Nothing is True

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So as one who has spent his entire career on the fringes of the poetry world, I am more than a bit amused at the recent plagiarism scandal in the poetry world. In the same way that opposition to the ETS is actually a symptom of a deep seated fear of change and of science so too is this plagiarism scandal the symptom of a much deeper problem. There are others words that we dare not say as well, words such as incompetence and monotony, and the most dread of all words ownership.

I look back at some of the events in my life and I have to laugh. Many years ago while living in Brisbane and working in some soul destroying proletarian sort of job an academic knocked back my submission to an anthology of poetry telling me that I did not speak the language of the working people. Too stunned to reply I could only laugh. Later I entered the Vogel Award, not that I am a novelist of any sort, but I wanted to see if I could write a full length novel. I have no bitter feelings for having lost for my book was not very good. But the point I want to highlight is that this was the same year that the award was won by the execrable The Hand That Signed the Paper. A remarkably nasty little book that went on to win the Miles Franklin award! As a side note a previous winning novel Jack Rivers and Me was not written by the claimed author.

So here we can see a pattern of foolishness.

But enough of my nonsense and moving right along. It was with great amusement when I jumped onto the computer and saw a series of posts and comments about the most recent scandal in the poetry scene. Every single post attacked the individual involved. Some saying that the poet refused to travel the searing road to find his own voice, others, like protesters in front of Scott Morrison's office chanted shame, shame!

Now it is not my intention to defend the poet, Andrew Slattery, as I do not know him from a bar of soap. But rather I wish to find any deep seated failures that allow this to happen. For like anything else in our world, the poem is not a thing, but rather a relationship between people.

So besides the terrible word plagiarism, the first word we must bring up in relation to this “scandal” is incompetent. First I have to note that it has been almost three years since he won the Rosemary Dobson Prize. Three years and nobody from the judging committee noticed! Even more shocking to me is this sentence from the SMH article that leaves me shaking my head. An entire poem was lifted from the philosopher Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Have none of the judges ever read Beyond Good & Evil? Surely one of the most unique voices in Western philosophy and the doyens of literature in Australia did not notice. This is surely a level of incompetence that makes the sins of the poet pale into insignificance.

In my travels as a poet I have at times had a foolish or unreasoning fondness of the idea of the gloss. Submitting my poems to various journals and what-not, I was informed (again by an academic) that to use a gloss was an example of pretentiousness and that modern poetry could not be pretentious. I retorted that if pretense is from the word to play, who if not a poet could be pretentious. So the gloss is no good, in-text citations are clunky and disturb the flow. Foot notes seem better, but to my mind the best thing to do would be to mention in a bit of a proem that this is a cento with lines from XYZ poets. But would the poem then pass the muster of the academy? I think not, I am happy to be shown wrong. All of this lifts the cover on the sleeping lump that is poetry in Australia. That it is too closely bound with academics, and we can note that academic is close to the word anemic. For that is what passes for poetry in Australia today, a bloodless, lifeless regurgitation of the known.

The third and final point I wish to make concerns the idea of intellectual property. Did the Homeridae even care about intellectual property? For is not the literal definition of rhapsode a stitcher of words? This was noted by Pindar
In the same way as the Homeridae,
Singers of stitched words...

Did Shakespeare feel he was plagiarising when he used, for example, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe as the basis for Romeo and Juliet? Did the medieval balladeers feel they were plagiarists when they recycled lines and tunes? And what of the works of Eliot or Joyce, to name just two?

Or to quote Pound with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly.

Plagiarism as a crime (or sin if you prefer) rises with Capitalism, for the ancients had no problems with the idea of recycling and reusing works. In our bourgeois world (and I would invite my readers (however few they may be) to join me in recreating bourgeois as a word that expresses contempt) where the individual is risen above all, and the very idea of the co-operative spirit is brought into doubt what are the pressures on the author? It seems to me that copyright and intellectual property, while sounding helpful and fine in theory are used by big conglomerates to control thought, and art in our society. One only has to look at the shameful acts of the Disney corporation in ripping off fairy tales and then claiming ownership of the idea of, for example, Snow White. Or the equally shameful and bogus claims of Men at Work and the Kookaburra Song. So keen where they to defend their rights that tehy did not even know, until an unfortunate episode of Spicks and Specs. Examples of publishing companies abusing copyright can be extended seemingly endlessly.

So here we have it, my thoughts on this topic. The words that can not be spoken are, incompetence -- the incompetence of judges. Monotony, the stranglehold of writing held by academics who seek only to reinforce their own position. And of course the vile words of ownership, which seeks to make money at the expense of art.

Could this all have been avoided? Yes, the author could have noted the use of other writings, but would it have won? With the storm spreading across facebook, I doubt it, for too many seem to place an individual originality above the work of art. But from my point of view, this whole imbroglio was worthwhile as it allowed me to do some research into the ancient idea of the cento. Was the poem good, were the ideas good, did you enjoy and learn something? So we must finish with a half-forgotten quote from Ezra Pound, “it is a poor critic who talks of the artist and not the work of art.” For now we know more about Andrew Slattery and very little about the actual poem written.

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painting from http://www.kounterkulture.co.uk/blogs/charlotte-bracegirdle-and-las-meninas

Suicide and Revolutionary Action

If the wealth of society declines the worker suffers most of all, and for the following reason: although the working class cannot gain so much as can the class of property owners in a prosperous state of society, no one suffers so cruelly from its decline as the working class.

