Richard Makin
Peter Hughes & Simon Marsh
John Welch
John Wilkinson
John Lowther
Dave Rushmer
sean burn
Daniel Andersson
Alistair Noon
Innocenza Istarte
Michael Lee Johnson
Dean Nicholson
Mark Cunningham
Andrew Baker
Charles Jason Lee
Norman Jope
Fish and Shushan
Lydia Towsey
Tom White
Steve Spence
Michael Egan
A Lee Firth
Chris Paul
Richard Kostelanetz
Amos Weisz (translating Monika Rinck)
Lucy Harvest Clarke
Kevin Doran
Mark Goodwin
Christopher Barnes
Chris Hardy
Adam Burbage
Sean Carey
Richard Barrett
Scott Thurston
Nick Wayte
Iftekhar Sayeed
Maurice Scully
Gregory Vincent St Thomasino
Tom Jenks
Changming Yuan
Steven Waling
Philip Hammial
Nick Wayte
Chris Gutkind
Andy Jordan
Tammy Ho
Aishwarya Iyer
Geoff Stevens
Janet Sutherland
T A James
Boast
Christopher Barnes
Alison Smith
Mark Goodwin
J Brooke
Niall Quinn
Simon Wright
Innocenza Istarte
Daniel Andersson (translating Hjalmar Gullberg)
Michael Blackburn
Dean Nicholson
John Welch
RG Gregory
The Playground
Richard Makin, St Leonards — current section new
Richard Makin is a London-born & based writer of fiction & a visual artist, now resident in St Leonards, East Sussex. Sections of his novel Forword include f :w :d (Equipage, 1995), Too Mouth For Word (Historical Research Ltd, 1996) & Universlipre (Equipage, 1996); of Ravine, From Ravine (Words & Pictures, 1997) & Readymades (Obelisk, 1998). He has also had work included in ed Nicholas Johnson, Foil: defining poetry 1985-2000 (etruscan books, 2000). Textual installations by him have been made at Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, at the University of Greenwich, & various locations in Walthamstow. Excellent review of his current work on Intercapillary Space. Richard can be contacted at terraincognita0@hotmail.com.
This is a serial publication, with a fresh sequence from St Leonards available to be read by the end of each month. The complete text starts here. St Leonards will be published by Reality Street Editions in 2009, with photographs by Richard.
Other works by Richard Makin on this website are a section of Remoire – which novel was formerly published online by Zoilus Press — the poem sequence Under Luke Shades; and Work in Process, an earlier serial publication of work by Richard makin, published monthly 2004–2006.
Peter Hughes & Simon Marsh, Pistol Tree Poems new
Pistol Tree Poems is an epistolary sequence between Peter Hughes and Simon Marsh, from various locations, mainly in the UK and Italy (Simon Marsh lives in Northern Italy). Bar Magenta (The Many Press, 1988) contains poems by both of them. There are some formal constraints you will be able to observe in Pistol Tree Poems. The most recent poems start here. There is more work by Peter Hughes on this site.
John Welch, Yearn Glass new
John Welch was born in London in 1942 and he worked for thirty years as a teacher of english as a Second Language in East London comprehensive schools. In 1984 his anthology for schools Stories from South Asia appeared from OUP. He has had many volumes of poetry published, the most recent collection, The Eastern Boroughs by Shearsman in 2004, with Shearsman also bringing out imminently his Collected Poems and Dreaming Arrival, a memoir. He also runs Many Press. There are poems and readings on Archive of the Now. And John now has a blog. There several other poems by him on this site, in this issue, and poems from British estate in the archive.
Yearn Glass makes reference to All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go by the London-based Lebanese artist Souheil Sleiman. The work was Lebanon's official entry for last year's Alexandria Biennale. It comprises hundreds of fragments of mirror attached to a framework of chicken wire. All Dressed Up . . . is a glass tower, like a skyscraper that is unravelling. There's a reference to the Twin Towers, to something apparently massive and solid which turned out to be vulnerable. The artist has said that he is also thinking of the rebuilding of Beirut. Previous work of his has explored the ecology of this and its effects on the surrounding landscape. At the same time in his piece something has been taken apart and simplified. He has suggested there is also a reference to the banks of TV screens you used to get in shops, mirror fragments as the screens. Souheil Sleiman's studio is in Hackney Wick in East London, one of those industrial areas where many traditional industries having moved out the premises have been occupied by artist's studios. Not far away is the site for the 2012 Olympics. Next door to the studio there is a workshop, the premises of 'Yearn Glass and Co, Mirror Manufacturers'.
John Wilkinson teaches at the University of Notre Dame. At present (2007-8) he is Carl & Lily Pforzheimer Fellow at the National Humanities Center, and is writing about Barbara Guest, George Oppen and James Schuyler, as well as writing poems. His most recent books are Lake Shore Drive (salt, 2006) (poetry) and The Lyric Touch (Salt, 2007) (criticism). A new book of poetry titled Down to Earth will be published by Salt in 2008. Some recent poems online can be found at ActionYes, Salt Magazine, and Mute. A 'critical conversation' with Peter Riley is accessible on the Chicago Review website.
