Canadian poet R. W. Watkins began experimenting with the ghazal form in the mid to late 1990s. Subsequently, two of his earliest attempts became the only Canadian content in Agha Shahid Ali’s anthology of English-language ghazals, Ravishing DisUnities, in 2000. In 2003, he published the inaugural issue of Contemporary Ghazals—the world’s first English-language journal dedicated to the titular form of Middle Eastern and Indian poetry. An ‘Introductory Collection’ of poems from the first three issues of this groundbreaking publication was recently made available on Amazon.com. As well, Watkins released his first foray into novel-writing, The Rites of Summer, in January of this year. To mark the occasion, the following compilation of conversations and interview excerpts has been assembled. Watkins discusses the ghazal, alternative publishing, contemporary politics and other contentious topics with American webzine editor Michele McDannold; underground poet Pat Collins; Scottish poet/editor L. J. McDowall; his publishing assistant and romantic partner, Jacqueline Jones; and experimental novelist Bill Ectric. The earliest of these discourses dates from the fall of 2007.
Michele McDannold: What do you think is the single most
troubling aspect in the writing world today?
I wouldn’t be able to narrow it down to merely one. As I
see it, there are at least three or four very troubling aspects of equal
detriment. Not the least of which is television’s abandoning of us. The middle
medium—as I like to call it—started to give up on us poets—and writers in
general—about two decades ago. As I was telling poet Bob Grumman [2 February 1941 – 2 April 2015] about a year ago,
television still provides a little airtime for established authors roughly 60
or older, and will probably do so until those—[Norman] Mailer, [Margaret]
Atwood, [Gore] Vidal, [Robert] Bly, etc.—are all dead and gone. [Note:
Norman Mailer died just weeks after this interview, in November of 2007, and
Gore Vidal passed away in the summer of 2012.] Then all the broadcasters
will let out a collective “Wheewww! I’m glad that’s over!” and focus on even
more serious dumbing-down and low culture instillation. They’ve been working on
this for years, actually. Every time one hears informal banter between anchors
during a supposedly formal news broadcast, or people referred to as ‘guys’ and
‘kids’ in the relating of a particular story, that’s this deculturalisation
process in its most tangible and extreme strand of devolution. The anchors will
eventually be dressing like Little Leaguers and hopscotch girls, and covering
stories like ‘President What’s-His-Name’s Gnarly Trainers’, ‘Boogers and You’,
‘Dakota Gets Her First Thong’ and what-have-you. You’ll be seeing that down in
the States in just a few years—if it’s not manifesting itself already. We’ll be
seeing it here in Canada
a little bit after that—first on CTV and Global, then the CBC. If there’s an
electronic medium that’s going to help promote us, it will be the Internet
aspect of the computer—not television. And the more coverage poets and other
writers get online, the less airtime television will feel compelled to offer
us—almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy that insures and perpetuates future
ignorance.
Another very troubling aspect—especially from my Canadian
perspective—would have to be the compromising of artistic output due to
government funding. Here in Canada, even if one doesn't receive a grant from a
provincial arts council or the almighty federal Canada Council for the Arts, he
or she will still have to go through the government filter if they decide to
send their manuscript out to a midsize or even large publishing house, due to
the fact that the majority of these f**kers are regularly subsidised by both
levels of government—often obscenely so, or so I’ve heard. Whatever the case,
as I’ve said time and time again, the end result is books of poetry and fiction
that resemble nothing as much as tourist brochures. “O blazing sacred
wheatfields of Saskatchewan / You bow in praise of our late, great Prime
Minister Trudeau and his virile loins / Then lean eastward / As if longing to
grope the rugged shores of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland...”—you know, kitschy,
geographically patriotic shit like that.
Of course, the flipside to this artless phenomenon is
equally detrimental to literature today—namely, the under-40 or -45 crowd who
write just pointless garbage without any real sociopolitical statement, even
though they claim to be at odds with the establishment and are the cultural and
philosophical descendents of the beats and angry young men—believe me, [Allen]
Ginsberg or [Allan] Sillitoe they are not. These are the pathetic arseholes for
whom message, structure and even talent are all optional. Here in Canada , this is
the sort of rubbish that winds up in Broken Pencil magazine—a magazine
funded by the Canada Council, I might add.
Whether it’s coming from the government-funded
corn-meisters or the lazy ‘whatever’ pretenders, 99 percent of what gets
published these days in Canadian journals is free verse—or narrative poetry,
whatever that is—I’m not sure anymore; I think it’s when someone takes a
shitty, pointless short story and arranges it on the page to resemble a bad
poem—something like that. This in itself is not healthy either. Such
publications would have us believe that no-one writes anything else—or knows
how to; that there are a few people under 45 who know how to write a haiku, and
that’s about it. If I could somehow coerce or blackmail enough of the Canadian
journals into publishing all the different types of poetry I write, someone
like myself—a Gen-X’er who can write in both Eastern and some Western closed
forms, and concrete poetry, as well as free verse—would come across as an
eye-opening exception nowadays, to say the least.
How would you describe the state of poetry on the
Internet? Do you participate? Love it... Hate it?
Well, as large and midsize publishing houses have steered
increasingly away from poetry, more and more poets—myself included—have begun
self-publishing their own chapbook and full-length collections—sometimes
completely on their own, more often as part of a collective. And these aren’t
simply hacks who envision themselves as poets but in reality couldn’t get a
two-line epigram published in the free space of an upstart sports or homemaking
magazine; these are usually poets whose work has appeared quite regularly in
some of the most important litzines and journals out there. So one can’t rightfully categorise such books as ‘vanity publishing’; the true vanity
publishers, the self-styled poets, have moved online, as I’ve noted in an
article I wrote for Contemporary Ghazals. All the free verse that’s even
too rotten and pointless for the Broken Pencil-type publications, you
can certainly find your share of that on the Internet nowadays.