Let us now take a society in which wealth is increasing. This condition is the only one favourable to the worker. Here competition between the capitalists sets in. The demand for workers exceeds their supply. But:

In the first place, the raising of wages gives rise to overwork among the workers. The more they wish to earn, the more must they sacrifice their time and carry out slave-labour, completely losing all their freedom, in the service of greed. Thereby they shorten their lives. This shortening of their life-span is a favourable circumstance for the working class as a whole, for as a result of it an ever-fresh supply of labour becomes necessary. This class has always to sacrifice a part of itself in order not to be wholly destroyed. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 - Marx

I suppose I should start at the beginning and say a few words about myself, and how it was I came to write this thing. Then I will lay out some of my thoughts in a breathless run-on sentence sort of way. After a bit of this nonsense, I will, knowing that the point of philosophy is to change rather than interpret the world, attempt to offer a few utopian suggestions. So let us, as they say, crack on with the confusion.

One Sunday Father's Day morning I fired up my browser and looked at various news articles to find out if we had gone to war while I slept. Pleased as I was that here was no new war, I continued scanning the news and read this Fathers Day article in the SMH.

Being at least passing familiar with Churchill's black dog, I felt it to be my civic duty to add my two bobs worth to the table. Even if this petty amount will not allow me to buy a nice dinner, or even a bottle of wine, my small donation does at least allow me to partake of the conversation. As much as anyone else; more than some, but less than others, I feel I have the life experience to talk about this subject. Not as a professional, nor as one trained in these things, solely as one who has lived a life and met many people, and as one who has suffered with depression.

In The Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens offers, what seems to me, to be an appropriate quote for this discussion. In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it. So too with depression. It is becoming a bit of a fashionable ailment to have these days.

So fashionable indeed that every other football player and retired Liberal Party hack brags of their fight with depression. So fashionable that there is talk of a cultural epidemic of suicide, while simultaneously there is much soft and muddle-headed talk about the main group killing themselves. That is the group of working-age men.

But what does this mean, who are these working-age men? There is a hint perhaps when Brendan Cowell says "It wasn't until I escaped it (it being his boyhood home of Cronulla) that I went whoa, hang on, that's not normal." This raises a question as to what is normal, a question far too vast to be answered in this article. More importantly it forces us to face the question as to who is killing themselves. Maybe it means that working class men kill themselves at a higher rate than others.

In the Telegraph newspaper, discussing a match between the Sharks & the Roosters, we get this "you’ve got a working-class team against the golden boys from the Eastern Suburbs.”

So if we find the Telegraph describing an area as working class, knowing how fearful the press is about even acknowledging the class nature of society, I think that one should take notice. So let us take this as a basis. Brendan Cowell mentions that he knows at least ten suicides of friends from his days in the Shire. He then states then when he escaped he realised that this rate of self murder was too high, it was not normal.

I too came from working class neighbourhood and I too can point to a similar number of suicides, and attempted suicides among my friends and friends of friends. Sadly my career has not been a success, so I have never escaped my working class heritage, so I may often a different viewpoint.

Now I do not want to be seen as criticising Mr Cowell, as I do not know him, but I am sure that his heart is in the right place, I am sure that his actions are situated in an environment of great affection and love, and an equally great loss of sorrow for his departed friends. And for the sake of this essay I am happy to agree with him that too many people are dying. This is more an attempt to view the situation through the prism of class consciousness.

Rather than mentioning smoking pot as being a contributing factor let us look deeper. This is not to say that drug and alcohol dependency has no part to play in suicidal ideation. But from where does this mass addiction arise? Knowing how aggressively the enemies of the working people promote a drug and drinking culture among working people, one can rightly ask how great a role do cynical business people play, how much do multi-millionaire beer barons, rewarded as they are with knighthoods and other awards, generate this epidemic, this culture of self harm? This is not to say that they have produced this crisis, but one again may rightly ask if they are doing much of anything to help stem the tide of young male self harm. For the commodification of alcohol, and therefore alcoholism must surely play a profound role in the deeper, structural causes of suicide among working age, working class men.

Watching on DVD the charming, bittersweet Woodley series with my children, this sad, lonely, dejected character seemed to be a symbol for my thoughts. For the hero was lost after his marriage had broken down. Forced into poverty, our hero was then compelled to take a menial, soul destroying job. Dressed in a humiliating costume, he had no choice but to travel the streets of the city, handing out leaflets. Alone and isolated, having lost control over his own life, he was abused and ignored by the passing crowd. In the end it all became too much and he stood on the bridge looking at the reflections of the busy city on the inviting surface of the Yarra River. Contemplating ending his life. For the sake of the series he, at the last moment, remembered the love of his child and backed away from the abyss. As reality differs greatly from fiction would he not, in real life, have jumped? If he did not jump, would his life not become a endless drudgery, devoid of hope, and the chance of long term happiness?

Many studies into workplace stress point to a simple fact, that it is not working hard that causes stress, it is not even overwork that causes stress, rather it is the loss of control that causes stress. It is pretty much true that the lives of working people are identified by having no control. We are told to be at a certain place at a certain time, we are not allowed to eat, or even to piss or shit unless the clock allows it. Our lives are controlled by other people, and there is constant uncertainty due to failures to meet arbitrary KPIs. Even worse poor decisions by management will result in large numbers of workers in an enterprise being let go in an attempt to solve a problem that they have not created.

In a world were to be poor is the unpardonable sin, were visions of wealth and power are pushed into our faces at every turn, in a world were all that matters is money, in a world based on exploitation, in a world where the short term profits matter more than the training and extending of the workers, one has to ask, not why do so many kill themselves, but rather why do more people not kill themselves.

