Knowing Your Audience

                                                         Knowing Your Audience

I got this superb poem just a few hours ago from William in Guatemala and I have to say it shows all the sense of play, and at the same time the incredible steely understanding I associate with his work.
He says it emerged out of " A fiasco at coffee bar "

Enjoy.


                                         
                                                                                              Know Your Audience


                                                                                      That's what everyone
                                                                                       told me
                                                                                       when I confessed
                                                                                       I read a poem
                                                                                       about a dental assistant
                                                                                       mounting me
                                                                                       when I was wigged out
                                                                                       on novocane
                                                                                       to some bouncy girls
                                                                                       who were Born Again Christians.

                                                                                       I don't know
                                                                                       if my poem
                                                                                       made these trumpeters
                                                                                       for Jesus
                                                                                       hot
                                                                                       or they just shucked me
                                                                                       off
                                                                                       as one more sinner
                                                                                       in need
                                                                                       of reform.

                                                                                       What I do know
                                                                                        is that if I ever
                                                                                        took the time
                                                                                        to really know
                                                                                        my audience
                                                                                        I wouldn't write
                                                                                        at all.
                                                                                        I would cut through
                                                                                        all ambiguity
                                                                                        all prejudice
                                                                                        all interpretation
                                                                                        by buying an AK-47.

                                                                                        The history books would
mention
                                                                                         in footnotes
                                                                                         that poetry finally
                                                                                         found a way
                                                                                         to reach
                                                                                         the masses.



With the permission of William Joyce                

                                                          The Truth


Everyone has it:
on the streets laughing
with friends at age 8,
or in the woods,
farm fields.
Life then was the joy
of the moment
and lively companions,
sunlight , inventiveness.

We lose all this:
a hammer comes down--
obey, obey, obey.
The eyes lose their glow,
the shoulders their suppleness,
the hips their swing.
50 years later we wonder
where it all went ?
At age 8 we could have
learned anything,
been anybody,
done anything.

At age 8 we were
so tricky,
so beautiful,
so undaunted,
all of civilization
could have fit
in our right front pocket,
the one with the hole in it.

At age 8 we should have
had a loving affair
every three weeks.
At age 8 we were
pure juice.

Quit talking.
Learn to sing
or play
on a garbage can top.
Or just listen
and learn to love
the silences.
The truth is still there,
somewhere.



With the permission of William Joyce

                                          Richard Godwin Interviews William Joyce



William Has gone to Guatemala where his life can be lead with more peace and of course where his limited financial resources can be used more effectively. The struggle he speaks of in this fantastic interview was not an abstract one, but rather a day to day issue which made it harder to do what he does best, which is of course write. It is great to read him in full flow and I'd like to thank Richard Godwin for giving him the space to speak freely and for taking the time to go out and find a writer that should matter more than the world currently thinks appropriate. Please read the interview and of course I would urge anybody to go out and read Williams work be it his Poetry, Novel, Short stories or indeed his Criticism (Under the name Guillermo O'Joyce)  I'll be putting up some more poetry and prose over the next few days.

http://www.richardgodwin.net/blog


 

At Nikos Kazinstakis' tomb in Crete

Some thoughts on Zorba The Greek and First Born of An Ass

Just Some thoughts after a holiday with Zorba The Greek........



I always loved Crete, it's a special place to go and luckily for me I have just had the good fortune to spend eleven days there.

I always keep specific books to read when I go, and this time, amongst others, I brought Nikos Kazantzakis' 'Zorba The Greek'. I had read other pieces by him but somehow I had managed to ignore his most famous work (I know, I know, 'Last Temptation' is pretty famous too) and I'm glad I did. The book was a joy to read. It was full of life and people that even today we don't like to acknowledge or think about. The cruelty and violence and ignorance which is a reality in any newspaper pervades our little societies and we still pretend we've moved on. Damaged and wounded by our inability to look our demons in the eye we need a 'Zorba' to show us a path. Life and action instead of thinking about living our lives 'Someday' . laughter and love and music and play as essential to being free, instead of a side order to a main plate of drudgery and pain. I can't recommend it enough.

