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.

Glowing review of Who was Sinclair Beiles?

I found this glowing review of Who was Sinclair Beiles? on Goodreads today: I certainly could not have asked for more!

Thank you, Mat!

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An excellent 'festschrift' (or 'celebration'), rather than a strict biography, on the mysterious South African beat writer, Sinclair Beiles.

Beiles is probably most famous for helping Burroughs get Naked Lunch published at Olympia through Girodias, at a time when Burroughs was really strung out on paregoric and/or heroin. His most famous work in print is probably as one of the four contributors (Beiles, Burroughs, Corso & Gysin) of the now legendary cut-up compilation, Minutes to Go, published in 1960.

However, as this book illustrates, Beiles is [sic] quite a prolific poet and playwright and apart from the above two works, much of his writing has surfaced 'under the radar' and hasn't been the subject of much attention by either critics or fellow poets and writers. Beiles is someone whose quality of writing is as notoriously inconsistent as it is hard to track down and read his books in the first place.

One of his books of poetry, Yeoville, for example, was only published in a limitation of 4 copies.

What Beiles has in common with Burroughs is their meeting in Tangier and in Paris, an interest in drugs, an interest in experimental artists and writers and also, interestingly, a regular allowance from their families which allowed them both to focus much time on their writing.

I hope this book goes some way to revealing more about this great writer to the literary world. His poetry and plays have been criminally neglected and underrated and it is high time that his work is evaluated alongside many of the other great beat writers who are already firmly and undeniably well ensconced in the beat cannon and annals of history (in particular Burroughs, Kerouac and Ginsberg).

Gary Cummiskey and Eva Kowalska have done a terrific job of compiling these (mostly flattering) articles on Sinclair and his art. This is the best introduction to a little-known artist.

If you can obtain a copy, I recommend getting the second edition which is revised and expanded and contains an excellent bibliography-in-progress of Beiles' works in print.

Read the original post.

Robert Berold gives feedback on Outside the cave

Robert Berold, South African poet and publisher of deep south books, writes:

I finished reading outside the cave  -- a unique book in SA poetry, in the beat idiom (corso and beiles mostly) but with deeper feeling. the narratives jump hotfooted into metaphor and out again, from violence to longing, pain to humour.

Thunder in Pretoria

 Okay, so a posted copy of Thunder on the highway reached its destination in Pretoria three weeks later, which is not bad considering Pretoria is only 45 minutes' drive away. But I am chuffed to see it has pride of place on the same shelf as William Burroughs and Gregory Corso.

'Anything can happen ..' An interview with French poet and collagist Bruno Sourdin by Gary Cummiskey

GC: You were born in 1950, so I am curious about what it was like being a young man in the late 1960s and and early 1970s. It was the end of the idealism of the 1960s and the beginning of something new in the 1970s, though maybe people did not yet know what the 1970s would be like.

BS: We cannot refer to this period without mentioning the impact of the May Revolution of 1968 in France and how liberating it was for a whole generation I grew up with. I was barely 18 years old. It was both a rejection of the consumer society, a protest against knowledge, a revolutionary moment of illusion and a much-needed change of life. I can remember in those days the academic poets spoke like mandarins. We were on the brink of asphyxia. It was a pitiful old film, pathetic and especially very annoying. Poetry had lost its luminous glow. We lived those May 1968 events as emancipation — many slogans which seemed to come straight from a surrealist poetry book could be seen anywhere: “Under cobblestones is the beach”, “It is forbidden to forbid”, “Run away my friend, this old world is behind you”… Read more plus view collages and read poems by Bruno Sourdin, followed by poems by Gary Cummiskey

Sinclair Beiles: Poet of Many Parts and Places

Dye Hard Press has re-issued Who Was Sinclair Beiles? in a revised and expanded edition. I posted an item about the first edition when it was published five years ago. It’s hard to believe so much time has passed. As I wrote then, Beiles was best known for his association with the Beats. He collaborated on Minutes to Go with William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Gregory Corso, and helped to shepherd Burroughs’ manuscript of Naked Lunch into print at the Paris-based Olympia Press, where he worked as an editor. “Best known” is a questionable term, though. If he was known at all, it was only among a certain segment of avant-garde expatriate writers and artists living in Tangier, Paris, London, Rotterdam, Athens, and other far-flung places, where he spent many years scraping by in various capacities....Read more

A review of Who was Sinclair Beiles?

Before I opened Dye Hard Press‘ new volume, its title, Who was Sinclair Beiles? was a question I certainly didn’t know the answer to. His is a name I’ve occasionally come across, as a poet who, as a resident of Paris’ famous “Beat Hotel,” created cut-ups with William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Gregory Corso, and helped to edit Naked Lunch and as a resident of the famed “Beat Hotel” in Paris. But there’s where my knowledge stopped.

Gary Cummiskey and Eva Kowalska have brought together a collection of eleven essays and interviews which address the question, “Who Was Sinclair Beiles?” from multiple angles....Read more here

Hope Savage: Mystery Girl, by Kevin Ring

The latest chapbook (No 32) from The Beat Scene, this title attempts to trace Gregory Corso's muse, Hope Savage, who disappeared in India in the early 1960s. While many regard Savage as long dead, others are convinced she is still alive. An anonymous blogger claimed to have met her in Iran, Pakistan and Nepal in the mid-1970s, and in her book A Blue Hand: The Beats in India ( Penguin, 2008) Deborah Baker even hints that she may know of Savage's (then) whereabouts.
A captivating, yet distressing essay on yet another 'minor character' in the Beat saga.
Visit The Beat Scene for order details.

Ira Cohen obituary from The Guardian

Ira Cohen, who has died of renal failure aged 76, participated in the 1960s artistic counterculture as a poet, publisher, film-maker and raconteur. In the middle of the decade, he took up photography seriously. At his loft in Jefferson Street, New York, Cohen built a chamber with walls and ceilings made from sheets of Mylar, a reflective polyester film. Inside this chamber, he took portraits of William Burroughs, Jimi Hendrix, Alejandro Jodorowsky and the steady stream of hipsters who visited the loft....Read more here

Yannis Livadas: The margins of a central man

Yannis Livadas was born in Kalamata, Greece in 1969. He has done dozens of different jobs and travelled extensively in India, Tunisia, Algeria, Italy, France, Morocco, Portugal and Spain. He has published seven poetry collections, the most recent being Ati: Scattered Poems 2001-2009. He has translated the work of authors such as Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso and Charles Bukowski. He now lives secluded in the Greek countryside....Read more here

Excerpts from Who was Sinclair Beiles? on RealityStudio

"The following is an excerpt from Gary Cummiskey and Eva Kowalska, Who Was Sinclair Beiles?, published in 2009 by Dye Hard Press. The book contains interviews and essays that create a portrait of Sinclair Beiles, the South African poet who worked for Olympia Press, helped to edit Naked Lunch, and collaborated with William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Gregory Corso on the first cut-up book, Minutes to Go."...Read more here