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The Over the Edge literary events that you run with your wife have now been taking place in Galway city for eleven years. What do you think has been the secret to their success and longevity?
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Over the Edge fulfills a need, gives writers a platform in the very early stages of their writing careers – if ‘career’ is the word. It has also managed to keep itself fresh, lively. It’s our policy that no one ever gets to be a Featured Reader more than once at the Over the Edge: Open Readings in Galway City Library. That really helps us keep it new. The events have had their few sad critics, but they are just, well, ridiculous and bitter little men and women who have been so comprehensively dealt with at this stage, even I have forgotten their names.
Our anthology Over the Edge – the first ten years, which Susan [Kevin’s wife and fellow poet, Susan Millar DuMars] edited and Salmon published last November, included work by 47 poets and fiction writers who have published a first book since they did a featured reading at an Over the Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library. Clearly Over the Edge is doing something right. Long may we have the energy...
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You also teach creative writing. Do you feel the teacher’s primary concern should be the nurturing of individual talent or the refinement of general technique for the group as a whole?
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In many ways, I think nurturing the individual and taking care of the group as a whole are the same thing. Within a supportive, encouraging and, when necessary, critical environment people will find their own way. Not everyone wants to win the Nobel Prize. Some just want to write a few stories and poems about things they’ve experienced. For others, attending a creative writing class or poetry workshop is the start of an expedition that will last for the rest of their lives.
The bottom line is that anyone who can’t take constructive feedback will fail and will deserve that failure. The occasional psychopath personality type will bluff and bludgeon their way further than they should by manic networking and giving magazines and editors what they want. Politics is good training for dealing with these types; though every day one gets a little less naïve. There have of course always been literary whores of both sexes and neither: the sort Orwell referred to as “wire pullers”. Most people, though, are genuine. I love working with new writers. The thing is to build their confidence, so that they will actually write, while at the same time working to make them open to at least considering criticism, as and when it is constructively offered.
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Philip Roth recently stated his belief that the reading of novels will have become a ‘cultic’ activity within 25 years. Are you optimistic about the future of poetry?
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I think people will still have poems stuck to their fridges a century from now. My satirical poem about the great Pat Cox was read online 2,500 times in less than a week in January. It may be different with serious novels, I don’t know. But poetry will be around, yes.
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Finally, what advice would you offer to unpublished poets and writers seeking to get their work out there?
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Write, write and write some more. Find a writers’ group or class or workshop that works for you and stick with it. Consider every suggestion as to how you might make a poem or story better. Send your work out to magazines and never reply negatively to any of the hundreds of rejections you’ll get. Never use words just to sound cleverer than you really are; use them because they mean something. Every writer who sounds interesting to you, read something of theirs. If you’re not interested in a subject then please don’t write about it. Be your own most idiosyncratic self in everything you write.
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Kevin Higgins’ latest collection “The Ghost in the Lobby” is available now. For more information, visit his personal blog: https://mentioningthewar.blogspot.ie/
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An old cleaning lady, bowed down by years of service, approaches¶
The church under the weight of a full bucket of water, passes¶
The fonts, vulva like, where the original water you wear resides,¶
Opens a blue door promising mystery and incense and enters into¶
The history of flagellations, ecstasy and further humiliations!¶
¶
For here, inside this kingdom, where the fallen man is intricately¶
Woven into the blood of the lamb, where his burden, the original¶
Hamlet, or ‘Desert Storm’, at one with the lepers and all outcast,¶
The thoroughly accursed and thrice afflicted, and whose¶
Sacred heart burns through her with spit and thorn...¶
¶
She, who could fall to her knees if only she had it in her,¶
But there is no need, for his loving looks lick the very pestilence¶
