[TIM HEMENSLEY'S JOURNAL, '99-2000]
Monday, 29/11/99
...So, me Birthday's been & gone --much w/out incident, really... i spose by one's 28th, 'specially after going thru' all the shit-ups, downs & in-betweenies --that i have over the last few years in partic., but over my entire life-span in general, just the mere fact of having SURVIVED to 'nother year is cause enough for celebration, making the actual Birthday itself kinda insignificant... not to say that celebrating yer actual day-of-entree to this here planet & life is necessarily something one "gets over" (cue that hideous contempo trendy turn of phrase -- used for everything from train rides to rock gigs --"i'm over it now"... kee-rist!! Hearing folks say that makes me wanna PUKE!), rather that, at least This Year -- & this time 'round, i was content enough to not feel TOO let-down or disappointed or distracted by not celebrating in "traditional" B-day mode (e.g. : party('s), or other such type o'stuff). Main reason for this, me-thinks, is the fact that (as i briefly alluded to on the preceding page) for the first time since i became addicted in '96 & entered the slow-but-steady down-ward spiral of vicious circles & catch 22's that that particular situation necessitates by its v. nature (& it is INEVITABLE i now realise -- once you invite the Devil in, you gotta pay his dues -- as cliched as that may be, it's the only truth there is -- to use is, actually, to lose, & there's no other way it possibly can be, don't matter who you are or how "strong" ya fancy yourself to be mentally : once the monkey bites, it bites darn deep-ly... end of story)...
But i've digressed a little here... i believe what i was about to say was this : The main reason for my feelings of "contentment" as opposed to my usual state of frustration/dissatisfaction on turning another year older is that for the First time in years, my battle 'gainst the heroin monster has drawn to a temporary halt, due to my afore-mentioned joining up to the methadone program; it's still somewhat surprising to me that events progressed to the point that my only course of salvation should be via the methadone "avenue" -- so to speak --, a substance and system i've always been suspicious of & -- in theory at least -- opposed to (the concept of being a "state controlled junkie", addicted insidiously to a government sanctioned & administered drug no better than smack (in some scenarios, quite arguably WORSE, as a matter of fact) being a situation my determinedly Anarchistic nature has always found to be hypocritical & mebbe even EVIL...) , & one that even a matter of weeks ago i was in stern opposition to, but THERE YA GO; part of my problem, i've in fact come to appreciate, & part of the reason for the LONGEVITY of said problem, is the fact that i never realised -- nor would allow myself to accept -- how seriously i was actually ADDICTED... in the back of my mind lingered always -- even in the midst of the most glaringly obvious DESOLATION (: of mind, of spirit, of body) & physical DETERIORATION -- the almost Nietzsche-ian, self-serving logic that when all was said & done, i could just DUMP this DOPE-thingy & simply walk away unharmed... 'f course, THIS WAS NOT TO BE. But then, IS IT EVER? i mean, ol' W'm S. Burroughs --icon of JUNKIES thru'out the universe -- certainly didn't do any of his prodigious output of writing / thinking / creating during his first 15 years of smack-addlement, despite the myths (of his own making) that his classic NAKED LUNCH was written whilst addicted (it wasn't -- in fact, 'twas written/compiled under the influence of MAJOUN -- a pot/hash like substance) --&, "EXILE ON MAIN STREET" besides, Keith -- also a great myth-maker 'bout his own ability to create &/or FUNCTION even, under the most chemically adverse conditions, -- didn't produce anything of any comparable worth during his wasted years, either ... bringing me to my main point -- that Dope addiction equals naught but the DESTRUCTION, or at least the putting-on-ice, of one's creative faculties. ANYWAY -- we'll see how successful this 'done program is in terms of helping kick smack & the associated lifestyle (or LACK OF LIFE-style, as the case may be...) in the long term, but the initial results are something i feel very satisfied with -- so far, i feel my life is in a better state than ever -- already feeling better & more positive than i've felt in LONG TIME. & that can't be nothin' but a GOOD thing!
O.K. -- "W.C.W. MONDAY NITE NITRO" is on, so my attention's required ELSEWHERE!
More later! ...
