theimportanceofbeingaloof

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

a clear moon casting light over peaches from georgia

Would you like to throw a stone at me? Here, take all that’s left of my peach. D.H. Lawrence, The Peach

A couple of weeks ago I drove my Rolls Royce into Justin Bieber’s swimming pool. Back then was the heyday of the roaring 2020s. Foghorns, feather-heads & lithe urchins screaming around baggy corners of Hollywood, neon guitars, champagne, electric girls singing “baby, baby, baby oh”. I used to laugh at the strange strangers who spangled Bieber's colourful parties with the funny noises they made under the shadow of peach trees. This was before I realized they were just as real as you or I. I mean fake. I mean real. On arrival I smashed my car into the green lights of the harbour & my bright yellow rolly turned into the emeralds in my hand. In the crush of luxury metal, a writing style fell into my wrist, it is the magic with what I am writing, thank you. 

A man in a multicoloured coat made of mother of pearl and marbles with a magic stick met me at the perimeter of Justin Bieber’s fence and removed my shoes from my navy-blue socks. I gazed over the walls at a group of young and beautiful strangers, all laughing and smiling and laughing and smiling and smoking long, graceful cigarettes. They looked splendid in the crepuscular charm of the evening. I smiled at them, they ignored me.

I woke up and I was among a flock of Canadian geese on Beverley Road. It was five in the morning. Justin Bieber stumbled out of the French windows onto the neat, trimmed lawn with a girl who looked like whoever the It girl of Hollywood was. Zendaya. Bella Hadid. Zendaya. No clue. The names in tinsel town are perfectly interchangeable, sometimes they are replaced by people, but more often the names stay, like people. Carla Delevingne. Does Carla mean anything in Greek? I am not sure whether Carla Delevingne is a good thing or a bad thing. No clue. In Hollywood, my lilac eyes are for sale, and are free for anyone to drown in.

*

The swimming pool was very shallow. I went to Justin Bieber’s house last Friday night for another interminable party. I chatted for hours with a man subjected to a torrent of abuse on social media. After quitting the internet, he found a lucrative job as the owner of an opal mine, the man, named Todd Shift, had been excommunicated from a group of people he didn’t belong with in the first place. Writers. He excommunicated himself from a group of writers because he couldn’t write. But there was a rumour that he sent sexual messages to miners, opal miners, minors, I wasn’t sure what the rumours were. Swerve. I was not entirely sure which. I didn’t ask him about the rumours. It felt embarrassing. 

Shift was calm when we spoke. However, the conversation hit a minor detour when I brought up Eyesore press, later renamed the Black Shift Group. I remember as young writers me and my old friend Adam Can’t tormented him on his Myspace page. After an hour of conversation, the reality of my relation to him became transparent. Shift rumbled me. Oh my god are you Charlie Baylis are you he mouthed in horror. That dickhead Charlie Baylis who sented (sic) me all those annoying Pikachu themed e-cards in the winter of 2006? I blushed. The conversation splattered over the patio like a poached egg over sunburnt avocado on toast. Shift’s eyes glazed over and his face purpled, recalling a beetroot ripening in a field on the outskirts of Warsaw. I spotted an opening in the heady foam of the cloud pool & dived in. I surfaced only a foot away from Bella Hadid’s belly. It was round and pierced with a diamond. She handed me a large joint. I puffed it. Marijuana is such a delicate high. Shift was left stranded holding his caviar and champagne in sheer disbelief.

*

Shift was my favourite guest of the evening; later he was even kind enough to write and perform a song for Justin Bieber. His song was about being pissed on by a boyband. To this day Shift’s song remains insoutenable gibberish. It’s bad harmony and lyrics rock a wave of nausea into my peach coloured heart. I spent the rest of the party avoiding flirtatious glances from Adam Can’t wife, Emma Can’t. Emma’s husband Adam was not even there. I think he’d given up on fame by this point. Fair. The other guests talked about themselves and laughed in an unhealthy way. That was the norm. I did the same. I mean, it was Hollywood, what was  I supposed to do? I desperately wanted to fit in. Why would I go to celebrity parties if I didn’t want to be one of them? Why would I do this to myself?

Money, I suppose. The cruel reality was if I could just get a co-write on one or two songs on Justin’s new album that would be my rent paid in Los Angeles for the rest of the year. Studying poetry at UCLA isn't cheap. I just needed an in. Desperately. I was so desperate for a word with Justin. The more intense the feeling got the sicker I started to feel. I spoke to a pretty girl, and she told me I was sick. She told me I looked really bad – like I had just been vomited on by a flower. If you do not know how bad you are as a person, just approach the nearest mirror and start hollering at it, and then threw up your wine and strawberry tart on it and that should give you a fair idea of you at your worst.

Around four am I got my big chance. Bella Hadid generously offered to introduce me to the man himself. The man from the videos. heartthrob of the lust generation. Justin took me by the hand and led me round the forty-four walls of his Hollywood mansion. Swerve. His elegant, ivory kitchen gleamed with the lustre of Brazilian gold mixed with the regal ivory of woolly mammoth bones. I was happy to see that Justin kept a clean home, the walls were honey colour and smelt of white tea and jasmine. He had a model wife ^^ and three children: Justin, Justin and Justin. He offered me his million-dollar wristwatch. I said no – though he was a kind man, I wanted to earn my place at the table. Hollywood is very real, I told kept telling myself in these little pep talks in my head, you’ve got this Charlie Baylis, you’ve got this Charlie Baylis, don’t fuck this one up.

*

Fuck. I fucked it up. When I was alone with Justin, I started telling him how much I hated his friends. He told me the problem was with me and not them. Later he wrote the line down and it became a song. However, dear reader, I can assure you his friends were terrible people. All my time, for the last couple of months, spent in parties waiting for our generation’s Grace Kelly to arrive in a bleach blonde pumpkin chariot. What a waste of time! All for what? I never even managed to get anything on Justin’s 18th studio album tentatively entitled the elastoplast weekend sticker book and drumroll set, because when we were synching the last strawberry hook of a golden number called ‘tidbits’, right there in the studio with the main man himself. Swerve. The owner, a man in a multicoloured coat made of mother of pearl and marbles with a magic stick, smashed open the studio door and shouted at us to stop. He ripped the chords out from my neon guitar. He pulled a novelty sized eraser from his garish emerald backpack and deleted everything we’d written. He said it was all karmic revenge for the damage inflicted on his friend Todd Shift in the early noughties. Todd Shift was a great man he said, and I had no right to bully him off the internet. I stared down at Justin Bieber’s peach coloured tracksuit and felt guilty, hey Justin, I wistfully leaned into my fast friend, did you get that peach tracksuit out in Georgia?

