Interview with Gary Cummiskey in Bengali literary journal Boier Duniya (The Book World)

An interview with Gary Cummiskey in the Kolkata-based Bengali literary journal Boier Duniya (The Book World) by poet and publisher Subhankar Das. Subhankar is currently publishing my latest collection of poetry, Somewhere else.

An English translation of the interview is below:

When did you start writing poetry?

I was about fourteen when I started. One day in school our English teacher set us an exercise. He played the Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac track 'Albatross' and told us to listen carefully. Then he told us to write a poem about an albatross for homework. I think I was the only kid in the class who liked the idea! That night I wrote a poem about a dying albatross and realised I wanted to write more poems … and so it started.

 

Tell us about your magazine Green Dragon.

Green Dragon was a literary journal that I published from 2002 to 2009. It ran to six issues and featured both poetry and prose, as well as interviews and reviews. The first two issues were staple bound, while the others were perfect bound. I printed about 300 copies of each issue. I published mainly South African writers but also some overseas ones, mainly from the US, but also from the Netherlands and the UK. The seventh issue was scheduled to be a short-fiction special, with material selected by South African writer and poet Arja Salafranca. But the amount of material we received was so big that it turned out to be a huge anthology in its own right, called The Edge of Things, which appeared in 2011 and was highly acclaimed. Green Dragon did not continue after that. I got tired of it, it was a huge amount of work.

 

Your favourite poets and how do they move you?

I have so many favourite poets and my preferences change. But my main influences have been the US beat poets and the modern French poets. Among the US beats my favourites are Gregory Corso and Bob Kaufman, as well as more borderline beats such as Marty Matz and Philip Lamantia. Among the French, Antonin Artaud, Jacques Prévert, Joyce Mansour and Claude Pélieu. Also the Spanish-language modernists, such as Neruda, Vallejo and Lorca. Among South African poets definitely Wopko Jensma, Sinclair Beiles and Seitlhamo Motsapi. A feature that that they all share is a willingness to experiment with language, to use language in new ways, often in a subversive manner. I am both intrigued and inspired by poetry that aims to challenge the norms in which language is presented or used.

You know about the Hungryalist writer movement here in the 60s, you were a friend of Pradip Choudhury. Do you think there is a common theme of independence or something worth mentioning about their work? Falguni Roy was also an important poet and Sharmy made a short film Eebang Falguni aka The lost lines of a beauty monster, which you have seen.

From the few Hungryalist writers whom I have read, there are certainly common voices of independence, of breaking away from conventional literary forms, a willingness to experiment, to take risks. There is definitely a countercultural stance. I have often seen the Hungryalists referred to as ‘the hungry generation’, which sounds similar to ‘the beat generation’. I don’t know where that phrase originated from, and while, yes, the Hungryalists and the beats shared a lot of common concerns and there was interaction between them – eg Ginsberg in India, and Ferlinghetti publishing some of the writers in the City Lights Journal, plus corresponding with Malay Roy Choudhury – the scenes were quite different, and in no way do I see the Hungryalists as ‘India’s version of the beats’ – the Hungryalists had emerged quite independently of the beats.

Falguni Roy is an interesting poet and I would really love to read more of his work – has there been a complete volume published in India? A tragic figure, publishing one collection in his lifetime and dying of drug abuse, and certainly influenced by the Hungryalists.

I sent you a book by Subimal Misra who was an antiestablishment exponent here, any comments. 

I haven’t read The Golden Gandhi Statue from America for a while, but I have it set aside for a reread. That book had a big influence on me as it encouraged me to continue writing short fiction, short fiction that didn’t have to follow conventional lines, or even have a narrative in the traditional sense. I liked what Misra said about his work not appearing in bookstores because bookstores sold products called books. That resonated with me deeply, as independent voices rarely find themselves stocked in bookstores here in SA. And I love that Misra dedicated the book to Jean-Luc Godard, whom, Misra says, taught him language.

Sky Dreaming, a chapbook of poems by you was published by Graffiti Arts Collective in 2011. I still remember Pravasan [Pillay] handing over the cover design of this book to me in Sweden in the venue where I was doing my poetry reading. Mouni Mondal did a  small chapbook translating a few poems from this book in Bengali and she did a good job.  Now this year we will be doing another poetry chap of yours, Somewhere else. Tell us about this new project and how you usually compose a poem?

Somewhere else is a collection of 26 poems, composed over the past four or five years. Some of them were inspired by a trip I took to Turkey in 2019. As usual with me, some of them are prose poems. And most of them quite surreal. Poems come to me – usually when I least expect it, not when I am thinking of writing. I can’t force poems out. I can’t sit down and decide to write a poem. The poem comes or it doesn’t. And while the initial inspiration may see the poem written down spontaneously, I do spend a lot of time on revision. I believe in craft in poetry.

I admire that work of yours on Sinclair Beiles, what a book. His books of poems are hard to find here. I wish I had a few so that I can translate his poems in Bengali. A beat poet who never got any recognition. What was the reason behind that?

There are a few reasons behind Beiles’s lack of recognition as a poet. First, from a South African literary perspective, he spent much of life outside the country. He wasn’t an active participant in the local literary scene until about the 1980s, but by his own admittance he didn’t want to fit in, anyway. Most of his publications were very small, limited editions – one chapbook in the 1970s was only 20 copies – another collection, in the 1990s, was only four copies. This has made access to his work very difficult. In fact, after the publication of the first edition of Who was Sinclair Beiles? in 2009, I found a chapbook of his I had not been previously aware of. Even the University of South Africa, which has most of his titles, neither had it nor had heard of it.

How is the independent writers' scene in SA? Here I count on the young guns. 

The independent writing scene is still around, and always will be, hopefully. South Africa has always had independent voices. One of the greatest threats to independent voices, in South Africa and elsewhere, is self-censorship: giving in and producing what is politically, culturally or commercially acceptable – and marketable. The temptation to produce what will generate applause and accolades – market success. The main challenge for independent writers, however, is the lack of publishing outlets and the ability to find readers. We need more small, independent presses in South Africa that publish quality, innovative work. We could do with more journals, and certainly more online journals.