Andrew O'Donnell was born in Blackpool in 1977 and spent his youth drinking Kestrel lager on the streets of Bromley Cross and Egerton, the 'posh end' of Bolton, Lancs (where the moors creep in on the urban sprawl that is Bolton and Manchester.) He studied Literature and Philosophy at Staffs University before travelling around India and Nepal. He has (sometimes tenuously) lived in Kobe, Osaka (Japan), Pokhara (Nepal), Vancouver and London. He has been writing poetry and prose since he was about sixteen and has had poetry published with a handful of literary magazines and websites in England, Canada and the U.S.
ANDREW'S FAVOURITE SITES
THE WOLF
Click image to visit London poet, James Byrne's literary magazine, 'The Wolf.' CITYSCAPE RECORDS
Click image to visit Cityscape website and read about brilliant Bolton-based bands 'Merchandise' and 'Mazeppa' or to order their records on Amazon, click hereVOICES IN THE WILDERNESS
Click image to visit Voices site, dedicated to ending war and sanctions against Iraq, by hand-delivering medical supplies, medical journals and toys to children's hospitals without export licences.STOP THE WAR COALITION
Click image to the Stop the War Coalition website, which provides news, articles, mailing lists, calendar of peace events, photos etcVITAMIN Q
Click image to visit poet Roddy Lumsden's excellent website, featuring his extensive, hilarious and fascinating lists of just about everything
ANDREW'S INFLUENCES
PETER READING
Click image to read about Peter Reading on the Bloodaxe Books site; to listen to Reading read from his sequence of poems called, 'Avifaunal' on the BBCi website, click here or for related books on Amazon, click hereDAVID LYNCH
Click image to visit the official David Lynch website; for the David Lynch Resource site, click here or for related films and books on Amazon, click hereMIKE LEIGH
Click image for interview with Leigh on the Salon.com website; for NFT interview with Leigh on the Guardian Unlimited website, click here or for related films and books on Amazon, click hereRAINER MARIA RILKE
Click image to visit the Rainer Maria Rilke Archive website; to read a selection of poetry by Rilke, click here or for related films and books on Amazon, click hereNAN GOLDIN
Click image for to read about Goldin on the Artnet site; for a selection of her recent work on Culture Vulture site, click here or for books of her photographs on Amazon, click hereRAYMOND CARVER
Click image to visit Phil Carson's Raymond Carver Page, including bibliography and links; for two interviews with Carver on the Prose as Architecture site, click here or to view his books on Amazon, click herePETER COOK
Click image for to visit the Peter Cook.net website; to visit the website of The Establishment - the official Peter Cook Appreciation Society, click here or for books of her photographs on Amazon, click hereJAMES JOYCE
Click image for the Work in Progress site, dedicated to the life and works of Joyce; for Brazen Head, the world's most comprehensive Joyce resource, click here or to view related books on Amazon, click hereEDDIE IZZARD
Click image for the official Eddie Izzard website; for the Cake or Death Eddie Izzard site, click here or for Izzard on DVD on Amazon, click hereFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Click image for a chronological analysis of Nietzsche's writings on the Stanford University site; for website of the Friedrich Nietzsche Society, click here or to view related books on Amazon, click hereJULIETTE BINOCHE
Click image for a host of links relating to Binoche on the Tedstrong site; for a profile and filmography on the French Films website, click here or for Binoche's films on DVD on Amazon, click herePAUL BOWLES
Click image to visit the Authorised Paul Bowles website; for an online exhibition and internet source page on Bowles, click here or to view his books on Amazon, click hereKEN LOACH
Click image for a biography and bibliography of Loach on the Museum TV Archive site; for Cineaste interview with Ken Loach, click here or for related books and DVD's on Amazon, click hereJAWS
Click image for the original Jaws fansite, featuring lost 70's interviews with the cast; for an indepth look at Spielberg's best film, click here or for the DVD on Amazon, click hereNEIL YOUNG
Click image to read about Young's film 'Greendale' on the official Neil Young website; for Hyper Rust, the unofficial Neil Young site, click here or for Young's music on Amazon, click hereLIZ FINCH
Click image to read Liz'z story, 'Help With Writing Letters' on the showcase section of this site; to read more of her work and view some of her unique and amazing artwork on her own site, click here or for books by Liz on Amazon, click hereBOB DYLAN
Click image to visit Bob Dylan's official website; for the excellent Expecting Rain site, click here or for Dylan's music on Amazon, click hereMARK EITZEL
Click image to visit the official Mark Eitzel website; for news and sound clips on the Matador Records site, click here or for Eitzel's music on Amazon, click hereTED HUGHES
Click image to visit the Ted Hughes homepage; to read the Paris Review's 1995 interview with Hughes, click here or for related books on Amazon, click hereRON SEXSMITH
