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anyone familiar with Penny Goring (her work, her Tumblr, her Tweets) will understand why I’m chuffed to be featuring her here in the 3rd installment of my UK Author’s Spotlight. anyone not familiar with Penny should check her out. most every link in this post will be to her Tumblr or Twitter. except for the one to her book, the zoom zoom.

(you’ll find Penny’s Bio at the end of this post.)

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brief interview:

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rauan: as far as writing goes where, if at all, do you draw the line?

penny: words or pics, it’s all the same to me, i don’t draw lines. my exes mum, after reading a poem of mine, he told me she sed to him: ‘someone needs to get her to stop. will she ever draw the line?’ but i won’t. because i don’t want to. if something happened to me it is mine. i can do what i like with it.

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rk: some people think that all Art comes from the way Male and Female bodies talk to each other, violent, gentle, in shadows, and in light. whatcha think? (and please elaborate)

pg: i’m always deeply cringing at any sweeping statements about what art is or isn’t etc. ugh. i’m not comfortable with the capital A either. being an artist feels more like a curse to me. i ran from it for what felt like a long time. but i got into lots of trouble, nearly died, ended up in rehab. so now i make stuff but i’m doing it compulsively. its like i’m a donkey chasing a carrot. and i put out too much work. i treat tumblr, facebook, twit, like a wall in a studio, not a show. if i’m working on it i’ll post it. that applies to my macros, vids, and written work. but then i’ll go back, within minutes, days, or weeks, and delete most of it.

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rk: the movie Ted and Sylvia is, undoubtedly, one of the great movies of our time. but which of the two, if you had to choose, would you take with you on a weekend full of rain? (and please elaborate)

pg: i haven’t seen this movie. i’d have to leave sylvia out. feel like she’d be pretentious as fuk. ted must have been at least charming though, judging by the trouble he caused. i bet he was a sociopath – that could be fun.

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rk: to give our readers a taste of your work could you please provide us a brief(ish) sample of your writing?

pg:

close my window

i forgot to close my window last night and he swung in
broad-chested on the back of a cold grey leper
slung on septic string
kicked me 6 times in my sleepy tummy
with his size 12 steel-toed boots
tore fistfuls of my long roped hair from my poison scalp
vomited all over my bloodied head
vomited, vomited there
told me to make myself presentable
smashed his pint glass in my sleepy mouth
shattered my 2 front teeth
sliced my too soft lips
teased the shards and splinters from my swollen kiss
oh so gently
with steel tweezers
he loved me like that.
when he rings bells in my gut for the never-coming
my sapling ankles won’t snap.

 

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rk: do you go for midnight strolls on the moors? and even if you don’t could you please describe what that’s like?

pg: me alone lolloping, cuz i like that word, on spongy shagpile/bare feet, n i’m takin giant strides under a low sky of children’s b&w handprints, forming the face of mata hari, no, myra hindley, starin me out with her one good eye. soundtrack of my moors is the smiths wailing on the wrong speed and i’m carryin a cold baby, we’re running towards a bus stop. where i sit in the shelter with a stranger. he passes me a cigarette. when i say thanks, he sez: ‘go home, you fuckin londoner.’ it’s raining cheap cider. cathy is dead. she didn’t even leave a ghost. on the top deck of the night bus i sit behind kate bush – she’s snogging heathcliffe until he turns to dust in her arms, and by the time we reach clapham she’s wailing that song out the window.

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rk: what do your parents think of your writing?

pg: if my dad reads my stuff it makes him cry. my mum is a big janey smith fan, she can’t stand my stuff, finds it ‘weird and depressing’. sed she’d like to gun down every art tutor that helped lead me to this tragic end. if i’m making pics they think i should write. if i’m writing they think i should paint. every time i see my dad he begs me to get real and write a best seller. and i say, but dad, if i stop making the stuff i wanna make, i’d likely end up back in the gutter. and he sez, well, marry a rich man then. so yeah. i’m their costly heartbreaking disappointment.

