CONTENTS

EDITORIAL - Ken Clay

READING, RITING, RITHMATIC WET DREAMS Ivan de Nemethy

IN THE SIXTIES (2) – Alan Dent

SHOCKING PARIS – Jim Burns

THAT GERMAN CONNECTION  – Keith Howden

SISKIN THE POET - Andrew Lee-Hart

STRANGE VIEWS OF THE ELECT – Alexis Lykiard

SEEPING CONCRETE PILGRIM – Tanner               

DU COTE DE CHEZ EDDY – Ron Horsefield

TAKEAWAY – Martin Keaveney

THE BEER TRAP  – Mark Ward

A FEEL FOR WORDS (2) – David Birtwistle

INLAND BEACH HUT – POSTSCRIPT - David Birtwistle

DAD WAS ALWAYS DYING – Eric A. Buckley

BACK TO MANCHESTER – Tom Kilcourse

TOMMY, THE CITY AND ME – Tom Kelly

THE PERFECT TREBLE – Bob Wild

RESISTANCE IN FRANCE – Ron Horsefield

BACKSCRATCHERS – Ron Horsefield

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EDITORIAL

SQUIBS AND SCRAPS

Returning to the theme of titles for the Oik we might have hit on this. Of course the short story is the prime raison d’être for any high falutin literary mag but  you can have too much of a good thing. And there’s the problem of readers nodding off, which is why we keep contributions down to around 3000 words and do them in pieces. Writers sometimes get ratty saying this wouldn’t have happened to James Joyce, Chekhov or Thomas Mann but generally the poor sods are grateful for even this mutilated manifestation. An earlier magazine I was peripherally involved with, the excellent Penniless Press (1995-2010) edited by Alan Dent, ran stories by Victor Serge in bits over a period of four years. Ageing subscribers wondered if they’d live long enough. Victor didn’t complain. But let’s get our priorities right. It’s the vitality and the continuing existence of the magazine that counts rather than any injured vanity of the contributor – usually some closeted obsessive out of touch with the commercial realities. 

Then there’s poetry. How are you going to get that out? Who buys it? Who sells it? It pops into the poet’s head in dribs an drabs (usually drabs) and you need a stack to interest a publisher. But the Oik welcomes one-offs and our related organ, Penniless Press Publications, will publish even slim pamphlets from which you can orate in the pub and sell to drunken listeners. I recall getting copies of early Tony Harrison collections in this manner. He had a pile in his rucksack. I wasn’t drunk and still treasure a signed first ed of Continuous (1984). 

To the snooty aesthete autobiography may also seem like a degraded genre catering for a vulgar oik nosiness. In Oz they call it “sticky beaking”. But I disagree. I like sticking my beak into other people’s lives. I find the two current series by Ivan de Nemethy and Tom Kilcourse quite engaging. Then there’s Tanner. His accounts might be made up but I think not. Liverpool oiks really do live like that.  

Reviews too might be considered an oddity in a mag of creative writing (whatever that means) but we don’t force our material into any such Procrustean bed. Jim Burns’ explorations of art and lit are justly celebrated and we even find space for Ron Horsefield’s bizarre rants. These and other strategies to stave of narcolepsy include our doctored graphics which we hope will startle you awake or even provoke an animated disgust. In this connection we must apologise to Christian readers for the blasphemy on page 96. We hope Justin Welby won’t be cancelling his sub and will consider handing over the next Oik, unopened, to his new Muslim immigrant lodgers.

Ken Clay 2015