Click image to visit the official Ron Sexsmith website; for interview with Sexsmith on the Canehdian website, click here or for his music on Amazon, click hereDAVID GRAY
Click image to visit the official David Gray website; to view Gray's videos and listen to sound clips on the VH1 site, click here or for cd's by Gray on Amazon, click hereTHE CLASH
Click image to visit London's Burning - The Clash Resource site; for a great selection of Clash links on the Aversion music site, click here or for Clash albums on Amazon, click hereFRANCIS BACON
Click image to visit Alex Alien Russell's excellent School of Francis Bacon site; to visit the Francis Bacon Image Gallery, click here or for books relating to Bacon and his work on Amazon, click hereJACKSON POLLACK
Click image for a host of sites relating to Pollack and his work on the Artcyclopedia site; visit Alex Alien Russell's excellent School of Francis Bacon site; for a selection of Pollack's paintings on the Soho Art site, click here or for books relating to Bacon and his work on Amazon, click hereAC/DC
Click image to visit AC/DC Electric Shock site; to listen to audio clips and view videos by the band on Elektra Records site, click here or for classic AC/DC albums on Amazon, click hereMILES DAVIS
Click image to visit the official Miles Davis website; visit Alex Alien Russell's excellent School of Francis Bacon site; for Miles Styles - an analysis of Miles Davis' recordings by historical period, click here or for classic Davis albums on Amazon, click hereMARK BROWN
Click image to read Mark's story, 'The Cows' on the showcase section of this website; to read more of Mark Brown's work on the ABC Tales website, click here or to read more or submit stories to the ABC Tales website, click hereA L KENNEDY
Click image to visit A L Kennedy's official website (lazy journalists beware!); to read 'Blissed Out' - an interview with Kennedy in Spiked Magazine, click here or to view Kennedy's books on Amazon, click here View My Guestbook Sign My Guestbook
i.m Jean Charles de Menezes
'Burly says if we don't sing then we won't have anything'
- Will Oldham
Wanting to start by slamming the keys
he imagines each letter calling down
to some coseismal core – on those tiny slabs
of dissolvable plastic, a dyable colour –
an unreachable night, this minute:
Last month they shot a man dead on the tube.
I’m having a hard time knowing how
many times a bullet went in, or if it matters.
But in every way, we boil down to wildness, reduce
sadnesses to sadder – questions implode, sound
tracks mute scenes. Where do words go?
Could you rid me of this much imagination,
leave my CrimeWatch re-enactments
at the escalator? The grate of who is this man?
Where did you see him last? Is he the man,
the real man? Is he real? Who did this?
What did this? What Killed This Man?
What died? What fire got launched
in the dying – the dead – the Die of the dying.
What went out of him? Tell me
you never saw it coming. Draw lots
for the update in your head, the want
for nothing.. that today in London nothing
much happened now over to you Zainab.
He Is Not The Man. Not Even Close. Now
the weather. And I'm on the tube.
At the station – a Stockwell morning.
Or afternoon. Evening. And the stain
in my head mirrors the sin in the air,
the air that isn’t there, the man who isn’t
there. Too many answers in that vast question
of a man. The stop. The station –
Too much coiled from body, too much carriage
of heart. Skull. The murals are yet to go
up, the hands are yet to go up. Right
there – and you have to go somewhere.
Somewhere. But where do you go? Who
do you see? Who do you talk to with the dead
in your head with the gangs of ghosts
in the night in your head? They say he was
working here. Living here. And my friend is like
watch yourself.. (These new looks.. these steps –
it’s surreal). They tell us what
he was wearing.. but what I want to know is
what wasn’t he wearing? What gave him
away? What didn’t give him away? What skin
wasn’t he sporting, whose breath wasn’t
he breathing, what train wasn’t
he catching, what language didn’t he know..
enough to know better? I guess
I want to know a lot. They arrested
ten protestors, took them to Bow Magistrates
this week*. Is this news? Or is this just
the weather? They arrested them
because they opened and closed
their mouths about opening and closing
their mouths about something. Ministers
in Parliament say they can’t work
properly because of the noise. They say
they can’t work properly because
of the noise. Because of The Silence.
They won’t let people use loud speakers
outside Parliament anymore. Too much
imagination all round. There could be a bomb
hidden behind a placard, or some other device
or other. They actually said this
to another man** whose spent years
saying something, repeating something
(this I can’t actually repeat within the distance
of where it might be heard). You can read it
in the minutes. They said it to him
in court – Use your imagination. There
could be a bomb behind a placard, a spy
in a sandwich, a prayer in a mug of tea,
a wish, wedged between a bunch of flyers.