For the ones that fall by the wayside, for the young men who buy into the false ideology of the strong man, for the ones who live dreams of football heroics and nothing more, egged on by zealous, vicariously living parents and equally zealous, heedless of the future coaches; life becomes a bleak world with no future and no hope, life becomes little more than a five day grind dulled only by mindless entertainment, and a weekend of binge drinking. Equally for the soldier sent off to foreign lands to kill or be killed, and returning home to little of no support from the war mongering old men who sat out the bullets safely in air conditioned bank vault offices, it is not so much that governments do not spend enough time and money and effort on mental health, although this is part of the problem, it is much deeper and simpler. They, the ruling class and their allies, do not care about poor working class men and women who have no money and therefore no power.

To paraphrase and extend Aristotle -- we all, by our very nature, take pleasure in learning things, in gaining mastery over ourselves and the external world. This changing the external world to our image is what gives us pleasure. This mastering pleasure could come through work or through art or raising a family, or even from our hobbies and interests. When this natural desire, this natural right, to become full members of society is denied to large segments of the population, when their heads are filled with fear of the other, or with vain ideals of getting rich, many will fall and be ground down into the dust, or like the raisin that withers in the sun.

Maybe in a world with no future, in a world ruled by fear and the love of money, suicide can be seen as the final cry of the heart in our heartless world, maybe suicide is the only way left for people who have nothing, and who have no future, to gain some measure of mastery over the external world. Lied to and molested by churches, cynically abused in the quest for power and then discarded by politicians, slipping through the cracks of an underfunded and unappreciated education system, scorned and reviled by a vicious and hateful media that loves success, and abominates failure, what is a poor boy to do? Maybe we should see suicide as that final cry of NO that says I would rather die on my feet than live the rest of my live as a wage slave, under debt bondage.

Of course it would be wrong of the reader to think I am calling for a mass outbreak of suicide, or that I want working class men to kill themselves. Indeed I would wish the exact opposite, for the cure for isolation and despair must surely be action. For many, however, this is not even an option. Since the good old days of Reagan and Thatcher the rulers and ideologues of our current crisis have not only smashed the working class organisations, but more importantly they taken from us optimism, they have destroyed the very idea of the co-operative spirit. So the “working age men” who kill themselves are ones who have been left with nothing and with nowhere to turn. Force fed images of success and manly pride at every turn they have nothing to fall back on, they have no vision for the future. Little one so many fall into the grave prematurely.

I can understand how this article can be seen as offensive, can make some upset. I am speaking, in an informal, mostly anecdotal manner, based on my experiences with depression and suicidal thoughts, and the observations of those whom I have met over the years. I have left out a myriad of possible causes of suicide, I was only wandering around some of the motivations for suicide. In my investigations I have chosen to focus on social economic factors that could lead one to self murder. There are many more issues that have not been named in this article, for this is not the place to enumerate all of the potential causes and triggers of this drastic solution. I understand how this topic may bite with some and cause anger or sadness. That is not at all my intent, like most things my intent is to make sense of the world as I have experienced it.

So what I would like to do now is to offer up some suggestions that may help. First off I would agree to more mental health spending and all those official, bureaucratic sort of solutions that people love to talk about on chatty, vapid current affairs shows. As to the medical, chemical solutions I can only say that I am not so keen on having a generation of young men taking anti-depressants for the rest of their lives. As I am not a doctor so I am not able to comment much more on that aspect of the suicide crisis solution.

I do know that, like the junkie who comes out of rehab and goes back to her old life with her dealer boyfriend, and her crappy housing and her lack of a job and future; or the prisoner released from gaol, set back with no support into the old habits with his old mates, so it is for those who attempt or even contemplate suicide. The crisis averted, the system moves on to the next crisis not able to give the patient the time and effort required.

There is no sense in “curing” a patient, if like the junkie or criminal, they return to same quiet desperation, if they return to no job (or what is even worse than no job, a mindless one-sided sort of work) and no future.

So what needs to be done?

In no particular order, but set out like a list for rhetorical reasons, I have some practical solutions. Maybe not practical in the way a small government, free-market accountant would think of as practical, but practical in the sense of realistically demanding what it is we all should have from life; that is impossible freedom and everything, the entire world. Firstly one must look into education. When Plato wrote of his utopian republic he spent most of the book discussing the need for education. True progressives have always known the importance of education. For education is the royal road to success in a capitalist society. Short of being born wealthy or having some extraordinary good fortune, education is the key to work in our current and future knowledge economy. So access to quality primary and secondary education and affordable high quality child care, as well as access to free tertiary education is the bare minimum for reaching the worthwhile goal of halving the suicide rate in ten years.

In our society of over production and mass consumption it is now possible to cut hours of work to no more than thirty hours a week. People should not have to work any more than two or three days a week, while food and essentials can be made effectively free. Workers who are sick or injured, or mentally disturbed should not be treated as thieves first and humans a distant second. While I do not have the figures at my fingertips, I would be willing to believe that all the fraud against all the dole offices in all of Australia would be significantly less than the seven billion dollars in profit the CBA made last year.

In the same way that poetry ossifies as it moves away from song, so too psychology turns to stone as it ignores and moves away from the class struggle. As important as the sexual urge is in development of the self, so to the urge to work and gaining control over the external world is of equal importance. If one sees the concept of Eros as being greater than the sexual urge, if one understands Eros as being the generative spirit, than one can understand the need for an understanding of class struggle in psychology. Further from this one can see that the role of medical intervention in the suicidal crisis must be something more than getting a person to a position where they are once again content with wage-slavery and debt bondage, with alienating their labour as an end in itself. There is no reason to save someone from suicidal feelings if they are not going to be supported, if they are forced to go back into their poor suburb, back to insecure working conditions, forced to rely on their own devices, and treated like so much refuse that can, and should be tossed away.

