Rob Ayling, yer Gonzo Grande Fromage, writes:
"Thom the World poet is an old mate of mine from way back in my history. Even pre-dating Voiceprint, when I was running "Otter Songs" and Thom's poetry tapes and guest appearances with Daevid Allen, Gilli Smyth and Mother Gong are well known and highly regarded. It just felt right to include a daily poem from Thom on our Gonzo blog and when I approached him to do so, he replied within seconds!!! Thom is a great talent and just wants to spread poetry, light and positive energy across the globe. If we at Gonzo can help him do that - why not?"
LIVES OF POETS
As 2020 dies,it tries to take poetry with it
Apart from advertising and Academia,who sees the point of verse?
Now Text and Tweet is briefer.Haiku and bonsai ?Even Japanese eschew
So we flip back to amiable eccentrics/those historical word magicians
who all had insomniac habits,behaved Beaudelairean,and were demanding lovers.
We are as interested in Kerouac's alcoholism and mood swings as ON THE ROAD.
Movies of poets reveal their suicides,masochism,anger ,fears and failures.
To catalogue Blake's eccentricities does not diminish his drawings,paintings,poetry.
Now Leonard is gone,a movie about his main squeeze.Dylan lives,mysterious.
Dylan Thomas's drunkenness.William Burrough's heroin.Ginsberg's pedophilia.
FERN HILL.NAKED LUNCH/SOFT MACHINE.HOWL/SUNFLOWERS.
Is gossip a literary tradition?Will Bukowsky's novels/poetry survive now that he does not?
Life over art ?or vice over verse?Samuel Johnson's works survive(his eccentricities forgotten)
It is THE WORK that matters.The rest is gossip columns and paparazzi headlines.
Ask Ernest Hemingway,Norman Mailer,Truman Capote.If you still read lives,
try their best works..Even Tolstoy was weird.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies.
Workaholics?Dope fiends?Does it matter if you wrote WAR and lived in PEACE?
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