Early Words -- a statement of intent

In 2010 I published my debut collection of poetry, Thought Disorder. Since then, I have come to loathe the book – partly because I just don’t think a lot of the poetry in it is that good, partly because stylistically I have moved on from what I was doing then, partly because I published it way too early, wrapped up as I was in the whole ‘young poets young poets mmm young poets’ thing, but mostly because the lyric poetry contained within Thought Disorder is the kind of poetry I nowadays object to. While it is, of course, fine that people write and read personal lyrics, I-poems, poems in which self-expression or the mere conveyance of an emotion or thought is the prime task, it is not something I am interested in at the moment. Some of the poetry I enjoy does this, and that is also fine – in terms of my own tastes, that poetry will have to be using metaphor and imagery in a particularly compelling way beyond the mere expression of a feeling in order to hold my attention, but nonetheless.

However, in the past few months I have, for the first time in my life, begun to politicise myself. And by politicise, I mean become aware of the litany of atrocities carried out around the world and at home in the name of ‘freedom’ by the corporations and governments of the United States and Britain. This is, of course, still going on now. In confronting the immovable and yet decentred, ghostly mass that is consumer capitalism, and the wholesale genocide it has funded, poetry and the like has come to seem somewhat trivial. Particularly the lyric poetry I mentioned above – who gives a shit about your beautiful extended metaphor about your dead mother or ex-lover when environmental collapse is imminent and the gap between the poorest and the richest people in the world is only widening?

In the wake of this, and the inevitable self-questioning that goes along with it, as well as personal circumstance (the near death of a family member), I began writing a long poem as a kind of cathartic exercise. I felt guilty all the while – who am I to bemoan the potential death of an old lady when, for example, the Indonesian military and paramilitary as good as wiped out the population of East Timor with the aid and/or consent of the US, Britain, Australia and others? As such, the writing changed, opened up, began to traverse the genre/discipline boundaries, as well as questioning my own right to express what I was trying to express. The long poem has now become an ongoing project, towards, I imagine, a long collection, entitled The Adorno Stutter. It is an attempt to put into practice the poetics I am developing in response to what can be perceived as the diminished importance of poetry and other art forms – the discourse in which I reside, by which I live my life and by which I have defined myself and my approach to being in the world – in light of global inequality and Western terrorism; a way of reconciling my own desire to first learn the truth about what is going on in the world, and second figure out a way of acting on it, with my desire to create art. And whether this reconciliation is possible.

With this blog, then, I hope to document the research I am doing towards this end (as well as towards an MA/PhD proposal in about 10 months time on this area) – that is, the writing of the poem, the questioning and attempting to understand what role art can have in a world like this, in the 21^st Century, and how it can be combined with an ethical, dissenting approach to living in the bitter prosperity of late capitalism towards change, as well as drawing attention to the news and evidence of the corruption and the violence being done to the world by our leaders and the corporations that fund them, and the individuals like us who fund the corporations and, at least tacitly, allow what is happening to continue happening.  And hopefully in the process I will be able to meet and engage in discussion with other writers and artists, non-writers, readers, anyone &c&c, about ways in which we can make a difference and make an impact, work towards change, whether via art or activism or simply dissemination, away from selfish individualism and passive, defeatist compliance.