However, if one can get past the horseshit, there is some
good stuff to be found online. I like most of the stuff on your site, Outsider
Writers, and Litkicks has some pretty neat stuff—although I can do
without the childish user-names; that reminds me too much of silly hip-hop
posturing or something. Also, Levi Asher has too much of a say in airing and
editing comments, and they usually only feature their own in-house reviews and
essays, which is a drag. I’ve had three or four poems broadcast on Litkicks—and
I consider such presentations broadcasting, by the way, not publishing
as such. And I have something coming up in the next issue of the new online
version of the legendary Evergreen Review—I’m very proud of that. Plus
I’ve had a couple of ghazals included in an ‘issue’ of Gene Doty’s The
Ghazal Page. That’s a nice little webzine. Gene’s a great chap. He must be.
He puts up with me.
Of course, if you’re going to be
‘publishing’ and promoting yourself as an author online, you have to go through
the proper channels and target the right audience. One has to make sure he or
she is appearing on the most fitting, professional and beneficial sites,
otherwise it’s better to stay off the net and stick to the zines and journals
exclusively. I mean, if you’re aiming for the Facebook crowd, forget it! No
doubt there are a few sincere exceptions, but I have a feeling that most of
those silly f**kers haven’t read a book or even a newspaper article since secondary
school. Facebook is the most popular of these so-called ‘social networking’
sites because it requires the least amount of brains and literary skills to
complete a profile. MySpace is probably the most reputable of the bunch, due in
large part to all the ninnies migrating to Facebook! A lot of writers, artists
and musicians have MySpace sites, including moi.
(Autumn, 2007)
Pat Collins: What was the initial reaction to
Contemporary Ghazals back in 2003 when you published the first issue?
Disinterest. At least here in Canada . I
spread the word through the various journals and organisations—like the League
of Canadian Parrots, er, Poets—and stirred up zilch interest. The house
publications of the writers’ organisations were more interested in reporting on
social events, and functioned more like the society pages of old. “Susan
Musgrave giggled girlishly as she read her new elegy for the clear-cut BC
rainforests, and Michael Crummey looked absolutely radiant in a blue chiffon
gown”—you know, rubbish like that. Never trust an organisation where
everybody’s always smiling and laughing moronically in the photographs. At the
end of the day, it’s the poets south of the border who made Contemporary
Ghazals a worthwhile project. Ditto for my new journal, Eastern
Structures. The talent and initiative is simply lacking up here.
But have things improved any over the years?
Well, there was a young
Canadian lady who had nerve enough to step up to the plate and contribute a
poem to Issue 6 [of Contemporary Ghazals]—whatever her foreknowledge and
intentions. So that was a minor step in the right direction. But overall,
there’s not much in the way of positive news to report. When I had a copy of
the Contemporary Ghazals Anthology sent to some Ontarian named Michael Dennis
for coverage on his blog, he didn’t even bother to review it. I guess he didn’t
have the necessary qualifications! He did, however, review Rob Winger’s The
Chimney Stone, which consists entirely of phony ghazals—i.e., free verse
merely arranged in couplets. That tells me everything I need to know about
Dennis’s literary standards and politics. It gets even ‘better’. When I emailed
Winger a couple of years ago, inviting him to contribute some real ghazals
to my journal, he never even bothered to get back in touch. That’s what I call
a resounding silence of the negative variety. At least no-one can say that I
haven’t made the effort.
Rob Winger published a condensed version of his Ph.D.
thesis on the Canadian ghazal in Arc Poetry in 2009, and never made
mention of you or your magazine. Why does Winger and his associates (editors,
publishers, Carleton
University
Canadian poets are quite adept
at changing the rules in order to accommodate their own shortcomings in the
talent department. This is certainly true in regards to a form like the ghazal.
Such poets—and their cronies who run the state-funded journals and publishing
houses—base their arrogance on ignorance, expediency and deception. Black is
white and white is black. It’s a very generic left-wing way of doing things,
bordering on the Orwellian. As you’ve
probably guessed, they’re also not the most informed and up-to-date people you
can meet. Many of these editors and publishers are the type that screams
“Hippy!” when they get cut off at an intersection by someone with thick
sideburns. Some of them are such anachronistic numpties that when they hear a
term like ‘goth’ or ‘grunge’, they probably envision Elvis impersonators.
Believe it or not, I once received feedback regarding a short story I’d
entered in the Newfoundland & Labrador Arts and Letters Competition that
stated, “Good fiction doesn’t contain adverbs.” I mean, bloody hell – you can’t
make up stuff like this! As for the universities, Rob
Winger’s silly thesis proves that a Ph.D. from Carleton University
Is there any vehicle in Canada
None that I know of. The
state-funded writers are publishing in the state-funded journals and magazines
and appearing on the state-funded cultural programmes for the sake of other
state-funded writers. They write the rubbish, they write about the
rubbish, they publish the rubbish, and they read the rubbish—all with the
blessings of the political powers that be. The various levels of government
fund their tomfoolery with our tax dollars, thereby legitimising such drivel.
It’s a closed circle, a bureaucracy that perpetuates itself and keeps the
undermining elements—i.e., the truth—hidden and underground. Even most of the online
rubbish run by Canadians is blatantly censorious. For example, when I posted a
comment criticising some ignorant, amateurish piece about John Thompson and the
Canadian ‘ghazal’ on the silly Lemon Hound blog in 2014, it was promptly
removed by the creepy commies in charge. I remember writing, “An ant is what it
is, a grasshopper is what it is, and the ‘ghazals’ of Lorna Crozier are a
humbug.” I certainly still stand by that—the entire educated world does!
There is actually a bright side to all this negativity,
however. As I said, the rubbish that government-funded phonies like Winger and
his ilk churn out is intended primarily for Canadian eyes—specifically, other
writers and academia. So, if it’s any consolation, virtually no-one from
outside this country reads such malarky, and certainly no-one publishes it.
It’s all about reassurance and saving face in a world where Canadian writers
and artists are usually thirty years behind the eight ball. Things really
haven’t changed much since F. R. Scott was writing satirical poems about the
self-important Canadian authors of the 1930s and ’40s. A large percentage of
them are still rather deficient in the talent department, and seeking solace in
each other’s mediocrity is still a means of propping themselves up.