*

At the end of the party I collapsed in the swimming pool, drained and starring at the stars. Bella Hadid was lying around drunk in a rose bush with a man I'd met a few times. A children's entertainer and agitator for peace in Hollywood between the Turkish-Cypriot kebab industry and the Israelite gyro industry, lil ant. He was famous in Hollywood for having a really small penis. Zendaya had her arms around a purple toad that had turned into a prince, or was it that it was the other way around, I recognised the toad limitedly, he was the editor of Wayne's world, lil chump. Lil ant and lil chump, making it with the ladies. I could not care less. Who were all these people? To tell the absolute truth I had had enough. I got into songwriting for the money, not to hang around with a bunch of morons I had no time or respect for. I never made it in the neighbourhood. Go me.

A few years later ‘tidbits’ finally came out on New Wave records and reached number 18 in the Belgian charts. I am dining out on the royalties as I post these news articles on my blog. Ok I am dining out in McDonalds, but that is still dining out. Alright I am dining out on a one-euro hamburger, but that is still dining out. I wrote a top twenty hit in Belgium and I have every right to enjoy life. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. The cleaner wants a word with me about the strawberry tarte coloured vomit left in the gentleman’s. Gtg lol.

__________________________________

Fan fiction in celebration of Justin Bieber's new album which is called Swag. Have a listen. My favourite song is called "Daises". Big love Charlie xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

on this night in this world

alejandra pizarnik

on this night in this world

in the words of a dream, from a dead woman’s childhood

whatever words you want to say are never the words you say

your mother tongue castrates

the tongue is an organ of knowledge

of every poem’s failure

castrated by its own language

the organ of re-creation

of re-cognition

but not of resurrection

of something in the manner of negation

of my horizon of Maldoror with his dog

and nothing is a promise

between the sayable

which is the equivalent of lying

(everything which could be said is a lie)

the rest is silence

except silence does not exist

no

the words

do not make love

they make a void

if i say water, do i drink?

if i say bread, do i eat?        

on this night in this word

the extraordinary silence of this night

what happens to the soul is that it is not seen

what happens with the mind is that it is not seen

what happens to the spirit is that it is not seen

where did this conspiracy of invisibility appear?

not a single word is visible

shadows

vicious spaces where we hide

the stone of madness

black corridors

i have walked them all

o stay a little longer with us!

my person is wounded

my first-person singular

i write like someone with a knife raised in darkness

i write like i am saying

absolute sincerity may continue to be

the impossible

o stay a little longer with us!

words deteriorate

leaving the palace of language

the mind between the legs

what have you done with the gift of sex?

o my deaths

i ate them they choked me

i cannot take it any more from i cannot take it any more

sullied words

everything slides

into black liquefaction    

and the dog of Maldoror

on this night in this world

where everything is possible

except

the poem

i speak

knowing that this is not what it is about

knowing that this is always not what it is about

o help me write the most disposable poem

        one which does not even serve

           uselessness

help me to write words

on this night in this world

for Luna Miguel

__________________________________

en esta noche en este mundo las palabras del sueño de la infancia de la muerte nunca es eso lo que uno quiere decir la lengua natal castra la lengua es un órgano de conocimiento del fracaso de todo poema castrado por su propia lengua que es el órgano de la re-creación del re-conocimiento pero no el de la resurrección de algo a modo de negación de mi horizonte de maldoror con su perro y nada es promesa entre lo decible que equivale a mentir (todo lo que se puede decir es mentira) el resto es silencio sólo que el silencio no existe

no las palabras no hacen el amor hacen la ausencia si digo agua ¿beberé? si digo pan ¿comeré?

en esta noche en este mundo extraordinario silencio el de esta noche lo que pasa con el alma es que no se ve lo que pasa con la mente es que no se ve lo que pasa con el espíritu es que no se ve ¿de dónde viene esta conspiración de invisibilidades? ninguna palabra es visible

sombras recintos viscosos donde se oculta la piedra de la locura corredores negros los he recorrido todos ¡oh quédate un poco más entre nosotros!

mi persona está herida mi primera persona del singular

escribo como quien con un cuchillo alzado en la oscuridad escribo como estoy diciendo la sinceridad absoluta continuaría siendo lo imposible ¡oh quédate un poco más entre nosotros!

los deterioros de las palabras deshabitando el palacio del lenguaje el conocimiento entre las piernas ¿qué hiciste del don del sexo? oh mis muertos me los comí me atraganté no puedo más de no poder más palabras embozadas todo se desliza hacia la negra licuefacción

y el perro de maldoror en esta noche en este mundo donde todo es posible salvo el poema

hablo sabiendo que no se trata de eso siempre no se trata de eso oh ayúdame a escribir el poema más prescindible                el que no sirva ni para                ser inservible ayúdame a escribir palabras en esta noche en este mundo

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

Fake Friends & Fallouts: the Sad Truth About the UK Poetry Scene

Eugène Delacroix, Liberty Leading the People (July 28, 1830)

Last weekend, I published a substack newsletter in which I openly criticised three UK-based small presses: Broken Sleep Books, Bad Betty Press, and Out-Spoken Press. The response was mixed. Most poets thanked me privately for saying what they’d long felt but didn’t dare say in public. Others—close friends—urged me to delete the newsletter and take cover from the backlash. I was never going to delete the newsletter, I am not a coward. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, my name was dragged through the mud by people who’ve never so much as said hello to me. Why? For the crime of questioning three powerful men in poetry. That’s it. That’s the entire offence.

One of the men I named, Jake Wild-Hall, responded with what can only be described as a borderline manic attempt to shut me down. He quickly made himself the centre of attention, creepily adding my friends and close acquaintances on Instagram, spreading malicious rumours—including the frankly comical claim that I once “came to see him at work.” He works at a Waterstones near my house. What am I supposed to do, take a train to the Waterstones in Didcot? Watching him unravel in public was upsetting. I genuinely felt sorry for him. I hope he is ok now. He certainly seemed unprepared to be confronted with any kind of accountability. His wife, Amy Acre, was understandably defensive at first, but to her credit, I’ve seen no evidence that she joined in with Jake’s personal smear campaign.

The hostility between Jake and I stems from an incident at a reading where he told an emerging poet to "get into the car" for talking to me. Jake’s aggressive, possessive behaviour toward the emerging poet—Rebecca Summerscales —was unsettling. I dated Rebecca (Bep) briefly. I was a little suprised to learn from her, while she was in my house, that Bad Betty would be publishing her in Autumn. My professional opinion is her poetry is not good enough to be published. Futhermore, some of the most talented poets in the UK have been rejected by Bad Betty. So why publish Summerscales? It soon became clear: Jake has a crush. He hangs around her flat. He follows her around Nottingham. And now he’s publishing her. That’s not just morally wrong —it’s inappropriate. Poetry publishing shouldn’t depend on proximity to the editor, it should be about the quality of the work. If you submitted to Bad Betty and were rejected, you have every right to feel aggrieved. What’s being curated here isn’t a good poetry list—it’s a circle jerk of personal favour. If you want to be published by Bed Betty Press, invite Jake to your flat and offer him a beer. If you want to be published by Bed Betty Press, do not talk to other men at readings: “Get into the car”.

