Confronting the Danger of Art

Confronting the Danger of Art, a poetry pamphlet written by me and illustrated by Phil Cooper, is available to order from Sidekick Books today. It's styled like a government information booklet from the 70s/80s, such as the nuclear guide Protect and Survive, and envisages a society that has decided artistic expression is so dangerous it needs to be suppressed. The anti-art arguments employed in the first chapter of the book are based on those used by Plato in Boox X of The Republic. I thoroughly enjoyed writing it, maybe there's a career for me in propaganda, and Phil's artwork is witty and cool. More info at http://www.drfulminare.com/dangerofart.php

Sometimes The World Is Too Beautiful

Sometimes The World Is Too Beautiful follows the life of a Mississippi poet, from early mistakes (the hacking up of a turtle to make a comb for his mother) through to marriage, children, divorce, a love affair, and concluding with the death of his parents. Some mistakes are learned from - following his debacle with the turtle the poet develops a deep affinity with the natural world, often very beautifully expressed ("Yesterday, pruning azalea bushes, / A female cardinal let / Me look into her brown eyes"). Others, perhaps chiefly that most Luciferian of flaws, pride, persist, see him summoning monkey demons, or, lost in life's maze, shouting for a confrontation with the Minotaur that never comes. The writing is lucid, evocative of powerful emotion, often of an almost shockingly high standard. Though this book is perhaps especially for those who "... sense the dilemma of the rare, lost ones, / Who yet can't embrace any belief simply / To save themselves--", the quality of the poetry will speak to everyone.

Dr Faustus, White Bear, Kennington

My brother has a production of Dr Faustus running at the White Bear, Kennington from 27th Sept - 2nd Oct 2011. I created the flier for it with help from my doggie.

The Absinthe Room

It is the green hour when my love arrives;
shrugging off life's bristling threads,
her exquisite liquid nakedness,
she soothes my brow with sweet palms
chill as iced water, her visage
milky opalescence, la louche, where
wild scents bloom: crisp fennel;
rich anise; wormwood.

Do you sleep? I know the evening
and the metal dawn. I work with
absolute materials: everything
and nothing.

A dreaming drowned man,
my mistress, glacial sage,
of such delicate health
she must sleep behind
UV-proof glass.

Suddenly the window is white.
Too much sun; the rush that burns.
Her fading footsteps.

I know a pure, clear-headed love.

Confronting the Danger of Art

Introductory page from Confronting the Danger of Art, a pamphlet I've created with artist Phil Cooper for Sidekick Books.

Retrato de Armando Seijo

University documentary on the painter Armando Seijo I helped produce.

Confronting the Danger of Art

I'm currently collaborating with the artist Phil Cooper on a pamphlet of illustrated poems for Sidekick Books entitled Confronting the Danger of Art. This pamphlet will have the look and feel of government booklets produced in the 70s and early 80s, and will use the arguments put forward by Plato in Book X of The Republic to justify the government's suppression of art and artistic expression in the UK. The text is basically all written and Phil's just in the process of illustrating it now.

Salem's Lot moment

Salem’s Lot moment: feeling of elation when you realise you and one other person have resisted a virulent cultural meme that has infected the rest of the local population. e.g. having met the one other person at a party who refuses to dance to commercial R'n'B, you both hide out in the garden. Should you fail to find another such person, you may find yourself overwhelmed by the infection, dancing along to Beyonce, now one of the damned.

Etymology: the 1979 television adaptation of Salem’s Lot concludes with two characters, Ben Mears and Mark Petrie, hiding in a church from the other town inhabitants, all of whom have been transformed into vampires. Despite the danger of their predicament there’s a sense of elation that they have resisted the vampire infection.

Narcissus

AM. Sunlight an upbeat headache.

Twisted sheet, love's last conquest 


gone, Opium and cash drift south. 

Check the void. Parish shirt, gold

chain. Straight dope on the radio.

Turn it up, Stunners, battle dance. 


Halting, in lit plate check the void; 

some double. Jewels, Hummers, 


Bathing Apes, my girl, yours, for
the void, swallows murders. At

the door, I show myself to it.

My December