Whether it is the soldiers used and abused in imperialist wars, or the unskilled worker, or the single mother, the support should be there and it should be ongoing.

Will this solve the problem completely? No it will not, but with a shorter work week and a more democratic workplace, with greater education and broader training, with proper and on-going support society can go a long way to reducing this tragic statistic. As this would cost money and require effort, sadly in our world dominated as it is by greed and short term idiocy I am not confident things will get better.

Election Day 2013

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On election day we went to the local school
To cast our ballot, to teach our children.
I struggled
To overcome the temptation
The upwelling urge to draw
A large cock and balls
Across the ballot paper
Or to scrawl Proletarian Democracy
In bold proud letters. Normalised
I voted. Formally and correctly.

And after we stood in the warming
Sunlight of the later morning
And chatted with neighbours
As kids kicked a ball round oval
And sausage sizzle aroma
Of caramelising onions
And public school desperation
For funds, overwhelmed us
And we, to aid the school.
Bought sausage and chicken
Kebab, one each and a cup of tea.

And we sat and ate and chewed
I mulled and thought. How appropriate!
Thin lifeless white bread,
Like the bulk of candidates.
And thin lifeless sausages
Ground snips and snails
Puppy dog tails. Or Bismark misquoted
If you like laws and sausages,
You should never watch either one being made.

Singing Blind Boy Grunt

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In my utopia (which would be a fabulous, and utopian sort of place), let us call it Tomton, I would promulgate many nifty and pleasant laws. One of my plans would see the end of large music companies controlling the art, ripping off the punter and the artist simultaneously. In this utopia musicians would be ubiquitous, hearing live music would be as simple as hanging out with one's friends enjoying good food and drink while playing and singing along. Indeed this would be true for all artists, for once the profit motive is removed history (and art) can begin, as we move out of the realm of barbarism.

So in a world short of this goal, I can find a similar form with support for intimate venues, and for musicians who are able to adapt and thrive in such an environment. One of the great drivers of intimacy, this is true for all arts, and assumes that love is a type of art, is passion. Passion for the music and passion for relationship with the audience.

So it was, with old fashioned utopian ideals in my head, that my wife and I went to see the Brewster Brothers play Bob Dylan at the Sorell Memorial Hall. Tasmania has just had the hottest July temperatures on record; it was hoped that the band would, as well, give us a hot time. The crowd was not disappointed.

The hall was well laid out, and a sold out crowd had gathered for the show. After a few minutes of settling down time, getting a beer and hand shaking and saying hello time, the first act started.

It seemed fitting that in a night of Bob Dylan's music we would start off with a singer-songwriter. Local Tasmanian boy made good Timothy Slater began the evening. The field of singer-songwriters is a crowded one, and this is a field where it is difficult to break new ground, where it is difficult to please a jaded audience who have heard it all. From our boy Dylan, to Paul Kelly, to Joni Mitchell this is a crowded group of talented artists. And too often one will hear the singer being more of an entertainer than an artist. The artist can be entertaining, but the one who is primarily an entertainer will not be an artist.

Luckily Timothy filled both roles. Talented and a good strong singer he did entertain and hold the crowds attention. Not always the easiest task for the supporting role. The best way to gain the attention of an audience who is expecting long time heroes is with honesty. Here the songs of Timothy Slater won over, if not the entire crowd, at least myself and the others sitting around me. With a smooth style, with a nice roll of patter between songs, and with songs that obviously spoke to and through the singer the crowd was more than won over. As a final touch he brought out his sister, local hairdresser Felicity to sing with him. The crowd went wild with the harmonies that only family can create.

So after a break for a beer and a chat, we all took our seats waiting for the main act to appear. As a long time Dylan fan (my sister took me to my first concert, Bob Dylan, way back in 1975) I was expecting for the Brewster Brothers to disappoint. Being a Dylan fan is that uniquely snobby sort of activity. I am only too happy to admit that I was not disappointed in the least. Apart from some technical issues with speakers that most of the audience did not even notice, the two sets played by the Brewster Brothers went down a treat with the locals. The cynic would say that rural Tasmanian audiences are starved for excitement and would enjoy anything that got upon stage. This is of course a lie and a slander.

While not quite capturing the breathless, flexible style of Dylan's singing, (and really who can?) Rick Brewster did a very good job of generating the warmth and depth of Dylan's lyrics. Passion and honesty are the hallmarks of any true musician. In this performance we could feel the affection that the Brewster's have for the music of Bob Dylan, and this affection came across to the audience. And from this affection came the honesty and the passion that allows for strong performances. Indeed there is little that is more deary for an audience than to hear musicians going through the motions, mentally calculating what will be done with their paycheck. There was none of this boredom from either act.

The second set of the Brewster Brothers was peppered with songs of The Angels. Whether it was due to the crowd knowing the songs better, or the extra beer and wine that had flowed, the audience spent the second set dancing in their seats, singing along and generally acting up. While I can not speak for the entire audience I can say that for this show I was not disappointed and that I happily got my money's worth. I am ready for another such evening. Maybe an evening of the Brewster Brother's singing the songs that influenced Bob Dylan? Is that Hank William's “Your Cheating Heart” that I can hear blowing in the wind?