Nottingham has a strong literary tradition, and will have an even stronger one when Bad Betty are gone. I feel deeply uncomfortable with their presence in the city. I do not like toxic masculinity and Jake Wild Hall has exhibited some that kind of behavior throughout his time here. He has also, in other moments, been kind and supportive, there are a lot of younger poets who look up to him. However I find Bad Betty events cliquey and unwelcoming, it is also strange, as they consider themselves a Nottingham press that they have never published a single poet from Nottingham.

I’ve never claimed that small presses are cash-rich. I’ve never said poets should expect major payouts. All three of these men work hard. But every piece of evidence I’ve seen, both firsthand and from others, points to the same conclusion: these presses are exploitative and self-serving. They hoover up Arts Council funding and crowdsource money from poets — I’ve given money from my own pocket countless times and where does that money go? Certainly not back into the community.

I spoke to seven Broken Sleep authors before I published the original newsletter, not a single person had received royalties. It’s very easy for my detractors to claim that I am the problem. I am not. I encourage and enable emerging poets and work with them through my poetry journal. I give most of my free time to poetry. Through Anthropocene I have provided a free and accessible online platform for the best new poetry from the UK and around the world. I am not the problem. I am immensely grateful to Blossom Hibbert, Courtenay Schembri Gray and Laura Lofts for their supportive comments on my newsletter and for having the guts to tell the truth to power, at a stage in their career when they are vulnerable. I would also like to thank the many poets who have written in privately supporting me, and defending my position.

Singing Hey Jude in the snow, with Blossom Hibbert

Whenever I interact with Jake or Aaron—Aaron was a close friend for six years—it leaves the same taste lingering, a feeling I am talking to someone with low intelligence. I note Aaron is publishing Jake’s first collection next year, a little like Donald Trump publishing Elon Musk, the tosic small press edition. Anthony Anaxagorou is a more complex case—he is charismatic, smart and undeniably talented—but he seems too arrogant to engage with critique in any meaningful way, and his press has been reported to the Royal Society of Literature. This was told to me by an established poet and I have no reason to doubt that it is true. However I do not hate Aaron, Jake or Anthony, as I said originally, I am writing to encourage them to change. I wish them all well.

A fun day out with Rebecca Summerscales (Bep)

Why does the scene continue to support these three “powerful” white men? I do not know. Why have poets reacted with so much hostility to me asking for them to be paid? I do not know. Perhaps it is that power is magnetic. Salad boys like Richard Capener will always play along. Capener’s commitment to toeing the party line is almost inspiring in its desperation. He’s the kind of poet who’d defend a burning house if it had a Forward Prize taped to the door. Sycophancy is the fastest route to publication, Capener seems more than happy to beg for the little he gets.

The UK poetry scene doesn’t want change. It wants royals. It wants power structures. It wants poetry-as-pageantry, community-as-concept. Social media has only strengthened this rigidly hierarchical structure. Those at the top are propped up by a chorus of hangers-on, careerist poets who’d stab their own grandma for a two-book deal with a mainstream publisher. How did we get here? I’m not entirely sure. But a healthy, fair, transparent poetry scene feels further away than ever.

And so, the poetry scene will get the heroes it deserves. If those heroes are Aaron Kent, Jake Wild-Hall, Amy Acre and Anthony Anaxagorou--well-- enjoy your GoFundMe campaigns for 14-copy print runs, your networking nights in loud pubs with garishly dressed hipster-poets, and your legacy etched in eyeliner and spray-paint on the cracked toilet walls of the now-closed Poetry Café.

As for me?

I will keep running Anthropocene — a journal that doesn’t bend the knee, and doesn’t play the game. We publish poets because their work matters, not because they kissed the ring. We are a poetry journal of upmost integrity. Our commitment to the environment and eco-conscious means we’re not just good for poetry — we’re good for the planet. We will continue to speak truth to power, even if it makes us a few enemies. Anthropocene is not just a journal — it’s a refusal. And in sleep this broken, that might just be revolutionary.

_________________

Subscribe to the Anthropocene newsletter, it's free and open to everyone.

Thank for reading - and thank you to anyone who wrote in expressing kindness. CB xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

38 things i like

because today is the 9/5/2025 so i make that 38 trips around the sun

Being myself

Coffee (Cappuccino, Americano or Flat White with whole milk)

Victory

Nottingham Forest

Holidays

Walking by the ocean

Snacks (peanuts, cashew nuts, crisps, olives etc )

Bob Dylan going electronic

Greta Thunberg

Le Cygne by Charles Baudelaire

Saturday night and Sunday morning

Anthropocene poetry journal

Urban Outfitters

Marilyn Monroe

Everyone I grew up with - tho we don’t speak any more :(

The Beatles

Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles under the sunset

Zelda & F Scott Fitzgerald

Retiro Park, Madrid in October

Shopping in large supermarkets

Génie by Arthur Rimbaud

Frédéric Chopin's fringe

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Édouard Manet

Ice cream weather

Blossom Hibbert

Paris, au bord de la Seine

Kind people

Coffee dates with Juliette Binoche

Greenpeace

Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath

Maria Sledmere

Colourful shirts

33

Kendrick Lamar

Midnight in Rome on the Spanish Steps

Aaron Kent

Anceint Greek Philosophy

The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

__________________

Thanks for reading, or not reading, either way is good. Charlie xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

An introduction to the post-epicurean psychedelic school of poetry

Plato: Socrates, my old pal, great to see you in this Athenian dive bar. I have been having a few doubts & frustrations with the direction of contemporary poetry. My doubts are nothing new, I am sure they are shared by others, however, to explain briefly, I feel very little of note has happened in poetry since the publication of The Waste Land in 1922. The rampant commercialisation of advanced capitalism alongside other dark forces, especially the rise of social media, where any idiot with a few publications to their name is automatically a poet, has led to average writers becoming, in their own heads only ‘famous writers.’ This includes those who hold office as Poet Laureate, edit the Poetry Review, and those who win large cash prizes. I want to distance myself from the commercialisation of the art form. I want to make my disapproval loud & clear. I thought the best way to do this would be to establish my principles in a new school of poetry.

Post-epicurean psychedelia exists at an intellectual remove from a culture in decline. It finds its remedy for the ills of our society in the concentration on the image of modernism, along with good things that have come out of writing, in terms of the opening up of the arts to diverse backgrounds & developments in sound, tone and form that I, as the leader of this new school, enjoy. I think we need to go back to modernism with its imagery-heavy and luscious landscapes and couple this with solid foundations of Epicurean philosophy and playfulness. These are the founding precepts of my school. How would you frame your objections to the ‘leading’ poets of our generation? I mean, would you rather read one of their poems or endure a long-winded public debate in the Agora about whether Maria Sledmere knows how to pronounce “philosophia”?

