As/Is







6.12.2015


Ogham Lesson 1: Elyn Newkis - Lisen Newky - Kewl Sneyin - Newly Kisen

Hello yawl.

One mua time and listen in the new key to a tale of the bardic bluffas bullshitting lidl aul moi, dreaming their high cultural jinks in the Tir na RTE realm of Gobnam Boglady & Their Bans of ambitious literary cut-throats in shmokin shpokin feerz peroppa wurda. Lisen Newky, Nesil Kewny & Enils N'yewk.

Names oghamically changed to protect the lidl diks-ed 'n kids skiddin abo nuwir in tha paja liov witten pothutrae en litowary Bubbalin.

~

After eight years of funding the All Ireland Live Poetry Shlam Competition i am increasingly unable to stop myself from involuntarily laughing at the unintentionally comedic vibe and plastic sense of poetic entitlement emanating from some of the most self-important self-appointed cultural healing energy workers in Bublin, that are involved in tha shmokern liov puthotrae 'n sham shleen in the capital of Bullshitland.

This is because all but a few of the filidh have - several days ago - made it very plain they assume I am a social-media poetry dinosaur and special kind of English mug that likes nothing more than giving away free money to them; and someone whose own live poetry is never gonna be good enough to appear on any stage with any of their own, regularly outed and touted works of heartbreaking mediocrity, I mean, staggeringly beautiful eloquence.


I can only conclude after eight years of side-lined and silent observation that our live spoken word shlash slam scene in Bubbalin consists of a handful of Bublin-based foet-fwend principles that are in an organisational thick of it with themselves, the new brooms team at Poetry Island, n' waydeo n' telievwishun stalwarts of RTE, and, to repeat the point, have made it plain over the years, by silence and short evasive utterance, coupled with a refusal to engage with me (proved by an eight year absence of any written replies to the handful of messages I've ever sent them) - that I am the very last foet they're gonna do their vibrational healing energy events with in the realm of live and (by its very nature) competitive oral poetry happening today in Bubbalin.

A scene in which the worst lack all conviction or interest in the bardic curriculum, and the best are laughably overrated. Swamis swanning round the city in smugly self-congratulatory bubbles, their shallow social-scene entitlement masquerading as a revolutionary come all ye welcome and democratic open-access poetic pulse of the real poetry movement reflecting what's happening on the streets, yeah!

That may have been the way it was for the first few years after its birth, and before our new scene started, at a four-year (2004-8) weekly occurring come all ye, truly democratic, regular weekly open mic, Write and Recite (WaR), but puleez, c'mon noi, the alphas in the zoo of a live shpokin wurda sheen are now very well established, n' tis all vewy peroppa woppa.

However, all but one or two of the principle actors and high-literary judges, juries and executioners in Bubbalin's right now eight year old 'new' (yawn) team-scene of happy hand-wavers, not once recited their shmokin shpokin wurds liov on the weekly WaR scene.

I know of the current mob of very ambitious and self-important liov poetsa Bubbalin tuawn through them wanting to win the Title of the All Ireland Shlam competition, that I created, for nothing, off my own back, whilst living in the Oivaay homeless hostel, and have been funding every year since it started in 2007.

I rarely go to any of the many invite-only closed-mic events that have been the norm in Bublin since Write and Recite vanished unwritten or recorded on any official Ireland live poetry record custoded by the New Live peroppa shpokin wurda poetry scenestas that created the 'new' one following in the wake of tha auld wun we all lived through at WaR.

Having finished a four year weekly live poetry apprenticeship in WaR by the time the new and thrilling (now not so exciting or new) social-media-created and organised scene was birthed in 2008, by a handful of computer literate language and culture lovers, I was freed to concentrate on the written side of my practise. And so, with other filliocht studies to occupy me, I av for the last eight years took no personal part in Bubblin's shmokin shpokin word sheen.

However it is clear from observing it remotely online that after eight years of the same faces doing the same spoken word pieces, many of the elders and principle protagonists in the Bubblin spoken word scene-team, have gone awf.

The worst are full of smug assumption and so insufferably so far up their own holes after years of constant and continual social-media self-publicity - and a corresponding facebook level of critical engagement - that it makes one gwiggle, ih rellih dez make one chuckle and titter at the unintentionally comedic performances of their unearned sense of cultural certainty that their literary pretensions exhibit. The Bubblin shmokin shpokin wurdas believing the blurb and hype they've been spouting and puffing for so many years about one another online in the corporate echo-chamber of Phasebuke.