The photograph was taken from the Blue Note Productions Facebook site

Literature and Change

This is a response to an article by Tadhg Muller on the island website

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Sometime last century, when I was still a wee bairn, I had ideas about art. Looking back I can laugh at my naive ideas of becoming an author, an artist. Now I can see my career as little more than a spectacular abortion. I could alone bewail my outcast fate, or I could face up to my numerous personal failings, to a heroic lack of discipline, an almost pathological contempt for the editing process, the various bad choices I made. Or I could look back over a life of brutal violence, of drink and drugs, of death and suicide of work and family and love. Sometimes I look back, and I want to cry, sometimes I have to laugh. And then I think, “but above everything don't write unless you have to; if you need money make boots and we will respect you as a competent cobbler; if you write for money your work will show it.”

One of the greatest pleasure that comes with growing older is surveying the history of our lives. The joy of I told you so, the sorrow of I told you so...

Now. Cold wet winter night. Raw and wild. My heart is sad and sore.

Sometimes I stand in front of the bookshelf in the bookstore, and I sigh a sigh of relief at having dodged a bullet. A vast accumulation of books to be judged by covers, a wall of images and colours that captivate and scientifically seduce the eye, and thus the mind. Standing in the stink of the temple marketplace, amid this babble of books, I think of Plato's begging priests and soothsayers who go to rich men's doors and make them believe that they by means of sacrifices and incantations have accumulated a treasure of power from the gods that can expiate and cure with pleasurable festivals any misdeed of a man or his ancestors. And I listen as white-noise muttering gains intensity. Listening to, breathing in, becoming this cacophony of privileged voices and I tilt slightly my head, and half closing my eyes the words appear, certain words form themselves and a song bursts forth. An echo of the Iron Lady herself -- There is NO alternative. And in my reverie I overturn tables. And in my profanity I leave and drag myself through the negro streets looking for an angry fix. Cheap thrills! 48 pills!

This is a large part of the reason why I use poetry as my medium. Partly because I like the ephemeral nature of poetry, better than the novel, poetry allows one to easily diarise our daily struggles for sanity and clarity and my daily readings. Having a family and working, poetry allows me the freedom to create, without the full time effort novels or larger pieces demand. Poetry better than the novel allows one to make rapid changes of tone, mood and subject. And poetry better than non-fiction history allows one the freedom to see things as they could be, for the true is a gaol of what has actually happened. Poetry allows the flights of imagination required for political action. Poetry allows for the building of utopias. And most importantly, poetry, being the most despised and ridiculed of all literature these days keeps me at arms length of any thought of earning a living through art.

"I never mentioned a man but with the view
"Of selling my own works.
"The tip's a good one, as for literature
"It gives no man a sinecure.”

“And no one knows, at sight a masterpiece.
“And give up verse, my boy,
“There's nothing in it.”

So what is to be done? So much!

Not so much a manifesto or a prescription, rather a suggestion. Utopia. No more let us write of dystopia -- we live this daily. Our age demands utopias. Use as a model the sexually free, politically free, Zeus mocking and theoi humiliating cloud city of Pisthetaerus. Or the classless society of De Sade's Tomoe. This island kingdom, was not only sexually free, but promiscuity was mandated. In this imaginary land the king (who was more a figurehead than a ruler) would not allow himself to eat off gold plates while the children the makers eat black bread washed down with bitter tears. Or even the science fiction of Gene Roddenberry, author of the first interracial kiss on American television profaning a time beyond money and property where all needs are met as easily as plucking fruit from swollen trees.

Maybe some practical examples. In the gallery built by Hobart's very own Bruce Wayne, MONA, there is a certain poo machine which is loved and hated in equal measure. The Cloaca. It leaves me cold to be honest, I stand at look and understand, in my own erroneous manner. And I think, how great would this work of art be, if from one end it was fed babies (for it is when we are children that we are our most authentic) and out the other end it pooped chains. For is this not the fate of our children? To be digested and transformed into consumers of shit, to be everywhere enchained shitty gold bond citizens excreted by a reactionary kultur process that puts short term profit above all else.

Last year I went to see a play called Murder. This was a play about, unsurprisingly, murder using the music of Nick Cave. And I sat in the audience and I thought, why not a play called Poverty with maybe the music of (among others) the Gang of Four. This imaginary play could make people think and talk about poverty and the role it plays in our society, and how Capital needs poverty to survive.

How different would have been the arc of the life of Emma Bovary if she had read, really read, Justine (Good Behaviour Well Chastised). Careful reading would allow her to see the brutally honest morality of de Sade. A morality that would have allowed her to understand her betters as they are. Blood sucking vampyres who prey upon the souls of the weak and vulnerable. Who see war and famine as money making ventures. She would have learned to hate her oppressors, rather than idolising them and trying to worm her way into their society. For it is no coincidence that the greatest villains, the greatest murders and thieves are the wealthy and powerful in the novel. For this is as true of our age as it was in the time of the Sun King. Or as The Philosopher wrote “The fact is that the greatest crimes are caused by excess and not by necessity. Men do not become tyrants in order that they may not suffer cold.” As the ideals of the ruling class are the ideals of the age, so we see much written and spoken to convince us that our real enemy is not the wealthy but rather those poorer and more unfortunate than ourselves.

I do not know, I may be right, I may be wrong. I do know, however, that I am write for myself.

Atomous kai kenon

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Standing on the corner a-ringing a bell. And up stepped the sheriff...

How's it going he asked.

Just standing here, you know holding up the wall. Really there taint not much to report really. You?

The shoppers and the workers in town swirled and rambled all around and about us.

Got time?

For you? Of course.

