Patrick Chapman is a very intriguing writer, indeed. I've known him for a few years, since we met in Paris, after he'd contributed work for the 100 Poets Against The War anthologies. I'd read his early poetry in the collection The New Pornography, and enjoyed his dark sensibility, which seemed, in its style and themes, so refreshingly un-Irish.
Chapman is one of Ireland's most versatile younger writers, equally interested in creating award-winning science fiction, short films, and widely-published poetry.
He has a fine, cinematic eye for the disturbing image, and his work often concerns itself with territory that might be loosely described as Cronenbergian (with a side-trip down Lynch Boulevard). He's been doing some good readings lately, and has a new book forthcoming from Salmon. It'll be his best, I believe. He's only in his mid-30s and just hitting his stride now. The link to his blog is where you'd expect to find it. Unlike in Chapman's work, where you must expect the unexpected.
Labyrinth
I’ve taken all the vodka and the wheat beers are all gone.
The pills are working, tiny fogs.
I guess I will be leaving here, this curious fall night.
Got anything to say before I go?
You could have left a thread for neutered Theseus to follow but
That night you were both Ariadne and the Minotaur.
poem by Patrick Chapman
Comments
The scene here in Dublin is fragmented, with many published poets preferring to stay out of the currently changing vibe which is moving toward the poetry of memorisation.
The grouping currently occupying the space in the new topography are many and numerous, but all linked by the fact that they are completely under the radar of mainstream poetry bodies and agencies, except for myself and a few others.
These poets are getting weekly exposure to a live audience and getting sharper all the time, as the place is as much a schoolroom as stage for the voice. There are two poets who are blowing the socks off everyone else.
One is Noel Sweeney, who is one of the most naturally gifted Irish lyric poets I have heard. He composes entirely mentally until the poem is fixed in his mind, only committing it to paper after being perfected orally.
Raven - San Francisco poet who mesmorises you for a few weeks until you get used to him and start to see the technician behind the poet. Noel and myself have learned from him and we are also rubbing off in his work.
There is also a guy here we call God coz he's got long hair and a beard, but is Mike from Meath to his non poet mates. He is the only genuine freestyler I have heard anywhere and has a gift from god which no one witnessing him would deny. Shout out a word and he'll give you a three minute poem completely extemporaeneous (forgive typo).
I am organising the Patrick Kavanagh Celebration 2005 and have an event with Leanne O'Sullivan and Maurice Scully in it, which will showcase the best of the grass roots and the establishment, in order to set up chanels of communication not vurrently in existence, and of which I will send you the full details later.