(Summer, 2016)
L. J. McDowall: After a long hiatus, you published the Contemporary
Ghazals Anthology in 2015, but in the interim your comments on Asian-form
poetry attracted a great deal of criticism from the Canadian poetry establishment.
Would it be fair to say that you’ve ruffled a few feathers?
Actually, the anthology came out in 2014. I’m not sure if
I’ve really ruffled any feathers here in Canada —I have south of the border,
definitely—especially amongst the ‘mainstream’ haiku poets in recent years; but
here in Canada ...
Well, the Canadian literary ‘establishment’—which is largely a self-appointed
bunch of government-funded hacks who usually wind up teaching in the
second-rate universities—like to respond to criticism with silence. I’m not
sure if they mean to convey a message of You are beneath us, and therefore
not worthy of a response, or if they merely lack the nerve and intellect to
be fighters. Generally speaking, these people—especially the poets—are
important to each other. As I’ve said on occasions, they seek solace in each
other’s mediocrity, and mean very little to anyone beyond the Canadian borders.
The only time anyone from amongst Canada ’s general population even
pays them a blind bit of notice is when one of them writes a volume of dubious
verse about some dead hockey player from half a century ago. Seriously.
The Canadian establishment has been especially silent
on your contributions to the development of the ghazal form, though. As I
understand it, you were the only Canadian poet included in what’s regarded
globally as the seminal anthology on English-language ghazals, Ravishing
DisUnities, edited by the late and sorely missed [Agha] Shahid [Ali]. It
would seem that your contribution to this has been ignored deliberately, a
glaring omission—here I’m thinking of Dr Winger’s scholarship on the ghazal
that failed to mention you at all. Do you think this omission is because you’re
essentially a boondock poet, at the coal face in the wilds of Newfoundland
Oh, it’s a combination of things, I think. As it’s been
pointed out, someone who writes anatomically correct ghazals on the Canadian
front is ‘a spanner in the works’, as they say. I was a sort of ‘reverse
embarrassment’ to Rob Winger’s self-serving thesis and rubbish article close to
a decade ago. It was convenient that I be ignored. I made them look
incompetent. As I’ve said, twisting the rules and rewriting history in order to
suit your ambitions is the left-wing Canadian way. It’s a fine bit of
arse-covering, but it only works so far in this Internet era. This is something
so many of these Canadian chumps seem to be forgetting. These people like
Winger are in my age category or younger, yet they seem to be existing solely
in a pre-web print universe. They seem to have no knowledge—or at least regard
for—webzines, blogs, social media, e-books, modern print-on-demand services
like CreateSpace and Lulu, etc. They naively underestimate their power. They
can publish some self-serving article in some print magazine and manage to
conjure up maybe 10,000 readers, tops. Meanwhile, 250,000 others are
writing and reading articles and blog posts to the contrary online, and the
poor buggers like Winger don’t even realise it! In this regard, people like
Winger are definitely ignorant of the off-campus writers out in the ‘boonies’
and underestimate us to our advantage.
Well, we still exchange peculiar presents by mail on occasions. I mean, I just recently posted him a bootleg CD of rare Leonard Cohen tracks and had a copy of The Rites of Summer sent to him, and he sent me a copy ofNick Cave
It’s interesting what you say about both the Internet
and the print-on-demand publishing platforms changing the game. I know several
small literary presses taking advantage of the POD revolution—places like
Indigo Dreams, for example, where a large number of very high-quality poets
are published each year, made possible by the Lulu platforms. I think this
means there’s probably an intersection between the new poetry world and the old
one—the Internet-era presses can, and do, publish poets who have successfully
published with more traditional presses. However, it is the Internet, as you
say, that has changed the game for both types of exposure—for example, poets
who are not able to access the hearts of literary London Edinburgh UK
Well, it’s given all forms of poetry and artistic
expression a new lease on life, provided the people contributing to the blogs,
e-zines, CreateSpace productions, etc. are truly capable as creators. Frankly,
I think the ‘alternative’ literary world—i.e. the blogs, webzines, POD books—is
now bigger than the ‘mainstream’ literary world. It’s beating the doors down,
undermining the established order, and the academics and the ageing stars of
yesteryear don’t want to admit it or deal with it. And when on occasion they
try and join the newfangled system, they usually wind up looking opportunistic
and silly. Margaret Atwood comes to mind.
I often compare it to the two different worlds that
increasingly comprised the music biz of the mid to late 1970s and ’80s. You may
not be old enough to remember, but it was truly a case of Us vs Them in those
days. Let me demonstrate what I mean with a perfect example. In the late ’70s /
early ’80s, there was a young lady from Akron ,
Ohio
Well, if I were to talk about the contemporary literary
situation in historical rock-music terms, I would say it’s 1988 or ’89, and the
major labels are finally running out of ‘viable’ bunk to sell. They’ve seen the
indie-label sales figures, and are just becoming familiar with the Seattle , Manchester and Vancouver scenes. Warner and A&M have
already signed REM, Jane’s Addiction and Soundgarden, and there are rumours
that David Geffen is starting a new major label and wants Sonic Youth first and
foremost. That’s about where we are in terms of the Western literary world in
2017.
(January, 2017)
Jacqueline Jones: So,
when all is said and done, which issue of Contemporary Ghazals do you
think was the best?
