Featured Poet: Chris McCabe (UK), author, "The Hutton Inquiry"
It's common coin among poets (American and British) to initiate or react to complaints of a lack of fresh talent. Where are the Allen Ginsbergs, people say, (or the Corsos or the O'Haras), where are the young poets that aren't merely out to impress their teachers? The emergence of Chris McCabe on the UK (and hopefully, soon, international) stage heralds the arrival of a significant voice, one that isn't afraid to be young, express "young" virtues-- spontaneity, nerve, daring, humor (both coarse and refined), all balanced with an unflinching precision that validates the whole package. The younger batch of American poets (Kirsch, Goodyear, Gordon)simply can't compete.
Not that McCabe is unsophisticated. On the contrary, McCabe is an urban poet with a keen awareness of history, and capable of a remarkably contemporary-feeling (and politicized) pathos. He's a lyricist whose limber use of free verse invites comparison to the best writing of the New York School or the Black Mountain poets. Moreover, McCabe's willingness to work with conceptual elements links him securely to the post-modern tradition. His "Progress Poems" demonstrate a facility for glib-seeming but dead-on irony, putting our humanist notions of psycho-spiritual progress on the spit for a thorough (and hilarious) grilling.
"The Hutton Inquiry" is Chris McCabe's first book, from Salt Publishing. You can visit the Salt website (www.saltpublishing.com) to obtain a copy, and it can be ordered from any Barnes and Noble and (probably) Borders. Below is a six-poem "sampler". Also, click on "Adam Fieled" and you'll find a good-size interview with McCabe, that makes clear what his aesthetic, cultural, and poetic agenda is.
# 800: ivor cutler
see you next time he said I said not
if I'm like this (turned my back) he
said then I'll be like this (turned his
back) & there might be mirrors in front of us
he said there might be mirrors in front of us
I said not if I'm like this (turned my
back) he said then I'll be like this
(turned his back) see you next time I said
Zone
at the helm of the lightmachine bus
enter first through the on-come glass
into operating system white
heads down in handheld gadgetry
with a springing sound herein described as DIGI-BOING
we step off the bus into map zoned 2
having dogeared the tube route with the double-decker
which means now we have more money
but are in more danger
lost in the blueshrieked glass peacock's back
of South London
so every book is a car, then?
It has been published that George Bush is a reformed alcoholic with a conviction for drunk-driving, before becoming president of the United States and the driver, publisher of the middle-east 'road map'. all aboard & welcome. belt-up in the back.
# 659: cleaning habits
& for some-- to wash & clean up-- is to
piss their own shit-stains from the toilet pan
Network
(after the first person to kill themselves live on the internet)
he told you he was hardcore.
his space in the network
was at equal distances
to everyone else-- that is
immediate-- simplified
into the boolean dichotomy
of voyeurism. he was the
watched. as he eat the string
of pills he could have
explained so much about
the geo-technology of
network space being
harder quicker faster
along broadbanded
bandwidth, although in
the general sense an
analysis far short of
Dr Johnson Re. 'network'
"anything reticulated or
decussated, at equal
distances with interstices
between the intersections"
short but Johnson did
not risk life to prove a
decision compensated for
in the technical common
sense of his final words:
"if I look dead give me a call"
# 1,906: bonnie & clyde
on the run from cops this life
of crime turns me on
snakes wrapped around ankles
red indians know our evil instinctively
each town appears in green neon
& people complain of bad head
but it makes me glad yours
Not that McCabe is unsophisticated. On the contrary, McCabe is an urban poet with a keen awareness of history, and capable of a remarkably contemporary-feeling (and politicized) pathos. He's a lyricist whose limber use of free verse invites comparison to the best writing of the New York School or the Black Mountain poets. Moreover, McCabe's willingness to work with conceptual elements links him securely to the post-modern tradition. His "Progress Poems" demonstrate a facility for glib-seeming but dead-on irony, putting our humanist notions of psycho-spiritual progress on the spit for a thorough (and hilarious) grilling.
"The Hutton Inquiry" is Chris McCabe's first book, from Salt Publishing. You can visit the Salt website (www.saltpublishing.com) to obtain a copy, and it can be ordered from any Barnes and Noble and (probably) Borders. Below is a six-poem "sampler". Also, click on "Adam Fieled" and you'll find a good-size interview with McCabe, that makes clear what his aesthetic, cultural, and poetic agenda is.
# 800: ivor cutler
see you next time he said I said not
if I'm like this (turned my back) he
said then I'll be like this (turned his
back) & there might be mirrors in front of us
he said there might be mirrors in front of us
I said not if I'm like this (turned my
back) he said then I'll be like this
(turned his back) see you next time I said
Zone
at the helm of the lightmachine bus
enter first through the on-come glass
into operating system white
heads down in handheld gadgetry
with a springing sound herein described as DIGI-BOING
we step off the bus into map zoned 2
having dogeared the tube route with the double-decker
which means now we have more money
but are in more danger
lost in the blueshrieked glass peacock's back
of South London
so every book is a car, then?
It has been published that George Bush is a reformed alcoholic with a conviction for drunk-driving, before becoming president of the United States and the driver, publisher of the middle-east 'road map'. all aboard & welcome. belt-up in the back.
# 659: cleaning habits
& for some-- to wash & clean up-- is to
piss their own shit-stains from the toilet pan
Network
(after the first person to kill themselves live on the internet)
he told you he was hardcore.
his space in the network
was at equal distances
to everyone else-- that is
immediate-- simplified
into the boolean dichotomy
of voyeurism. he was the
watched. as he eat the string
of pills he could have
explained so much about
the geo-technology of
network space being
harder quicker faster
along broadbanded
bandwidth, although in
the general sense an
analysis far short of
Dr Johnson Re. 'network'
"anything reticulated or
decussated, at equal
distances with interstices
between the intersections"
short but Johnson did
not risk life to prove a
decision compensated for
in the technical common
sense of his final words:
"if I look dead give me a call"
# 1,906: bonnie & clyde
on the run from cops this life
of crime turns me on
snakes wrapped around ankles
red indians know our evil instinctively
each town appears in green neon
& people complain of bad head
but it makes me glad yours