But so what, none of my business, woddoo i kare? Exactly, nothing. However I found myself being roped into their made-up world several days ago, when it was made crystal clear to me that tha shmokin shpokin wurd team-scene now officially want nothing whatsoever to do with me, not because I torture small animals for pleasure, hate old people with a vengeance, troll them online and rejoice on hearing of their deaths, but because of a piece of writing published outside their delusional echo-chamber in which my thoughts on di Boglady diva Deva Ardlon, and lidl aul liov poet, Newl Shwaney, are laid bare.

Let that sink in. The mind of our new Bubblin ass-lickers learning how to be a peroppa shpokin wurda, make no delineation of publishing borders whatsoever.

They seem to believe, or have been indoctrinated and now accept the bullshit of what poetic superiors ventriliquise the muppets' voices, that all creative writing is published on just one big social-media Facebook Page; that The Boglady's Bagmon and Bagwomen, gabnom, mabnog, gonbam, and their supporting non-oghamically trained nob rags; are the natural-born deputy-editors of. Some mythical and non-existent happy clappy huggy no brags group Page; appointed by The Executive Editors of Nobrag 'emselvs, The Boglady and St Coalman of the Peroppa Shpokin Warders.

What was interesting (for me), is that the quality of this trash-talk piece of online hack writing I published on my blog, was the sole cause, several evenings ago, of the online membership privileges of an online poetry dump, Portry Dope, being revoked, and myself deleted, banned and blocked from access to this New Yorker of a social-media micro-bubble, by its creator, lets call her Elyn Newkis.

A new ass-kisser on tha shmokin live sphokin slash shlam block party in Bubbalin; and young poetry dope who seems to have been in possession of the delusional belief, (i imagine until reading the reply to her banning order), that anyone writing all over the world must first be approved of and cleared for publishing by awfisez fram an online poetry inspectorate, in which Elyn Newkis, as a newly commissioned ofizor and emerging stand out ass-licker in the Deva Ardlon Boglady's Gobwowmin Order of St Coalman's; mimicking the elders from our gosh wow fuk yeh team-scene, by communicating with me for the very first time, with a message, not awn.

In the voice of a bwitish toff conveying their displeasure at one's critical voice speaking what it believes in the the moment of that (or any other) piece of spontaneously created writing that has grown out of a fourteen year study of the bardic curriculum and practice founded on what I have learnt from the course reading material and plain old practise of speaking with anyone, anywhere, online, about the topic of poetry and dán. Which is all I have been doing since leaving my home town's Edge Hill University in Ormskirk, Lancashire.

~

Created in January, the Portry Dope is a small phazebuke group for an assortment of creatively young oddballs and weirdos, two to three hundred Bubbalin kids, and potential future shlam shtaws, spamming away all things shpokin wurda, tua their hearts content. And, imo, a welcome addition that is all part of the learning process for everyone involved.

From the lowliest teen member with depression letting it all out in print to our Group of confused and untrained bardic wannabes, right up to the Newkis creator Elyn, in third level education attending one of the most cliquey universities in not only Awyerland or Bubbalin town, but the wole woid vworld: Twintity.

In, of, on, and from which the whole concept and history of modern Bublin draws the literary spirit of itself.

Newkis wrote to me several evenings ago after I'd gone to her dump to leave a link to an unpublished poem of mine that'd just been published, and i discovered the dump no longer appears and that I must be banned. I had not been informed, just silently deleted and blocked, so I wrote a short text to Elyn Newkis:

 Hiya m8, a wannid teh post a link to a 2007 poem unpublished cuz tha poem is its own reward, n wen a goes teh dump@portrydope to tell ul ma bezzies abow ih, tha portrydope paj neva cum up n it dunt on me kevin desmond's words fb eeva m8, n ah wuz finkin, ooh, a wunda wots ap'nin theer loik pulaze fram the leburtaze m8y, lottsa luv a fwend

She wrote back an hour or two later informing me I had been excluded and was no longer a member; explicitly stating that the reason I'd been banned from her self-sealed tin-pot social-media micro-bubble, is because of my English voice in the language of a piece I wrote and published on my ten year old Irish Poetry Blog, that (please read very carefully) 'was reported to me as abusive'.

Note the tone, ethos, and poetic of Newkis's voice:

'Sorry Desmond, your post about' poetry diva Deva Ardlon 'was reported to me as abusive, and I've had words with you before over this. In hindsight I regret removing you from the group as I thought this May have been a bit harsh, but you have been warned that anymore abusive posts towards other members would result in your expulsion.'