Well, there aren’t that many to choose from, but I’d have
to go with No. 3. I mean, that issue was some eight years in the making, wasn’t
it. It’s actually the ‘residue’ from two individual attempts at publishing an
issue. Issue 3, as initially intended, was ready to go to press in 2008, when
my computer crashed, wiping out a lot of my files—including most of the poems
and stuff that comprised No. 3. There was even an interview with Gene Doty that
I hadn’t yet transferred to disc. That disappeared into electronic thin air. So
when I’d finally gotten over the disheartening experience and decided to reboot
the mag—after a few years of devoting myself to Internet matters like Red
Fez and The Comics Decoder—I found myself selecting replacement
material for the lost items from a whole new supermarket, so to speak. Given
the circumstances and the length of time that had passed, there were plenty of
poems to work with. The results were quite satisfying. The first two issues set
the wheels in motion, so to speak, and featured some very good work at a time
when there was very little to select from—and before there was any Internet
connexion, figuratively or literally on my part. Issue 4 was also quite good,
if not a little too... pat in places. I had lost touch with poets like
Marcyn Del Clements and Teresa M. Pfeifer by that time, as well. It’s actually
most people’s favourite issue, judging from the feedback I’ve received. No. 5
was an interesting experiment—revisiting and revising some of the old
ghazals—but I don’t think it lived up to its potential. Gene Melino came on
board as No. 5 was being put together, and he would play an increasingly large
role over the next year or so. By the time No. 6 was being pieced together, my
attention was being drawn to other projects. I can’t decide whether No. 6 is a
good issue or not. I mean, I like the packaging—the Bill West cover and art
throughout—but other than Gene and John Philip Drury, I don’t recognise any of
the names inside! It had become a whole other ball game by that time. Actually,
most of Eastern Structures No. 1 had already been stitched together
before CG No. 6 was even out. That’s a good indication of how my
attention had shifted. It’s kind of fun to look back over the past fifteen
years at this point, but I think Eastern Structures should be the main
focus of my attention—our attention—from this time onward.
Are you still on good terms with Eugene Melino, by the
way? He hasn’t been showing up in Eastern Structures, I notice.
Well, he hasn’t been submitting, now, has he! Ha-ha!
Seriously, though, I get along well with Gene. I think he gave too much
credence to those early free-verse ‘ghazal’ poets in that article he wrote for The
Ghazal Page last year, but he’s a fine fellow overall. I was glad to see
that excerpt from his Immortal novella included in Pattern
Recognition.
How about the others? I noticed Steffen Horstmann
mentioned you and Contemporary Ghazals in the notes and afterword to his
Jalsagher book of ghazals.
Yes, it was very nice of him. Steffen’s a spot-on fella. I
continue to get along well with the majority of poets and editors I’ve had
close dealings with. For some reason, though, people tend to turn against me
when they’re on their deathbeds, so to speak. I mean, Gene Doty wasn’t very
obliging when I submitted a poem to The Ghazal Page as his health was
failing. He blanked me with all kinds of arbitrary baloney about proper
protocol and what-have-you. I’m not sure what was going through his head at
that point. A few months after his death, I got in touch with a relative or two
of his, requesting that they search through his computer files for the
interview I’d been doing with him when my computer crashed in ’08. I wanted to
finally publish it in CG #5, but nobody got back to me. Again, I’m not
sure what the problem was. And then just last year Jane Reichhold decided to
shit all over Eastern Structures before snuffing it over a cliff—or
whatever actually happened to her. I’ve mentioned it [Reichhold’s death] to Jim
Wilson and a couple others. It all sounds very murky to me—like something out
of an old Steve Ditko suspense story for Charlton. How ironic that Eastern
Structures was actually modelled after her Lynx to such a degree!
What about that fellow from Australia
Oh, Paul Smith. Yeah, I was impressed with his many
translations of the old masters—Ghalib, Hafez, Attar, etc., and so I thought he
would be a useful addition to the magazine—especially when it came to supplying
material for the ‘Classic Revisited’ section [of Contemporary Ghazals].
He sent me PDF files of some of his books—most of which are readily available
from Amazon—but I was dismayed to discover that the prefaces and afterwords
were full of typos, bad grammar, etc. So I offered my editorial assistance in
cleaning things up for him—I mean, they really were a mess. At first he
agreed, but after I pointed out a few too many mistakes for his liking, he got
in a right huff and took his ball and went home. Along the way, I discovered
that this fella doesn’t actually translate all these classic ghazals of
antiquity, but rather adapts other people’s literal translations from the
Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, etc. into the qafia/radif format—the same as what myself
and a few others have been doing for the past fifteen to twenty years! Another
myth shattered, alas.
Would I be right in assuming that a good portion of
what appears on The Ghazal Page is material that has been rejected by Contemporary
Ghazals or Eastern Structures?
Well, other than a handful of names, I can’t say I’ve
really noticed. I do suggest to people who play fast ’n’ loose with the
form that they instead submit such poems to said site, knowing that Gene and
his heirs have always employed a less stringent set of criteria. What
percentage of them actually do and are accepted, I can’t say with any degree of
certainty.
Have those old friends of yours from high school and
college days shown any interest in your literary output? I’m thinking of people
like Kent Burt for example.
You mean the ‘artsier’ or more bohemian ones (or so they
would have you believe)?
Yes.
Nah. Most of those are still too busy rowing over who was
the best guitarist—Jimmy Page or Allen Collins. Ha-ha! In all seriousness, I
lost touch with the majority of those fellas decades ago. A lot of them never
made the proper transition into the ’90s. If you were watching Roseanne
and listening to Guns ’n’ Roses in ’88, ’89, then there’s a good chance you got
left behind. Some of them were complete phonies to begin with. Others are
‘missing in action’—or in their graves. Schizophrenia and related conditions
did a number on several of them. A few of them are on my Facebook friends list.
They’re harmless enough additions. As for Kent Burt specifically, I exchanged a
few online messages with him several years ago, and he was talking all silly
and ‘divaesque’—telling me how he never wanted to be a poet, and how he sees
himself as a rock star or something. Whatever. He’s released a string of
digital albums under the name ‘The Linger Effect’ over the years. We’re talking
three- and four-minute jangly alternative pop pieces that sound nothing like
one should expect from someone like Kent . Anyway, to cut to the chase,
I stopped socialising for the most part about a decade and a half ago, and I
haven’t taken phone calls in several years.
Yeah, you don’t even take phone calls from Robin Tilley
any longer, and you two were once close enough to write a chapbook of
experimental poems together.
Well, we still exchange peculiar presents by mail on occasions. I mean, I just recently posted him a bootleg CD of rare Leonard Cohen tracks and had a copy of The Rites of Summer sent to him, and he sent me a copy of
Which I have to check and listen to because
a certain someone couldn’t be bothered with such “advanced technology”....
