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PATH   

 

I'm pleased to confirm that HEAVENTREE PRESS are to publish my new collection, PATH, in 2008. The book covers 25 years of writing, & will be the biggest volume yet in THE MAGIC DOOR series.

It has been some years since the last book of  THE MAGIC DOOR appeared, although a small sampler WOBBLY CHAIR was published by Canna Press in 2003. During this time, several lines of development occurred. The PATH section in particular makes reference yet again to the Egyptian pantheon, & becomes a lyrical investigation of number. THE GARDEN BOOK takes us through a typical year in the locality of the poet's home, in the form of letter poems to fellow poet Ric Hool. THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE WRITING TUTOR treats as subject matter my 25 years tutoring ADVENTURES IN CREATIVE WRITING at Cardiff.

FRINITE began as a short sharp shock poem to build into the repertoire of the poetry & music band HEATPOETS. Barry MacSweeney heard me do it at a reading & urged me to work it inTO a much longer poem, which I did. The poem's basic rhythm was suggested by hearing US poet Anne Waldman reading her work, & takes its propulsive beat from her poem PRESSURE, itself allegedly borrowing from the chants of shaman Maria Sabina. My poem arrived in its present form via many workshops with musician/ composer Chris Vine and acoustic guitarist Bob Middleton, & later guitarist Ric Hool. I did the poem in tandem with poet Loyd Robson on a couple of occasions. Old school rap & jazz influence the delivery in performance. This is FRINITE'S first appearance in a collection.

RORI : A BOOK OF THE BOUNDARIES is the most extraordinary book yet in the MAGIC DOOR series. It is the cumulation of the drive into dream utilised in the earlists books in an attempt to bring the dreaming faculty& the process of creation closer together. This goes hand in hand with an intimate exploration of a curious church in a remote valley, & some of the stories associated with it.

Some specimen material from PATH  will shortly appear on this site. It is hoped that the book ma be launched at the Hen and Chicks pub (upstairs room), Abergavenny, but details have yet to be confirmed. Here is an excerpt from PATH ...

 

OFF THE WALL

intelligence
                is
one mutation
                beyond
inscrutability


Ezra
        Pound is
a corn circle

 

the
        price of
freedom
            is
eternal paranoia

 

walking though walls
wasn't built in a day

      -   -   -

 

the BEATS their DEMONS their OTHERS

 

Ginsberg confronted his

by calling upon &

using psychic energy

& natural compassion

                in his own way a

                warrior as much

as a peacenik or a libertarian

 

Burroughs learnt to live with his

Grey Man, the Man Within, the

Ugly Spirit     " Why I always knew

that gun fired to the left

& I adjusted"

 

        Jack

adjusted to his demons, but not

without a heroic & doomed struggle

 

his mother/glue plus mystic holy/

alcohol imbablance

cosmic axle grinding

            misty dust

shore hot forest

above the cunimbs

rapid field ignition

 

post jismic

film fragments

paper

a closed down room

 

memory

 

            is


                        the

net of knowledge woven by

light years of spiders OK?

                                            another black biro

sickens and dies

                    its harder to get

                            good black biros

than it is to

                    score dope or bullets

 

easy to

start

a poem

 

less easy

to

finish one

 

knowledge on thing

                                        wisdom another


quiet as autumn

        I am leaves & wind

                            also

bonewrack

        clanking for woodbone

                        drybone, drybone

            -   -   -                  

 

To read a blog by Billy Mills on Chris and his new Book  on the Guardian Books page go to  http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/02/the_hidden_beauty_of_the_magic.html

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