Socrates: So does one have to be a hedonist to enrol in this school? It sounds a tad programmatic. Are you a hedonist? Are you a decadent? Some of those 1890s chaps took things to extremes. I've come to believe that the mature poet writes the poems they have no choice but to write, irrespective of who might happen to be Poet Laureate or the flavour of the month, and those poems will, in one way or another, reflect their life, their character, personality, experience, views on cookery, blah blah etc.

It's an endless, unpredictable, fascinating, bewildering, unsettling, and often really annoying process. If one is lucky, after everything, or somewhere along the line, one will establish what people call "a voice". So, given all of that, at least half of which I might agree with at any one time, I would assume that if one is a true hedonist, a fully signed-up Epicurean, their poems will naturally reflect that philosophy, and they would not need to enroll in a school, or adopt a program. If the poet only adopts the guise of the hedonist you'd end up with dishonest poems. But perhaps dishonest poems can be okay. Poems are only machines made out of words, after all. Discuss.

Plato :I’m not looking for any poets to sign up, enroll, or join my school. I’m not offering my services as an editor for free, I'd rather hear a poem about Luke Kennard deciding whether to go for the last piece of lamb at the symposium than another ‘self-reflection’ on the poet’s breakfast habits. Either you are part of the movement or not. I do not care. On a personal level, it is unlikely your poetry, my dear friend, as much as I admire you, your poetry would never be accepted as post-epicurean – you style is outdated - though I do admire your critical writing. Post-epicurean psychedelia is not pedagogical; it is philosophical. The principles of creative writing schools do not exist – they are essentially a sham, a pyramid schemes from a failed Blairite experiment to open up education to the masses, which allows those willing to demean themselves for money, i.e. academics comfortable lives and plenty of opportunity to waffle and hold forth over meaningless forms.

I like your idea of poems as machines made of words, but your conception of hedonism is misconceived. Epicurus was not “taking things to extremes” – not by modern standards. The hedonism Epicurus believed in was the pursuit of ‘peace of mind’ or ‘a life free from stress’ through letting pleasure dictate his day. “Day is desire and night is sleep” – as Wallace Stevens later wrote.

Poetry, then, must go on pleasure and treat pain in a more nuanced way. There is also too much focus on the identity of the author; the work is more important. Sylvia Plath, though a manic depressive, might still be considered Epicurean in that she bit her future husband on the face – an example of someone not afraid of being alive. Her poetry vibrates with the thrilling chill of life. However, Plath’s disciples, many of whom send me poems to Anthropocene, are not welcome in my school, nor are they welcome in my journal. Anthropocene, for the many citizens of Athens who are unaware, is an online poetry journal I started while studying at the University of East Anglia, after becoming disillusioned with my teachers I stopped going to the workshops and seminars. I started the journal in July 2019 and my fellow Epicureans Aaron Kent and Laia Sales Merino soon joined me in the process - they are still involved today. At UEA I did not appreciate being told how to write. Fast forward six years of editing a successful poetry journal - I can no longer read the ‘sob story.’ I am tired of hearing the same boring ‘reflection on selfhood’ . I’d rather hear from poets who enjoy life, or at least, make an attempt to enjoy life. Post-epicurean psychedelia is completely free and exists a million miles from the identity of the author. It has nothing to do with academia or the vain and vacuous notions of a million ‘social media poetry influencers.’ However, you can join no matter your background – we are open-minded – it is simply about outlook, and fatally, skill.

Some poets I’d recommend reading who share our principles: Jayant Kashap - one of the great post epicureans. Maria Sledmere - one of the leaders of this generation's avant garde - Plus many other fantastic poets: Shannon Clinton-Copeland, Isabelle Baafi, Hera Lindsay Bird, Matthew Haigh, Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Jen Calleja, Antosh Wojcik, Joe Wright, Anthony Capildeo, Golnoosh Nour, Luke Kennard , Lewis Buxton and Sarah Fletcher. If you write in an adventurous, imagery-heavy style, with little to zero focus on your identity, there is a place for you in Post-epicurean psychedelia, no matter the colour of your skin or sexual persuasion, or if, in my case, you are a bit of a dickhead. On a slide note, my dear Socrates, are you sure those sandals are “appropriate for public discourse” ?

Socrates: You missed, somewhat, the joke. John Ashbery tells of the lady who one day asked how she could enroll in the New York School [Editor’s note – does anyone apart from me and Socrates know this joke?]. Also, I don’t think I have "misconceived" hedonism – I merely pointed out that some of the so-called decadents of the 1890s took pleasure to often extreme lengths.

But, to move on. I am not at all averse to having fun in poetry. If you had read much of my work, you would probably already know that, although what is fun for one person might be sheer tedium for another. It's that old New York School influence, and the time I spent with some of those poets in person – Kenneth Koch, Paul Violi, and Charles North, for example – always involved a lot of laughter, and sometimes more laughter than poetry. But I digress a little, and want to ask a question.

Why do you use the word "psychedelia" in your description of what you're up to? Are you on drugs?

Plato: I’ve read a lot of your poetry and I don’t think you count among the great Athenians, plus your toga is falling down to reveal a rather paunchy midriff. What have you been eating? Why are there yellow stains on your socks ? Despite your poor sartorial taste, the reason I like hanging out with is that you, like me, have strong opinions about poetry. The simplest answer to your question over drugs is no, due to family experience I am aware of the harsh realities of drug addiction. I prefer to live cleanly and feel good through a healthy diet [doubly important for me as I am diabetic]. I do like drinking a lot of coffee when I write and I indulge in the odd vape – a habit I picked up from a girl I used to see around Athens, from time to time.

Why psychedelia? It is an attempt to get away from the mundane, since we have identified it is the mundane which is haunting contemporary letters. I also agree with Bob Dylan, who almost everyone likes, so I am assuming you do too, when he said that once in a while the mind needs to get a little twisted, be that on wine, weed, or whatever – those are not really drugs, they are just ways of escaping from our mundane realities. However, despite an interest in fracturing the real, the psychedelic in post-epicurean refers to the heady and intoxicating imagery. I am aware that you hate my poetry as much as I hate yours, but I will use this as an excuse to quote from my second favourite critic, as you are the first, Socrates, below is Andreea Iulia Scridon writing about my poetry in The London Magazine:

With an acute awareness of a quotidian magic “lovers tonguing in a foreign language,” Charlie Baylis walks through an alternate reality of “orange trees with these orange seeds,” “a palace of tender hearts,” takes us “tearing down sunset boulevard/where the window blinds are lit by gorgeous light/the boats in the harbour twinkle with soft French verbs.”

It is within the gorgeous light of soft French verbs and the sunset swinging through the windows of Sunset Boulevard that the school of post-epicurean poetry was born. It is there that it will stay, far removed from the accessible twaddle that ‘the common man’ can relate to. Contemporary poetry’s ‘leading lights’ make the fatal mistake of giving the reader what they want – not giving the reader what they need. Poetry readers deserve to be given a challenge, rather than Christmas card messages. For me, as I stated at the outset of this discussion, we must go back to modernism and reset the dial. We must go back to H.D. and Pound and Marianne Moore and Eliot and forget the confessionals and the luxurious boredom of the last thirty years. The only way forward is the way back – would you agree? Or has there been a better poem written since T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land that I missed?

