began to read other things into their lyrics, that some of the songs alluded to aliens, and it made me muse about who was running the world. Trump’s election surprise reflected these thoughts back to me in the poem’s themes of power and string-pulling and, indeed, leg-pulling, for I wasn’t being entirely serious was I? In some ways it’s easier to believe that the world is secretly run by aliens, than to accept the reality that the majority of people in the world are right-wing nutjobs. It’s a bit David Icke, I know, though I prefer to think of it more as Rowdy Roddy Piper in John Carpenter’s They Live. The alien theory is (probably, hopefully) nonsense, but given how crazy events were in 2016, it makes you wonder exactly what the fuck is going on and where we’re going to end up. ABBODIES is also partly a homage to Corpses by Chilean poet Nestor Perlongher, written during the dictatorship it features the refrain ‘there are corpses.’ Which, when I read it, made me think of the information you get on the tube when someone’s killed themselves: ‘there is a body on the line.’ This was a perfect line to my mind about the state of the country and this period of unnecessarily enforced austerity – many bodies are on the line – which is now magnified by the Brexit. Also, it’s more personal than my usual work – with some actual words out of my own head! – tied together by my kids, parents, partner and lifelong love of the bird of prey: buzzard!
THE MUMBLE : Can you explain your own personal approach to the writing process
NICKY : My work is typically political, targeting capitalism, politicians, marketing, business, bureaucracy etc. To do this I use various processes or treatments, such as erasing found text – junk mail or Burns’ poems for example – with Tipp-Ex, or extracting lines from political manifestos, to subvert the language of late-capitalism and its politics. I aim for it to be experimental, challenging, funny and accessible. If I make myself laugh when I’m making stuff, I generally feel it’s working and that audiences will usually laugh as well.
THE MUMBLE : What does the rest of 2017 have in store for Nicky Melville
NICKY : I’m in the end stages of my AHRC funded PhD. I’ve created a 365 page multi-form poem, The Imperative Commands, composed entirely from the language of instruction that guides society on a daily basis. Using material harvested over a calendar year, it’s a snapshot of how we’re controlled and manipulated by language. It’s been fun, but I’ll need to find some kind of gainful employment after that. I’ll also try to find a brave publisher to take on The Imperative Commands…
***********************************************
A review of ABBODIES
by
Dr. Jim Ferguson
Nicky (Nick E.) Melville has long been a wonderfully experimental voice in poetry in Scotland. His work explores political and personal concerns artfully and accessibly with wry, ironic humour. ‘Abbodies’ looks at the author’s childhood of the late 1970s and early 80s through the dual lenses of pop megaband Abba and D. C. Thomson’s Oor Wullie. Melville’s title combines the word ‘Abba’ with the end of the Oor Wullie by-line: ‘Oor Wullie! Your Wullie! A’body’s Wullie!’ That last part, ‘A’body’s Wullie!’ was always likely to invite sniggers, shock, perplexity, surprise and comment from many a Scottish child.
This is an autobiographical narrative poem which reflects upon itself, Scottish, British and European identity and what it means to be a human being living in the world now. Each page is like the miniaturised chapter of a novel only with far fewer words and highly adept technical and poetical skill. The narrative moves forward until we meet Melville as a father himself, reflecting on what his father meant to him, and what might be the way ahead for his own children in order to lead happy and fulfilling lives at a time of great political uncertainty.
—
and Trump is
master of the scene
can’t resist the strange attraction
from that giant dynamo
look into his angel eyes
one look
and you’re hypnotised
don’t look too
deep in to
one day you’ll find
out he wears a disguise
a’body’s on the line
—-
What’s really interesting here is Melville’s uncovering of how deeply the pop-culture of childhood ingrains itself in the memory and the effect it has on the emotional make up of adults. This would be a standard kind of pop-psychology except that it intersects with national and international political questions such as Brexit, the rise of Donald Trump and the so-called ‘migrant crisis’, producing a poetry that could not be more relevant or up to date. ‘Abbodies’ is a major contemporary poem: it is brave, honest, intelligent, darkly humorous writing and a really great read. It is also neatly packaged like a seven inch single with a picture sleeve. Definitely worth buying.
You can buy a copy of ABBODIES here
Sad Press Poetry
£6 (Including Postage)
Vahni Capildeo and Elaine Feinstein
I made my pilgrimage up through the countryside to St.Andrew’s for the 20th anniversary of the StAnza poetry festival. Its quietness and charm lends itself perfectly to days dedicated to poetry, and there’s a special thrill to slipping through an archway, down a cobbled lane to the beautiful, warm and very modern Byre Theatre. The warmth continued inside, with an almost family-like informality among the audience; everyone mildly teasing and joking with one another. The last reading of the festival, with such prize-laden heavyweights as Vahni Capildeo and Elaine Feinstein should have been a sell out like the others had been over the past four days, but it was late on a Sunday evening after all. Others’ pilgrimages were longer than Edinburgh.
It made sense for the two women to be reading at the same event. Both poets are published by Carcanet, both winners of prestigious prizes, both trailblazers, both writing from a place of complicated and multilayered identity; fighting back against any marginalisation or categorisation by firmly and triumphantly taking the centre in life as well as in their work. Capildeo’s readings took us back and forth across oceans, to reflect the Caribbean experience; creating a web of experience from Trinidad, India and the UK. Feinstein, of Russian Jewish descent, and twice the age of Capildeo at 86, read us poems spanning the world, decades of social change, and the trajectory of love and loss over a long, rich life. Feinstein, anchored us with her intimate yet more familiar observations of marriage, family, ageing and loss. Comforting, after Capildeo had taken the ground from underneath us by quietly severing any sentimental attachments to preconceived notions or worn out power structures with her precise and powerful poems of politics, identity, migration and love.
Capildeo, the Trinidadian-British winner of the 2016 Forward Prize for Poetry, won for her exquisite fifth collection on matters of migration and identity, ‘Measures of Expatriation’. She read from this of course, but mixed it up with poems from a 2013 collection, ‘Utter’. She kept the audience close; by throwing out some dry meta-comedy beloved of people blessed with great intellect and a sense of mischief, gently teasing the audience while encouraging them to stay with her, lifting the listeners with laughter before dropping the next brick of a poem. A huge range of subject matter: from Molasses, about slavery, a spellbinding reading of Possum, about ‘personal’ identity, Laptop Blue Screen Realization bringing recognition, laughter and claps, and ending with Felt Pen, a ‘commentary on the commentary’ of a fellow artist’s creative process. A very Caribbean tradition in fact; lightening up the heaviness of life and a painful history with a joke or two. Capildeo uses similar searing precision in the choosing and placing of words as fellow Caribbean poet and Forward Prize winner Kei Miller. Capildeo delicately guides us through with the power and responsibility of acknowledging layers upon layers of history when writing for oneself, and whoever else should understand it, but also the liberty of inhabiting a creative space free from the burdens of history.