Let's duck in this here joint get us some coffee. It has been a while we can catch up. And besides I am freezing.

Well, I said, as there is not much happening from my end I'm happy to join you in a coffee.

It was more than true that there was not much to say about my life, the last few months have been little more than the daily grind of family and work and all the forms of mental illness that come free with the working class loss of free will life style.

So we sat and we ordered a coffee each. I like to order latte because of the idea -- I think it was Simon Crean who put it out there -- that one can not be a good union member and drink latte. I wanted to prove him wrong. And a long black.

I saw Ian the other day.

Really and how is he?

Good, he was all excited, he had been to the poetry slam heats and later on he read something in the open mic section later. So he was -- yeah all excited. You know Ian.

Indeed he's a pistol. I thanked the waiter for the latte and played with the sandy coloured froth, distorting the intricately poured design. What did he think? I am sure he would have gone all ultra on their arse.

No he was cool. He was surprised -- pleasingly surprised - cause he reckons that the slam format is all male oriented. So he was sort of impressed about the fact that there was about half and half girl boy performers and two of the three finalists were women.

Yeah, well no, that is good. Ian is good like that. He has a, you know, open mind. Having played rugby in college, it has always struck me passing strange how something like poetry can become so macho. Some people just gotta get all competitive. Like those aggro cooking shows. But I think it must be the shirtless, arm waving, shouty-man performance aspect. You know the winning and the losing.

Sure - that is exactly what Ian was saying too. And he thought it cool the way the slam brings out all sorts of poets from out of the woodwork. You know there are heats all across the country?

Yep, and did you know that we were lovers for a while?

Truly? I did not know that. Makes you more attractive to me.

That lemming has dived off the cliff. I have lost all interest. I am pretty much asexual these days. Does not even enter my pretty little head. We all wear a variety of, various masques, do we not? LOL. et tu? And besides after 911 there ain't no need for performance poetry anymore.

I guess.

Yeah but you know I gotta force myself to jerk off at least once a week, you know just to maintain good prostate health.

So okay, whatever. Ian thought it was a good night. He is very political. Right? So he was, he said, he had been to a few slams over the years around and on the mainland and they never really caught his interest. At the heat last week he thought maybe it was you know maybe he dug it cause of the small town vibe of Hobart. People having to make their own fun and whatever.

At this point an earnest young woman, Iona, wearing a fourth doctor sort of scarf -- she told me later her thirteen year old niece had knitted a bunch of these scarfs for various family members -- ripped jeans and a leather jacket, and her equally, if more traditionally garbed beard and glasses sloppy jumper earnest brother Bloom interrupted.

Slam is the democratisation of poetry, of verse. It allows more voices. It may be macho at times and places, but at the same time slams allow different voices to be heard. The voices of women in particular. They may or may not win, that is not really the point. Poets get to perform, mind if I sit, and so by performing they get to build up confidence. What they do from then is up to the person. But lots of voices, of the marginalised and the ones who have not had the opportunity get to be heard. Did you ever read The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry? You should read it, by Somers-Willett - it is interesting. She is in US so she does not talk about the Australian scene. But she does talk about the divide. Poetry in the academy versus in the bars and in the alleyways. I will send you a link of a review.

Like Bukowski.

Or Ginsberg before. Whitman when he said something like, Great Poetry needs a Great Audience.

It is that DIY punk sort of a feel innit. The sum is worth more than the parts. The audience is central to the performance. Slam is the all night acid house dance rave party, the stage dive, slam is Shane MacGowan getting his ear bit off while Joe Stummer caterwaul strums what the hell is wrong with me? The Bomber boys who stole kit during the great blackout and went out to the street corners and clubs and puked forth grinding poverty hip-hop.

I lived for a while in Canberra, the poets there seem to do a good job of it.

Last century there used to be a cool scene in bris vegas based at the Storey Bridge Hotel.

Still your boy Ian reckons that slam is an inherently broken form, due to the idea of competition. The very nature of the slamming scene is broken.

By now we had repaired to a little downstairs hole in the wall jazz wine bar. Trading latte for beer and cider and cheap industrial port, not being able, no matter how ironically I tried, to abide Chardonnay. And conversions swirled and jostled for attention like bored children bickering in the supermarket trolley. Beer flowed like wine. This way and that way words flowed and swirled around all opposition and solid forms finding new paths and forging new channels. Ideas and flirtations. We all overlapped and argued for time and space around an unoriginal table stained years of excited bullshitting and alcohol. A small gang melded the group pushing the tables together, painters, dealers and stoned rappers. Ply upon sandy ply.

No! Slams are good they give people immediate feedback and if the poets or whatever listen and learn they come back and think about things and they can stumble about improve. Even if only in the sense of winning the twenty dollars at the end of the night. But it is all supportive. The old way of getting poems out there -- from entering the contest to getting final finished published book containing heartfelt poems -- could take you know quite a long time. Getting hooked into the slam scene one has a focus. Keep writing monthly new stuff. A monthly deadline. Asses must be driven, as the saying goes, to hay with blows. Or polishing up some piece they are particularly fond of.

It is the constant changing of styles and forms. And a bringing together of voices from all around the country, bush & city. Big places and small. The old and the young. The old hand and the tyro. Coming into being and passing away. The way certain groups, particular groups coalesce around their daily lives and so form particular styles. Meeting in cafes or pubs, sober or not or high as kites and sounds and voices bubble up and styles come and go. Some move on, most are like writers or visual artists just experimenting about or musicians trying out song ideas, or just drunken layabout no names ecstasy poets seeking to get some kicks and maybe laid. All sorts. Resorting to nutmeg. Which as it was the sailors high seems appropriate for Hobart. Eh?