Socrates: The reason I asked about drugs – a little bit tongue-in-cheek, though you missed that – and the use of the word "psychedelic" is because that word has a meaning as well as fairly specific connotations for someone of my age and with a certain history of social and leisure activities. I wasn’t expecting a run-down of your own particular intakes. It turns out you’re using the word in the vague way people often do to indicate colorful and/or vivid imagery.

Anyway, to move on, and at the risk of sounding like the boring old fart I might be, I would suggest that speaking about giving the people what they need, rather than what they want, has overtones I find a little unsettling. I think history is littered with people who have said something very similar, albeit it had nothing at all to do with poetry.

For myself, I would rather read and try to write the poetry I want to read and write and leave it at that. Frankly, to have a reasonably significant number of people read and enjoy one's work, and to get the thumbs up from poets of stature and that one looks up to, is about as much, or perhaps more, than one can hope for. Simon Armitage is just part of life's wallpaper, and there's a lot of wallpaper. If people enjoy his work, let them. It's not worth losing sleep over.

I would say, though, that when I was about 25 and starting out in “Poetry World,” I wanted a revolution too, and wanted what me and my mates were doing to take the place of whoever the big names were at the time. It's a healthy attitude for young poets to have. You will probably tell me I'm being patronizing, but never mind.

As for The Waste Land, I think it's a tremendous poem, as well as being of obvious historical importance in terms of its effect on the course of literary history. It's quite a feat to be both those things. But there are other great poems that have been written since, though to compare them as "better" or "worse" is a bit apples and oranges. They're great poems of a different order and have not had the same seismic effect that Eliot's poem did – which is not very surprising. I'm thinking of particular poems by, for example, Bishop, Stevens, Williams, Ashbery, O'Hara to name a few (predictable) suspects. And yes, they're all American, but I have my leanings, .

I'm afraid I have little to say about the future of poetry. It will go on, in all its varied forms. I predict that you will have a book out from an independent publisher I have never heard of and it will garner praise from some quarters.

Plato: Aha! You’re talking about my second collection - i am working in it now - it is going to be called ‘white flowers’. The writing is going well - though it is hard. However, post-epicurean school is not about my poetry. The school is an attempt to push the art form forward. I don’t have a problem with anyone who holds a pen and uses the pen to write poems. Unlike you, I acutally love Simon Armitage. I love Carol Ann Duffy. I think Simon Armitage’s status in the “Poetry World” reflects relatively fairly on the quality of his writing; whereas you’ve hardly pulled up any trees in a 356-year writing career. Anyway, moving on from trading barbs...and throwing a brick instead: Why are certain poets dumbing poetry down to the extent it tastes like hamburgers which are just hamburger flavour hamburgers? I encourage young poets (and myself!) to get off the internet. Put down Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, or whatever David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is called these days and get down to a library and read for an hour. Study the craft. Poetry is worthy of your time. The school will only admit poets who are readers, and good reading is always followed by good poems.

A young person paying to attend a creative writing school needs to be cautious; the academics who are teaching you are part of a system designed to exploit. Post-epicurean poetry empowers its followers to throw their teacher’s work in the bin, tear it apart, and spit on it. We must get back to the idea of the artistic sublime. We must get back to writing for pleasure, a true concept of pleasure which takes the writer down to their darkest ebb of the conscience, where they experience every dark emotion possible before they resurface in joy. We must treat the internet with caution – it does strange things to our minds. Let’s have a revolution where we create a new school of thought, where the only quality that matters to the poem is its artistic value. The rest is noise.

Finally – my dear Socrates, I would like to express how grateful I am for you taking the time to talk to me. Allow me to treat you to the next round. Come along old fellow, we’ve bored the public of Athens for long enough with our ideas.

[Plato pushes through the queue and orders a couple of whiskies – Simon Armitage walks into the bar … Socrates runs a mile]

__________________

Thank you Martin Stannard for participing in this public discourse - or symposium - I am greatful he did not beat me to a pulp when I told him I was the editor, so the final edit would be mine. Deal with it Socrates ;)

My favourite book of his is Postcards to Ma - buy a copy and support the poet! Thanks for reading, Charlie xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

厌倦了那些缪斯女神 / t i r e d o f t h e f e m a l e m u s e

厌倦了那些缪斯女神

厌倦了我诗歌中的那些缪斯女神

让我们假装我正沿着奚珍妮漫步 心跳 任由思绪闪烁到什么地方去 草莓找到了我

或者在田野里 或者在明尼苏达的豌豆们中间

或者在卡蒂萨克号的船舱里 我正倒立着用手指吃番茄汤

盐矿和盐矿博物馆，紧挨着

盐矿 等等！也许是盐矿紧挨着盐矿博物馆！

奚珍妮延伸到了董珍妮 街！

珍妮们不是什么女孩，而是街道的名字！伊丽莎白街是拉脱维亚最美丽的街道

让我们假装我正沿着缪斯女神往南走 哦不！我是说

沿着一条街往南走 想象一下：

我那些没有提到缪斯女神们的诗歌

在你想象的时候 我会去就业中心看看

给我的基因安上一个透明的补丁

_____________

t i r e d o f t h e f e m a l e m u s e

tired of the female muse in my poetry

let's pretend i'm walking down jenny west    heartbeat

twinkling about something else    strawberries find me

in fields     in minnesotan peas    upside down in the cabins

of the cutty sark      eating tomato soup with my fingers

the salt mine and the salt mine museum attached to the

salt mine    wait! it's the other way round!

jenny west opens out onto jenny east    streets!

not the girls! elizabeth iela is prettiest street in latvia

let's pretend i'm heading south down the female muse    oops! i mean         

heading south down a street    imagine:

my poetry absent of a female muse

while you do that i will take a walk to the job centre

sew a see-through patch to my genes

__________________

Translated into Mandarin by Qizhu Zhao

Happy Chinese New Year! xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

first and last time in aux pres

___________________

_______

The poem is from Poesía masculina (La Bella Varsovia 2021). Support the poet & buy a copy.

My translation was commended in the 2024 Stephen Spender prize. Thank you to the judges Jennifer Wong & Taher Adeland.

Thank you also to Luna Miguel for permission to publish my translation, & for the deep well of inspiration that her interplay of genders brings to poetry.

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

my top ten poetry collections of 2024

Samia Halaby - Fold 2 1988

2024 was a great year for poetry, so much to choose from...below are my favourites, in no particular order...

Jemima Foxtrot - Treasure

Rachael Allen - God Complex

Aaron Kent & Stuart McPherson - All Empty Vessels

Danez Smith - Bluff

Síofra McSherry - Midnight Masses

Maria Sledmere - Midsummer Song

Ella Frears - Goodlord

Andrew Taylor - European Hymns

Diana Cant - I Make You Bird

Imtaz Dhaker - Shadow Reader

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Buy the books, support the poets!

