|
 Miles J. Bell is a 36 year-old writer/poet from the Northeast of England. He has just released a chapbook of poetry called “Let’s Get Visible” published by Blackheath Books. Miles was kind enough to sit down with me (through wires and light of course) and have a chat about this new book and the man behind the words. But first, I would like to share a poem from “Let’s Get Visible” called “Time plays over our bones like a river”.
"Time plays over our bones like a river"
It’s not that the world's
a more dangerous place these days; more
our inability to laugh or drink or
fuck the sadness to the background
and finally having to face
the inevitability of our impermanence
highlights the different way
we could meet our ends.
The news reports a further atrocity
and our marching years whisper
there but for the grace of whatever's up
or down
there
go I.
Checking food packets
for fat content before price
and idly wondering if we can afford
a green burial; these are the banal concerns
of the fretful mid-lives.
Hopes reduce to pinpoints –
riches, happiness or loneliness become
irrelevances –
being spared metamorphosis
into a skeletal and incoherent embarrassment
would be a Pyrrhic victory, mirrored:
a defeat worth having.
And the last dream we dare entertain
is that enough of us bleeds
into our children
or those that might have known us to prove we were
ever here.
AD: Hello Miles! How are you this fine day?
MJB: Hello yourself. I'm feeling splendid; some days I can't smile wide enough. My natural state has morphed over the years from the timidity of my adolescence, through the volcanoes and ice-storms of my late teens, the world-weariness and tired cynicism of my twenties, to my current mindset which is a simple kind of happiness, where everything amuses me, admittedly with the occasional catty remark or fierce rant.
I've always talked too much, though. You know what they say about leopards...
AD: I know recently you have had some big personal changes happen in your life: new job, new residence and you got engaged! Congrats on that. How do you think these events have influenced your writing?
MJB: Well, quite. 2007 was the year that had everything. I split up with my wife, left the home I'd been in for 9 years, got an infected root canal, lost my job, lost my dad suddenly, met an amazing woman who I quickly fell in love and moved in with, learned to be a father to her 3 year-old boy, and asked her to marry me (she said yes).
My latest poetry chapbook, "Let's get visible", details the events of this most preposterous year, as well the odd poem about truck driving, insect slaying, and fat girls buying cakes. The chap starts with me in London (a place I don't like a great deal) with my ex-wife, not having a good time, and ends with me stopping writing to join my gal in the shower.
In the past I have written about characters I've invented, but it doesn't feel right, like cleaning your teeth with the wrong hand. So this book is all true, it all happened, and then I wrote about it and now it's done with, in a box in my hall, metaphorically and actually (I got the copies of the book today!)
AD: What was it like for you growing up in the Northeastern part of England (can we still call it that?) and does it creep into your work?
MJB: I don't know - I never grew up anywhere else...I'd have had the same upbringing anywhere, I guess. Maybe a little hinterland dislocation bleeds into what I write, but I'd have a skewed perspective wherever I was from. It's my whole family. We're all...out of place.
AD: Did you always have an interest in writing growing up or did you imagine yourself doing something else? What authors were you reading when you really started writing in earnest? Did any one of them tip you over the edge and make you feel like you had to write?
MJB: I always loved writing, from very young. I still have all the stories I wrote at school, including one that was passed around the staff room. It was a thinly-veiled Wizard of Oz clone but there was quite a bit of good language and ideas in there.
I wrote songs from 16-33, then finally became a little bored with the constrictive nature of writing lyrics for tunes and started writing poetry. It's been a slow-moving, gradual process as opposed to any moment of epiphany. I've always written in earnest, and far too many writers (song and fiction) have influenced me to name here. If pressed, I'd say I'm the result of an unholy union involving Charles Bukowski and Morrissey. Don't even START to imagine that scene.