John Lowther, from Stoppages new
John Lowther is part of the APG (Atlanta Poets Group), author of chaps, a limited edition book and anthologized in ANOTHER SOUTH from the U of Alabama Press. Though he does write poetry, more often he improvizes it live or collaborates with the APG. John also writes about poetry and art and curates a number of different shows/series at Eyedrum in Atlanta. He edits a small press called 3rdness and is a contributing editor to THE NAMELESS press, Spaltung Magazine and a soon to launch sound poetry webzine. He also does performance art, visual art in various mediums and is working on a juicy pulpy horror novel with vampires! Presently John is trying to learn German and hopes to move to Berlin by the year 2010.
about those poems called Stoppages..."I am and have been for many years deeply into Duchamp. Loosely thinking of his Three Standard Stoppages I was one day reading some academic article about his work and found my eye making a poem out of the words that ran down the right margin of a full justified paragraph and it occurred to me that I was using the places where the lines found stoppage. The series took off from there. Methodologically it works like this; every poem is derived from a single paragraph in a scholarly text about Duchamp. I must take the word that is at the end of each line (I allowed an exception, I could ignore proper names that I didn't find a use for), I could also have as many words in sequence going toward the left side of the page as found in the original, but I could not skip any of them. Punctuation had to be kept. I also allowed myself the option of using or not using the final line of a paragraph (because it didn't usually reach the right margin or stoppage). Now, having typed all these out onto a page I could resequence the lines and removes words from the left end of the line, but that was all I could do. Their right justified rendering as poems thus echoes their original form. I found this rather strict set of limits netted me some relatively tight & jazzy sounding little poems. There are around 70 extant poems in this series, something like 20-30 others have gone missing. Other Stoppages have appeared in Kenning, Shampoo and Word For/Word."
David Rushmer lives in Cambridge. Editor of pen:umbra magazine (1988-1991). His works have appeared in a number of magazines; Angel Exhaust, VIntimacy, Oasis, 10th Muse, Tremblestone and Archive of the Now. Previous pamphlets include Absence (with David Barton) (David Barton, 1990), Homage To Throbbing Gristle (Writers' Forum, 1993), Love Letters To The Dead (1993). His most recent publication is The Family of Ghosts (2005) from Arehouse, Cambridge. There are more poems of his on Great Works.
sean burn, trans literations new
sean burn is a writer, performer & outsider artist with a growing international reputation. he has completed theatre works for (among others) ctc; first draft theatre; half moon theatre; maverick productions; pegasus youth theatre; paines plough; purple moon theatre; under construction; weaver-hughes ensemble. his short films – ayler, stealing brecht, our ordinary map, sz and the terror we create are receiving screenings around europe. he has had 3 cd's ov his work released, most recently speaksong (with gareth mitchell musician). he has created/exhibited text-art projects for (among others) arcadea, tyne and wear; cesta, czech republic, dada-south; fold gallery, cumbria; and the humber mouth festival, hull. skrev press has published two full length collections ov his writing – edgecities (isbn 1904646-34-4) and @ the edge (isbn 978-1-904646-39-6). sean has another text, outstaring, on great works.
trans literations – i was privileged to hear the fine north american free improvising pianist marilyn crispell in a quartet (with evan parker, one of my musical heroes, and barry guy – bass (ditto) and paul lytton percussion) at the appleby jazz festival. this piece is partly a transcription ov an imagined solo ov hers while also improvising on music and loss. select discography:
live in zurich |
leo cd lr 122 | |
the kitchen concert |
leo cd lr 178 | |
santuerio |
leo cd lr 191 | |
for coltrane |
leo cd lr 195 |
Daniel Andersson, In Time of Empire and Verse new
Daniel Andersson has had recent publication in Weyfarers, Purple Patch, The Interpreters House, the Journal, Berlin Bordercrossings, and Interpoetry. His translation of Hjalmar Gullberg, Månskensnatt is elsewhere in this issue.
Alistair Noon, At the Atlantic new
Alistair Noon lives in Berlin. Poems, translations, and his reviews of Gael Turnbull, Charles Reznikoff and others are online at Litter. Other online publications can be accessed via his mySpace site.