Unfortunately for Feinstein, as mesmering and wonderful as it was having a full hour with Capildeo, the interval cut into her time slot significantly. A winner of too many prizes to mention, we were enjoying the friendly sharing of the snapshots of her life; the explanatory stories sandwiched between poems rather like the ones you’d share over tea with a close friend; her bittersweet marriage and subsequent widowhood. Poems about her marriage and widowhood were particularly poignant, especially as she recited her elegy to her late husband by heart. Slightly flustered as she realised how little time she had left, she made sure to finish with an elegy each to both parents, leaving us with touching snap-shot portraits; of her father, ‘to the end you were uncowed’ and mother, with Mirror Talk, as she has forged her way to ‘be the life she never lived’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBlUuXUQHLA
Both poets met with great applause and warmth. Knowing how exuberant even middle-class, intellectual Caribbean audiences can be, I wondered if the lack of call and response from the crowd had bothered Vahni Capildeo. “I thought they were a responsive audience,” she said, as she graciously signed my copy of ‘Measures of Expatriation’. “A Trinidad audience might have given me a lot more backchat.” Both of us half the age of Feinstein, I hope I’m around to hear what she has to say in another forty years’ time.
Reviewer: Lisa Michel Williams
A Second Slice of StAnza
Like some dandified arriviste in the throes of burgeoning womanhood, StAnza retains a sprightly ebullience every year. I think this is down to the policy of not asking poets back to perform or lecture until five years had passed. This helps keep the festival al fresco fresh, & tho’ the faces may seem familiar, one is always guaranteed a certain newness to the bill. So a second slice of StAnza for me this time round would be rather like sampling one of the splendid Taster Menus at the Castle Terrace in Edinburgh, where plate after delectable plate is served up full of aesthetic glory & supreme tastes. Rather like a very good poem.
It was the weekend & so the wife was free, & off we pottered on the Saturday night, a thick haar covering both East Lothian & Eastern Fife. Inbetween, of course lay the clearer Forth Bridges, but it wasn’t a long drive at all, arriving just in time for the slam in the main auditorium of the modernistic Byre’s Theatre. Ten poets had two minutes each to impress the judges, all ushered into place & eventual silence by the brilliant Paula Varjack, a young, internationalist poet, who set the scene & dictated both pace & rules with the elegance of Virginia Wolfe at some High Tea soiree. ‘This is how it works, & we’re gonna have fun doing it,’ was her mantra, & we were all hooked from the off. The winner was Kevin McLean, one of Edinburgh’s famous ‘Loud Poets,’ who’d saved his best piece for the final, blowing away the opposition with his speed of thought, his philosophical realities & intrinsically musical wordplay. A close second was Jill Abrams , who chose something with more pathos for her final piece, at which end an ‘O My God,’ from the audience reflected how deeply she moved us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8rg1qzEwSY
It was midnight by now, & me & the wife parked our car up a few miles down the coast by the sea. We’d taken the seats out of the back & stuffed the car with duvets, & it was comfy enough for a pleasant night’s sleep. On waking, we parked up at the local leisure centre for a jacuzzi, swim & sauna, & when we found ourselves upstairs at the Byre’s Theatre at 10AM drinking coffee & nibbling on some fruity pastries for the morning’s breakfast lectures, our B&B in St Andrews had cost us £7 each. The sixteen-year-old Rimbaud would have been proud. There then followed a delightfully informal, but highly informative talk from four translators on the nuances of their chosen aspect of poetrology.
Asterixesque Jean Portante & the well-preened Zoe Skoulding are bosom-buddies. Jean is from Luxemburg, whose native language is Italian, & whose chosen linguamedia is French. He explained how he was importing the smooth-flowing Italian river-phoneticism into his French verses, with Zoe explaining how her English presentation of his poems were trilingual, having to accommodate Italian rhythms & French vocabulary into the register of her own native speech. Equally fascinating was Aurelia Lassaque, a speaker of the rare Occitan tongue, who spontaneously creates her own poetry in both French & the language of her mother, writing a single poem in tandem between the two languages, letting them flow into & bounce off one another.
Finally, we had the most erudite Jacques Darras, who could have talked for hours, & indeed wanted to, but instead gave us an anecdotal sweep through his time with Ezra Pound’s Cantos, finishing with a moving pilgrimage to Pound’s secretary, Basil Bunting, living in a shed near a pub, a couple of months before he passed away. “Translation, basically,” said Jacques, “is an act of love… you have to love, you have to be in love, with a poem you happen to chance upon,” a statement which perfectly captured the essence of the hour.
It was now potter time; a meaty cappuccino at Costa Coffee, photo-ops with the wife in the time-capsule streets, before buying a translation of all of the Gawain Poet’s works (if indeed he did write them all). Then it was back to the Byre’s for a pie, a pint & Mr Steve Pottinger, a gentle though political soul, who glided through his lunchtime recital with a perfect rectitude to his muse. The West Midland accent never sounded so good, as the breeze of Parnassus blew through his poems, all of which ended with an epithetical flourish & an almost Elizabethan bow. Yes, Mr Pottinger was good, very good. Both before & after his performance, I’d noticed the morning’s translator posse were sat in the Byre’s, pontificating & all that, & I am sure that on our exit from Mr Pottinger’s pearly sphere, Jaques was telling the same story I heard him begin when we first went upstairs for our pies.
Our final port of call was in the cellar-like confines of the intimate Undercroft at St John’s House, where two ‘Border Crossings’ poets would read through their work. The first was Tess Taylor, a Fulbright scholar & direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson. Reading with poise, posture, & the occasional touch of humour, she delivered excellent renditions from her folklore-laden, landscape-littered work, especially the long poem which had her exploring her ancestors house, peering into his copy of Virgil, & displaying an oboe-pitched sentiment which tweaked & twanged with effortless grace on the listening sensibilities. Finally, we had Michelle Cahill, a young Australian of Indian heritage in love with Scotland, who eked out the vibrancy of the land in her recently acclaimed book, The Herring Lass. I especially liked her sonnet to the heroine Black Agnes, defender of Dunbar Castle a long time ago, & a place we headed in the direction of at the climax of her deliciously engaging readings.
