…………Crispin Best………….
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I am very pleased that Crispin Best is my 4th U.K. Spotlight. I’ve enjoyed just about everything I’ve seen or read of his. I am, simply put, a real fan. His tweets are a Ferrari. His website‘s a garage full of Lamborghini (samples of his excellent writing). And his Tumblr is one snazzy racing car after another. (what’s with all the sports car references?? — well, it’s between me and Crispin, eh!).
Crispin’s answers to my questions (my questions steeped in cutesy, showoff puffery and fluff) surprised me a bit like tender marble footsteps fit to baptize or decapitate a king and which knock (knock-knock) like a bronze Beowulf boat against his online personas which are so heroically abrasive (“hi, assholes“- etc), lovable, zany, magnetic, full of swagger and energy.
but, blah, blah, anyways,
.. here’s our interview, which you’d better enjoy! (assholes!)
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Rauan: which would you rather be called: a “digital Ashbery” or a “Tumblr Catullus” (nothing i’m guessing with “Larkin” in it)? and what truth would there be in either ? (and plz elaborate like we’re at a party in Brooklyn, leaning against a fridge. or between two trees on a summery day in Oxford. Or in a pit. Anything.).
Crispin: i do know an old story about don barthelme telling his writers-blocked student to drink a bottle of red wine and spend all night writing imitations of ashbery, phoning at 4am to check up on them, and how that helped the student. i feel a strong, sad warmth towards don barthelme at all times, but particularly when i think about that story. i like the sound of a tumblr catullus. that seems appealing. mostly i’m happy to be alive. it’s hard and it’s hell but it’s good.
[ the Senor Frogs T-Shirt, fyi, was a shrewd $2 purchase in Tokyo ]
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RK: beyond your excellent crude and funny persona(s) you seem able to find and show in your heart many beautiful READ MORE >
………..Penny Goring…………
made especially for this feature — (thanks, Penny!!)
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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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“pretentious as fuk”
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rk: the movie Ted and Sylvia is, undoubtedly, one of the great movies of our time. READ MORE >
U.K. Author Spotlight (2) – Miggy Angel
Realizing that they speak and read English in the U.K. and that they write in it too (and because I’m originally from South Africa a kind of diamond and veldt version of the U.K. with much better weather and beaches), I’ve decided to start a new feature that follows kind of in the vein of the Seattle Author Spotlight series. So, periodically, now, I will be featuring a U.K. author.
The first UK Author Spotlight was of Gary J Shipley and the 2nd one, now, is of Miggy Angel. Miggy and I met on Twitter. It was love at first tweet, really. Miggy’s a wonderful tweeter. And a wonderful writer too. Miggy is also just a plain old good guy. Not a hipster. Not an asshole. Just a good guy who also happens to be a wonderful writer. It is my pleasure, then, to be featuring Miggy here.
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Brief Bio:
Miggy Angel is a poet, performer and workshop facilitator, born and raised in South London and currently resident in Nottingham. His first collection, Grime Kerbstone Psalms was published by Celandor books in February 2013. He is the co-organizer of the monthly poetry event, Speech Therapy – as well as the founder of the Do Or Die poets, and one half of the musical project We Bleed Ink, with producer/musician John Freer. He has work published online at Kill Author, 3AM Magazine, and elsewhere.
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Brief Interview:
Rauan: your story (Miggy Angel’s) is of hard times, perseverance, redemption and resurrection. Can you share with us about your lowest point(s)
Miggy: Wow, Rauan, you’re straight in there. Lowest point? You mean apart from every time I walk down the road, and get my heart broken by every single thing I look at? I mean, I started trying to write whilst I was living in a half-way house, then a homeless person’s unit. So, yeah, there have been some low points along the way – mental-health related, addiction, etc. In many ways my life was a sole, protracted low point all of its own, over many years. The perseverance you mention was just me trying to write my way out of a very black and very deep hole. I don’t really go with the redemption and resurrection narrative, mainly because those words have certain religious connotations, and also because I’m still very much in the trenches my friend.
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Miggy Angel — (“Migs in School”)
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U.K. Author Spotlight (1) – Gary J Shipley
Realizing that they speak and read English in the U.K. and that they write in it too (and because I’m originally from South Africa a kind of diamond and veldt version of the U.K. with much better weather and beaches), I’ve decided to start a new feature that follows kind of in the vein of the Seattle Author Spotlight series. So, periodically, now, I will be featuring a U.K. author.
And the first UK Author Spotlight’s of Gary J Shipley. Gary and I recently became email and Facebook “chums” (see how easy this is?) and then he did a nice write-up on my new book and I blurbed his forthcoming book of poetry. Gary and I swap quite a lot of emails and Facebook “Likes” (these, hint-hint, make me feel really, really great.)
Gary’s smarter than me, much more philosophical and is able to write a Godless sort of language and landscape that I envy tremendously. When I saw the movie Pina I thought about Gary’s poetry. Gary is also an Artist. Kind of like Michaux. But different. I look very much to one day meeting Gary in person.
Also, fyi, this is what Brian Evenson has to say about Gary’s “Dreams of Amputation“:
Dreams of Amputation reads like the nightmares Derek Raymond might have experienced if he’d written cyberpunk. An exceptionally strange work, but a smart and thoughtful one as well. Disturbing, haunting, and inimitably weird, this is a book like no other.
So, anyways, Gary J Shipley’s Author Spotlight consists of a brief interview, Bio photo and Art.
Brief Bio:
Gary J Shipley is the author of eight books of various sizes. His latest is forthcoming from Blue Square Press. He has published in Gargoyle, The Black Herald, Paragraphiti, elimae, >kill author, nthposition, 3:AM, and others. More details can be found at Thek Prosthetics.
Brief Interview:
Rauan: Does the British Bulldog have any teeth left? (ie, can you tell us a bit about the state of British Literature, fiction, poetry, whatever)
Gary J: Yes. It has a single brown stump that bends when it bites you. READ MORE >