Innocenza Istarte, eight poems new
Innocenza has lived in London most of her life, where she continues to live with her partner and beautiful nine year old son, Jacob. She has also lived in Colombia. She has recently had poems published in the following magazines and poetry sites: Anon, Harlequin, Linkway, Toad in Mud, Sentinel, Kritya and Erbacce. There are more poems on Great Works from Innocenza from the sequence For You
Michael Lee Johnson, two poems new
Michael Lee Johnson is a poet, and freelance writer. He is self-employed in advertising, and selling custom promotional products. He is the author of The Lost American: From Exile to Freedom. He has also published two chapbooks of poetry. He is also nominated for the James B. Baker Award in poetry, Sam's Dot Publishing. He is a contributor in the Silver Boomers poetry anthology about aging baby boomers, by Silver Boomer Books. Michael Lee Johnson presently resides in Itasca, Illinois, United States. He lived in Canada during the Vietnam era and will be published as a contributor poet in the anthology Crossing Lines: Poets Who Came to Canada in the Vietnam War Era, publication scheduled for early 2008. He has been published in USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, Turkey, Fuji, Nigeria, Algeria, Africa, India, United Kingdom, Republic of Sierra Leone, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, and Malaysia.
Visit his website at: http://poetryman.mysite.com/. He is now the publisher, editor of Poetic Legacy, Birds By My Window: Willow Tree Poems and A Tender Touch and A Shade of Blue. All publications are now open for submissions, looking for poetry, free verse and metric (but not contrived form), very small flash fiction, and small non-fiction articles that reflect a sincere cause or issue.
Dean Nicholson, four poems new
Dean Nicholson (also known as Dejan Nikolic or Dionysius is the President of Literary-Philosophical Society "Philokalia", a member of the Council of the Magazine Beauteous Serbia, theologian, philosopher, poet, screenplay writer. He has published these books of poems: The Young Princes Education Manual, The Archaic Dandy and Blondogenet; two Theology-Philosophical Tractates: Creatioexnihilo-clasts and Creatioexnihilo-admirers and War and Peace and War and Peace and numerous studies, reviews, essays and articles, e.g. Leon Shestov and the Third Dimension of Thinking – Kainos Gnoseology Test, The Joyful Sorrow of Byzantinism Illuminates Europe, Desert as Desert, The Short History of the Wiseman from Koeningsberg – Bellum Omnium contra Omnes, The Manifest of Philokalia, The Noesthetical Letter, The Secret of the Antinomical Omnigirl, etc. He is currently working on the study of the notion of Eternal Recurrence of the Same by Nietzsche, in light of comprehension of Saint Grigory of Nisa's Apokatastasis. Dean Nicholson has also had poetry published on Kritya, and The Roundtable Review. He has other poems published in this issue.
Mark Cunningham, five poems new
Poems have appeared recently in Otoliths, Dusie, foam:eand Elimae. Tarpaulin Sky Press will be bringing out a book tentatively Body Language, which will contain two separate collections, one titled Body (on parts of the body) and one titled Primer (on numbers and letters).
Christopher Mulrooney, three poems new
Christopher Mulrooney has had poems and translations in The Delinquent, Vanitas, Guernica, echolocation and fourW, and publications include Come on with the rain (Phony Lid Pubs), singing for pennies on the streets (Budget Press), apostrophe (Los), notebook and sheaves. He has had a lot of material on the web, as poems, translations and more. Websites devoted to his work include: dream-holes in the net, Broadcast, Vexed Texts, Ut, Criteria (critical comments with illustrations), McCloud (devoted to the TV show), and 'Alliwell That Ends Well (notes on film — including a spirited defence of a Michael Winner film). There are more poems of his on Great Works.
Andrew Baker, Epitaph of Reason new
Charles Jason Lee, six poems new
Charles Jason Lee is the author of Pervasive Perversions — child sexual abuse and media/culture (Free Association Books: London, 2005) and The Metaphysics of Mass Art — Cultural Ontology, plus the poetry collections Lost Passports, Polaroid Noise, God’s Potato Peeler, and The Day Elvis Died. He has taught at St Martin’s College, and the universities of Essex, Hertfordshire, Central Lancashire, and East London.
Norman Jope was born in Plymouth, where he lives again after lengthy spells in other locations (most recently Swindon, Bristol and Budapest) and works, as an administrator, at University College Plymouth St Mark & St John. His collection For The Wedding-Guest was published by Stride, and his poetry has appeared in many magazines, webzines and anthologies; a book-length sequence, The Book of Bells and Candles, is due out shortly from Waterloo Press, and he is currently editing a critical companion to the work of Richard Burns for Salt. Co-editor with Ian Robinson of the excellent anthology In the Presence of Sharks: New poetry from Plymouth (Phlebas, 2006).
Fish and Shushan, three poems new
Fish and Shushan are an astronaut with a guitar and her 'I like girls a lot' music
and . . . a flower growing quietly from the wall
there are also trees and inappropriate thoughts!
Fish is trying to learn the chords for Stockton Gala Days
while perfecting the art of charming bees out of their honey.
Shushan buzzes in and out of material space with the electric humm
of honeybee wings. She also likes to paint.