From her face, this prince or man god, who is her brother,¶
While THERE, above the altar, inside the tabernacle, or¶
Holy grail where the mystical lotus is placed¶
¶
And which has become for her the bitterest pill to swallow,¶
It all being wafers and angels now, perverts and priests; ¶
The two words now almost becoming almost wholly synonymous,¶
Equally fusing Francis with wolves and Anthony with thieves,¶
Until the hallucinogenic image of Brendan Smyth’s penis,¶
¶
Lying Bobbitt like on an oyster shell, falls out of the sky¶
Crashing down onto the broken Magdalenes and corrupted pietas,¶
For inside this hulk of stone vegetation, where only scarab and¶
Reptiles now seem to hide, the only real thing which seems to caress¶
Being Lucifer’s smile – compassion for evil appearing to be so much¶
¶
More inviting these days – but still, not to be taken in,¶
She continues with her heavy burden, and closing the door¶
Behind her, she walks up the aisles, holds out her mop¶
And by God with such a vigour does she begin to clean the floor.¶
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It’s a pottery and clay day.¶
Aren’t we all feeling the thickness of the ether?¶
Yes but everyone still recoils and waters their very own laurels.¶
¶
Oh, look: that topsoil is blowing off!¶
Now old Knave and young Lark can see me.¶
¶
Under that damn ramshackle stalk is a damned, festering child who’ll do¶
the square-by-four dance each day with you (but just add one, minus two)¶
You both seem fine, and that’s all mine. But¶
¶
Please help me to forget! But¶
I can’t forget that Ethiopia is calling to me¶
from the paper hotlines in the barren odeon.¶
¶
They want to arrange a meeting with the culpability caucus. But¶
I’ll not pick up. Instead I’ll live my life of jaded guile,¶
sitting squat-faced just like them, only in denial as the¶
scythe doesn’t come quick enough and the pills and powders flinch.¶
They can’t even do their killing right! I’ll have to do it, and then do my shallow tonsure¶
because it’ll be in vain and I’ll pale with my red lips and my salient veins¶
¶
and sallow hands and fingers. Won’t it be a nice picture. A picture of pain?¶
Never, it’ll be a picture of accomplishment. Even better, the manifestation of pain¶
What happens when you can’t wash the napalm the whole way off.¶
¶
What happens when it has seeped in and pounded levees skin-thin.¶
For now you can keep the rusty needle beside your sink.¶
You’ll need it, after all, if you exp
ect to get anywhere.¶
¶
It’s the needle to your compass. That’s really how you should think¶
provided you want Lark and the others to finally recede into¶
the walls where they belong at this minute because you’re still¶
¶
knee-deep in the ravine and you’re warm but the shadow hasn’t changed¶
just yet. Who’s to blame? It’s you, but the obelisk and the dome haven’t yet¶
finished their fight but the hills are gaining on the sun and only the¶
¶
obelisk knows true light. I wonder why¶
I get sick from the worry and the tremors make me pound¶
just to reroute my proud mind’s perverted stance on¶
¶
how great it is that I’m miserable because I can exploit my emotions. Sounds¶
like there is no bottom of the bag; you can always count on¶
gestating a sad clay-day if you need evidence that there are ephemeral¶
¶
tracks laid out before you even if they’re just dendrite-thin and¶
uneven and useless and not to be manipulated¶
because they can’t be used in any other trade.¶
¶
No, not these textiles.¶
Lark and Knave and the plant and me and the obelisk and¶
the dome are thrown together by circumstance. We’re just monastic in a room; a noisy¶
China Tea Set buried in a yellow lawn on someone’s same old horizon.¶
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MY DILETTANTE¶
¶
You ask me who she is, for the name of this, my,¶
dilettante.¶
Licensed by petulance, her keen eyelashes¶
Seem, especially at night, to assume the coherence¶
Of algebras, trigonometries.¶
Her name is Fortunata, harbinger of such symphonies¶
the likes of which¶
You’ve never heard; rejoice! rejoice!¶
For right now she carries to us a basket of pears.¶
¶
HOW I GOT INTO POEMS¶
¶
There have been voices, always, in the House of God¶
And the Marketplace, speaking ill of sloth,¶
Condemning profligacy with cold spittle.¶
I was baptised in the hedge growth, crepuscule;¶
Where sirens sang, storm signals signaled night,¶
A cluster of girls returned up from shore,¶
All of the world’s misery and beauty there¶
As I played cards in the belvedere;¶
Forty Thieves and solitaire.¶
Leering deeply into the past, wishing it may recur,¶
One never knows what the symbols represent¶
Until they are shattered into shards,¶
Useless.¶
¶
DEATH RUMINATION¶
¶
To die whilst one is dreaming: O! holy night!¶
Bring me six huge pillows,¶
Bring me a satin rug, rosary beads, switch on the¶
radio;¶
I will reflect on rainy embraces,¶
Back-alley smoke.¶
I see the universe as an inverted dream,¶
A bubble of fond and tender folly;¶
My knuckles tremble.¶
The whores are dancing outside my¶
Frosty window, singing hymns of castigation,¶
“No more kisses, no more at all.”¶
¶
To die in one’s twenties seems bold,¶
All that blood, those bones, the flesh and cells,¶