Or in a song. Or in the bloody breeze –
There might be a voice between
The voices, a death between the deaths
that is actually worth something
to someone. Or perhaps a voice that went out
of a voice that means something
to someone, or another voice beyond that.
Use your imagination. There Could Be a Bomb
Behind a Placard? All of this, while he’s obviously a decent man. The ‘he’
of we, I, you (or anyone?.. while his beatings
come at night when the comrades,
the shouters and doubters are home already.
His nose has been broken more than once
and he’s got comments for the comments
about his face.You think I wanna look
like this? he says) Anyone. I wouldn’t want to look
like anyone right now. What would anyone do?
What would a British Muslim do
with all these gifts through his letterbox?***
Except make a complaint to the police
like anyone would. What would anyone
do when the police, instead of addressing
his complaint, (the complaint like anyone’s).
Instead of doing something about anyone’s
problem – they arrest him and he spends
three weeks in prison. Yeah right,
I wouldn’t like to be anyone right now.
Anything could happen. Probably does –
O this sad nation of people come away
from windows – doors – isolated incidents:
Awkwardtime. At his mosque
they thought he was on holiday.
His family knew he wasn’t. They knew
he was (and wasn’t) in the picture pictured here
as I look out the leaving window thinking
to start by slamming the keys
I find each letter calling down
to skinned words – from those tiny pieces
of dissolving plastic, the naked colour –
a reaching night, beyond this
* Ten protestors were arrested on August 1st and 7th for peacefully
speaking out against The Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill.
This bill introduces an exclusion zone within a one mile radius of Parliament
so that spontaneous protest, within this area, is now a criminal offence.
** Refers to peace protestor, Brian Haw.
*** Taken from an account of a series of events in West London
The whole of the hotel is towering up to the crumbling end of a cigarette. It's hot and blowy there. You are outside for a moment, in a leather coat, standing over a fire, the cigarette bending down to the ground. Separating you from it.
In the hotel the rooms of each floor cluster around small tiled landings. In the middle of each landing are square holes with iron bars across them. These are usually used for drying laundry.
It is too late for any kind of activity now. All the clothes have been dried and put away. Tonight you can look from the third floor right down to the ground floor.
You continue taking the odd swig of vodka from the bottle. The hotel is completely silent. It is about 11pm.
Minutes pass.
You slowly register a voice from one of the rooms. An English voice. It is the guy you met up on the roof. He is reading parts of his book out loud. The volume increases as he settles into a steady reading pace. You listen.
This particular chapter is a precise historical catalogue of terrorist bombings, names of cities, dates, methods by which governments have dealt with each attack, names of journalists, names of different ambassadors and heads of state.
Each paragraph ends with the line “..and if you do; you die.. and all your family dies.. and everyone you’ve ever known ..dies” You can feel how he punches the word ‘dies’ into the air with a fisted cigarette and how the smoke wafts up to the ceiling of his room like an imaginary concertina-shaped lantern that slowly shakes itself out of sight. You are imagining.
You look down, past three floors of grill, through to the bottom of the hotel. You imagine the reception area somewhere off to the right. You imagine Eshem, the big mustachioed Arab, sleeping in his too-small-to-fit-him cot, his feet dangling over the edge.
You take a sip from the bottle, the shape of the landing window breathes itself into the back of your head. You see someone shuffle along to the toilet on Floor 2.
The toilet door closes.
It suddenly seems that everything is in reverse, or maybe not; but the floors take on a gradient. You could be at the bottom or the top. You wouldn’t know either way. The whole hotel is like a drawing by Esher. The wind outside suddenly gasps and inhales the gloom of the hotel. You feel the absence of any sound, any wind, and you feel that you could float, weightless..suspended above the edge of the hole in the landing.
The man in the room keeps intoning his doom-laden chapters. You hear every word, you can imagine them as brittle chips of coal.. pouring from his smoky mouth.
“..And if you do; you die.. and all your family dies.. and everyone you’ve ever known.. dies”
You stand up. Shocked out of the side-order-of-thought that the vodka has shrugged into you. And you shout in the silent hotel, hoping the guy can hear you.
“Not bad.. bit of Hubert Selby Jr.. bit of John Pilger.. not my taste, but..” You fill your mouth with a liberal blast.. “Come on! keep going.. I want to know where it ends, come on, I’m hooked!”
The end of another paragraph. “And if you do; you die..”
He is not listening to you.
The toilet flushes on the floor below. The paragraphs continue unabated.
You walk to the door of your room, unlocking the padlock, opening the door and throwing the keys onto the bed.
It’s all done in one strange movement. You become momentarily amazed by the idea of your doing anything at all.
