 My ambition was always to be a writer and the die was truly cast by winning a competition in the Shrewsbury Chronicle when aged about ten. The prize was either five pounds or two pounds ten shillings, a fortune to a child in those days. That was the only prize writing has ever won me, in fact I can't recall entering a competition since. After leaving school, several years were spent "finding myself" or finding ways of avoiding responsibility before imminent fatherhood made me look for a proper job. During that time my first "paid for" works were published and I could be found performing poetry anywhere people were silly enough to stand still. Later, as the world of poetry, having ventured into the sunlight during the sixties and early seventies, began to retreat to the shadowy half world usually occupied by occultists, conspiracy theorists and fallen political leaders my stories and articles were featured on BBC Radio and in respectable, nationally known newspapers and magazines. I also contributed to comedy sketches to a long forgotten Radio Show. As an accidental career in Information Technology took off, writing and performing was pushed more into the background. In 1985 my life came to a crossroads. Having moved from a performance poet who did funny links to a stand - up comic who worked with verse I had to choose between becoming a full time performer earning £50 in a good week or taking my first consultancy assignment and earning £500 every week. With a family and a mortgage there was no option and that was how it looked like continuing until I retired. Disabled by a severe brain haemorrhage in 1997, have been recovering and writing since. For those who like to identify us by the geography of our birthplace, it is said a true Cockney is born within the sound of Bow Bells and a true Geordie within sight of the River Tyne. I was born within smelling distance of Davyhulme sewage works which must make me truly Manky. Most of the poetry published here and on my website is previously unpublished although some originates from much earlier in my life. I never saw a lot of point in putting any effort into getting published in small circulation magazines and slim volumes destined to be remaindered a day after publication, to me (and I'm going to damn myself to perdition in the eyes of the literary establishment now) poetry is entertainment and if we cannot engage an audience beyond the small world of literary academics we are failing. Speaking personally, a round of applause from the punters in a Manchester pub is more of a buzz than a positive review in any literary magazine, because it means I have made contact with the people I live among and write for. The Internet offers exciting opportunities for poets who eschew the traditional routes. As high speed broadband and ADSL connections become available all sorts of multi media ventures are possible. There will always be room for quiet, contemplative writing but if poetry is to engage a wider audience it must be vibrant and visual too. The net offers us many ways to achieve that. At the moment I am awaiting a call from a literary agent who I hope will tell me that the publisher she is hassling on my behalf has finally agreed to publish my first novel, Schlocky's. I have two more in the can and am getting impatient. Current DIY projects are preparing two collections of verse, Two Faced Poet and Reminiscing with a Stranger for web release. This will happen as soon as I'm confident copyright is reasonably secure. (please, nobody write to me about Acrobat. PDF files are as easy to rip off as any WP format.) I am also intending to put a few short stories on line before the end of this year and hope to launch a satirical magazine, HEADBUTT. As the title suggests this is humour with attitude. I want to create something akin to the ambience of early National Lampoon. A preview should be online by early September and contributors will be welcome. No pay, but the work will be promoted aggressively and contributors will be credited with e - mail links to your own site.
I have not written much here about my disabling illness and how it changed everything. Copies of my memoir of recovery are available to download FREE (absolutely free, no catch*) on my own website http://ianthorpe.airtime.co.uk. Don't be scared, it is not heavy going, in fact most readers have remarked on how funny it is. That's flattering to me because I tackled the problems with humour and set out to portray that as a vital aspect of mental recovery. I hope many people will find encouragement in it, not just those dealing with similar problems. The central message is "Take Control of Your Life whatever the circumstances." |
Seduction © Ian Thorpe Step 1. Courtship rutuals She flirts with me, invites my attention, rejects my advances, refuses the gift I would bestow on her, declines to give me her virginity. I can find no seed to make her fertile, the mother to my creations I cannot be their father, cannot articulate my desire in a way worthy of her chastity.
