Published : 4 poems from Aletta Ocean Alphabet Empire in Mercurius

My #poembrut vispo book Aletta Ocean's Alphabet Empire published with Hesterglock press in 2018 has 4 unpublished asemic / art poems now online at Mercurius, an online journal. https://www.mercurius.one/home/aletta-ocean-alphabet-empire

AOAE is available https://poembrut.bigcartel.com/product/aletta

The publication includes the essay featured in the book, on poetry, eroticism and pornography.

“You can never discover for yourself what you’ve been given. Bodies and knowledge, both. The primary purpose of this book is to worry about the division between the experienced and the perceived, and what is lost between that ever expanding gap.

Bataille suggests that you try to imagine yourself changing from the state you are in, to one in which your whole self is completely doubled. He means this to be a disturbance.  He reminds us, you would not survive this process since the doubles you have turned into are essentially different from you. Each of these doubles is necessarily distinct from you as you are now, as while you’ve split into two new versions of yourself, you cannot be the same, twice over. A kind of procreation is what he is suggesting and the metaphor is about writing, I think. To mark the pages then release them is to indulge oneself, fundamentally, in a productive onanism. Cells dividing, with some of that division escaping you. No wonder it feels sad, a let down, to release things into the world.

At some event, I’m watching a panel of speakers talking about something banal. The title is specious, it’s designed to intrigue but not offend. It’s a turgid literary festival, stuffy and fake, but the panellists keep talking about sex. They are almost battling each other over it. It is awkward, and insistent, but not, perhaps, for the reasons they’d imagine. They are desperate to appear comfortable with the notion of sex and in so doing are opening a gap between themselves and sex itself. Gone is anything remotely evocative of the experience, from within, within consciousness. I do not believe them too, it is a falsehood which is designed to make the audience comfortable while appearing to be discomforting. Aletta flits across my mind, as I’m actively daydreaming an escape, and it occurs to me there seems nothing more unerotic than poets talking about sex. “

Published : Crayon Poems on Mercurius

Crayon Poems is the poetic equivalent of a cat gifting its owner a dead bird, only it’s done with greasy, gentle colours on the page. It is a gift you don’t want but should be grateful for. https://www.mercurius.one/home/crayon-poems

One of the highlights of the year, publishing my book CRAYON POEMS, with the brilliant Penteract Press. Thanks to Thomas Helm, over at Mercurius, a few more of the poems have been published online

Published : Excerpts from I Will Show You The Life... on Mercurius

Very cool to have four poems from my book I WILL SHOW THE LIFE OF THE MIND (ON PRESCRIPTION DRUGS) published on Mercurius, a journal brilliantly edited by Thomas Helm here free and out like nowt. Please have a peek www.mercurius.one/home/i-will-show-you-the-life-of-the-mind-on-prescription-drugs

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These are four special texts, or rather excerpts (as the book is a poetic conceptual choose-your-own-adventure narrative with all text intermingled somewhat), as they include the book’s opening gambit, describing the human brain.

Published : Animal Drums on Mercurius

My relationship with the Barcelona based journal Mercurius continues, this time hosting my film with josh alexander, THE ANIMAL DRUMS along with some new critical comments by the brilliant Jonathan Brooker https://www.mercurius.one/home/animaldrums

Jonathan Brooker on The Animal Drums - “…the episodic nature of it - reminding me a little, while having entirely its own character, of some of Chris Petit’s work with or without Iain Sinclair; that sense of a search without there being a clear objective & the requirement for the viewer to do the work of joining the dots. The route taken being as important as the destination. Of course it could just be the presence of Sinclair himself that brought it to mind! The underlying theme, of a changing & ever less accommodating London, defenceless against the manipulations of international capital, was one that has fascinated & saddened me over the years….

… I’m also interested in the way that the character appears to be SJ Fowler but isn’t - something I’ve always liked about the films of Jonathan Meades; that overt acknowledgement that the person you’re watching is only a version of the person as they actually exist. I guess it’s just a conscious application or heightening of Goffman, but using that disconnect between essence & performance & the idea of consciously blurring the line for dramatic or narrative effect greatly appeals.” More information here.