These poems are from the unpublished poetry collection, The Chatter of Birds. Shushan is Vanessa Kittle, who lives out on Long Island with her evil kitten, Sombrero. A former chef and lawyer, Vanessa is now an English composition professor. She published 2 collections of poetry in 2006: a chapbook called Apart, and a full-length book called Surviving the Days of the Empire, both with The March Street Press. Her work has recently been in The New Renaissance, Nerve Cowboy, Limestone, Ibbetson Street, and A Generation Defining Itself anthology. Vanessa edits Abramelin, the Journal of Poetry and Magick.
Lydia Towsey is a poet and spoken word artist. In addition to writing and performing, Lydia is chair of voluntary arts in mental health organization, BrightSparks. She also co runs The Brighter Side (performance poetry project) with fellow poet, Rob Gee. She organizes arts in mental health projects for the NHS, facilitates poetry workshops and coordinates Leicester's principal spoken word night, WORD! In 2007 Lydia was commissioned to write and perform for the Freedom Showcase. The show has plans to tour in 2008. Shortly after the Freedom Showcase, Lydia was asked to play The Devil in a short film, Hindmost. In 2009 she will be featured poet in Coffee House Magazine. Meanwhile she is completing her first collection and developing work for a new touring show. She can be found facilitating in any number of schools and community groups. She drinks a lot of tea. If any of this interests you, you should really check her MySpace presence and read her wordpress blog.
Tom White has recently moved from Casablanca to London, in order to involve himself in the poetry scene here. These poems are taken from Joke Book, which re-mixes each page of The Goodbyes by John Ash it into a new poem. Tom has just started working on a new project, Echo, an attempt to turn the national newspapers into poetry. More work can be found at Dusie and Stride.
Recently completed an M. A. in Creative Writing at the University of Plymouth, studying with Tony Lopez. Poems published recently in the anthology In the Presence of Sharks (Phlebas, Plymouth, 2006). Work forthcoming in Orphans of Albion, a poetry anthology due out this year from Survivors Poetry/The Sixties Press. Poems also due out in The Text, The David Jones Journal and Tremblestone no. 6. These poems are part of a collection, The Pirates, hoping for publication shortly. Has read quite extensively in the South West: Plymouth, Exeter, Taunton, Totnes etc.
Michael Egan is a poet from Liverpool. His first collection The River Swam was published in 2005. He is currently studying an MA in Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Lee has been writing poetry for twenty years, with poems published in many small press magazines and anthologies, and online. Most of his published work is available as an archive on his blog Lost Among Equals; Minimalist poet, minimalist lifestyle is his other blog.
Chris is from South Wales but has English and Irish roots. He studied Performance Writing at Dartington College, and after lived 5 years in London. He was a regular at the Writers Forum workshop throughout this time and also a particpant in the collaborative project London Under Construction. He lived in South America for two years too. His book Mantras For the City From The City is published by Writers Forum. His sequence Truth Serum vs Erroneous Shit a Faultline Encyclopedia in 27 Parts Laughter Magic Electricity the Rational Hysteria of a Mass Mind Everything of Importance And. . . was published in Bad Press Eyes Monthly. His work has also featured on Onedit, Skald Magazine, And Magazine, and the radical translation review Reception. He authored some internet translation engine inspired adaptions of Joyce which somehow found their way to the Guardian Unltd website. His criticism is featured on the Birkbeck Readings website.
Richard Kostelanetz, Letter Links new
Individual entries on RICHARD KOSTELANETZ appear in Contemporary Poets, Contemporary Novelists, Postmodern Fiction, Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, A Reader's Guide to Twentieth-Century Writers, the Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, Webster's Dictionary of American Authors, The HarperCollins Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature, NNDB.com, and the Encyclopedia Britannica, among other distinguished directories. Living in New York, where he was born, he survives unemployed and thus overworked. And he has a website . There is another working of his words on Great Works, Inserts-1.
Amos Weisz translating Monika Rinck, six poemsnew
Amos Weisz was a poet and a translator from the German, who tragically died earlier this year. He has had one volume of poems published, Woss the Damage, Djinn? (Make Shift Press, 2006). Great Works will publish more translations and a prose piece in the next issue.
Monika Rinck is a poet and essayist, a member of the action group 'Das Lemma', and an actress in the fictional docu-soap Le Pingpong d'Amour. Her work includes fumbling with matches: Herumfingern an Gleichgesinnten (SuKuLTuR, 2005), Verzückte Distanzen: Gedichte (Zu Klampen, 2004), Begriffsstudio 1996-2001 (edition sutstein, 2001), and Neues von der Phasenfront (b_books, 1998). She currently works for INFORADIO in Berlin and teaches at the Religious Studies Department of the Free University Berlin. She also translates English and American poetry into German. She has work available online on Poetry International Web (with translation), her internet-based work in progress begriffstudio and on neuedichte.de, and can be heard reading her work (with texts & translations of the texts also available) on Lyrikline. Translations of her poetry have also been published in Shearsman. I would like to thank Monika for her help in getting these translations published.
