RESCUED FROM OBLIVION
For starters this
occurred to me as a title for The Crazy Oik
but it seemed a bit portentous. And the
mission statement about shining a light into
literature’s basement was, on reflection,
also a bit of an insult to our established
writers who have long been clear of such
anonymous obscurity. Two of the buggers have
Wiki pages for Chrissakes. “Oik” had comic
overtones (for an extended etymology of this
word see the website) which “proletarian”
didn’t. Indeed that echt-prole novelist Alan
Sillitoe bridled at the tag “proletarian
writer” saying that there was no such thing
– there were only writers, good and bad.
Yes, up to a point Alan but there is (or
maybe was) a region of experience untouched
before the arrival of Alan Sillitoe, Philip
Callow and Stan Barstow et al which the Oik
hoped to explore. “Crazy” was a warning that
we might prefer having a larf to triggering
off the next revolution or attending to the
moral education of our readers.
But to rescue from
oblivion is a worthy aspiration and just
what small mags should do. Yes, there’s the
internet and Facebook and twitter and all
that other ephemeral shite but they’re
merely annexes to oblivion. There’s nowt
like a printed book. It could be still
around in 500 years time and not need a
battery, a power supply an operating system,
an ebook reader or the cloud. Imagine a
world where only these gadgets existed and
somebody invented the book – they’d be
queuing round the block for it.
So exactly what’s been
rescued up to now? We include in this
project our parallel production Penniless
Press Publications which we frequently
plunder (what a lot of ps). The ongoing
essays of Jim Burns is currently up to vol 5
with vol 6 in progress. Keith Howden’s
hilarious Gospels of Saint Belgrano
(we put one in every issue) languished in a
drawer for twenty years along with several
fine poetry collections and four novels.
Ivan de Nemethy’s autobiog, Dave
Birtwistle’s quirky sagas, Tom Kilcourse’s
tales and biography, S. Kadison’s inspection
of the way we live now and why we shouldn’t,
Tanner’s excoriating accounts of life in
Liverpool’s lower depths (these would never
get into Country Life but Tanner’s
working to make himself more acceptable by
moving to Swindon).
Then there’s the
exotics – writers from India, Israel, Syria,
Greece, Russia, The Czech Republic, Hungary,
and USA have appeared in these pages. We
could have called it Interesting Stuff Which
You Are Unlikely to Find Anywhere Else in
the Currently Corrupt World of Mainstream
Publishing Concerned Only With Making a
Buck. Rescued From Oblivion is better but
we’re sticking with The Crazy Oik.
--------------------
KEITH HOWDEN
LOST ORISONS
1. Je ne regret rien
Je ne regret rien - he used to play it
often, lonely reveilles at Piaff’s
impassioned, stiletto summons
to the heart’s dispossessed. I pin him
clearly now, effete, nearly dignified,
moth at the window of that villa
- his father’s house, he never moved or married -
courting decay. Neglected cacti
haunt the pane-splintered greenhouse
where he stares to lost horizons
of fret or winter seascapes. War -
its casual disposition of life’s fullness -
had seared his mind.
He wore the shame
of a slack matron, one of the destitute,
avid for chocolate, who shuffled
naked to handclaps on a NAAFI table,
mouthing obscenities and cheapjack
coquetries she didn’t comprehend,
in parrot words taught her by soldiers
for ribald entertainment.
There was a girl,
not far from Vienna, after the war
- some camp for the displaced -
who smacked his proffered flowers in his face.
I pin him effeminate, butterfly faded,
his face towards some seaward window,
his potted cacti withering Golgotha,
the black disc flickering whirlpool
in an expensive console, Piaff’s
plangent, imperious summons
to the heart’s dispossessed.
Abstract Form - David Carr