Of course all these ideas are the meat and drink of the work of William Joyce. I was constantly reminded of his 'First Born of An Ass' as I read. Both books possess a love of life and a playful curiosity. They both have characters that create world's where they can exist as themselves because no one else is going to do it for them, and both display a constant inventiveness and lightness of touch that mirrors the very nature of our beings given even a glimpse of a chance. Remember the joy of seeing the smile of the first person you fell in love with and tell me that life doesn't value play. Kazantzakis and Joyce value play.

In my opinion it is William who has gone further. The character of 'Zorba' is a man in his sixties while 'Gorm' is still just a child. Joyce pushes the boundaries of his world in an attempt to flex its reality in the face of the utter madness of contemporary society. It is reality's mirror in a similar vain to Gogol's 'Dead Souls' and in many ways just as much a tightrope walk for the Author to complete. I read reviews of 'Zorba' and many of the poor ones spoke of the sexism and violence towards women in it as if the same instances were not prevalent today. Again it is this pretence at an abstract way of living instead of looking the forces of darkness in the eye and getting sweaty for the fight. William is a 'Golden Gloves' champion of this fight. He delivers body blow after body blow in his Poetry and Prose to assumptions that I had never questioned and he has never bowed to the new gods of modern survival.

Nikos Kazantzakis had his fight in his day. I went to visit his tomb in his home city of Heraklion where officially no priest attended his burial ceremony and internment. He was beaten to the Nobel prize in Literature by one vote after the Greek Orthodox Church lobbied against him (Camus won for 'The Stranger') and still holds a strange place in the Greek mind.

William still wages war at 75. His battles don't reflect well on the treatment of Artists in the modern world or our willingness to let someone else pay the price for our own lack of courage. He writes like he fights and he plays, no half measures.

Read 'Zorba The Greek', read 'First Born of An Ass'. You won't regret either of them

REVIEW OF  " FOR WOMEN WHO MOAN " POETRY BOOK BY WILLIAM JOYCE

It's a rare thing in life to find courage, all the more so in the written word where too often pose and self consciousness takes the place of freedom of expression. It's highly understandable because it can be frighteningly real to show your true self to the outside world. It is the difference between someone who writes poetry and a Poet. For me William Joyce is a Poet.

Years ago I saw Keith Richards , one hand aloft playing the intro to 'Honky Tonk Woman', and I swear that even if he had no guitar the sound would have still come out of him. The Music was who he was, no barrier, no curtain, just the extraordinary ability to be exactly as he is. I had a similar experience reading 'For Women Who Moan'. It is musical and profound, funny and angry. I came away with the impression the poems forced their way out of Mr Joyce. They were born with a song of their own.

The poetry itself Spans twenty years (68-88) and covers Sex, Childhood, The mundane and Travels in Mexico and The West Indies. No review could possibly do justice to the quality of ideas, the absolute freshness of tone, the commitment to self expression or the talent of the work involved. I found its 104 pages to be as large as a continent and as small as the life of a mosquito. I had lines pop into my head in the middle of the day " A hand is its own grace " (The Lady's Departure Speech to Her Lover) and " I have traveled to your center of gravity and stepped back in amazement " ( For a Mouth That Never Resigns Itself to Sorrow ). And at night these poems have led me to think of the ubiquitous witnesses to poverty and unfairness of this life. Many times they are Children trying to sing their own songs in a world as hard as any killing machine. As Joyce himself writes " Songs always identify us for someone else's palm. That is why so many are voiceless." It takes courage to live your own life and not compromise. If we were all as brave as William Joyce or even some of the people he writes about, the world would be a quieter, saner place. It can take courage to read as well as write

Les Edgerton on Writing: THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ

Les Edgerton on Writing: THE BEST BOOK I'VE EVER READ: Hi folks, This is the best book I've ever read. REVIEW FIRST BORN OF AN ASS William Joyce I’ve never written a review like this...