StAnza… fino alla prossima volta
Reviewer : Damian Beeson Bullen
An Afternoon at StAnza
St Andrews
March 2nd 2017
It has long been mooted, out East Lothian way, to restore the ancient ferry route across the Firth of Forth to Fife. Still lost in idle burearocratic musings, I had to instead spin all the way west to the Queensferry Bridges, zip high over the waters, & hang a right into Glenrothes. From here, the modern road system tapered into something from the 50s, as the one-lane roads wound me to the ancient & most reverend ecclesiastical capital of the Scots. Fife was as lovely as ever, a maroon landscape of recently ploughed fields under a crisp, blue sky. Crisp would also be an understatement – as would brisk – for the infernal furnace of cold which bit into my face & through my clothes as I arrived in Saint Andrews. Still things were hotting up in the poetry festival, I found, as I arrived at the towns refined town hall for my first sampling of this year’s StAnza festival. Like bees to the first crocuses of the year, poets & poetry lovers from Scotland & beyond were flocking to the fragrant blooms planted over the winter by Madame Eleanor Livingstone, including Harry Giles, who the Mumble had recently interviewed.
The first hour was to be filled under the monicker of Past & Present, two talks on members of the pantheon within living memory & long since ceased. We began with Neil McLennan – not a poet per se, but historian & historical detective with an ambitious passion to discover as much as he could about Wilfred Owen, admitting that this noble war poet had become almost a part of his family. For me, a poet’s life is just as vital to the account as their works. Poets are like ornate fountains, out of whose mouths gurgles the spiritus of an age – & it was quite an age in which Wilfred Owen found himself.
2017 sees the anniversary of Owen’s 6 months stay in Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart, which during WW1 had been transformed into a hospital for officers who’d been turned crazy by the horrors of the trenches. ‘Craiglockhart is my Oxford,’ wrote Owen, who loved to roam the nearby Pentland Hills, the routes of which have been traced by McLennan & shall be revisited with a party of keen Owenites later this year. Mclennan also described his international search for information, including finding Owen’s poems scribbled down on the back of Edinburgh Café company bills, & delighted in telling us how he believed Owen made the near-final draft of Anthem for Doomed Youth a few hours after he had taught English Literature to 39 boys at the Tynecastle School: a remarkable rumination. He also left us with a cliffhanger, saying that yes, Graves, Owen & Sassoon all met on a golf course in Edinburgh that year, but not on the course everyone thinks they did. He has actually discovered the true belt of blasted green & will be revealed in his book on Owen in Edinburgh later this year. I, for one, was not that bothered beforehand, but after witnessing McLennan’s infectious banter I cannot wait for the answer.
Following McLennan was the reputable Alice Oswald, a contemporary poet with a classical mind, she is the creator of some of our own epoch’s truest poetry. A few years ago she produced an amazing condensing of the Iliad called Memorial, & so was perfectly placed to sing her love of Homer to us. Her introduction in that book reads; ‘Matthew Arnold praised the Iliad for its ‘nobility’, as has everyone ever since — but ancient critics praised it for its enargeia, its ‘bright unbearable reality’ (the word used when gods come to earth not in disguise but as themselves.
Oswald’s patter was purely poetic, abstract in places, keen as a Danaan spear in others, flowing through her talk as breathlessly as the wind she described in both Santarini’s Minoan frescoes & the works of Homer himself. Her dreamlike, metaphysical mind conjured up phrases such as, ‘the Beautiful silence of the Minoans,‘ while at the same time she made a pleasant attack on the stuffy cloisters of classical academe. A Classics student herself, one found as she went on that Oswald had found her own paths through Homer, & was delighted to share them, pouring great disdain on the monotone & sterile translations of Homer – including the one by her hero, Ted Hughes – which had turned the Grecian Swan-words into flightless Dodos. I especially enjoyed her vivisection of Homer’s use of colour, which he had presented in a more intensely descriptive than factual fashion. Dark blue, for example, was used to describe a crowd helmets in battle. She even took time at the end of the talk to point my own studies in the direction of Gladstone, who made the first formal accounts of Homer’s colours.
A couple of frothy coffees later, among the students with faces as fresh as St Andrews in early March, I took my seat in the local parliament, where just like in Estonia one steps in off the street. It was time for the day’s ‘Five O’Clock Verses,’ where from oak-paneled wall provosts from the past looked down on our proceedings painted in their military garb or haughty civilian regalia. Two Bloodaxe Poets were the order of the day, AB Jackson & the highly esteemed Catalan poet, Joan Margarit. First up was Jackson, who read at first from his new book on St Brendan’s voyage across the Atlantic in a little coracle boat, a vividly crafted cycle full of devious literary allusions – ‘Godless cynocephali’ springs to mind – & portrayals of sea-sick priests. Listening to the rest of his poetry it seemed as if puff clouds of description were floating across the mind’s canvas, such as golf balls being truffles waiting to be picked up on St Andrews golf course.
First Love (Primer Amor)
In the dreary Girona of my seven-year-old self,
where postwar shop-windows
wore the greyish hue of scarcity,
the knife-shop was a glitter
of light in small steel mirrors.
Pressing my forehead against the glass,
I gazed at a long, slender clasp-knife,
beautiful as a marble statue.
Since no one at home approved of weapons,
I bought it secretly, and, as I walked along,
I felt the heavy weight of it, inside my pocket.
From time to time I would open it slowly,
and the blade would spring out, slim and straight,
with the convent chill that a weapon has.
Hushed presence of danger:
I hid it, the first thirty years,
behind books of poetry and, later,
inside a drawer, in amongst your knickers
and amongst your stockings.
Now, almost fifty-four,
I look at it again, lying open in my palm,
just as dangerous as when I was a child.
Sensual, cold. Nearer my neck.
Reviewer : Damian Beeson Bullen
An Interview with Bob Beagrie
THE MUMBLE : Hello Bob, so can you tell us where you’re from & where you’re at, geographically speaking.
BOB: I am speaking to you from Middlesbrough, where I was born and raised and have spent most of my life. I moved to Crewe for in 1989 to do a degree in Creative Arts, specialising in Creative Writing, but moved back to Middlesbrough in 92. Middlesbrough is supposed to be the worst place to live in England. It has its problems, serious problems but there is a lot of good things here too. For one, it has a thriving arts scene and a lot of very talented people. It does tent to be ignored though on a regional and national level.
THE MUMBLE : So what got you into poetry in the first place
BOB: I wrote stories as a child and a teenager but it was attending a community creative writing workshop at a local library run by Trev Teasdel that gave me the encouragement to take it seriously, and I had a few short stories published in local magazines. Trev encouraged me to apply to do the degree at Crewe and Alsager College of H.E. It was there that I was exposed to poetry, e.e. Cummings, the Beats, the Black Mountain Poets, and realised it wasn’t what I’d always thought it was.
THE MUMBLE : What inspires you to write
BOB: I am quite prolific because it is such a part of my way of perceiving the world and myself within it. If I don’t write regularly I start to fret and become irritable, so it is important to give myself the time to work creatively. I become quite obsessive over things too so I enjoy working on projects like Leasungspell and The Seer Sung Husband which require a lot of research and slow chipping away at an idea.