But this very diversity is as much about fragmentation and loss of community as it is about anything. It is one group seedling in and carving out and a liquidness that disbars other groups. I am not making myself clear. Like the way yon internet has a chat group a forum a scene for each and everyone for every sort of idea or kink you can think of and so people become more close, closer in fact, to some random cat two thirds of a wide and wicked world away -- round the world -- or even more better unknown just down the road. And so what ever you want to call it, skate punk XY youth label culture, or some sort of arty boho scene, or some inarticulate anarcho-dread progressive culture all movement it all gets sort of rutted on the ancient wallaby track and people get isolated and so isolate themselves fragmenting into every sort of fraction or clique or ratio group or faction that you could ever think of -- so by this fragmenting we argue and miss the boat the moment and while trying to become the perfecting ourselves change we want the world to be the bosses laugh all the way to bank. Their wealth is my death my life is being broke. Whoa!

Personally, to me it is the death of art, well maybe not THE death of art. This bunch of unemployed or under-employed or unemployable can never destroy art, not even poetry. But this entire American Idol, clap-o-meter idea. When the hurlyburly's done it comes down to me hating this pub scene poet scene the drinking the braking of glass and the nauseating sound of the cash register. Ugh - sends shivers down me spine. Like that inane Nokia ring tone. Makes me physically wanna be ill just thinking about it. But this venereal measuring clap-o-meter could never tear down art by itself. But it is the fragmenting the murdering of art with one thousand cuts. Bleeding it out. No not cuts -- how quaintly cliché of moi. Rather it is like the Cyberian reindeer in the thawing spring time tundra. So many mosquitoes. Fantastic clouds in number and in formation of the blood suckers like dentist drills rise up from countless small puddles and pools of melt water. So much so that some beasts perish with anemia. From so many tiny little bites from so much drop by life creating drop blood being drained. While others in the vast herds are driven insane and panicked fleeing and flailing about the reindeer exhaust themselves running this way and yon - not never being able to find relief.

No it is the democratic dubstep hodge podge of voices and opinions, a honing of ideas in a furnace of art and competition and sampling commerce. The free interchange market of twenty four hour party signs and signifiers of many voices striving for the one voice the way to describe what it is we have been thrown into. For if we be equal in one way, then we must be equal in all ways. Each of us should be expected to have something to say, and we should be allowed to say it. It is even our duty as citizens, whatever the hell that may mean, to speak our mind. Two thirds Rosa Luxemburg, one part Dr Suess. And the slam movement has wrested and extorted poetry from the Academy. Too too much poetry is controlled by the guild of English professors and those who having access and resources speak of the primacy of the written word over the spoken word. It is a silly argument to have as they are both of value. The best writing is best if it is closest to conversation. Even the old fashioned five paragraph essay form should be read aloud, if only as part of the editing precess. Slam poets are like the old beardy bards, like the rhapsodes of Homer's time.

No, not like rhapsodes at all. The name shows the difference. Rhapsode mean to stitch together a song or even better a stitching together of lies. Those poets would have to commit to memory scenes and phrases and what not so then can then, on the spot stitch together a song a lay. They were able to put theses formulas of meter and narrative together. Maybe in new and varied ways. But one big thing that these archaic poets would not have liked would have been innovation. They were very concerned with keeping intact the ideas of the cycle. And it was all you know religious and traditional and you know religion and tradition hate change. The word that Homer used was singer. And here you are right, cause the first duty of the singer is to sing, and the slam venue is just the place to do that. Again we have the idea of immediacy, of meeting face to face like minded people in your community. This is the power of the medium.

Immediate and democratic, and even if I do not agree with what you say, I have to go along with what Sylvia Beach said about Joyce -- he treated people invariably as his equals, whether they were writers, children, waiters, princesses, or charladies. What anybody had to say interested him; he told me that he had never met a bore.

The babbling pumpt of platinism

Yes well LOL sometimes it takes a bit of digging to find out the kernel of the poem or the poet that is any good, worth remembering.

I like the idea of the anti-slam, everyone gets how ever much time and everyone is given as a score a perfect 10. Performing is the victory. Like the Seinfeld joke, people would rather be in the coffin than give the eulogy.

But I guess that raises the question as to how to get an audience to attend what is little more than a poetry recital. Anyway it is getting late. I have to dreadful work in the beastly morning. Until next time, I said, putting on my scarf and overcoat, I shall leave y'all with Democritus, “The realm of the universe is atoms and space, the things that are, are custom. These universes are infinite and so they come into being and they perish.”

loquere ut videam te

...within his head many words, but disorderly; vain, and without decency, to quarrel with the princes. Iliad 2.213-4

I went into town last week. I went to the small hole in the wall smelling of thick rich coffee and of thicker and richer spices cafe -- Frankie's Empire. I ordered three well appreciated hot chocolates for the children, and a flat white for myself. Besides the well received drinks I was interested in see a new -- for Hobart anyway -- cafe poetry or to be more precise spoken word night. New to Hobart, but not a new idea. There are monthly readings (first Sunday of the month) at the Republic Hotel. I do not want to get into a debate over the merits of this event as against that event, nor do I want to get entangled with the even more ludicrous argument comparing the relative merits of the spoken word as against the written word. I do, however, want to offer a frail apologia for the will and representation of the spoken word, the open mic event.