Lucy Harvest Clarke, seven poems new
Born in East Sussex in 1982 Lucy lives and works in London acting as a freelance painter/renovator/photographer/drink maker/language teacher/learner/general career avoider. Her poems are self published and self promoted and available on paper via contact: lucyharvest@hotmail.com.
Kevin Doran’s poetry, articles, reviews, and (digital) photography/art are published or forthcoming in 2008 Anthology of Younger Poets, Dwarf Stars Anthology, Dusie, World Haiku Review, elimae, Otoliths, Unpleasant Event Schedule, Scifaikuest, iota, and others. He was nominated for a 2007 SFPA (Science Fiction Poetry Association) Dwarf Stars Award. Visit his blog for more info, and also Triptych Haiku and Oculus, blogzines he is involved with.
Mark Goodwin is a poet, writer & climber.He has published in a wide range of magazines, paper and electronic, including Stride Magazine (and again) and Leafe Press's Litter Magazine. He is a member of the Inky Fish collective of poets. Shearsman Books will be publishing his first book, Else, in May. He has further poems on this site, as part of this issue, and archived here and there.
Christopher Barnes, five poems new
In 1998 Christopher Barnes won a Northern Arts writers award. Each year he reads for Proudwords lesbian and gay writing festival and takes part in workshops. 2005 saw the publication of the collection LOVEBITES published by Chanticleer Press (Edinburgh). He has appeared in Angel Exhaust, and read at the Edinburgh Festival as a Per Verse poet. Christopher has a short film available online on gay history with BBC Tyne, and he can be heard reading on the MP3 edition of The Wolf. He has engaged in extensive poetic, film-making and other artistic work in the North-East, including a solo art/poetry exhibition at The People's Theatre, Newcastle. Christopher has written poetry reviews for Poetry Scotland and Jacket Magazine, where he also has poems online. In August 2007 he made a film A Blank Screen, 60 seconds, 1 shot for Queerbeats Festival at The Star & Shadow Cinema Newcastle, reviewing a poem (go to www.myspace.com/queerbeatsfestival). Christopher was involved in the Five Arts Cities poetry postcard event which exhibited at The Seven Stories children's literature building. He has other poems in this issue of Great Works.
Chris Hardy has been published in lots of magazines – Stand, Agenda, Tears In The Fence, the North, Poetry Review, Smith's Knoll and many others; he has won prizes in the London Writers', National Poetry and other competitions and has one collection out from Hub Editions, Swimming in the Deep Diamond Mine. Trying to get another published – somehow. Poems are due to appear in some of these and others. Chris has poems online at www.poetrypf.co.uk, and elsewhere in this issue
Adam Burbage has been writing poetry for several years. These poems form part of a longer sequence, an attempt to write a kind of poetic diary. These entries cover the period May 2006 to April 2007. Further entries can be found at Stride Magazine. Adam works in publishing, and lives in Oxfordshire with his fiance. He can be contacted on adam.burbage@googlemail.com.
Born in Cork, Ireland in 1951. Interested in reading and writing from an early age. Most of his literary career was spent on the voluntary literary circuit in Dublin between 1981 and 2005 as an organiser and host. Founder and co-founder and member of many literary groupings. These included The Modernist Study Group, Statoblast, Voice Free, The James Connolly Red Poets Society, and many others. Two books due from Spectacular Diseases Press titled Free Range and Submariners. Work on line in Jacket 31, LVNG 9, The Irish American Post Spring 2006.
Richard Barrett, two poems new
Richard Barrett has one poem due to appear in April's edition of LiterarySpot.com. He is due to take part in an online radio show, as well, for LiterarySpot. Two poems due to appear in June edition of Manchester poetry magazine The Ugly Tree. Reading a paper at University of Salford's May conference devoted to the group The Fall; title of paper: "Mark E Smith, Blake and auto-didactic oppositon to the objectivist tendency". Ongoing writing work with Manchester based physical theatre group Artificial Light. Regular appearances at various venues around Manchester inflicting poems upon the unsuspecting public.
Scott Thurston, from Momentum new
Scott Thurston’s most recent book is Hold (Shearsman, 2006). He lectures in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Salford and has published on Allen Fisher, Adrian Clarke, John Wilkinson, Maggie O'Sullivan, Ulli Freer, Ira Lightman, Geraldine Monk and Tony Lopez. He edits The Radiator, a little magazine of poetry and poetics, and recently edited The Salt Companion to Geraldine Monk. See his pages at www.archiveofthenow.com. A new sequence of ninety poems called Momentum, is due out with Shearsman in May 2008.
Nick Wayte lives in France and has published in several poetry magazines. He produced Resuscitator magazine and R Books with John James in the 1960s. He has also published two short collections: Seconds (Ferry Press 1969) and Signals (Wayward Press 1981). He served time as a cultural studies lecturer at Gloucestershire College of Art & Design (now part of the University of Gloucestershire). There are more poems by Nick on this site here and there.