THE MUMBLE : Who have been your greatest poetic influences, in both early & present days
BOB: My greatest influences are Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Elizabeth Bishop, Brendon Kennelly, Tony Harrison, Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsberg, but I was very much inspired by some of the regional poets I’ve met and worked with like Andy Willoughby, Paul Summers, Tom Kelly. Andy Willoughby and I have been running an exchange scheme with poets from Finland for over 15 years so I have been heavily influenced by the Finnish poetry scene, which often has a shamanic Beat quality to it, poets like Esa Hirvonen, Kalle Niinikangas, Katariina Vuorinen and Riina Katajavuori.
THE MUMBLE : Your work has been translated into ten languages : can you tell us a litte more about this
BOB: Because of this connection with Finland I have been involved in a lot of international poetry projects and translation projects as well as quite a lot of international touring and performance work so I have had poems translated and published in other languages such as Swedish, Russian, Karelian, Estonian, Urdu, Danish, Dutch, Spanish. The collection I wrote with Andy Willoughby ‘Sampo: Heading Further North’ which is inspired by the National Finnish Epic ‘Kalevala’ was published in three languages in three different countries during 2015. I consider myself a European poet and think that poetry, and creativity in general, can act as a bridge that is able to span cultural and linguistic boundaries. The act of translation is a process of reaching out, a tentative grasping of potential meanings to be carefully examined and carried back into one’s own language, and enrich it. This process seems more important than ever given the rise of xenophobia and right wing ideologies over the past few years.
THE MUMBLE : You are a senior lecturer in creative writing at Teesside University, what are the key tenets of your teaching
BOB: As a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Teesside University my approach to teaching is to encourage experimentation, creative play, to use your words as a vehicle for reflective practice, to strive to write beyond the habits and perceptions of the ‘self’ in a process of continual depersonalisation. That is not to say you shouldn’t write out of direct experience or a grounded idea of ‘self’, it is essential to do so but it is also vital to recognise that this idea of ‘self’ (authorial or not) is itself a discursive construct. Once students realise this through their creative practice they find it extremely liberating as writers.
THE MUMBLE : You are a founding member of the experimental music and spoken word experiment Project Lono, how do you feel the soundscape assists the spoken worD
BOB: I’ve collaborated with many musicians, both live and recorded, and it definitely brings another dimension to the spoken word, carrying layers of added meaning that can work conjunctively or disjunctively with the words. It doesn’t always work and its not for all audiences but when its right it can create a truly mesmeric and transformative affect. It also attracts and engages different audiences, many people who are not really interested in poetry can be hooked into it through a more integrated or combined arts approach. Someone once said after listening to a Project Lono track, ‘I’ve never liked poetry but hearing it with the music helped me really appreciate and understand the words’.
Project Lono is an experimental collective on Teesside that encourages collaboration and cross fertilisation of the arts. I also think it is important to remember that poetry in tribal times was always accompanied by music, sound effects and its physicalisation through dramatic movement / dance. Meter is measured in feet because it relates to the ritualised steps that accompanied the words.
THE MUMBLE : What are you bringing to the table at this year’s Stanza festival
BOB: I am delighted to be taking part in the Stanza Festival 2017 as part of the National Tour of Leasungspell: A Fool’s Tale, which is a performance of parts of the epic poem that was published by Smokestack Books in 2016 with live music and sound effects by lutenist Peter Lagan, singer Sara Dennis, with Kev Howard playing Dordeseal (ancient Celtic horn and various percussion instruments and Tuvan throat singing, and Stewart Forth on percussion and keyboards and recorded sound effects.
THE MUMBLE : What does the rest of 2017 have in store for Bob Beagrie
BOB: Throughout the rest of the year we will be touring the show, with performances lined up in Bamburgh Castle, Durham Cathedral, Whitby, at the Castle keep in Newcastle and at Bristol Poetry Festival. Wyrd Harvest Press will also be publishing a new collection of poems I have written with Jane Burn, titled ‘This Game of Strangers’ which is inspired by the Gwynevere & Lancelot legends so hopefully we will be holding some readings and launch events across the country.
An Interview with Paula Varjack
THE MUMBLE : Hello Paula, so can you tell us where you’re from & where you’re at, geographically speaking.
PAULA : I am writing this to you now from my living room in Hackney, East London, where I have lived on and off for the better part of 18 years. London feels like the place I am most from as I have spent most of my life here, but I can never fully claim it as I have a very strong american accent. I was born in Washington DC to a British father and a Ghanaian mother. when i was still a baby we moved back to Bromley in Kent, we then moved back to Washington and I stayed there until I was a teenager, and at 17 I moved back to London again. I then lived here until I was 30, when I moved to Berlin for four years. Since then I have stayed in London, if you don’t count the five months I lived in Madrid.
THE MUMBLE :Poetry is just one of the strings to your polymathic bow, what else drives your creativity
PAULA : I am an artist who works in a number of forms and I actually only rarely write poetry these days, although there is a poetic feel to a lot of my prose. The medium I work in most is theatre, but I also make video work and often make performance that involves video in some way. I have also begun to explore creating more work that is cabaret based, that I really enjoy. Having worked with words for so long, its so nice to play more with movement and dance and even physical comedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pep01scoTiw&t=2s
THE MUMBLE :What got you into poetry in the first place
PAULA : My parents more than anything. They read me a lot of poetry when i was a kid, and i could tell that they enjoyed to read it and read it allowed. .I have very early memories of my dad reading me the Jabberwocky, and Rudyard Kipling, and I remember my mother proudly telling me about how her father had been a published poet, and was respected by and liked by a number of quite well known African-American writers, most notably Maya Angelou and James Baldwin, who both visited in Ghana where my grandfather lived and was from in the early days of pan Africanism, my grandfather was known to be sympathetic to the African-American cause at the time, and particularly to artists. A poet was a great thing to be as i understood from a very early age. I was encouraged to write poetry
THE MUMBLE : Who have been your greatest poetic influences, in both early & present days
PAULA : I have moved around a lot, but there are some books and writers that I manage to always keep with me. I am not sure if these writers have influenced me but they definitely made an impact. In terms of poetry I like to read I will always have the collected EE Cummings, Howl by Alan Ginsberg, Leaves of grass by Walt Whitman and Sonia Sanchez and Pablo Neruda’s love poems on my shelf. I also quite like Bukowski’s poetry. In terms of poets I enjoy watching perform there are literally too many to mention. But long before I became a performer myself I was really struck by Stacyann Chinn, Stacy Makishi, Salena Godden Cheryl B and Francesca Beard. Celena Glenn, Black cracker and Beau Sia.