Thanks for reading, see you in '25 Charlie xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

reviews of 'a fondness for the colour green'

Below are the reviews of my first collection of poetry 'a fondness for the colour green' collected under one roof...

Andreea Iulia Scridon - The London Magazine

https://thelondonmagazine.org/review-the-loneliness-of-a-sunday-afternoon-by-andreea-iulia-scridon/

Erik Kennedy - Review 31

http://review31.co.uk/article/view/922/a-hamburger-that-is-just-a-hamburger-flavoured-hamburger

Rupert Loydell - Litter Magazine

https://www.littermagazine.com/2023/07/review-fondness-for-colour-green-by.html

Jayd Green - Osmosis

https://osmosispress.com/2023/07/07/review-a-fondness-for-the-colour-green-by-charlie-baylis/

Mab Jones - Buzz Mag

https://www.buzzmag.co.uk/new-poetry-october-myfanwy-haycock-ellie-rees-review/

Daniel Roy Connelly - Lotus Eater Magazine

https://lotus-eatermagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/lotus_eater_issue_18-1.pdf

Mike Ferguson - Gravy from the Gazebo

https://gravyfromthegazebo.blog/2023/07/14/a-fondness-for-the-colour-green-by-charlie-baylis-broken-sleep-books/

Clark Allison - ZVONA i NARI​​

https://www.zvonainari.hr/single-post/clark-allison-unlike-anybody-else

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thank you to the reviewers for your time and careful consideration of my poetry xxx

p.s. if you'd like to buy a copy - i've sold around 3 so far...please!

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

write privaledge

image found in the budapest municple photo library

There came a point in Salomon Weise’s mesmeric burst onto the literary scene when he felt he had reached the peak of literary success, namely, receiving a blowjob from Phoebe Glass while studying the bookcase of an unnamed but more successful poet. In the library of the unnamed but more successful poet. In the seaside mansion of the unnamed but more successful poet.

Salomon made a mental note of the authors on the bookcase. Sarah Kane. Frank O’Hara. Jenny Erpenback. Salomon Weise. [own book deposited superciliously on the shelves]. He recorded the names partly out of boredom, partly on the lookout for more literary ideas to steal, and partly not sure what he really needed to do with his mind in the essentially passive act of receiving a blowjob. He trained his eyes thirty degrees, like a camera, and looked out of the large open bay window at the partygoers below.

Solomon Weise returned to the kitchen where he began scraping the insides out of a table full of samosas while telling Phobe Glass, who had followed him down the stairs, he was allergic to all foods, by which he meant: lactose intolerant, nut intolerant, shellfish, sulphate ridden, sugar overdone, terrific, sub-terrific, you name it. It. Phoebe clung to his every word. She had formed a genuine attachment to Solomon after a few dates at the zoo where he threw pandas at the pandas.

On reflection, at another tawdry launch of Peckham Wizards Fanzine, on an uncomfortable seat in the Southbank Centre, towards the back of the auditorium, as the unnamed but more successful poet read a poem about the lakes of Michigan for upwards of three hours straight. Eyes widened on and on down an ever narrowing lane. Wide. Narrow. Wide. Solomon thought to himself it could be better. Oh it could. Siamese twins with the same glorious dreams. He needed two Phoebe Glasses both equally pretty, both willing to perform sex act for his pleasure alone. At the same time. He texted Phoebe about his plan.

She never texted back.

__________________

fan fiction based on Sam Riviere's Dead Souls.

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

My top ten poetry collections of 2023

(in no particular order...other than the order forgetful brain remembered the names and titles)

Mary Jean Chan - Bright Fear

Toby Martinez de las Rivas - Floodmeadow

Adrija Ghosh - The Commerce Between Tongues

Amy Acre - Mothersong

Jason Allen-Paisant - Self Portrait as Othello

Aaron Kent - The Working Classic

Maria Sledmere - An Aura of Plasma Around the Sun

Abigail Parry - I Think We're Alone Now

Jonathan Kinsman - The Fireman's Daughter

Joe Carrick-Varty - More Sky

_________

Buy them all - support the poets and presses ! xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

Close reading - Sean Bonney - Letter Against Sickness

Sean Bonney 1969-2019

Couldn't sleep again last night. Someone had paid for a couple of nights in a hotel, down by the coast, I've no idea why, or who, for that matter. I sat there for hours, nervous, watched the rolling news with the sound down, inventing my own dialogue like I used to do when I was a kid. Anyway, George Osborne came up, his little mouth moving at unpleasant angles and, weirdly, it occurred to me that I couldn't remember what his voice sounded like. Not sure why, I mean I've heard it often enough. So I thought I'd better plug this somewhat embarrassing hole in the centre of my knowledge: I turned the volume up and just as I did he was saying the words “our NHS”. The weight that pronoun carried was unbearable. Because Osborne, who presumably doesn't actually use the NHS, who probably has never sat in a waiting room in, say, the Whips Cross Hospital, was claiming some kind of possession that was entirely stolen, and claiming to share it with some kind of absolutely occupied “us”. It changed everything: the bland hotel room, the banal beating of the sea, all of it congealed into Osborne's pronunciation of “our”. There was a sickness to it that hung far outside the radius of any hospital. A vacant pestilence, or, if you like, a bricked up pestilence, and the “us”, which itself was some kind of shattered twitching mass left over from Osborne's thrusting invasion of “our”, this “us” was in hopeless distant orbit around this pestilence, some kind of arrangement of speckles in the night sky, a more or less orderly glyph, a surgical fracture in celestial time and, well, I guess you know what I mean. It did my head in. I changed channels and watched some kind of documentary about monsters fighting muscular people holding guns. But it was pretty boring, and the sun was starting to come up, so I thought I'd go out for a walk. And the first thing I saw, when I walked out the hotel door, was a seagull eating a pigeon. Serious. Right there in the middle of the road, tearing it to strips, swallowing the motherfucking thing. There was nobody around. Just the sea, some pebbles. And this peculiar compressed violence I was staring at. I couldn't move. I just stood there, staring, wishing I could reduce it down to some kind of metaphor, or analogy, or starting point for a bit of bourgeois literary criticism, something to add to my CV, anything, rabies, anything. The gull, the pebbles, pronouns, the rolling news, the sea, the muscular people, the dead thing, all of them forming into some kind of knot or eclipse. I thought about you at this point. I wondered which of them you would identify with. Which part would you take in this little horrorshow, which would be the marker of your position, which would be your representative on earth, which would be your signature. I ask because I really don't know which one I would be. I mean, if George Osborne was lying there in tatters in the middle of the road, right in front of the ridiculous sea, would I eat him? I'm sort of serious. If I walked out of the hotel and he was lying there, whimpering like a burning dog, what would I do? Shit, I was sweating by this point. I was no longer even a human being, just some glowing monster of anxieties and vicious isotopes, storms and circles. Revenge. Law. Decency. I think I puked. I felt I had become a tiny fissure in the decay chain set off by George Osborne's voice. One among countless disinterested scalpels, hanging there, in the grains of his voice. And those scalpels are us. Well, obviously not. But that's what he wants. That's what he thinks about each morning as he grimaces into his mirror. Anyway, I couldn't take it. I crossed the road and went down to the beach. I'm still here. I wrote you this letter, but I probably won't send it. If I do, do not answer it.