Step 2. Consummation
Step 3. Afterglow
Step 4. Self - justification
Nothing is significant at street level in New York where giants look down on the electric menagerie. I offered my lust in Times Square she brought her lonliness. We traded in a Market Place swapping tarnished dream for faded hope, jostling with the other traders each of whom was looking for a profit on their deal and prepared to give a little less than they hoped for in return. New York brings everything down to commerce and takes its cut of every transaction. Nobody can see they have much more to offer and so much more to gain if they give rather than trade. And at close of business all the traders leave to calculate their profit and loss No bargains to be had; just unfulfilled promises and fumbling apologies in the anti - climax. Telephone numbers scrawled on matchbooks race each other in rain filled gutters as last night's Valentios slink like pariahs in morning alleyways. We cut the deal, she had arms to lift her temporarily I satisfied an appetite burgers cannot feed, but New York fed on both of us. A vampire city; it bled us dry and starved our stillborn love. Author’s Note:This might seem unfair to New York which is a great city in every sense of the word. The time I spent there was too many years ago now, but I loved evey minute on its streets. It is used here in preference to London or Paris because it scans better and just feels right. Also NYC gave me images that worked for the way I have attempted to represent the high - speed, high pressure world of modern commercial life and materialistic relationships.
The Spider makes her web with indestructible patience. While I watch her the web of my life hangs in shreds. All the gossamer threads of plans and dreams are torn by the slightest wind of unexpected events. A rage of frustration rises in me as I sit among the simplicity of nature. The cycle of the seasons is too basic for human logic, there are no shades, no nuances life, death, decay, rebirth, inevitability mocks our creations And the Spider makes her web with indestructible patience. Until I, an angry giant who holds the power to create GODS in my own image but cannot tie the strands of all my schemes together, determine not to let it be and with one sweep of my hand destroy and brush aside her work but as I walk away rejoicing in my vicory over feeble nature the spider makes her web with indestructible patience.
Vauxhall Cavalier Blossom was a dreamer back in sixty- nine, Wore bells beads and a kaftan, thought love and peace were fine, Got into meditation and mind expanding trips, Was often seen in saffron robes, a mantra on his lips. Tried to heal the world with love, banish hate and fear, But he's sold his soul for a Barrett Home and a Vauxhall Cavalier.
Kier was a revolutionary, protesting in the street,
Fiona tore up all her bras. she saw the upturned breast
Dazza was an Angel, he rode a Bonneville,
We rejected social values, chose to live outside the law, Author's Note: It happens to us all eventually of course. The price mankind must pay for Eve's dalliance with that no good snake is not that we all must die but that before we do, we must become boring old farts. The curse is particularly potent for the hippie generation. As we slither downwards past the last flush of middle age it is our particular fate to be sneered at by the people who, in their desperate pursuit of COOL re-invented the basin haircut! A Vauxhall Cavilier was a popular UK family car of the 1970s to 90s. In a similar range to the Toyota Corrola is was an aspirational item for young middle class couples with moderate income. The Barratt Home refers to low cost surburban housing marketed to the same group. |
 Jan Sand in New York
Recently Jan was published by Kedco Studios Artist Profile Press, on their latest CD ROM e-book, "A Way With Words (Poetry Real and Surreal), which also includes complete books by Dale Houstman, Sara L. Russell and Keith Gabriel Hendricks. Jan's illustrated book on the CD is called "Wild Figments And Odd Conjectures", which is also sold separately, in a limited-edition "single" CD. To see an illustrated article about Jan's poems, visit the November '98 issue of Poetry Life & Times, and scroll down past the Editor's Letter. He also has his own poetry pages on Charlotte's Web at Artvilla.
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THE FUGITIVE © Jan Sand It is so easy to lose the obvious. Stare through a mirror at one's self And neglect the glass for consciousness. Chase within for that elusive elf Which was conjured into being Out of reflective surfaces of seeing.
But the glass, as fingertips will tell,
This now that flees on feet of seconds pattering
In one hand I hold One more sun And in the other A night begun Rolling on so soon, My last moon.
Where should I wander
Life is a habit and a skill
Now, calm now. I must let it come.
Pursue through time, Past apes, lemurs, animals like rats, Past things with scales, slimy things, Crawly things that squirm in grime, Things much alive, and requiescats, Things that swim with fins like wings, Back to tiny, tiny, tiny blobs That swarm in ancient seas in mobs. When we spin back all the clocks We can see our ancient mother is the rocks.
My tongue has tips Just full of quips. They dance there unrequited. My tongue makes slips That curl my lips And make me seem benighted. It bathes within my mouth in spit Lurking there in malice Full of wicked impulses Like an upper phallus. It never foregoes chances that Might embarrass me But, sometimes, when my mind goes blank It releases something savoir faire, Gives up the chance to harass me And, chuckling, retreats to its lair.
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