THE MUMBLE : What inspires you to write
PAULA : Life, the weird wonderful heart swell and heart break of the every day of it, the adventure and late nights but occasionally also the revelations that come in the quiet pauses, in the mundane.
THE MUMBLE : Your debut prose & poetry publication ‘Letters I Never Sent to You’ has just been published by Burning Eye Books. How are you feeling about this?
PAULA : I feel really great about it. Burning Eye is such an enthusiastic press for spoken word artists, and right from the start of the conversation around the book I have felt really supported by them. Having worked in performance for so long, its also really exciting to produce something creatively that results in an object. Its funny how exciting that can be after working in the ephemeral for so long
THE MUMBLE :What are you bringing to the table at this year’s StAnza festival
PAULA : My energy, spirit and stories, and the book itself it course, which I am very proud of and excited to share. There may be a little multi-media in the mix and an extract or two from theatre work too.
THE MUMBLE : What does the rest of 2017 have in store for Paula Varjack
PAULA : It looks really really busy to be honest, but in so many exciting ways. Right after Stanza I go head first into a U.K. tour for my latest performance Show Me The Money, a show based on interviews with artists around the U.K about the value of art in these uncertain times. when that is completed I will then get stuck in to development for my next theatre show The Cult of Kenzo, exploring our relationship with brands, but in particular luxury brands, which will start its development at a residency at Battersea Arts Centre . Meanwhile I will be lead facilitator for the Barbican Junior Poets programme, while also freelancing as a drama and creative writing facilitator for eastside educational trust, and somehow when I am not doing all of that I will be hosting and producing events with Dan Simpson with our hosting and production partnership Varjack & Simpson and before I know it, it will be summer and i will be back in Scotland for fringe again. It certainly won’t be a laid back year, but i am looking forward to all of it.
An Interview with Steve Pottinger
THE MUMBLE : Where are you from and where are you at, geographically speaking
STEVE : I was born and brought up in a small town in the Black Country, part of that industrial sprawl north and west of Birmingham. I moved away to go to university, stayed away, and spent years travelling and exploring the world while avoiding anything as structured as a career. Right now, I’m back in my hometown, in the house I grew up in.
—
THE MUMBLE : So what got you into poetry in the first place
STEVE : I was seventeen and my girlfriend introduced me to the Mersey Poets (Adrian Henri, Brian Patten, Roger McGough). We’d been seeing each other for a few weeks and she gave me an anthology of their poems and said “Read this.” I wanted to keep in her good books, so I did. It was the first time I’d read poetry which was cheeky and honest and moving, and felt like it could have been written by and for people like us. It spoke the way we spoke, it was energetic and vibrant and alive. I’d been writing typically miserable teen-poetry before that, but this showed me a whole other world of possibilities.
—
THE MUMBLE : Who have been your greatest poetic influences
STEVE : I’ve mentioned the Mersey Poets. I also loved Dylan Thomas – my folks had the LP of Richard Burton reading ‘Under Milk Wood’, which I listened to over and over as a kid, in love with his voice as much as anything. But my greatest influence was probably a copy of ‘For Beauty Douglas’, the collected poems of Adrian Mitchell. I loved his playfulness, his wild imaginings, his anger, and the range of subjects he dared to cover. I still go back to that book now and find myself in awe.
Sometimes, though, I’ve gone to poetry nights and been bowled over by the performance and the words of someone simply getting up to do an open-mic spot. That’s the wonderful thing about poetry: anyone can have a go, anyone can move us.
THE MUMBLE : You wrote a letter to Caffè Nero about their tax avoidance which went viral, can you tell us about that
STEVE : I love hanging out in coffee shops watching the world go by as much as anyone else, but corporate tax avoidance really gets my goat because the rest of us – you and me – end up picking up the tab. I wrote my poem ‘No-one likes an angry poet’ when I learned Starbucks seemed to see tax as an optional extra, and started going to my local Caffè Nero instead. Then I read that they weren’t paying tax either. So I wrote them a letter, took a pic of it, and posted it on Facebook. I guess it hit a chord, because it got shared thousands of times, picked up by campaigning organisations, and the BBC and Independent got in touch to talk to me about it. I’m reliably informed the boss of Caffè Nero hated it. That pleases me immensely.
—
THE MUMBLE : The Punk scene is always hovering menacingly over your work : why is this?
STEVE : I don’t know if it hovers menacingly – it’s got dodgy knees by this point, for starters – but punk attitude does inform a lot of what I do. This questioning, idealistic, slightly bolshy attitude isn’t peculiar to punk, of course – anyone who’s ever put two fingers up to the established way of doing things and decided to find their own path will recognise it – but I suppose I’m old enough to look back at the punk era as being a time where it was in its pomp. I’ve a soft spot for the music, too, and have been lucky enough to help two punk legends write their autobiographies.
For me, punk’s all about valuing and respecting each other, putting people first, recognising our common humanity (a theme in my work, I know) and listening to each other’s stories. And getting up and dancing for as long as the dodgy knees allow.
—
THE MUMBLE : What are you bringing to the table at this year’s Stanza festival
STEVE : First and foremost, a love of words, of their power to shape the way we view the world, engage our emotions, and say something important about our shared experience. Oh, and expect a healthy pinch of irreverence, too.
—
THE MUMBLE : What does the rest of 2017 have in store for Steve Pottinger
STEVE : Gigs. Adventures. Stories. Interesting collaborations with other poets. Days out on the mountain bike and in the camper van. Hope and scribblings. Determination and laughter. Wilderness, cities, and a glass half-full.
An Interview with Harry Giles
THE MUMBLE : Hello Harry, so where are you from & how did you end up in the Orkneys
HARRY : I’m from Orkney! My folks moved there when I was two, so it’s the only home I know. On Westray as a kid, and then Deerness as a teenager.
—
Dear Witches, A Charm for When You Need It
Take a burning memory, and tear
into as many pieces as your years.
Mix with strands of weed, pulled
from broken pavement. Soften
into paste with spit, piss
or greeting: whichever is on hand.
And with the potion write
your true name in the place
where you need shelter: a wall,
a window, or, more likely, your heart.
I cannot promise you it will work.
I can promise your name will glow.
—
The Gay Gordons
Thir ower mony girls, an that means they dance
wi ilk ither, wan leads, wan follaes,
but the teacher still caas the meuves tae the men
an the ladies, pleys the pechan tape,
watches, airms faldid. The beuys haald thir pairtners,
some like a pistol, some like a turd,
aa ferly doutsome an furious
at the aisy grace o the girls wi the girls.
Vince likes rugby, an Darren likes his haand
on Vince’s sweity back i the scrum.
Darren birls Isla ower loose, Jane yokes Vince
ower tight, an both the beuys wunner
gin a faimly flitted tae the island wi a clutch
o beuys, twins, quadruplets, sweetched
the ratio, wad they be mad tae dance thegither?