___________________________________________________________________
[Posted today, 23rd November, 2008, on what would have been Tim's 37th birthday. "At the age of 37...", yeah yeah, sweet tune, sweet thought, and, regarding Tim, sad & happy memories.
Kris Hemensley.]
Showing posts with label Burroughs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Burroughs. Show all posts
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Sunday, May 27, 2007
KRIS HEMENSLEY ARCHIVE OF MISCELLANEOUS CRITICAL WRITINGS, #6
LAUNCHING SPEECH FOR JOEL DEANE'S SUBTERRANEAN RADIO SONGS (published by INTERACTIVE PUBLICATIONS), AT THE VICTORIAN WRITERS' CENTRE, October 21st, 2005
I first read Joel in the 4th issue of the sad-to-say defunct Melbourne poetry mag, Salt Lick Quarterly. I was launching it --reemerging from a period of 'retirement'! I probably had Joel in mind when I commented upon the "poets of every type" publishing in the magazine, including, I said, "the no-type-at-all (who seem to me to be finding form for their spoken, spieling poems)"--
I have a memory of Joel, in a huddle with Retta on the bare boards at Dante's in Gertrude Street, saying he hoped he wasnt one of those 'non-poets'! But no, I hastened to console him, I was welcoming the non-affiliated poets & their new poems, and I sincerely meant that they were story-tellers coining forms --I wasnt disowning them at all --
At that time I didnt know Joel, and didnt have a handle on his poetics --but influencing my proposition was a feeling that the traditional pleasures of poetry, found in the music or shapeliness of the words & ideas, had to reaffirmed in order that there was a point in calling a story a story and a poem a poem! Ultimately the writer makes the call, whether or not satisfactory to the critic or the reader; but constructively raising the question is always to the good, especially in a time of wholesale relativism & the abandonment of specific value & distinction.
*
Conversation on the Midnight Stream (on page 18) --which is soft & limpid as the sleep-talk or dream-talk it emulates --is an unusual poem to be written in Melbourne in this time. Poets rarely stray from monologue --and here is this dialogue, as fleeting & confidential as nocturnal exchanges can be. "'Are you sleeping?' / 'I want to, / I've been trying to, / but I cannot / sleep.' / 'Don't worry. / Time's black tide will catch us soon, / then we'll both be sleeping.' // 'A welcome sleep?' / 'A welcome knowledge.' / 'I'd rather a welcome memory- // Like Ubud.' /"
Another kind of story is told on p32, Under Westgate, whose form resembles a James Dickey poem --that great poet of rage & rampage, --that is the poet most intimate to the energies of human occasions --
Joel's poem is the Melbourne auto-poem, par excellence. I'm probably the only person in this room who doesnt drive and has never driven --but why do I need to with this kind of literary experience? "As the lights slowly roll green to red and back again / we wait in the outside lane for our turn / and when it comes I gun it to the floor / Through first second third fourth then overdrive / with the landscape towering and throbbing through / my one-way mind at the speed of / but watch me now / double-clutch then handbrake slide into Lorimer Street / with the chassis squealing in expectation of / Never mind"
Of course it's a poem of a state of mind, of abandon & distress via the agency of the car.
This first book of Joel's poems is preceeded by his novel, Another, also published by David Reiter's Interactive Press [Queensland]. It's a book of short episodes, practically self-contained --they're almost like prose-poems, except that prose-poems arent usually full of action & dialogue.
I wonder if one could say : Joel's novel is written by a poet; his poetry by a novelist?
In the novel it's his ear for the music of the speech of the characters he's invented that impresses one. He creates a space --call it poetic --around their non-reflective interaction. He makes a musical construction of monosyllabic utterance, a musical theatre of a one-dimensional world.
In his poetry we would, traditionally, assume his ear, his rhythm, his cadence, his craft and then be ready to be surprised by the stories, reveries, snatches of conversation, dreams & day-dreams; and to be moved by his thought and his perspectives.
*
Because the first poem I read by Joel was Lager Pistol, for William Burroughs [as published in Salt Lick Quarterly], here in the book on p48, I always associate him with Burroughs & the Beats. Burroughs is the only major literary dedicatee in his book so perhaps one can assume a certain significance --
"We play William Tell.