The first think to strike me ass odd, lie number one, is that the parochially famous diva and Boglady Deva Ardlon, is not a member of the Portry Dope, as they left Phasebuke years ago and now rant on far more intellectually visible and eminent publications, her brand of faux socialist-in-residence cat-tripe about the end of the world and Ascension.

What made me psml was i was being asked to accept, on face value by this person twenty-five years younger than me, who has never written to me before, that i am being excluded from publishing ever again in her self-important Group, because I was breaking a talk policy and being offensive and insulting to another member, because I wrote and published an original piece of writing, not on the wall of this Facebook collective group page, but a ten year old Irish Poetry Blog; that an unnamed anonymous complainer and supposed member of Portry Dope, finds supposedly  'offensive'.

So, if you are a member of Portry Dope and don't like a piece of writing someone writes and publishes elsewhere outside the echo-chamber; then that is a legitimate ground of complaint on which an other anonymous member of one of your poetry dumps' can have you slung out. Madness. Intellectual facism, a very very backwardly dangerous and dog-shit illogical critical basis to found and implement as your come all ye pill for literary enlightenment and great new re-invention of the poetry wheel.

As a sixty word piece of literature by someone who was 13 or younger when I created the Irish Poetry Blog, I thought it most unimpressive because it fails to make any positive impression on me, because the contents are entirely untrue and total bollix. With the mind boggling at the banal depths this uncritical tissue of falsehoods and balderdash reveals; I replied, at length, beginning, as I do in all social-media echo-chambers when such crucial poetic cases are before a theatrical bench of live written craic 'eds:

'You've 'had words' with me? Can you produce these 'words' you've 'had' with me, please?'

Told 'you have been warned before', about 'abusive posts towards other members', not a thing pop'd into my mind, and I knew it was utter bullshit; and i wrote back, having a great time on the light side with a trusty shield of poetic truth, Kevin Desmond's words, and my mother's memory here in her name, Swords.

After firing off a few fastly written (in her ears), heretical home truths (and, it must be noted, enjoying the process) - to this new and decent enough filliocht/craft of poetry student, a second level (of seven student bard grades) MacFirmid at best, that was contacting and addressing me for the very first time, with a complete fairy story; I worked it all out on the page spontaneously writing; and shortly into the process wrote it was ok, she didn't need to reply, and that i'll 'spare you the embarrassment of having to open your gob and makin a dikhed out yerself.'

By the end of the reply i had worked everything out and left on a cheerful note, wishing the newkid Newkis love; but feeling a tad bad with myself for writing such poetically potent home-truths in such adult literary language to one so tender and ignorant, and so i wrote a second reply telling them not to take anything srsly i'd written in the first reply, and that I was just a humble servant of the soul with fourteen years in the game (to their own one or two years writing) and that life itself was a poem, dán also meaning 'fate' in the orginal druidic comprehension of the word; and that life is great  'wen ye study of the bardic curriculum brings you blessings that can only be described as otherworldly, once the writing in your life attracts the positivity of angelic spirit that makes your writing practice not about other people reading or publishing it, but you writing the best poems you can.'

Signing off with love, grá agus siochain, and ending on a blessing for the 'divine poetic force of positive good in' her 'own life, dán, poem, shlukyable beduklyivvle, adios amiga, sal waygo de shlaedoh.'

~

To repeat, again, looking thru the communication records between us, of both my personal and all island accounts, i discovered that this was the very first time Elyn Newkis had got in touch and written to me. Though of course I may be mistaken and Elyn has written something that I haven't read, until proven otherwise, my original assessment of 'bullshit' stands, beduvil, shtel.

Next on Irish Poetry Blog

Straight after the Newkis affair, a complaint was published by St Kewlmain Gaekern, decrying 'The Bogman, A Public Reflection', as 'bollix', and stay choon'd to read the documenting of this most recent and epic competitive critical conversational shlam between several of Erin's finest peroppa shmokin liov shpokun wurda-wardens and Poetry Police Gurdmins that fail to show up on the page of a now deleted social-media conversational catastrophe initiated by Sir Coalman and lost by his cronies just as fulla bs as Elyn Newkis's original faery story written and sent as part of, what I can only conclude, was a joint-effort by Bubbalin's team-scene to shut an English rhymer out by all means possible.

Aw, innit lovely?

Gerrup n holla, lemme shee thoos awms noi.

Kevin Desmond's words