So old friends and family on Facebook are obviously not
a major market for your poetry and the new novel...
Like we were talking about a few weeks ago, social media
is not really conducive to selling books, magazines, comics, etc. The Internet
in general has produced a ‘freebie’ culture centring on a mentality of
entitlement and misappropriation: I pay my connexion fee each month, ergo
the online world owes me everything. Then again, I guess Twitter- and
Facebook-generated sales figures are about as good as the people with whom a
person connects and adds as ‘friends’. Most Canadian Facebook accounts are
littered with beer-bellied numpties who blow all their money on fancy motor
vehicles and oversized houses in order to compensate for their inconspicuous
breasts and undersized penises. I’m not much of a Left-leaning sort of fellow,
but I would love to impose a ‘culture tax’ on these low-minded buggers.
So you don’t want to buy Canadian poetry, Canadian records, attend the
symphony, visit Canadian art galleries, go to the pictures, etc.? Fine. No
problem—but here’s a 20% culture tax on your annual income. Try not to get
too drunk and knock over your $2,500 gas barbecue with your $20,000 snowmobile
on your way to the ballot box.
(February, 2017)
Bill Ectric: Your novel, The Rites of Summer, is
having the uncanny effect of growing on me days after I finished reading it. I
keep returning to that image of the round metallic object with an electrical
cord. At first, I felt a sci-fi vibe, but now it seems more like some arcane
appliance I might find in my grandmother’s attic. The question is: Would you
care to comment on that metal object?
Well, on a straight-ahead narrative level, the metallic
‘Simon’ functions as little more than what Hitchcock liked to call ‘the
McGuffin’. I guess there are a few McGuffins in The Rites Of Summer,
actually; but this bizarre appliance is the primary one in the Henry and Mrs.
Williams chapters. I can actually remember dreaming of such an object during a
fever when I was probably eleven or twelve. I woke up delirious, so I guess it
would be considered more of a hallucination, really. Anyway, I decided to
inject it into the Williams narrative like a big question mark.
There is a sort of sci-fi or slipstream vibe
resonating throughout the entire book. The further the plot is removed from
Dicky and his day-to-day antics, the more pronounced it is. The chapters
dedicated to Dicky and his delinquent, eccentric pals are grounded in the
realities of that era: booze, drugs, sex, comics, punk culture, pinball
parlours, etc.—much of which is now extinct and remembered unfavourably by
agenda pushers of both Left and Right persuasions. The Karyn / summer-camp
chapters are one step removed from reality. There’s the Morse code signals, the
dirt in Karyn’s trunk, the punctuation-only section, the ‘concrete’ binocular
views, and—of course—the encoded Ouija board chapter. It may not be sci-fi or
supernatural in nature, but something strange is definitely going on at that
camp, and it’s presented very visually for the reader. By the time one gets up
into the country with Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the plot is entering the twilight
zone. It’s rather Lynchian in that sense, and I have to admit that Charles
Burns’s comics had an influence on the book as a whole.
I can see where such
inexplicable plot developments and ‘McGuffins’ would leave the book lingering
in the back of people’s minds for some time after—provided they’re serious
readers who took some degree of interest in the story to begin with. I can also
see where the more visual elements—i.e., the binocular views, the punctuation
passage, the Ouija board code—might have the potential to function on a more
subliminal level, and such subliminal ‘embeds’ and symbols sometimes have a way
of popping up in our dreams. So given all that, I can understand the book
nagging at one’s consciousness for some while after reading—like two branches
rubbing together above your bedroom roof as you drift off to sleep each night.
Well, at the literal level, the
dirt in the trunk is nothing more than a nasty prank pulled by some snooty
bunkmate in Karyn’s cabin at the summer camp. Keep in mind, however, that the
trunk was purchased in Rumania —or
Romania
(I use both spellings in the novel), of which Transylvania
was historically a region. So—without giving away too much—on a symbolic level,
the girl is lugging about her coffin.
Is the text that looks like
gibberish actually a code?
Yes, it’s actually a coded
message—containing answers to all the mysteries of the universe! Seriously,
though, it is an actual narrative; one that adds an extra dimension to
the story. I think it’s rather post-modernist on at least one level. It’s by no
means a difficult code to decipher, so to speak, but so far people have been reporting
intimidation by it.
You seem to be quite
interested in codes. Let’s talk about that.
Well, I was the boy at the
junior-high level who could decipher the witch runes and what-have-you on the
first two or three Ozzy Osbourne solo albums! Seriously. The message on
the cover of the double live album, Speak Of The Devil, was particularly
long and intimidating, but I cracked it in just a couple of hours, with no
guide to Nordic runes to help me. Actually, I have a longstanding interest in
mysteries, detection, conspiracies, alternate histories, etc. I think it was
the result of coming out of a youth/pop culture that was immersed in
Scooby-Doo, Clue Club, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, etc. I mean, that
stuff was everywhere in the ’60s and ’70s—children’s mystery novels published
by Scholastic, Saturday-morning cartoons, Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stephenson
dressed for the damned disco—you name it. Such entertainment made children
curious and imaginative, but also skeptical to a large degree. In other words,
we were all intrigued by the concept of ghosts, but hardly anyone actually
believed in such stuff. It could all be explained away by science and a little
detective work. Of course, all this changed after people like R. L. Stine and
J. K. Rowling came along in the late ’80s or ’90s. Now eleven-year olds fall
asleep at night fantasising about having sex with werewolves and vampires who
have entered our dimension through mobile phones and laptop screens. Stein and
Rowling paved the way for all this Twilight rubbish and the like. Such
stuff makes the old tongue-in-cheek EC horror comics of the 1950s now look like
Hemingway by comparison. The last youth shows to utilise intelligence in a
positive light were the teen detective series, Les Intr├йpides and Shirley
Holmes, back in the ’90s. If you’re masochistic enough to check out any of
that rubbish that they run on YTV and Nickleodeon nowadays, you’ll soon detect
an underlying message that is disturbingly commonplace in these shows: It’s
cool to be an idiot and conform to the moronic masses, and to be intelligent
and cultured is synonymous with being antisocial and/or sociopathic. Anyway, that desire to solve a
mystery, to find and utilise the missing piece of the puzzle, shows up in my
fiction to a large degree. You can find it in The Rites of Summer on
various levels, and you can certainly find it in the (mostly unpublished) short
stories that will comprise my fiction collection, Like a Crimson Gash,
if I can ever manage to get it out. The Rites of Summer grew out of a
short story that was intended for this forthcoming collection. When it got to
be some forty to fifty pages long around 2011, I realised it was out of control
and had to be re-imagined as a short novel.