Paul A Green has worked as a freelance writer/broadcaster in Canada, college lecturer in Devon, supply teacher in inner London, and used-book operative in Hay-on-Wye. Currently Lecturer in Media and Performing Arts at the Royal National College for the Blind, Hereford.
His poetry and short fiction has been published in a range of magazines, including Poetry Review, Poetics Journal, New Worlds and Not Poetry. He has read at Royal Festival Hall Voicebox, Sub-Voicive, Angels of Fire, ICA, the Split Screen Conference and other venues while his pieces for the pioneering audio mag DNA have been disseminated in Canada and the USA. He has often performed with musicians, including Vincent Crane, Pete Brown, the Verbs, and Alphabet City. His work also includes collaborations with the video and media artist, Jeremy Welsh. As the Quantum Brothers, they devised tapes, installations, and launched poetic probes into cyberspace.
Small press books include: Directions to the Dead End (Sono Nis, Vancouver); Basement Mix (Galloping Dog); The Slow Ceremony (ReVerb) and The Slow Learning (ReVerb/IRS), with work in various anthologies: Contemporary Poetry of British Columbia (Sono Nis, Vancouver), Angels of Fire (Chatto) and Words We Call Home (University of British Columbia Press). A Selected Poems is still in preparation but in the meantime a cross-section of work can be found at: QBSaul Hypertexts. He has also written radio drama and features, including Ritual of the Stifling Air for BBC, The Dream Laboratory for CBC Canada, Power/Play! for Capital Radio, The Mouthpiece for Resonance FM), arts and literary journalism, rock lyrics, as well as devising theatre/performance pieces for Bristol Playwrights Company, The Department of Enjoyment, and Pyrotheatrix. Newtheatreworks.co.uk has presented a sequence from his play The Terminal Poet (whose script is now on this site) at the Courtyard Arts Centre as part of its new writing programme.
Various unpublished fiction projects include The Dream Depository, Beneath the Pleasure Zones and 666. Work in progress involves scripts for radio, television and film. Paul writes articles and reviews for Lawrence Russell's e-zine Culture Court, which also hosts audio and video clips of his work. Babalon, a play about esoteric rocket scientist Jack Parsons was performed at RADA in London in 2005; The Voice Collection, a play concerning electronic voice phenomena was broadcast by RTE Radio in 2006 and last year a novel, The Qliphoth was published by Libros LIbertad. He has two other works on great Works: Paul A Green, Untitled, and The Terminal Poet: A Drama for Audio.
Iftekhar Sayeed, Engendered Space new
Iftekhar Sayeed teaches English and economics. He was born and lives in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in DANFORTH REVIEW, POSTCOLONIAL TEXT and DALHOUSIE REVIEW from Canada; PEARL, WORDS WORDS WORDS, ROGUESCHOLARS.COM, WRITETHIS.COM, PERIGEE, OPEDNEWS.COM, DREAMAGIC.COM, POET'S HAVEN, AXIS OF LOGIC, THE SQUARE TABLE, LITVISION, SOUTHERN CROSS REVIEW, RITRO.COM, PEMMICAN, GOWANUS, UNLIKELY STORIES (February, April, July 2006, Feb 2007), FREEZERBOX, MOBIUS, CATALYZER, ALTAR MAGAZINE, ONLINE JOURNAL (2005, 2006, 2007), LEFT CURVE (2004, 2005) and THE WHIRLIGIG in the United States; in Britain: ENTER TEXT, PENNINE INK, CURRENT ACCOUNTS, MOUSEION, ERBACCE, THE JOURNAL, POETRY MONTHLY, ENVOI, ORBIS, ACUMEN and PANURGE; and in ASIAWEEK in Hong Kong; CHANDRABHAGA and the JOURNAL OF INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH in India; and HIMAL in Nepal He is also a freelance journalist. He and his wife love to tour Bangladesh. He has a number of other essays available online, eg Reflections on Democracy and Violence in Unlikely 2.0, and Freedom and Freedom on the Brunel University website. He has a homepage, with links to his work published online.
Maurice Scully is an Irish poet living in Dublin. His most recent publications are 5 Freedoms of Movement (Swansea, Galloping Dog Press,1987 [2nd edition, South Devonshire, etruscan books, 2001]), Livelihood (Bray, Wild Honey Press, 2004), Sonata (Reality Street Editions, 2006), and Tig (Exeter, Shearsman Books, 2006), which together compose Things That Happen .
Gregory Vincent St Thomasino, Elegy for Christopher Smart
Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino was born in Greenwich Village, New York, and was raised in both the city and in the country across the Hudson River in New Jersey. He was educated at home, eventually to enter Fordham University where he received a degree in philosophy. His poetry and prose have appeared in print in Barrow Street, The Germ, jubilat, Washington Review and in Xcp: Cross-Cultural Poetics. and online at Onedit, Nthposition, elimae, hutt, and at Xcp: Streetnotes. His interview with the writer Colin Wilson is online at The Argotist Online. He lives in Brooklyn Heights, New York, where he edits the online poetry journal, eratio, and works as a private docent.