"In line at the baker's"
and the first thing
that springs to mind
is the joke:
how d'you get a fat girl into bed?
piece of cake
as all 220 pounds
plus
of this ginger behemoth
surges to the counter
face grey like dough
kneaded by dirty fingers
feet splayed
cheap bag and
impossible tits
swinging
and she may not have
heart problems
yet but
that cheque's in the
post
but
suddenly there is light
in her face
the skin turns golden
as she begins her order
pronouncing each item
carefully
like music
like poetry
with something
like love
two ring doughnuts please
two large Danish
four caramel slices
a Victoria sponge
oh
and six iced fingers
then she hurries to the door
beaming like a lottery winner
with her large
paper bag stuffed
with the most
beautiful
words
she
knows.
AD: I remember the first time I saw "In line at the baker's" was when you posted a video of yourself reading it in your house. I have since read it in print and marvel in how different the incarnation of it is between the printed page and the audible. I find that listening to you read it makes it come alive. Have you done readings in the past or have any planned for the future?
MJB: You just like my quaint English accent! But, no, I haven't done a reading, despite half-heartedly toying with the idea a few times. Can't shake the feeling it'd be me trying to keep the 4 mates I'd persuaded to come along from throwing beer at me. There may be places it'd work, but this town isn't one of them.
AD: Yes, I do like your accent and I don’t think any other could fit the poem as well. Now in your poem "Give me give me give me" you go on about the things you want from a poem. What do you think writers today are missing when they sit down to write? What do you think about the state of the poem today in small press?
"Give me give me give me"
Of course
it's a matter of taste
but when I read poems
I want to be shown
the gaps between
led down paths I couldn't
find myself
given interesting angles
to see our shared differences
too many poems as cudgels
create headaches you want to forget
as soon as you've read them
too many poems as clever gangs of snickering words
make you wonder what their point is
other than to point at the writer
give me poems that rip out my heart
after making me love them
give me lines that come with fistfuls of miracles
then steal my breath
give me words that amaze like catherine wheels
then make me cry
give me truth that lands like sugared anvils
that kills me
and leaves me grateful
MJB: Well, someone has to say it, and it may as well be me...I think a lot of the small press writers are limited; in ambition, subject matter, ethos. Talent.
Got up
had a beer shit
and a can of beans
thought about that dead starling
at the bottom
of my garden
and how it was like
my shit life
Well, quite. If that’s all you do. But please, don’t tell me all about every dull thing. Too many people believe all the MySpace comments they get about their lifeless poesy; idiot words like “AWESOME” or whatever banal superlative passes for literary criticism these days. Far too many poems I read in the small press are just shopping lists, or a banal idea stretched out even more thinly. Unfunny jokes. Look how much more crappy I think the world is than you, therefore how much more "real" I am. Everyone's real, for god's sake. Nobody's real. Fuck 'em. I like very little poetry I see around the places I poke around in most. Too many people have decided all they want to write is a certain style, and that's all they'll bother with. Like picking up a guitar and only copying Status Quo songs. Some writers like William Taylor Jr deserve a much bigger audience, cos he writes instant classics, timeless poems. It's just GOOD. Ed Churchouse, though he's a bit clever for me to understand some of the time. S.A. Griffin writes a good line. Todd Moore's longer stuff is exceptional, though his short poems leave me cold. Gaia Holmes and Pris Campbell really think about what they're doing. Misti Rainwater-Lites is always fun to read. A few others. But sooooooo many really dull fuckers. Of course, I rate myself pretty highly. Buy my book, folks, it's got more jokes than the bible and more tunes than Picasso.
I don’t tend to write about what I might talk about, or talk about what I write about. Writing a poem IS me talking about a subject it might be too difficult or vague to have a conversation about. Mostly I wrote the poems in “Let’s get visible” because I had no-one to talk to. But if it comes up when I’m chatting, then it’s done and finished with, almost. I’m a much better conversationalist than a poet. I hate poetry. Poetry's finished. I'm finished. I've run out of interest in the way I write. I can't get any more out of it this way. I'm going to change how I write. Fuck it up; destroy it properly.