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rk: to give our readers a further taste can you please provide us a 2nd sample of your work?

pg:

from The Zoom Zoom –

(the opening paragraphs of Small is the New Big)

 

This is a love story. From boyish brogues to bigger heels, simple bumbags to serious bling – it’s a love mega-mix. O and the sky the sky black sometimes like petrol and the rippled fluorescent spectrum and the wavy white threads of the tower blocks and the red white black buzzing tunnel and the tarmac and the rain and traffic and trains and Kings Cross as a girl where I was a glue sniffing truant NO when I carved his name in my arm with a knife like the top birds used or shall I wear red NO and how he kissed me under the weeping white threads of the tower blocks and I thought well as well him as another and then I told him with my lips to tell again NO and then he asked me would I NO to say YES my truant and first I put my hands against him NO and pushed him away from me so he couldn’t feel my tits all tiny NO and my head was buzzing like mad and NO I said NO I won’t NO.

This is a wank. Rediscover the thrill of head-to-toe armour, booted and hooded in wank. Flawlessly chic – amped up with crystal and hologram. White leather gloves, red velvet gloves, black fingerless mittens. The long arm, hand, red fingernails measuring the size of the world. Size of an elephant, size of a plum, size of the Blackwall Tunnel.

What she was what she is what she will be

What she wishes she was what she is

She is

Scoffing at one end

Shitting at the other

Kicking on all four corners

HEE HAW

In or out of her head

CLUCK

Centre a grimmer gloom

QUACK

Vulva going through the motions

RED

Muscles shot with warmth

WHITE

Numbed with cold black ice

BLACK

Skidding on spindly shanks

Flapping her furry tongue

The sun will bounce off her handcuffs

WOOF

You will see her for what she is

YES!

The dogs sink their teeth deep enough for her to see

THE*RED*HEAT*DRIPPING*FLOWERS

 

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(note: Penny also invites you to read Temporary Passport which is also from The Zoom Zoom. so click on it, here!!)

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rk: is Brighton sexy?

pg: no. nick cave probs only copes with living there cuz he doesn’t have to experience it in the usual way. i find seaside towns depressing – shabby, claustrophobic, nowhere. you feel like it’s okay cuz of the sea. but the sea gives you nothing. except the illusion of headspace. you can get mesmerised by the sea. lulled into a false sense of connectedness with your own amazingly profound emotion.

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rk: does the Viking spirit still stir at all in the English soul? (and plz elaborate)

pg: if by english soul you mean my soul – no. i identify with the boudica era. i blame everything on the romans. my ancestors were deep sea divers on the tiny island of alderney. they came to london in the 19thC and opened a pub in greenwich. alderney has been described as ”2000 alcoholics clinging to a rock.” it’s one of the channel islands, next to sark and guernsey. sark is mervyn peake’s island. i like to imagine fuchsia groan and Tintagieul from mr.pye as my female ancestors.

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rk: tell us about your day so far (please) ?

pg: got up at 8am. made a quadruple strength coffee, smoked a roll-up. checked email/fb/twitter/tumblr. wrote the thing about the moors. that felt almost painless so i answered all your qs. whilst drinking two more strong coffees and smoking lots more roll-ups. brushed my teeth three times. i do extreme brushing. followed by vigorous gum bleedy flossing. because i cant get my teeth cleaned free on the nhs anymore. its 10.40am now. i’m drinking a pint of water and chewing three pieces of my fave gum. and smoking.

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brief bio:

penny goring lives in london. her work has been published in bright stupid confetti, 3:am magazine, illuminati girl gang, and other online journals. She wrote the zoom zoom (eight cuts gallery press) and ununtruisms (nauseated drive). alien cum dsnt gt u pregnat and voodoo tampon are ongoing collaborative projects with hella trol buzy.

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Tags: Penny Goring, U.K. Spotlight