Would you ever consider
writing a graphic novel, teaming with an artist? Or are you also an artist?
I’ve been wanting to do some
serious work in comics for years, if not decades. I’ve had an idea for a
superhero series in the back of my head since the summer of ’95, and I also
have notions for two graphic novels. The outline and some of the script for one
of them has been committed to paper. Finding an artist who would take on such
projects is the stumbling block. I’ve asked around, but there’ve been no
definite takers. A young fellow named Gordon Lindholm, who does the Luna
Lesser online strip—examples of which I’ve included on my Comics Decoder
site—has expressed some interest in developing my idea for a superhero. But
he’s from another generation and has a radically different perspective. And he has
all sorts of stuff going on in his own young life. When you’re that age, you
want to run with your own ideas first and foremost. Given his David Lynch
influences, I think Rich Barrett would be the perfect artist for the partly
developed graphic novel I mentioned; but he’s got his own Nathan Sorry
series to contend with on top of his busy personal life.
The biggest problem with comics
today is that most young artists feel that they don’t need a writer/scripter,
that they can develop their own concepts and characters. Well, have you read
some of the rubbish they tend to churn out? Unless you’re talking about someone
like Dennis Hyer, believe me, Charles Schulz or Walt Kelly they are not! I used
to do a bit of drawing and painting when I was younger—I was one of those who
took all the art classes at the high-school level—but I don’t have the time or
patience these days to try and develop or redevelop any such skills. I think
the writers are actually going to come out on top in the long run, though, because
various software and apps shall render the artist optional. All a person will
need is a decent digital camera and a few ‘actors’. The writer will just plot
out his story, gather a few friends together in the right locations and snap
the photos, and then upload and convert to comic-style images. This has already
been happening for some time, actually. The technology will simply get better
and better. I can remember reading submissions for the Red Fez webzine,
and a fellow sent in a story composed in this fashion which made us editors sit
up and take notice then—and that was six or seven years ago or more. So
a writer without an artist these days should probably be checking out
technology, auditioning ‘actors’ and building props, rather than searching
endlessly for uncooperative talent or trying to develop skills which he doesn’t
have. The artist without ideas or literary skills is destined for extinction,
frankly.
Do you think the moon and
stars can affect people on earth?
Well, aren’t sun spots supposed to have an effect on
menstrual cycles or something? Or is that the moon? I’ve always thought that
Tippi Hedren’s cycle caused the birds to attack in that Hitchcock film. Either
that or it was the incestuous impulses between Rod Taylor and his mother. Whatever
the case, I based a short haiku sequence on it several years ago.
What about the fact that the
moon affects the tides and we are mostly made of water?
Can’t say I’ve ever really
thought about that. But I’m sure some of these modern-day werewolf enthusiasts
would be all over such a concept. Jackie makes me watch The Walking Dead
with her, by the way. That’s the show where no-one seems capable of talking
above a whisper unless they’re beating someone’s head in with a modified
baseball bat or burning someone alive. And people thought Twin
Peaks and My So-Called Life were going to ruin a
generation. Sweet Jesus.
That’s funny. My wife is a
big fan of The Walking Dead. I like it
okay, but not as much as her. It comes on before Columbo ends, so she
watches it in the bedroom and I join her as soon as Columbo collars the
murderer. Depending on the Columbo episode, sometimes I join her in bed
and watch the entire Walking Dead episode. Gruesome shit.
You mentioned Crimson Gash. Is it “Crimson Gash” or “A Crimson Gash”?
Did I get that right?
Like a Crimson Gash. A no-prize to those who can figure out where I stole that
phrase from!
Did you ever hear that story from the 1960s—possibly an
urban legend—about a crazed, gibbering hippy that the police picked up, and he
was eating human knuckles? Or he had human knuckles in his pocket?
No, I don’t think I’ve heard
that one. That was the sort of story Jim Morrison was fond of telling or
concocting, according to some accounts. We tend to overlook the fact, but quite
a few street legends and peculiar tales came out of the ‘swinging’ ’60s and
’70s. Quite a few focussed on Jim Morrison, come to think of it. I love all the
bizarre stories, theories and shady people that have come out of the woodwork
in the wake of his death—or whatever actually happened to him. And the L.A.
Woman album—or should I say AWOL Man album—is a real gem of a clue
source, with its Morrison-understated album cover, anagrams, and references to
changelings and bathrooms. Priceless! A true contender for Greatest American
Rock Album of All Time.
Actually, I’ve always seen the New York City of the
1950s, ’60s and ’70s as a really dark, morbid place. I mean, there’s the artsy
weirdness and treachery of the early Beat movement... the Warhol suicide paintings...
the high mortality rate amongst the hangers-on at his [Warhol’s] Factory... the
bleakness of those Velvet Underground albums... those scenes from Midnight
Cowboy—like the strung-out mother with the rubber rat in the cafe...
the brothel scenes from Taxi Driver.... It all seemed very disturbing taken as
a whole. So much so, that when I started hearing as a teenager about how AIDS
had supposedly gotten its North American start in San Francisco in the mid to late ’70s, I
remember thinking, Hmm... This doesn’t sound right. My suspicions
have since been confirmed by well-documented revelations about strains of the
virus showing up in New York
between the late ’50s and late ’60s. That’s probably just the tip of the
iceberg. I have an uncanny feeling that various strains have been introduced
and reintroduced outside of Africa going back
to the 1930s and ’40s, possibly. And via all sorts of routes—maybe even some
nefarious ones.