AD: I can agree with you on many aspects of this idea. Reading poetry these days has become more of a chore than a pleasure, but I am ever the optimist because I think there are a few poets out there with the chops to really break it open, but often they get drown out by a things to do list that, for some reason, the general public seems to accept as good. It keeps getting published instead of something worthwhile. Ah…..but this is another conversation altogether! You have several other projects slated for release this year including a shared chap with Ed Churchouse. Can you tell us a bit about the book and how you came to collaborate with Ed?
MJB: Yes, there's a chapbook due anytime now, published by Scintillating Publications, called "Propaganda for an ego", and the chapbook with Ed Churchouse, called "Everyone knows this is nowhere", published by The Audacious Art Experiment.
I first came across Ed on MySpace a couple of years ago, we had a disagreement in which I got slightly childish, but I think we both recognized some kind of shared cynicism or jaundiced outlook so started corresponding and reading each other's stuff.
The chap came about because I wanted to do another one with Audacious (who did my first) and, if I'm honest, half the poems I had grouped together for it just weren't good enough for me. I was surprised Ed hadn't had much published as he's so bloody good, so I suggested we do a joint chap.
My half of it's all about the town I live in; his is less specific but the poems hang together stylistically. We compliment each other; different, but close enough to not jar.
All I have to do now is keep reminding my man at Audacious to stop playing with himself and get the fucker done!
AD: I notice on your Myspace page that you have been putting up loads of photos lately. Is this a new hobby and do you think being able to capture a moment in time visually correlates or helps you capture those moments on the page?
MJB: I got a new phone in October, the first I'd had with a camera in it. It was about 3 weeks out of date and therefore really cheap. Since then I've taken over 4400 pictures. Most of them are rubbish, but that's the beauty of the digital format. It no longer costs. I take pictures of everything. But I don't really see it helping with writing; rather, photography and poetry are two things I do that maybe indicate my world view; that everything is worth looking at, cos there's miracles everywhere. Mealworms and supernovae.
AD: What lies ahead for Miles J. Bell in the grand year of 2008??
MJB: Me and my girl Em are to be married in April, and we're thinking about adding to the family pretty much as soon as possible.
Personally, I'd like to learn as much as possible about my new job. I work in a local school, helping children with learning and/or behavioural difficulties any way I can. I'd also like to write some poems! But that's not important for the moment. Being happy is always the only thing I give two shits about, or will devote myself to. And I don't really write much when I'm happy. No time to waste scribbling when I could be...kissing.
But I WILL destroy poetry. Or at least, mine. Or think of something to write about. Maybe my autobiography, in poesy form. Some would say that's all I've done anyway. But I mean the bits I haven't told anyone about. The magic show. The flea circus. The tax inspector years. The carny experiences. The Hindu Kush card-school. The taramasalata dungeon.
AD: Thank you for taking the time to share of yourself. I look forward to your latest endeavors. All the best to you and your family.
MJB: It was nice to be asked. Hopefully I've been entertaining. (This is what I'd like on my tombstone, in maybe 75 years' time.)
Miles J. Bell has been published widely both online and in print but you can find some of his work at the following places: Hecale, Laura Hird Showcase, Kill Poet Press, Zygote in My Coffee, Word Riot, Silenced Press, The Quirk, and Gloom Cupboard.
Miles chapbooks can be found in the following places:
“Let’s Get Visible” published by Blackheath Books (www.blackheathbooks.org.uk) 2008
“Everyone knows this is nowhere” with Ed Churchouse, and “The finite beat” published by The Audacious Art Experiment (www.theaudaciousartexperiment.com) 2008 and 2005
“Propaganda for an Ego” published by Scintillating Publications (www.freewebs.com/scintillatingpublications) 2008
“Murder the darkness w/ laughter & stories” published by Verve Bath Press (www.wordsdance.com/vervebathpress/intent.html) 2006
“Do not become so revolutionary you begin to ignore the parts of the world you would not change”—Miles J. Bell.
Last update : 01-02-2008 14:32
|
|
|
Outsider o' the Month! 
(0 vote)