Wad they be able tae mak on tae complain?
Thir een nivvir meet i the cheengan reum:
thir no thievid glisks, no unnerstandan.
They bore at ilk ither’s caafs ower the benches,
peek roond i the shooers whan the ither’s
no leukan, bide in permanent terrification o bean
catcht. Bean catcht wad wrack thaim.
Whit wad bean catcht feel like? Hou
wad it feel tae be catcht, tae be catcht?
—
Poem in which nouns, verbs and adjectives have been replaced by entires from the Wikipedia page ‘List of Fantasy Worlds’
You gor me. Boxen in your sartorias-deles
and angeous krynn. Too xanth, too zothique,
as though an erde of bas-lag were termina
under your hyrule. As though I were charn
already. Don’t beklan to me, don’t tir like
I’m lodoss to your emelan blest,
like I’ll xen when you tortall my deverry tarth,
ooo, I’d landover earthsea with you, panem.
It’s erehwon. You’re still melniboné,
your eberron oz and aebrynis quin are still
spira. I nirn you. But faltha your athas
and then you can halla me. Og idris:
eidolon to pern me, tamriel! Harn me til
all my mundus aurbis one glorantha “Eä!”
—
An Interview with Mark McG
THE MUMBLE : Hi Mark, thanks for coming, so where are you from & how did you end up in Glasgow?
MARK : Originally from Ayrshire but moved out to Glasgow as soon as I was old enough to flee the nest. Spent some time abroad too but Glasgow has been my home for the most part ever since. There is always so much going on here without every seeming as hectic as other places I`ve visited. I think there is the right balance of madness and relaxation in this city and everywhere is usually walking distance from anywhere else. The music scene is the strongest I’ve ever seen it and the poetry and comedy scenes are exceptional too.
***
THE MUMBLE : What first got you into poetry
MARK : I stumbled into the spoken word scene by mistake. Years ago, I was in a band who were plagued by technical difficulties, rubbish equipment and a fondness for free booze. As a result, it was very common for me to have to fill in the awkward silences or musical blanks by ‘saying hings’ as different levels of `tuning` and `tweaking` occurred between songs. Later on, I started hosting a night I put on called Jamfest which was a rigged open mic night and collaborative jam. Filling in the spaces then was a lot easier and I would do it with some fairly pish off the cuff banter or by reciting song lyrics accapella. We started the FIRST Alternative Burns Supper (there is loads of them now but we were the only show in town back then) with Sammy B and that lead to me crossing paths with a lot more poets from the scene.
One of them was Jim Monaghan who, if memory serves me correctly, gave me my first gig outside my own venue bubble. I really enjoyed it and started doing more and more of them. It was a lot more fun doing it without the pressures of being a host. I loved the freedom that spoken word gave me as a performer and was grateful to the support everyone seemed to give. I have peeked round the door on just about every scene in Glasgow at some point and there is always a hardcore cliquey element to each of them. I genuinely expected the poetry scene to be stuck up or patronising but the opposite was true. In my experience everyone has been helpful and nice. I`m sure there is a nastier side to it that I`m not aware of. There is probably exclusive , secret poetry nights in castles where they bitch and cackle about the fact people like myself find it necessary to rhyme words with such regularity but I have yet to stumble upon any of that . It made sense for me to gravitate towards poetry and spoken word as all I’ve ever really been good at is writing words down on paper . I try and write everyday and am determined to try and go through the boxes of lyrics and try and turn it into a whole batch of new material after some extensive editing. Before, I have always felt it was ‘cheating’ by throwing in stuff I wrote in the past but I have recently had the realisation that they are my words and no-one has ever heard them so it might be okay to use them rather than let them gather dust. I hope to get a few pamphlets on the go this year and maybe get a brand new spoken word live show ready for a short stint at the Edinburgh Fringe.
*****
Countdown to Tinnitus
People talk about One self Two much
at any given Second
in the Third person
go Forth and drink a Fifth of gin
Ive got a Sixth sense for the Seventh deadly sin
I should ve Eight something
before the Nine bar subcrawl
playing Tennis with tinnitus
in a tunnel feeling awful
clock ticking on my ears innocence
Bus stop apocalypse
countdown to tinnitus
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
I broke through the Ten commandments
Like a cat with Nine lives
I lost my head like all of Henry the 8th`s wives
I slept through the Seventies
awoke the Sixth of June with a sick sense of humour
Let`s bet our landlords Five hundred monthly rent based purely on a taxi driver rumour
I ate forbidden fruit with the Three wise men
Went Two church in fancy dress once never again
clock ticking on my ears innocence
Bus stop apocalypse
countdown to tinnitus
Five
Four
Three
Two
One
The silence keeps me awake at night
its the feedback
the white noise
the wind chimes
it goes through me
**********
THE MUMBLE : Your lyrical singing style is quite hip-hoppy, is there a difference between spoken word & hip-hop apart from the obvious musical backdrop
MARK : I have written lyrics from a very young age and it was always good rap music that mostly got me into the head space of wanting to write often and more importantly, wanting to write better. I`ve been in bands that were described as punk rock but if you looked at the words written down or you applied the verses to a Hip Hop beat you would be able to tell where the inspiration comes from . Many `songwriters` get away in the Indie/ Rock/ Punk/ Pop scenes with some very lame and unoriginal lyrics and even become heralded as `the next big thing` because of them. I doubt you would get away with such laziness in any decent minded poetry or Hip Hop circle.
In my opinion, a good Hip Hop M.C can deliver some of the finest poetry around. Many would disagree with that but I`d be happy to prove them wrong by showing them a range of rappers who can connect with an audience without a beat or texts that can take the reader on a journey. On the other hand, some good poetry could be made into good hip hop but that`s far less likely. All of this is at the listener and reader`s discretion about what is good poetry is and what their definition of real Hip Hop is . I enjoy wordplay, double meanings and a message behind it all. I could give a long list examples of Hip Hop M.Cs that have made effortless transitions to poetry when it suits them . Both Akala and B Dolan spring to mind off the top of my head. I also think more locally people like Dave Hook from Stanley Odd and Loki are brilliant at stripping down their performances to a spoken word crowd. Going the other way? I would say people like Kate Tempest, Mike Skinner and Scroobius Pip are fantastic poets that sound excellent with a phat beat behind them . There is also a load of brilliant M.Cs that would sound terrible stripped back without the beats behind them. It all boils down to the style and delivery of each artist . Hip Hop gets a bad rep in poetry circles because they tend to only have mainstream acts to compare it to . Like most genres of music , the most exciting things are happening off the beaten track and the best of these rarely make it to the prime time so the majority miss out on true gems as a result. This is something that the internet is more than capable of fixing if people shared more of their favourite underground artists. These small steps can make all the difference. I know I have always done my best to `spike` the poetry crowd with Hip Hop and vice versa. People tend to be surprised about how much they like the thing they didn`t expect and I try to make a habit of it with nights like Jamfest, Ned Poets Society, Friction Burns and more recently the `Overheard… ` night
***
Planet Fort Knox
(from Who Took Utopia : Track 7)
to my credit I was drinking slowly
and to my detriment … I wasn`t really
it`s all swings and roundabouts
hocus pocus smoke and mirrors
post- `man ` on high alert whenever he delivers
and if I ever look confused?