So who are your influences?
Ah... the must-ask question—and
a difficult one for me, given the fact that there are so many different
‘strands’ to my output. Starting way back in high school, the early free verse
was influenced primarily by a combination of Dylan Thomas, beat poets like
[Allen] Ginsberg and [Lawrence ]
Ferlinghetti, and rock poets like Jim Morrison and Lou Reed. You can find a
good cross section of that early stuff in Direct Lines to Hell (2015).
By the mid ’90s, my attention had definitely shifted to haiku and tanka, owing
mainly to my reading the likes of Raymond Roseliep, Virgil Hutton and Gary
Hotham in various anthologies. That gradual move towards Japanese poetry
roughly coincided with my university years. Speaking of which, Tom Dawe was a
good professor to have in uni because he was quite proficient in both free verse
and haiku.
By the late ’90s, I’d discovered
the ghazal—the real ghazal—courtesy of an article by Agha Shahid Ali and
a few examples in Lynx by people like Hemant Kulkarni and William
Dennis. I think the ghazal form in itself was a major influence, and
younger—mostly Gen-X—poets like Steffen Horstmann, Denver Butson, Daniel Hales
and Yours Truly have all developed our own distinct styles over the past couple
of decades because there weren’t any real and proper precedents to imitate in
the English language in the first place. Prior to us, there were merely a
handful of ‘big-name’ dabblers and a few poets who were starting to experiment
with the form in middle age. As for the classic Indian and Middle Eastern poets
who had been translated into English, the vast majority of the translators made
very little or no attempt to preserve the traditional attributes of the form.
Of the free-verse ‘ghazal’ poets—Adrienne Rich, John Thompson, Phyllis Webb—I
won’t even speak, except to say that their influence on a generation of na├пve
Canadian poets was particularly detrimental. So, like I said, we younger poets
were for the most part left to ‘reverse engineer’ a few inchoate
English-language examples and semi-correct translations, and carve out our own
unique styles and themes from there onward.
As for the fiction, well, my
influences are all over the place. If I could narrow it down to a particular
genre or two, though, I’d have to say I’ve been influenced primarily by
suspense, mystery and some ‘slipstream’, I suppose. But my influences come from
a range of mediums—not just old Laird Koenig novels, Shirley Jackson stories
and children’s mysteries, as most people would probably suspect. I mean, David
Lynch’s films and television series, Steve Ditko and Nicola Cuti horror stories
for 1970s Charlton Comics, Twilight Zone and Tales of The Unexpected,
early Amazing Spider-Man—all have had some impact on my fiction. In
the case of The Rites of Summer, stuff like Joan Lindsey’s Picnic at
Hanging Rock, Charles Burns’s Big Baby comics, and even a Schulz/Peanuts
story arc came into the mix—along with semi-biographical sketches of people I
once knew, of course. Even the idea of having two chapters unfold at once on
the same page, in two separate columns, finds its origin in underground film
and rock music, believe it or not.
Have you read Pale Fire by Nabokov? How about Henry James’s
short story, ‘The Author of Beltraffio’?
I’ve never read anything by Henry James or Vladimir Nabokov
in my life, believe it or not—not even Lolita. Some of the true bohemian
spirits out there will probably be a little shocked and disillusioned to hear
this.
So, how would the lives of
youth in the time of The Rites of Summer—35
to 40 years ago—compare to young people’s lives today?
Well, you were allowed to grow
up back then, weren’t you. I think that would be the bottom line. In fact, it
was encouraged back then. Those were still the days when a boy was often taught
how to smoke by his grandfather or an Uncle Clem. There were no helmets, no
mandatory seat belts, no fast-food-free cafeterias, etc.—and no computerised
gidgets! It was a recipe for freedom and socialising. Young people still
managed to get outdoors in those days. They even had their own centres of
culture and social organisation in the form of pool halls and pinball
parlours—you know, so-called ‘teen hang-outs’. Those places have been as good
as outlawed in recent decades. On the surface, such restrictivism is supposed
to be about keeping young people healthy, happy and safe. But it doesn’t hurt
the middle-aged powers-that-be to see childhood prolonged and the younger
generations kept docile and out of politics. Such people may no longer study
much history, but they haven’t forgotten the turmoil of the Vietnam era—or
even the Gulf War / Grunge era, for that matter. The goal is to keep youth
disorganised, childish and dependent, while simultaneously cutting down on the
number of expensive, foolish civil suits that come before the courts because
‘Li’l Jimmy’ fell off his skateboard or ‘Li’l Janis’ got kissed by that boy
with a crush. A youth culture has been allowed to develop that degrades
intelligence, sophistication, maturity and guts. You know what I mean. Let me
tell you a little story... One day five years ago, my then-girlfriend and I
were browsing in a local Walmart—just passing some time, ‘casing the joint’.
Suddenly we came upon the book section, and lo and behold, there was a
polite-looking young lady of maybe twelve or thirteen standing there, wearing a
decent blouse and tweed blazer, seriously reading a thick hardcover novel or
biography. Thirty-five to forty years ago, she would have gone unnoticed—such a
girl would have been virtually ubiquitous. But in 2012? She was a freak of
friggin’ nature! All of us Gen X’ers and baby boomers were staring at her as if
she were an holographic unicorn, while a few girls in her own age category who
were passing by rolled their eyes and turned up their noses at ‘the weirdo’!
Now that is a perfect example of how times have changed—for the worse. I
can barely stand to look at some of these wretched little mutations today in
their teens and twenties. I mean, I’m seeing what should be young men,
in their mid twenties, and they haven’t learnt how to dress themselves or use a
comb yet. With their baseball caps, baggy trousers and short unkempt hair, they
remind me of nine-year-old Little Leaguers from half a century ago. It’s
pathetic. And the parents have become so jaded and self-obsessed themselves,
they just stand back and let it happen. We already have a generation out there
who’s been raised on a bizarre combination of Oprah Winfrey, Harry Potter,
Focus On The Family, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving! It’s only going to get
worse, and it’s right up the government’s alley. They’re laughing! What
happened to the days when every fourteen-year-old fella wanted to hitch-hike
across Canada
or worm his way into Rachel Sweet’s dressing room, and every fourteen-year-old
girl wanted to shack up with Marc Bolan or have Leonard Cohen’s baby?