What is it?

Letter Against Sickness is an epistolary poem [a poem written as a letter]. Bonney began writing epistolary poems in response to the 2011 riots in London, when: “it seem[ed] a bit hokey to go home and write a poem after being involved in something like this.” He made the form very much his own in his final two collections of poetry: Letters Against the Firmament and Our Death. Letter Against Sickness is featured in the former and is one of a cluster of letter-bombs which savage Tory politicians in black, vitriolic, star-dipped language “with the dilated pupils of someone who has not slept all night”.

The poem begins with Bonney in a hotel room watching the then chancellor George Osborne on TV. Bonney turns on the sound just as Osborne snakily mutters ‘our NHS’. The pronoun infuriates Bonney. Osborne, as Bonney mentions: ‘presumably doesn't actually use the NHS’. Osborne’s cynical appropriation of public healthcare represents a theft, ‘possession that was entirely stolen’ that causes Bonney’s head to spin. Bonney exits the hotel room only to be confronted by the central image of the poem, a seagull ripping apart a pigeon. This image carries the obvious symbolism of Osborne tearing apart the poor, the welfare state, the NHS etc but Bonney interestingly sidesteps this interpretation, and instead questions whether it could be he himself who is the seagull tearing apart the lowly pigeon that is George Gideon Oliver Osborne.

This idea haunts Bonney and leads him to go down to the beach and write the Letter Against Sickness. The central image is brilliant not only because it is violent and visceral but also due to the way Bonney leaves its interpretation open-ended. If Bonney is the seagull not the pigeon, who actually has the power? The seagull eating the pigeon can be seen as a metaphor for the poem itself, where Bonney uses language to destroy his prey. This is uplifting because it shows Bonney as victorious, and though grim reality might suggest otherwise, I am certain that in mysterious dimensions, in time still unknown, Sean Bonney won the fight.

Why does it work?

In moments of defeat, revolution tumbles back into poetics, just as in moments of insurrection—as Rimbaud, as the Surrealists and as the Situationists knew—the energies concealed in poetics explode outwards into revolution. Revolution doesn’t become poetic, poetry shatters itself in the process of becoming revolutionary.

At that moment, as visionary as he was, Bonney would not have known the Conservatives would lurch on in power for a decade and counting, methodically ripping apart the social fabric of the country, isolating it from the international community and creating a wonderful place for the super-rich and a horrible place for everyone else. Bonney’s Letter Against Sickness is a great poem because it is necessary. The necessity of the poem hasn’t diminished over time, instead the need for a dissenting voice has become ever more urgent.

Bonney’s poem works because his writing has a magnificent internal energy, explosive and propulsive, like the nucleus of a star. His language is dark and violent with a compelling malice and a strong hint that something is not quite right with the author. This self-hatred would become ever more lacerating in his final collection Our Death. Bonney was always very aware of the power of language, he was critical of protest march slogans for their weakness, Letter Against Sickness follows his above mentioned prescription to ‘shatter itself in the process of becoming revolutionary’. It is an urgent poem and very unlike any other political poetry, past or present in terms of its form, the autobiographical elements and the way it directly challenges its target.

Returning to the central image, whatever conclusion we draw from the fluctuating resonances of the metaphor, whatever the power structures hinted at, there is perhaps a deeper point. This is a shocking act of violence unfolding right before Bonney’s sleep deprived eyes. Bonney is entreating the reader not to turn their back on violent events they are confronted with. Letter Against Sickness is focused and embittered rage, it is the arrow thwacking the target, it is a poem destined to be remembered as an important note of dissension in a time of great social upheaval. ‘Fight them back’ wrote Bonney, and his poetry is the glorious document of that fight.

_________________

I've used the version of Letter Against Sickness on Sean Bonney's Blog, which has a few small differences to the poem as it appears in Letters Against the Firmament

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

Close reading - HLR - This Is Love Like

What is it?

This is love like is a prose-poem in list form where HLR wields the euphoria of a powerful emotion, love, to construct and leap off a cliff of ever more extravagant images. The images are carefully constructed to stimulate the readers senses, with lots of allusions to taste and physical sensations. However, unlike the two eminent purveyors of the “extravagant image poem” Chelsey Minnis and Hera Lindsay Bird, HLR grounds her poem in place. HLR is proudly North London, so we witness the speaker: “waking up on Turnpike Lane with two black eyes”, “swimming from London to Mexico” and, as if by magic: “taking LSD & meeting the ghost of Keats on Hampstead Heath”.

The poem has a ring of authenticity. The addition of place contextualises the poem, bringing reality in and humanising the speaker. The speaker of the poem also arouses sympathy [pathos] with the many hilarious and occasionally violent details: the lemon juice sucked up from paper-cuts, the Carol Anne Duffy collection thrown at her, the marriage proposal in the frozen aisle of Tesco. Almost all of the sentences contain two clauses connect by an ampersand, they are all [probably] based on true events, they are often clashing [bathos], they are what Stephen J. Golds describes as “juxtapositions of tenderness and brutality”. The reader can’t help but fall in love with her.

Why does it work?

Love, accurately described, is a nirvana the poet can only dream of reaching, otherwise the words ‘Game Over’ would glaze over their eyes, they’d down pens and go and work in Budgens. In This is Love Like HLR sets herself an impossible task, the task of finding the right words to describe the love she is feeling, this striving for the impossible is the force which drives the poem, it is where the extravagant imagery is born, in the deep vaults of a romantic imagination. The poem is vivid, adventurous and bounces with bravado, the speaker’s hedonism is presented to the reader along with its darker edges.

Nearly every sentence in This is Love Like begins with like. This feels a little rebellious, it’s not what they teach on a creative writing MA, but the technique works. The repeated likes create a verbal tic, an accumulation of sound which drives the poem forward, as it builds and builds towards crescendo: “this is love like a death. A glorious death. The most magnificent. The absolute worst. Excruciating.” HLR’s prose-poem is an intense joy-ride of exquisitely specific symbolism which attempts to define the indefinable, it succeeds through the power and variety of the imagery mixed with a little sprinkle of rhetorical stardust.

Fun facts about HLR

HLR is an Aries. She has a black and white cat called Ludo. She is five feet and three inches and left handed.

HLR received a First in English Literature from Royal Holloway and now works as an editor for a media publishing company.

HLR’s hobbies outside of poetry are Arsenal football club, going to the gym and playing with her cat.

HLR’s favourite food is broccoli (especially with salmon and hollandaise sauce). Her favourite colour is purple (all the shades) and her favourite film is Badlands.