A commentary on the poem: I became interested in Christopher Smart back in 1978, by way of the composer Benjamin Britten. Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb (a Festival Cantata), is a setting of parts from Smart's long poem, Jubilate Agno. Included (in Britten's cantata) are some lines from what is probably Smart's best known lines, ‘For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry.’ Here Smart takes his beloved cat as an example of nature praising God by being simply what the Creator intended it to be. Probably the popularity of this poem is due to its inclusion in Pound's anthology. (Bucke does not include Smart on his list of instances [in Richard M. Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness] – lesser, imperfect or otherwise – but I think maybe so.)
Tom Jenks is the editor of Manchester-based Parameter Magazine. Recent poems in BlazeVox. Others due to appear in various places, including Stand.
Changming Yuan published several books and a dozen essays on translation in China before moving to Canada. Currently Yuan teaches English in Vancouver and has had poems appearing in Dalhousie Review, London Magazine, The Argotist On-Line, Offcourse, Private and many others.
Patricia Farrell has had books published by Reality Street and Writers Forum. Her work has appeared in a number of anthologies and magazines, including Shadowtrain. She has also taken part in exhibitions in London, Birmingham, Portsmouth and Cologne. She has collaborated as a poet and visual artist with, amongst others, Robert Sheppard and Jennifer Pike Cobbing. Ship of Fools was set up in the mid 1980s by Robert Sheppard and Patricia Farrell, for the purpose of publishing their art and text collaborations.
Steven Waling has recently published his latest collection, Travelator, just out from Salt, and Calling Myself on the Phone (Smith/Doorstop, 2004) before that. Poems recently published at www.dusie.com and forthcoming in Parameter. He comes from Accrington, lives in Manchester and is currently Writer-in-Residence at HMP Whatton. His blog, BrandosHat is well worth visiting.
Philip Hammial has had twenty collections of poetry published, two of which – Bread in 2001 & In the Year of Our Lord Slaughter's Children in 2004 – were short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize (a NSW Premier's Award). He is also a sculptor and the director of The Australian Collection of Outsider Art. He has recently had poems accepted for Fulcrum & Intercapillary Space.
Chris Gutkind came here from Montreal in 1988 and works as a librarian. In 2006 Shearsman Books published Inside to Outside, and you can hear him on PoetCasting. He also has a delightful MySpace presence.
Andrew Jordan lives in Southampton. He edits 10th Muse magazine (some issues available online, archived by the Poetry Library), and produces the Listening Voice newletter of the Equi-Phallic Alliance. He has had poems published in Angel Exhaust, Oasis, PN Review, Shearsman, Stand, and Tabla. His most recent book is Ha Ha (Shearsman, 2007). His poem Vair of Four Tinctures is also on Great Works.
From November 2000 to May 2001: writer-in-residence at HMP Haslar, then a Home Office Holding Centre, now a Removal Centre. Most of the detainees are refugees, including survivors of torture. The January 2005 issue of Poetry Review includes an article about the residency called Inside the Outside, available online.
Tammy Ho Lai-ming, aka Sighming, is a Hong Kong-born and -based writer. She is the editor of HKU Writing: An Anthology (March, 2006), a co-editor of Word Salad Poetry Magazine and a co-founder of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal . Visit Tammy's homepage for more details.
Aishwarya Iyer was born in 1983, and graduated in English Literature from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. She has been published online in Sweet magazine and Eclectica magazine. There are more poems of hers on Great Works.
Geoff Stevens edits Purple Patch poetry magazine from West Bromwich. He has a very fun website. Geoff has other poems on Great Works, at here and there. His most recent collection is The Phrenology of Anaglypta (Bluechrome, 2004).
Shearsman published Janet Sutherland's first collection in 2006, Burning the Heartwood. She has had work in a number of magazines over the years, print and web based: KUDOS, ninth decade, Strange Mathematics, Poesie Europe, Sows Ear, The News, Reality Studios, Angels of Fire, The Rialto, Lettera, Shearsman, Stride, Damn the Caesars, Litter.
T A James lives in Bedfordshire, and has had several poems printed by small presses. She Sold my first story (sci fi) to an online webzine Alienskin, a couple of articles for University chapbook, various bits & pieces scattered online. She writes across several genres : poetry, scripts, favour fantasy and magic realism for short stories written, and prose poetics that she like to dabble with. T A James has completed a Creative Writing degree at the University of Bedfordshire.
Allison Boast completed a BA Creative Writing Degree at the University of Bedfordshire in September 2006. She is currently trying to juggle earning a living and writing. Most recently her work has been published in Fire magazine (Issue no. 28) and on the Noise Festival website. She has read a selection of her work at the Crossing the Line poetry event (August 2006). She is the Chief Editor of the experimental writing website Write Off and can be contacted on skullshock2000@yahoo.co.uk.