Don`t worry mate I`m getting ya
just correlating data dat may one day unsettle ya
people want the truth but don`t care for facts
they want a black`n`white soundbite as a green light to react
I`m not angry
to say I was suggests am somehow surprised
and I`m not shocked
not one jot
it`s all so very predicable
also very avoidable
crobarred mental block mind-warped brainwashed bubble
I have my own theories- I`m the king of this rubble
my wall is a towering inferno
until I bash in a keypad with my pin-code
motion captured lasers for good measure
vandal grease? nah! retina sensors
full of beans.. in the bunker for the Alex Jones end time
refined tonic wines and a beware of the dug sign
I patrol my yard solo in a tin foil jeep
and vet the wildlife for bugs cuz slugs can be discreet
I`m not lonely
better to have not loved than be lost forever
and I`m not bitter not one bit
ah researched the text of all the ancient scrolls
visitors not welcome round here no more
no time for fools I`ve disowned them all
down the shutters go forever I`m invisible
intruders get electrocuted trespassers prosecuted
by my law , my land, my rules, my gun
I shoot onsite with a remote control (bang)
my fence is spiked with barbed wire for defence
get out my head this is my patch
get off my land keep off the grass
move along there`s nothing for you here to see
planet fort knox with a paltry population of just me
I`m not crazy
to say that I am says more about you
and I`m not wasted
I just say shit
I`ll stay on the real while you live your cartoon
a glutton for punishment judgement day soon
my rifle and my bible just me and the moon
I`de rather that than blindly consume
sheep follow sheep ba ba to the abattoir
gabbing blah blah from your armour of an avatar
sheep follow sheep ba ba to the abattoir
gabbing blah blah from your armour of an avatar
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THE MUMBLE : As your love of poetry has developed, what parts of the artform have you incorporated, both classical & contemporary
MARK : I`m not sure how best to answer this question. If I`m honest , I have no actual poetry or literature background and just always wrote words down off my own accord. I write far for more than I read which is something I`m not necessarily proud of but just a fact of the matter . No matter how busy my life is or where I am , I usually have a pen handy and can jot down some ideas. I`ve been known to write everywhere from bus stops to nightclubs. The latter would have embarassed me up untl fairly recently but now if I have an idea , I want to scribble it down no matter where I am. I naturally found writing words down therapeutic for years before I started performing them at any level. I`m not from the kind of place where you could just say `I`m gonna be a poet now.` I`ve still got good friends who don`t even know that I ever even joined a band. I would describe the majority of what I`ve done up until now as mainly satirical observations done in an original contemporary style but perhaps an expert would disagree. I have definitely hid behind a cloak of comedic value at times for a couple of reasons. One, I enjoy making people laugh and I find that for me it is the best way to get people`s attention to a serious topic without coming across as preachy. The other reason is that I`m only just starting to feel confident enough to perform out loud darker or more abstract material . I did the same thing with my band too, Hide behind comedy because if it turns out shite then you can say that you were only joking. But eventually , once you have an audience you can deviate into new and interesting directions. Sometimes, I do poetry shows and don`t even do a poem. I certainly wouldn`t advise any of this stuff by the way , it`s just how it all has unfolded for me.
Since I was a child, I`ve always studied closely song lyrics and these days I always do my best to pay full attention to any work my contemporary`s come out with . I feel you should always give an artist the benefit of the doubt and pay close attention to the message they are trying convey. A lot of stuff goes over all our heads everyday so I make an extra effort for any artist who has made me take notice. I hope to one day get a further academic understanding of the written word but until then I will keep working as hard as any other writer in creating new material and performing it as much as I can. I am getting quite good at just being me and as a promoter I personally prefer artists who are good at being themselves. That is the biggest skill I look for when watching a band, a poet or a comedian. If you can harness your own way of doing something then everything else should fall int place with a lot of hard work and a bit of luck.
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THE MUMBLE : You have just finished Jackal Trades, can you tell us about the project
MARK : It`s been a fairly long time in the making but finally glad to say that the `Need the Character (s)` album just dropped recently and we`ve reworked the songs as a 3 piece for live shows. Jackal Trades started as myself and the infamous and brilliant Gordy Duncan JR . We laid down about 5 tracks in the space of a couple of days then nothing happened for quite a long time, so I started collaborating with some of my favourite producers. Most of the songs have never seen the light of day as I was quite ruthless in scrapping ideas that I thought weren`t good enough and then penning fresh concepts. It got to the point where I finally decided that the songs I was now scrapping were actually of a decent level and it was best to just complete the debut album by a set deadline and then work on new things afterwards. I need to thank the likes of Gordy, Soundthief, Andy Martin and David Montgomery who all played big parts in getting me over the finish line. It was also a pleasure to work with legends like Mistah Bohze, Scatabrainz, Yoko Pwno and DJ Sonny for the first time as well as working with some familiar faces such as Sun Dogs and Mackenzie. I think this album lays somewhere between rap and poetry to follow up on your earlier question. I have never felt very comfortable with the term `poet` or `rapper` . This is just me saying hings that rhyme and hopefully there is enough ideas and melodies to give it repeated listens . I had very little expectations with this project apart from testing myself to make something fresh sounding. I think we achieved that but I know I can do better and hope to have the follow up out over the summer where we look set for a busy festival season alongside some shows in Inverness, Manchester and Newcastle. I have genuinely been blown away by the response of the album and the live shows so far. The latter is all down to the joint genius that is Dr. Jaslan and MJ Windebank. The album itself is sideways look at society today hidden behind the vale of numerous characters. The reviews have been great to read, even the slight criticisms as they seemed rooted in the fact that someone offered an opinion of their own after listening to it properly. You can download / stream the album on bandcamp, where I think a few CDs and T shirts should also be available.
THE MUMBLE : What are the driving forces behind your words
MARK : Anger, Boredom, Humour, Inequality, Nerves, Compulsion, Money, Dreams, Love, Hate , Joy, Revenge, War . I don’t think any subject should be off limits and more and more find that the mundane can be made exciting. It feels like I have a constant soundtrack in my head of rhythms and beats so just one turn of phrase, a joke , a thought, a bad pun or two words that rhyme well together can be enough to make me jot down a couple of pages of stuff. 99% of which lays in boxes in various locations though because when I start to work on something or collaborate with someone , I (possibly wrongly) feel the need to create something fresh that I haven’t even heard before.