So it seems that was the end of things, but then I thought over my past, about the many people who have been not supportive of open mics. The ones who have pronounced such nights to be awful, or even atrocious. And some seem to create a distinction the written and the spoken, and privilege the written. I have never thought that this was the right attitude. No sense getting into an argument here, but I will quote Swinburne and say that the first rule of the singer is to sing. Take this as you will.

Atrocious & awful, sure. But this is very nature of the open mic - poetry slam scene. But let us be generous in our criticism. Maybe not always possible, but in this case I think the thought of critical generosity should be kept in mind. My visit was only the third time this event (silverwords) was held. It is very much an amateur or DIY sort-of-event, in the sense of having no government or university grant money to support the organiser, but more importantly in the sense of being a labour of love.

Describing this sort of spoken word evening as awful shows the wrong attitude to have to open mic. Even if most of the poems were crap, the questions must be: did you have a bit of fun? did you get out of the house? did you hear even one line that was of interest? I have been wandering in and out of these sorts of poetry readings and slams and etc for a great many years, ever since I stumbled into the DC Space bar on a cold wintry night two generations ago. One of the things that I love about this open mic formula is the fact that all are welcome. How hard is it for the average person to jump up on stage and read a poem that they wrote?

Omar Musa, Brett Dionysius, Miranda Lello, Jared Louche, Rebbecca Edwards, are among the poets, musicians, artists that I have known, off the top of my head, who have toyed with the open reading format at various times in their careers. Together they have put out albums, books, blogs, journals and much more. While it would be foolish to say that spoken word was a main determinate in their work, it would be as equally foolish to deny the education of the open reading environment. Like Julia Gillard in her resignation speech, “it does not explain everything, nor does it explain nothing.” For open mic is primarily a way for people to quickly get feedback and encouragement for their work.

And here we have stumbled across the key word. Encouragement. Open readings offer the young, whether young in age or in spirit, player a chance to try out material, stances, vocal styling etc. as Adonis Storr, the event organiser said at the beginning of the evening we are here to encourage each other and love one another (or as Ted "Theodore" Logan would say, be excellent to one another)

Open mic nights show a type of democracy, a type of democracy that is messy, rowdy, uneven, but mostly participatory. In the second book of the Iliad after Zeus had sent a riddling dream to Agamemnon there is an spoken word, open discussion of what Acheans are to do. Even the lowliest can speak. Thersites -- whose name means the bold, the audacious -- was the only brawling belly-aching foot soldier, the only private mentioned by name in the poem, that spoke. Although he was howled down and beaten by Odysseus his speech is a turning point of the war; for after his speech the Acheans agreed to stay at Troy and not return home. But did he not speak the truth? Did he repeat what Achilles said, did he capture the soldiers demoralisation after having lost Achilles to the greed of Agamemnon? Did he not say what all were thinking, but were too fearful to utter? Did not this wretched, cold, wet, brutalised, foot soldier at once mirror Achilles' attack on Agamemnon and the established heroic order, and at the same time mock Achilles, being as wretched as the hero is glorious?

In this way we can see that the open mic, spoken word format is a type of democracy assembly; in the sense that all are equal, not in ability or experience, but in the ability to speak and take part. Indeed in the democracy of classic Athens one was expected to take part, and to speak well. To show a concrete example of this democratic spirit at least two people who had never read a poem in public before spoke on this night.

With no, or at best elastic, themes for these evenings the poets were free to investigate a wide range of spoken words; from dubstep rapping to Banjo Paterson.

And the hurrying people daunt me,and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

A young man sang to Jesus for setting him on the on the straight and narrow. Love songs hate songs tumbled some spoke political other declaimed apolitical still others in turn spoke fierce, calm, earnest, whimsical. If one wanted to quote Lenin one could use the idea of the joy of the festival of the oppressed

For who will make the poetical revolutions? The academics? The narrow professional literary journals? Any revolution, whether in art or politics, will be built by the broken, by the outsider (consider the 1961 Dylan unwashed phenomenon, or the filthy 1977 Sex Pistols or a world or two before the poverty stricken, rotten toothed 1921 James Joyce forced by need to accepting gifts of shoes by Ezra Pound.)

Looking back over years of poetry readings, it is these acts of self organisation that will advance poetry. Even if nothing comes maybe one or two people will develop a life long habit of writing poetry.

Some of the problems with the open mic include the problem of, at best, a patchy selection of poems. It is just the nature of the beast, as it is true for poetry journals and canonised collections. The idea is to allow new and unpublished poets the opportunity to gather and to share and read aloud. The benefit is to hear new voices, new ideas, ideas which are often not spoken, voices which often do not get heard. For example when I did a quick, non-scientific, survey of a noted on-line poetry magazine, I was impressed by the fact that the majority of artists in the journal were in the (mostly tertiary) education industry or entangled with the arts bureaucracy in one way or another. There were some poets, but not many, from outside these circles.

Spoken word nights may be insular, may be hit or miss affairs, may even be atrocious and awful, but they are also a cheap and fun night out, they offer that chance to hear some new poems, and they offer the chance to have some interesting conversations. But most importantly is the confidence that poetry slams can give to new players. For poetry in general, and performance poetry in particular is a ladder to be climbed. Spoken word offers much to be learned, as it is a skill and an art like others.

Do not take my word for it watch this video about the Canberra Poetry scene, built over over many years with a dedicated crew of young and enthusiastic poets. Or even better come along to Frankie's Empire on Thursday 4 July for a spoken word night, and then on Friday 19 of July come along as Frankie's Empire and Silver Words host the Hobart heats of the Australian Poetry Slam Contest.

Also the Republic Hotel in North Hobart was readings on the first Sunday of every month.

and the latin title means - speaks that i may see you.