What better way to mark Burroughs' passing
from Beat to truly beat, we decide over Tequila,
salt crystals and diamond hard methamphetamines."
(Talking with our Beat scholar acquaintance George Mouratides recently, I posed the question : What would the Beats make of the current political situation --international terrorism and the War on Terror including the Allies' war in Iraq? George said we knew what Ginsberg would think --others were less predictable --but coming out of Spengler (the author of The Decline of the West), Burroughs would say it was always doomed, the whole box & dice, no surprise. Kerouac & Corso maybe neo-cons we thought, to balance the leftism of Ferlinghetti & Ginsberg --but, and I said, it sems to me that Spengler's philosophy of history plus oodles of Buddhist & Catholic compassion is the relevant Beat attitude for the day!)
*
"For the members of my family; living & dead" writes Joel. He means the ancestors and the contemporary old ones & young ones. The hearts of all those who know Joel go out to him & Kirsten in respect of the tragedies that have befallen them... As a poet, Joel has no choice but to make wine of the tears of grief --he makes poems, he remembers his stillborn, his would-have-been children along with those who survived, indeed everyone who survives as Family.
From my own experience of being a parent and losing a grown-up son, I've learnt that dead does not mean cease to be. The world, as I said at Tim's funeral, is, after all, composed of the living & the dead. One carries one's dead child, as well as one's ancestors, within one until we too die...
The counter-culture biographer Miles describes Burroughs' Navaho sweat-lodge ceremony late in his life; the shaman praying, "Family, all one family, no matter what race we are from. All relatives together in a room."
Joel writes, "There is no country. Only family."
This epigram informs the major structure of Subterranean Radio Songs : the family, history, Australian place of the 1st half, South; and North, in which the poet-narrator is travelling abroad in the USA & Latin America, in Britain --an acutely felt & observed travel-diary but one constantly interjected by the concerns, the Angels & Demons of Family.
*
In a way it's all there in the first poem of the book, The Bridge at Avenel.
The crossing of water, the grave that water can be, the lure of crossing, the necessity (and I'm thinking now of the poetic rather than the economic or political necessity) --the necessity of crossing.
In this poem Joel Deane states, "I cannot find a way across" because of the particular reasons for that poem. But the poet will, --and certainly will attempt that crossing again & again in his career --a career begun tonight with this collection, which it is now my great pleasure to declare launched.
I first read Joel in the 4th issue of the sad-to-say defunct Melbourne poetry mag, Salt Lick Quarterly. I was launching it --reemerging from a period of 'retirement'! I probably had Joel in mind when I commented upon the "poets of every type" publishing in the magazine, including, I said, "the no-type-at-all (who seem to me to be finding form for their spoken, spieling poems)"--
I have a memory of Joel, in a huddle with Retta on the bare boards at Dante's in Gertrude Street, saying he hoped he wasnt one of those 'non-poets'! But no, I hastened to console him, I was welcoming the non-affiliated poets & their new poems, and I sincerely meant that they were story-tellers coining forms --I wasnt disowning them at all --
At that time I didnt know Joel, and didnt have a handle on his poetics --but influencing my proposition was a feeling that the traditional pleasures of poetry, found in the music or shapeliness of the words & ideas, had to reaffirmed in order that there was a point in calling a story a story and a poem a poem! Ultimately the writer makes the call, whether or not satisfactory to the critic or the reader; but constructively raising the question is always to the good, especially in a time of wholesale relativism & the abandonment of specific value & distinction.