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THE MUMBLE : Can you tell us about the Glasgow Spoken Word groups you are involved in
MARK : Ned Poets Society has been dormant for a while but we should maybe bring it back? aye maybe we should. The Overheard nights? Overheard in the Westend takes place usually on a monthly basis at Siempre Cafe in Kelvinhall and the same goes for Overheard in the Southside at the Rum Shack. Poets and musicians interested in either should email traffic.cone.records@gmail.com . Hopefully, we start Overheard in the East End in 2017 too.
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The Afterlife of Fred Phelps (Part 2)
Hello Fred Phelps , I am God – It’s yourself?
I’m confused and concerned by the life that you lead
the advice that you gave and the scriptures you ‘learned’
you must have misheard in life so listen up now you’re dead
pay attention Phelpsie , I’m a very busy man
I lost an aeroplane in transit they may try blame on Iran
I guess I plain- crashed out and now the full moon’s out
aliens are skyping me, scared their secrets out
I’m like ‘whatcha taaalkin bout?’ nobody truly knows
just plant more triangle sandwiches in those pop videos
back to you AYE , Aye I do hate fags
not the American slang , I just quit smoking TABS
way back in the day when that Mary Magdeline slag
broke my sons heart and stole his jet pack
the old testament rags were misquoting me as vengeful
exaggerated claims came before they even figured out pencils
the truth is humanity’s not even on my level
they still haven’t figured out the actual holy land is hidden out in Methil (FIFE!)
I shuffle off dishevelled to the multiverse of infinity
I’m omnipotent physically and fill my day with wizardry
my resume stretches the entire planet’s history
what consenting adults do never hinders me nor limits me
to think to picket funerals would even interest me is a mystery
and that religion that you preached was DEAD WRONG from it’s infancy
I hope you revelled in the infamy but sorry it did nothing for me
cause for the last few decades Ive been constantly on that scientology
why?
why?
why?
coz I like science fiction and that should count for something
they CRUISE with Travolta the Westboro Celeb count equalled nothing
life’s too short for hatred , I’m afraid Fred you truly lost it
so ILL SEE YOU IN HELL, well at least till you come out the closet
away and repent your bawbaggery but until then
I’m away for a pint with Joe Strummer and Tony Benn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMqjRR7p4fk
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THE MUMBLE : How do you see the Scottish poetry scene as a whole
MARK : I think the Scottish scene is very healthy just now . Glasgow can boast Inn Deep, Sonnet Youth, The High Flight, Spangled Cabaret, Extra Second, Last Monday at Rio plus `Overheard in the ….` to name just a few regular events for spoken word. I don`t get through to Edinburgh as much as I would like but The Fringe is always bursting with talent and obviously Loud Poets continue to make big moves at home and abroad. Also met some great talent down at Dumfries at The Stove where plenty good stuff is happening and most of the music festivals are known to give poets a platform. I would highly reccomend all the wee Scottish festivals to anyone . Places like Audio Soup, Kelburn, Deoch an Dorus, Knockengorroch and Doune the Rabbit Hole make for outstanding weekends and the poetry stages add to the experience. I think it`s encouraging to see how poetry has such a broad age range which definitely makes things interesting. The slams are always great to watch and I enjoy finishing Second in them whenever I can. I would say to poetry in Scotland: well done poetry in Scotland, you are doing just great. Keep up the good work. To someone interested: then please do come along , everyone is really nice . To someone not interested: give it a try, it is surprisingly not as shite as it sounds.
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THE MUMBLE : What is the poetical future of the ever mercurial Mark McGhee
MARK : I would like to spend my year apologising to the poetry community for not doing many poems. I was in guru mode. Telling people about the year of `No More Rage` . There was a point to it all that never truly materialised but I hope to remedy that by saying hings that sometimes rhyme once again. I tried to fix them but now realise they don`t want to be fixed and the truth is there flaws make for great poems and anecdotes. This is a new year and a new me and a new them so let`s take it back to basics and become the old us where we didn`t judge so much. Girobabies are on hiatus , Jackal Trades is confusing so there has never been a better time to actually say poems instead of talking about how your gonna say a poem and then never doing it. My first lyric book just came out – http://jackaltrades.bandcamp.com but that`s more like a lyric book so I intend on releasing actual poetry and performing it properly . Aiming for late April . Probably at Overheard in the Southside. Would like to do some festivals out-with Scotland too . That is the only goal I really would like to make happen for sure. Everything else is bonus. If you`de like to book me or say hings at one of the shows I do then you can get me traffic.cone.records@gmail.com
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Escape! Routine!
day 23 the truth is there is now daze now
the minutes seem minute compared to the months and hours
I row solo on this empty vessel
Pacing up and down looking for a clue
or a footprint, validation, something
I don`t know… anything
I think I see a monster of the sea
that local fork law says is near to me
ha! fear is no match for this hunger eating up inside of me
yesterday, I made a fishing rod
out a bamboo shoot an a piece of string
and I launched my mythical dream catcher into the ocean
it made a thudding noise then vanished
there has been no `man eating fish`
not on my watch
sun-clocks in the snow
the sand has long passed
and every so often I hear this buzzing noise that loops
that leaves me shook and propels me to jump through hoops
and stoop to new depths and look
can you hear that?
there`s a helicopter overhead
escape! routine!
helicopter overhead
I know what`s real
Dayeightyeight
things are getting silly now
a seagull serenaded me with a sea shanty
it whit?
I am what… !
must`ve been they zoo-keepers peaking through the cage
to protect us from ourselves and prepare us for the stage
the waiting game perpetuates the elusive magic flare
but I`m pleased!
I dream I can fly every night!
did you see that?
see that flash?
there`s a helicopter overhead
escape! routine!
helicopter overhead
I know what`s real
Day 1 the snakes became butterfly`s
the pain became nothing but mere sleep in our weary eyes
it starts with a shooting star and parts with a sunrise
dazed by the beauty in everything – I felt good!
words are but a memory – I speak in colours now
I wanna spend another hunner summers with no count
fear was the temporary illusion of ego
we shed our last shred of sanity we don`t need it now where we go
who took utopia?
well there`s no place like the present
there`s no passport for a state of mind
whether superstar or peasant
you took utopia!
and you are only me
and I was born yesterday so it was never really me
and aye I have sinned aye but it was never truly me
I quantum leaped into this instant and rose up from the sea
you have been trapped but you can break free
coz I think I spy a torch-light that will never bother me
We all take the same way out
out!
out!
Mumble Words 