Christopher Barnes, five poems
Alison Smith is a poet, person-centred practitioner in education, a human potential facilitator. She has worked as a psychiatric nurse, adult literacy tutor, tutor in adult education, before training to be a secondary teacher in English in 1989. She has been teaching English and English Literature to teenagers and adults since then, in various settings. She lives and works in Northumberland, and has a house in Crete, where she spends summers. She has had poems published in Loutro Poems (Worldspirit, 2006). Alison admires Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich, Carl Rogers and Alice Walker and wants to learn to speak fluent Greek, ignore her inner male critic and leave mainstream education. And have poems published.
j brooke is an ex pat American that is so ashamed of George W Bush and his LUNATIC FRINGE of killers like A Gonzalez, D Cheny and C Rice, he gave up his USA citizenship and now lives as a Mexican in Zipolite Mexico. He can be contacted on jbrooke2001@yahoo.com.
Niall Quinn, three Phlebas poems
Niall Quinn was co-author, with Nic Laight & Nick Macias, of the highly praised However introduced to the Soles (UNKN, 1995). He has had work in Nicholas Johnson's anthology Foil: defining poetry 1985-2000 (etruscan books, 2000), and in Angel Exhaust 15: Bizarre Crimes of the Future and Angel Exhaust 18: Hex Inhaustion Dux. Other texts are also published on Great Works.
Simon Wright, A Fragmented Verticality
The texts are excerpts from a larger project undertaken while living in the Brazilian city of São Paulo. ‘Walk One’ is derived from a series of walks the author took along one of the busy thoroughfares in the local neighbourhood, while ‘Eighteen Storeys’ represents a small piece considering the view over the city from his apartment window. Simon Wright initially trained as an artist, studying Fine Art at MA level at Central Saint Martins College, before deciding to concentrate exclusively on writing. This is his first project (and is, as yet, unpublished). He currently lives in Bristol, and can be contacted at simonwrig@hotmail.com.
Innocenza Istarte, ten poems from For You
Daniel Andersson, Moonlit Night (translating Hjalmar Gullberg, Månskensnatt)
Hjalmar Gullberg (born 30 May 1898 in Malmö, Skåne, died 19 July 1961 at Yddingesjön, Skåne; suicide) was a Swedish writer, poet and translator of Greek drama into Swedish. As a student at Lund University, Gullberg was the editor of the student magazine Lundagård. He was the manager of the Swedish Radio Theatre 1936-1950. In 1940 he was made a member of the Swedish Academy, and he also became a honorary doctor of philosophy at Lund University (1944). (Thank you, Wikipedia, here.)
Michael Blackburn, LET'S BUILD A CITY
Poet, writer and artist. Currently Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Lincoln. Most recent collection The Ascending Boy (Flambard). Former roles include: Co-Director Morden Tower (Newcastle), Literature Development Worker, Festival Director, Editor & Publisher (Stand Magazine, Harry's Hand, Jackson's Arm, Sunk Island, etc), Writer In Residence On The Internet (1995, c/o Arts Council/Channel). Main website Art Zero; busy reviving Sunk Island Review as an online magazine; also a highly active MySpace presence.
NOTES: T Dan Smith (1915-1993) was a prominent politician in the north-east of England in the 1960s and was the Leader of Newcastle City Council between 1960 and 1965. He was responsible for a large amount of redevelopment within the city, including slum clearance and the building of new housing stock and a motorway network. He had a great vision of Newcastle as the 'new Brasilia' of the north and was a passionate exponent of regionalism and the arts. Unfortunately, his business dealings were tainted with corruption and after a number of trials he finally received a prison sentence in 1974. The poem was sourced from the text of An Autobiography by Smith, published by Oriel Press in 1970.
About these poems: the inn in Dripping Eves is in Radnor; Wild Horses is a track by the Rolling Stones; Snakehips was a pub singer (Chris plays in a bluesrock band Big Road; he has a fascinating musical history); the line about 'backs bending as if they got no bone' in On The Beach is a common phrase in blues songs eg in Rock Me Mama by Muddy Waters.
RG Gregory, Proverbs of Hell new: pdf
poet playwright theatre-in-the-round director and actor
innovative english and drama teacher
inventor of instant theatre and the english block
founder of the language-arts company word and action (dorset)
and member of it for thirty years
writer of fiction and non-fiction
maker of poem-collages and poem-graphics
and a deep believer in the ordinary human spirit (OHS)
Greg's own website is the carefully erected cathedral of the ordinary human spirit.
The Playground pdf: from my archive
Go to List of mp3s of The Playground for all the mp3s, and more photos.
Other work by a range of writers is held in the Archive, or you can use the Quick Index for rapid access.
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