*
Conversation on the Midnight Stream (on page 18) --which is soft & limpid as the sleep-talk or dream-talk it emulates --is an unusual poem to be written in Melbourne in this time. Poets rarely stray from monologue --and here is this dialogue, as fleeting & confidential as nocturnal exchanges can be. "'Are you sleeping?' / 'I want to, / I've been trying to, / but I cannot / sleep.' / 'Don't worry. / Time's black tide will catch us soon, / then we'll both be sleeping.' // 'A welcome sleep?' / 'A welcome knowledge.' / 'I'd rather a welcome memory- // Like Ubud.' /"
Another kind of story is told on p32, Under Westgate, whose form resembles a James Dickey poem --that great poet of rage & rampage, --that is the poet most intimate to the energies of human occasions --
Joel's poem is the Melbourne auto-poem, par excellence. I'm probably the only person in this room who doesnt drive and has never driven --but why do I need to with this kind of literary experience? "As the lights slowly roll green to red and back again / we wait in the outside lane for our turn / and when it comes I gun it to the floor / Through first second third fourth then overdrive / with the landscape towering and throbbing through / my one-way mind at the speed of / but watch me now / double-clutch then handbrake slide into Lorimer Street / with the chassis squealing in expectation of / Never mind"
Of course it's a poem of a state of mind, of abandon & distress via the agency of the car.
This first book of Joel's poems is preceeded by his novel, Another, also published by David Reiter's Interactive Press [Queensland]. It's a book of short episodes, practically self-contained --they're almost like prose-poems, except that prose-poems arent usually full of action & dialogue.
I wonder if one could say : Joel's novel is written by a poet; his poetry by a novelist?
In the novel it's his ear for the music of the speech of the characters he's invented that impresses one. He creates a space --call it poetic --around their non-reflective interaction. He makes a musical construction of monosyllabic utterance, a musical theatre of a one-dimensional world.
In his poetry we would, traditionally, assume his ear, his rhythm, his cadence, his craft and then be ready to be surprised by the stories, reveries, snatches of conversation, dreams & day-dreams; and to be moved by his thought and his perspectives.
*
Because the first poem I read by Joel was Lager Pistol, for William Burroughs [as published in Salt Lick Quarterly], here in the book on p48, I always associate him with Burroughs & the Beats. Burroughs is the only major literary dedicatee in his book so perhaps one can assume a certain significance --
"We play William Tell.
What better way to mark Burroughs' passing
from Beat to truly beat, we decide over Tequila,
salt crystals and diamond hard methamphetamines."
(Talking with our Beat scholar acquaintance George Mouratides recently, I posed the question : What would the Beats make of the current political situation --international terrorism and the War on Terror including the Allies' war in Iraq? George said we knew what Ginsberg would think --others were less predictable --but coming out of Spengler (the author of The Decline of the West), Burroughs would say it was always doomed, the whole box & dice, no surprise. Kerouac & Corso maybe neo-cons we thought, to balance the leftism of Ferlinghetti & Ginsberg --but, and I said, it sems to me that Spengler's philosophy of history plus oodles of Buddhist & Catholic compassion is the relevant Beat attitude for the day!)
*
"For the members of my family; living & dead" writes Joel. He means the ancestors and the contemporary old ones & young ones. The hearts of all those who know Joel go out to him & Kirsten in respect of the tragedies that have befallen them... As a poet, Joel has no choice but to make wine of the tears of grief --he makes poems, he remembers his stillborn, his would-have-been children along with those who survived, indeed everyone who survives as Family.
From my own experience of being a parent and losing a grown-up son, I've learnt that dead does not mean cease to be. The world, as I said at Tim's funeral, is, after all, composed of the living & the dead. One carries one's dead child, as well as one's ancestors, within one until we too die...
The counter-culture biographer Miles describes Burroughs' Navaho sweat-lodge ceremony late in his life; the shaman praying, "Family, all one family, no matter what race we are from. All relatives together in a room."
Joel writes, "There is no country. Only family."
This epigram informs the major structure of Subterranean Radio Songs : the family, history, Australian place of the 1st half, South; and North, in which the poet-narrator is travelling abroad in the USA & Latin America, in Britain --an acutely felt & observed travel-diary but one constantly interjected by the concerns, the Angels & Demons of Family.
*
In a way it's all there in the first poem of the book, The Bridge at Avenel.
The crossing of water, the grave that water can be, the lure of crossing, the necessity (and I'm thinking now of the poetic rather than the economic or political necessity) --the necessity of crossing.
In this poem Joel Deane states, "I cannot find a way across" because of the particular reasons for that poem. But the poet will, --and certainly will attempt that crossing again & again in his career --a career begun tonight with this collection, which it is now my great pleasure to declare launched.
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