| This page is where I will post your comments, views, praise and worship. Please mail me with comments on the site, my poetry, anything you like really, but if you want it to be read by the millions who visit this site on a daily basis, make it readable, make it interesting, make it HAPPEN!
20/02/03 Hi Jim Nice lookin site - will link to it on my discog and links pages One point - about yor CD you mention it being "quite unique product" - it's unique - no "quite" about it. Actually can anything be quite unique - I thiink it either is or isn't. Anyway (focus, Christo, FOCUS!!!) - cool site ! peace Christo Thanks Chris, ever the inspiration! I can only agree wholeheartedly. Focus! (weren't they a Dutch prog rock band?)
A RANT FROM JIM
I'm enjoying putting this website together, I have to say, and I hope you're getting as much enjoyment from the end product. What I'm aiming at in the poetry section is a space where you can have the written poem open in one window, thoughts on the poem in another, and (eventually) a sound file which you can hear at the same time as reading it. I have never been happy with the layout of volumes of poetry. If they have any notes, they're tucked away at the back, and they're rarely by the author. Who wants to read a glorious poem, only to find it accompanied by the arid ramblings of some dried-up academic who views Poetry in the same way he or she might view particle physics? When we recorded tightropewalkin', I would have liked to have the CD as part of a book (as opposed to a CD with a booklet inside the case), so the CD was kept in a sleeve inside the book, but funds did not stretch anwhere near, and the finished product, if we could have afforded it, would have proved expensive to buy, which is another factor preventing or deterring the general public from buying, and therefore reading, poetry. The logic is staring us in the face. A doorstopper of a novel costs £7 or so, while a pathetically slim volume of poetry costs the same? Which, on the face of it, offers better value for money?
It's all down to the elitism with which poetry has been shrouded over the centuries. I have checked the figures, and while I was actively gigging and selling books, tapes and CD's, I have outsold some of the so-called major poets by quite a margin. If you're interested in getting hold of any of the products, mail me, there arer still copies of Steamin' and tightropewalkin' available. There are many people who enjoy my poetry who don't read poetry, in the same way that there are probably many people out there who like Chris Conway's music but would confess a disliking for jazz. I think there are two reasons for this: Firstly, I have taken my poetry into places where poetry has never before been heard, such as council estate pubs, and seedy nightclubs. This may sound a glib statement to the guys and gals at places like Leicester Poetry Society who lurk in libraries and colleges after they're closed, but to all of you, I defy you to do the same. This leads me to the second point, which is that some, not all, of my poetry is accessible to "the common man", probably because I consider myself one. It is not through choice, but I do live on a council estate, I have a depressingly ordinary job, and I experience the same joys and frustrations as my neighbours. There are doubtless other poets struggling along, mining a similar vein (it's a rich seam), and I wish them well, but it is because of this that the organisers of such societies look down their noses at me. Someone at Leicester Poetry Society said derisively of Steamin', "Oh, you published it yourself?" to which I replied; "Yes, and in my own handwriting, as did William Blake." I confess to a little smugness there. The media don't help either. I think, for instance, that for a Poet to be performing in a club which is primarily a venue for punk bands and DJ's is a newsworthy story on its own, but they're not satisfied. They need an "angle", a "spin" in order to do their job, which is to inform the public, so I have to settle for (at best) my name spelled wrongly somewhere at the bottom of the listings column, like an afterthought. Talent, it seems, is not enough.
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