Turning to politics, it
amazes me that sometimes I see old clips of Reagan, and he actually says things
I only wish Donald Trump would say.
Well, there’s no question about
it, Trump is doing wonders for the historical reputations of Reagan, Johnson,
and even Nixon and Bush Jr.
I actually believe the reason
Trump won is, so many people voted for a third-party candidate, knowing they
wouldn’t win, but at least their conscience would be clear.
That’s quite possible.
What do you think about
third-party candidates?
Well, I’m accustomed to third-, fourth- and fifth-party
candidates here in Canada ....
I think a major part of the problem revolves around the fact that there are no
longer any centrist parties on either side of the border. All the parties move
further and further to the Left or Right as time goes on. In the meantime, I’d
wager that as much as 80% of the population see themselves as centrist and
therefore no longer truly relate—thus the lower and lower voter turnouts in
each election.
In the US
I agree with [Canadian media commentator] Rex Murphy: I
think a certain large segment of the population no longer knows the difference
between fantasy and reality (and ‘reality’).
You’ve been writing ghazals,
which is a form of Muslim poetry, for a long time now. You must have some
thoughts on the ongoing fear of Islam in the West.
The fear has been exacerbated in
the wake of the Syrian ‘troubles’, the subsequent mass emigrations, and the
coming of Donald Trump, certainly. But how much of it is really fear of Islamic
extremists—which we have had with us always—and how much of it is actually
plain ol’-fashioned bigotry looking for a fresh excuse to manifest itself?
Judging from some of the online commentary I’ve been seeing, especially on
Facebook and Twitter, a good portion of it falls under the latter category.
Most of these poor bastards who do all the squawking have never really talked
to and broke bread with a Muslim in their lives. They’re mostly disenfranchised
white males, secular-Christian and working-class by birth, who lack purpose and
direction, and envision themselves as the last of a dying breed—which, in all
honesty, they may very well be. In other words, their bigotry has more to do with
their perceived small penises, mid-life crises, and ‘no-smoking’ signs in pubs
than what it does fear of fifth columns or terrorism of any sort.
Another factor is the result of
hardcore multiculturalism: the immigrants who have been making countries like
Canada their home over the past few decades have not been encouraged to blend
into a ‘melting pot’ like those from previous eras. As a result, we now have
ethnic enclaves that are increasingly miniature countries within cities. Well,
just think about it: sexy Punjabi girls from traditional Sikh families, for
example, having to live at home and obey curfews well into their twenties—this
presents an obstruction entailing resentment on the part of young men that
harkens back to the male insecurities which history has come to associate with
the witch hunts of the Middle Ages.
As for the Trump phenomenon, I
think President Donald is the ‘Boaty McBoatface’ of heads of state. You may
recall just a year or so ago, over in the UK , they held a poll to name some fancy
new submarine [ultimately named the RRS Sir David Attenborough], and the
cynical and infantile general public went with ‘Boaty McBoatface’. Well, Donald
Trump is the Boaty McBoatface of American presidents. The whole Trump
phenomenon is the political equivalent of the boat-naming fiasco. Frankly, I
think voting for Donald Trump is like voting for some bastard son of Walt
Disney who has been abandoned by Gypsies and raised by dingoes. His getting
elected is indicative of the immature state of mind in a devolving contemporary
Western world.
(March, 2017)
Ghazal
Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Adapted from Agha Shahid Ali’s translation by R. W.
Watkins
Your sorrow’s seeking someone among those men who once
frequented these roads—
someone whose blood, for you, would be lost.
But those who once were willing to expire for you in an
instant have gone;
now forever, no doubt, to ye lost.
The night in all its darkness did await with me until
the dawn for you;
admitting loss, Loved One, it then left.
My soothers grimaced at my retained tears and left
disappointed as well,
thinking my grief—held back—sorely lost.
There’s neither chance of a night impassioned nor way to
intimate distress;
there’s nothing left; just now, all is gone.
There’s no room for fuss or space allowed for advice in
this era of ours—
the wild heart’s rights, Despot, to thee lost.
It was me whose shirt was dyed and designed with blood
disengaged on the streets;
accusations, like inks, browned the spots.
I labelled such stains a style so-anew and went to my
lover’s abode,
where one could then, in crowds, find me lost.
No longer is there a place where be found that frenzy of
passion so wild;
wedlock’s fabrics, whilst raw, are not worn.
With what will you fill that rope? And who’s asked that
a lovers’ gallows you raise?
Those once charged proud, Hangman, have we lost.
(Included in the recently
published Contemporary Ghazals: An Introductory Collection; available
from Amazon.com)
Ghazal: Grows
Cold
Norma Jenckes
We build fires of driftwood and
yet the night grows cold.
We watch the waves for hours but
that sight grows cold.
Bonfire, fire works, World Trade
Center
anything humanity can ignite grows
cold.
Oh, how my face burned when
friends laughed
at love marks, what’s left when
even his bite grows cold?
The poet “warms his hands before
the fire of life”
and departs when something bright
grows cold.
When I was young I thought that I
could fix
the world’s wrongs, but being
right grows cold.
Baby’s first step, your first
kiss, mother's breast,
only liars declare that delight
grows cold.
Do you recall how Dante found a
circle in hell
where even pride and envy and
spite grows cold?
Hector and Achilles, David and
Goliath,
Beowulf and Grendel: the hottest
fight grows cold.
The Earth will be a cinder and
dead suns spiral
away, the cosmos darkens when
starlight grows cold.
Oh Norma, such bad company you
keep. They say
we fight the good fight, but
violence’s blight, grows cold.
(To be included
in the forthcoming third issue of Eastern Structures)