They really did exist after all, and it’s such a pain now¶
To hear laughter and traffic.¶
¶
So send me to your prison,¶
Wrap your cuffs around my wrists and shave my¶
Peasant’s head;¶
Lock me in your concrete box, I’ll send for a Bible.¶
The train I ride is hidden,¶
It cuts through time,¶
Its passengers blink at catastrophe, they wince at¶
Heaven.¶
I travel light, I tread lightly¶
Through preposterous darkness.¶
I am ravaged by illusions,¶
I flatter the Angel of Death with deceit,¶
You will not reach me now.¶
There are things to do before one dies¶
Or so it seems,¶
But what of this foretold pestilence?¶
What was your part in it?¶
Fury conveyed in oils,¶
The famine of the heart;¶
Night has fallen,¶
Come and see.¶
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We drank at his¶
home,¶
after the funeral,¶
and thought¶
we were celebrating¶
the life¶
of the man¶
who was¶
once¶
a teacher of ours.¶
But as the time passed,¶
the drinks consumed,¶
what began as¶
a toast to¶
memory¶
soon became a¶
destruction of¶
the past.¶
His future cut short,¶
his family¶
only able to look¶
back,¶
and here we were,¶
in our revelry,¶
prohibiting that act.¶
¶
A broken vase¶
which was a wedding gift,¶
A shattered picture frame¶
that held an image of that day,¶
and two teens,¶
who fucked¶
in their marital bed,¶
where he and his spouse once lay.¶
¶
His wife returned¶
near midnight,¶
and screamed at the chaos¶
as tears streamed down her face.¶
She said,¶
“Look what you’ve done to my last hold¶
you bastards,¶
you’ve killed him all over again.”¶
The girl who’d been in their bed¶
stood.¶
eyes red,¶
voice hoarse,¶
“Don’t tell me how to mourn,¶
you whore,¶
I loved him more than you ever could.¶
I loved him for his words¶
and beauty,¶
and not just for vows¶
long out of date,¶
I loved him for the way¶
he captured moments,¶
and gave them as gifts to be saved,¶
and I loved him in that bed you made,¶
cold from your own failures as a lover,¶
as your womb gave out¶
and succumbed to age.¶
And I just loved there again,¶
trying to pretend,¶
that my love¶
is not now nothing more than a grave.Ӧ
¶
The back hand¶
of the wife,¶
met the cheek¶
of the teen,¶
who fell face first,¶
smashing her stomach into a table,¶
and ending the one thing¶
his wife¶
could never bring.¶
She had been two months pregnant,¶
from the product of his seed,¶
and now¶
both of them had lost¶
the last piece¶
of their love,¶
for which neither of them¶
would grieve.¶
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Everything is yellowing from nicotine and whiskey¶
The windowpanes and bookcases and lampshades¶
None of it glistens¶
¶
As her skin used to do when she twisted
in the night¶
With cigarette eyes and unbrushed teeth and breath that¶
Was hot and earthy, as it lingered¶
¶
On my neck, she exhaling smoke and throaty laughter¶
A moment of joy embittered that could be wiped clean away for a moment¶
Or two with the produce of her lust¶
¶
That was not lust but knowing and wilful momentary sedation¶
Self-inflicted through the machination of my hand¶
Willed down upon her warm body and breast¶
¶
Where it lingered and served and was not of itself but¶
Hers in masturbation, a piece of her joy embittered and lingering¶
Serving its mistress in wetness and a solitary union of two¶
¶
Two three times in the one night and the union of two alone completely¶
Hot acrid breath that smells of nothing but cigarettes and whiskey¶
And a half-hearted lust lingering right at the edges of its vapour¶
¶
And now the rooms of the house all three four five of them¶
Are yellowing and hollowing out in dryness and in its own way this house is hallowed¶
And hollow and empty¶
¶
Up before noon with the curtains opened and her back to the bed¶
And me in the sheets not wanting to wake, not wanting to be¶
And just the smell and the sound of her breath and the smoke rising above her shoulder¶
¶
Nothing could be said, nothing could be done, the only words were¶
In smoky laughter, the tears were in viscous liquor, poured night after night¶
Into grimy glasses that never left their place by the side of the bed¶
¶
She could have left in a box and, as it happens, it wouldn’t have surprised me¶
But as it happened she left in her footsteps in the night that surely must have woken me¶
But if it did I didn’t remember¶
¶
And now the windows are yellow, the drapes are yellow I am yellow¶
And the glasses the two of them have still never left their place by the side of the bed¶
Nor the bottles or ashtrays or sheets or pillows, all of them alike yellowed¶
All of it grimy and hallowed.¶
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Last month, The Scum Gentry unveiled their interactive magnum-opus cutting edge “video game” experience “WORM STRIKE!” and in the process revamped the entire terrain of modern human technology. The culmination of decades’ worth of research, development and psychological training, Worm Strike is a collaboration between games developer Sean Spokes and gutter-rat madman Slimz O’Driscoll, who describes the project as “an odyssey of destruction in a vista of endless spaghetti […] a taxing social engagement with the horrors of war – physical and psychological, but also sort of metaphysical. Worms, there are worms everywhere…”