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This Is Love Like is from HLR's new pamphlet Ex-cetera.

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

All the love in the world and then a little bit more

The world is a blue blue blur. For breakfast yoghurt, honey, blueberries. My lover is in the bathtub. I climb in beside her and stroke her gently between her thighs. She purrs. I tap the water and it changes; hot pink, scarlet, ebony, sky blue.

In every stable there is an abandoned horse. A blue horse. The horse is made up of pieces of the other horses. I don’t get it. Do you?

My lover kisses me in a clock exhibition, puts her hands in my pockets. I wake up in Slovenia. I keep asking people for the time. I knew what the time is.

All poems must be abandoned before they begin. Especially this poem. What do you know about time? I met my lover in a clock museum. There are disputable facts. There are indisputable facts.

We were fucking in the kitchen when a Jehovah's Witness rang the doorbell. He told me...

Hold out your right hand. Here is all the love in the world.

He told me...

Hold out your left hand. Here is all the love in the world and a little bit more.

The cool children in the rain. The inevitable seep of madness. Haunted ephemera. Violet nights in Ljubljana. An abandoned horse. A melting fireman. A memory of sound.

God bless you.

__________

Thank you to HLR for the photo and for her editorial suggestions xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

a fondness for the colour green

my first poetry collection 'a fondness for the colour green' is for sale.

thank you to the publisher broken sleep books and to everyone who has helped me on the way to publication.

if you'd like to buy a personilised copy, drop me an email [charlie _ baylis @ msn . com]

i can post to anywhere in the world.

peace xx

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

luna miguel - i have 50 000 euros in the bank

i have 50 000 euros in the bank

when the figure turned around i’d turn around with her i’d pull out a megaphone as if by magic and scream to that skinny boy collecting dust on the dumbbells of ciudad real decathlon to focus on everything acquired on everything that had changed since he painted trains fucked minors took exams with that bubble bag of hash hidden in baggy pants in case it went wrong or just in case it turned out ok and fifty k had to be celebrated how do you stay a brat how many bus tickets to tomelloso how many illegal downloads of nordic rap loser look at you how you've changed before you admired men before you wanted to be like uncle pepe but then they found his rotten corpse before you loved kase o but then he got sad and old before you admired david foster wallace but you will never write a thousand page novel beyond that is fifty thousand euros of your sweat and from your forehead,          grainy boy with brown shoes, what do you think of me? you who have been searching all your life for a man                                                       to copy and it turns out the chosen one was none of those you imagined but yourself, are you really yourself?


________________ 


tengo 50 000 euros en el banco

cuando la cifra diera la vuelta daría la vuelta con ella sacaría un megáfone como pur arte de magia y gritaría a ese chico enclenque que acumulaba polvo en las mancuernas de decathlon de ciudad real que se fijara en todo lo que había conseguido en todo lo que había cambiado desde que pintaba trenes follaba con menores hacía exámenes con esa malla de hachís escondida en el ancho pantalón por si acaso salía mal o por si acaso salía bien y había que celebrarlo cincuenta mil pavos cómo te quedas criajo cuántos billetes de autobús a tomelloso son eso cuántas descargas ilegales de rap nórdico pringao mírate cómo has cambiado antes admirabas a los hombres antes querías ser como el tío pepe pero luego encontraron su cadáver descompuesto antes amabas a kase o pero luego se volvío cursi y viejo antes admirabas a david foster wallace pero tú nunca escribirás una novela de mil páginas qué más da eso ahora son cincuenta mil euros de tu sudor y de tu frente chaval granoso de zapatos marrones qué te parezco ahora tú que llevas toda la vida buscando un hombre al que imitar y resulta que el elegido no era niguno de los que creíste                    sino tú mismo ¿de verdad que eres tú mismo?                                                                                                             

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This poem is from Poesía masculina (La Bella Varsovia 2021)

Thank you to Luna Miguel for permission to publish my translation.

[theimportanceofbeingaloof]

5 questions with Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Why do you write?

This is an odd question for me, because I don't think I've ever not told stories. I think writing is a vital part of my conversation with the world, it's one of the ways I make sense of things. So, perhaps I write so I can be less foolish.

Azúcar has elements of magical realism, for example, the fictional island of Fumaz and the Soñada family tree bring to mind Márquez’s creation of the Macondo and the Buendía family in 100 Years of Solitude. Have you been inspired by the genre? How has it informed your own storytelling?

I have an aversion to the name of 'magical realism', but I have absolutely been inspired by the work of Vargas Llosa, Garcia Márquez, Fuentes - as well as African writers such as Mongo Beti and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, whose work leans on satire. Reading Latin American fiction in translation, the way they owned and moulded the Spanish language to their cultural experience of the world, pointed me to greater possibilities in my use of the English language, which I had been taught to use in very rigid ways. Azúcar is partly a thank you note for those language lessons.

A large part of your writing focuses on women and girls not only your experiences, but the collective feminine experience, which you describe with empathy even while writing about a time when, as you say in Azúcar, “a woman hid her true powers”. Would you agree the feminine experience is a significant aspect of your work, and if so, how have you come to think about it with such a heightened sensitivity?

The odd thing is everyone's first experience of the world is through women, but I never really thought about women's experience as distinct until I read So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ at the age of 12 or 13. I mean, that's the power of privilege; when you have it, you can't see the world as anything but complete. Once I began to see from the additional perspective that reading that book gave me (a West African woman's perspective), I couldn't experience the world without that filter. The time I had always spent in the company of women and girls suddenly became revelatory. My mother was a midwife so we had women coming to our home for advice all the time, and I just soaked it all in with the fervent commitment of a seasoned eavesdropper. I think the accumulated experience of over three decades of listening is what gives the sense of the feminine experience in my work. However, I would argue that it is not significant; it is as it should be, but we have largely learned to read without expecting it, so it stands out when it is simply present.

A lot of your poetry, for example, your collections The Makings of You and The Geez, cover a family history that moves from the Caribbean to Sierra Leone, and your own life between London and Ghana. Is it hard to write about this cultural experience while engaging a wider audience who may not have a similar background?

I really don't obsess over the journey of the audience; I trust that if I render any story with true honesty and vulnerability, then a human audience will be engaged (in ways that I can't predict). Ultimately, how similar are backgrounds? We receive stories according to our interior landscape, and those can differ wildly even amongst people who have grown up in the same exterior circumstances - cases in point would be the adult versus child experience of the same war, or the masculine versus feminine experience of the same space.

Charlie Parker or Charles Mingus? Robert Johnson or Lead Belly?

Oooh, the first option isn't even fair - completely different expressive outlets, but both genius. Robert Johnson over Lead Belly though, just because I like when a story has gaps, leaving space for my imagination to inhabit. I think Lead Belly is a more accomplished storyteller, but Johnson makes you feel an incredible range of emotions and his guitar technique is stunning.

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Thank you to Lila Bovenzi for her help with the questions.