As a kid
you would
open a cereal box for breakfast,
pour cornflakes into the bowl,
put the box down,
spoon the sugar,
sprinkle the sugar over the cereal,
take the milk,
pour the milk..
And you would be lost in a tiny moment, feeling only a mixture of amazement and exhaustion, staring down at your breakfast from the height of the chair and your six-year-old eyes.
And then the feeling would change. You might feel slightly humbled.. or worried, depending on your mood. Usually just worried, perhaps.
What would the worry be? Not any kind of worry, not something deadly, perhaps just the kind of worry that someone might get from finding a packet of cigarettes in the fridge
or
seeing a broken umbrella
in the middle of a shopping street.
Nothing that couldn’t be changed.
And humble? Why that? You aren’t sure but you can feel
that something about that room seemed to suggest a kind of humility,
the kitchen table,
the spoon.
The sound of the radio.
The guy from the roof continues reading.
“And all your family dies.. and everyone you’ve ever known.. dies”
You decide to go outside to the balcony. You flick the light switch on, looking at the keys on your bed, thinking that you have forgotten to bring something with you. That you might need a new t-shirt or shirt.
A few seconds pass. You switch the light off. You ingest the surprise of the newly dark air. You close the door, hearing the gentle scrape of it.
He continues reading.
You walk to the far corner of the landing. You stop, confused, looking for the door. You put the bottle to your lips, glancing up at the patterns on the ceiling.
You swallow.
There is a silent split-second, between his words, where you realize that this is a different hotel. That there is no balcony, no door out to it. That you are not where you thought you were.
The magic was enduring Westhoughton,
but, high as lights, we find your stone.
Stained with Margharita's we'd hoped.
There is some confusion between here and the Orkneys.
You have made us famous,
our enemies in Ladybridge, assume.
Say that all they will remember you by
is that blood-pill you cracked, and a wailing
stick dragged across the shark's nose.
(While, all this time, Richard Dreyfuss
is stuck in that battered cage on the seabed,
with the last of the oxygen)
When he woke up
from the thrashing bloodiness of his first
sleep he thought of the alien face
that held him captive. Grew to love it. Relinquished
the corridor and up-ended, almost
breathless before it.
We stood watching.
There was no terror as he said he had
suspected. There was nothing like that. Someone
took out a camera and he joked about
calling the papers; his son, peeping a head
out of the agony.
Click title to visit the official Lyn Lifshin website; to read a selection of Lifshin's poems on the PNG Poetry site, click here or to view her work on Amazon, click here
ISHIKAWA TAKUBOKU
Click title for an outline of Takuboku's life; for details of the Ishikawa Takuboku Museum, click here or for related films and books on Amazon, click here
Click title for a bibliography of Cortazar's work on the Fantastic Fiction site; to read an extract from Cortazar's novel 'Hopscotch', click here or for books of her photographs on Amazon, click here
JEAN GENET
Click title for The Jean Genet Pages on the Electroasylum site; for a biography of Genet on the Imagi-Nation site, click here or to view Genet's work on Amazon, click here
OSAMU DAZAI
Click title for short biography of Dazai; for a biography of Dazai's work, click here or to view his work on Amazon, click here
HONG SUNG-DAM
Click title to read about Sung-Dam's Resistance and Meditation exhibition on the Queens Museum of Art site; for an interview with Sung-Dam on the Asian Human Rights Commission website, click here or for a biography of Sung-Dam, click here
Click title for a biography and bibliography of Duffy on the British Council's Contemporary Writers site; for a selection of online poems and links for Duffy, click here or books by Duffy on Amazon, click here
Click title to visit the Definitive Paul Auster Website; for an interview with Auster on the World Guide website, click here or books by Auster on Amazon, click here
MALCOLM LOWRY
Click title to visit the Malcolm Lowry Homepage; for the Under the Volcano site, which includes review, extracts and sound clips from Lowry's novel, click here or books by Lowry on Amazon, click here
RAY WINSTONE
Click title for an biography of Winstone on the Tiscale film site; for more Winstone links and sound clips from 'Sexy Beast,' click here or for Winstone's films on DVD on Amazon, click here
PAUL FARLEY
Click title to read Farley's poem, 'Monopoly' on The Poem website; for the Poetry Book Society's review of Farley's collection, 'The Ice Age,' click here or to view Farley's work on Amazon, click here
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI
Click title to read about the life and films of Antonioni on the Senses of Cinema site; to visit the Antonioni Archive site click here or for DVD's of his films on Amazon, click here
Click title to read tanka by Fujio Tachibana (pen name of Yukiko Inoue); to read Tachibana's poem, 'The Wail of Gaea, click here or for poetry under the name of Yukiko Inoue on Amazon, click here
Click title to visit the website of Christiaan Strange's Fyodor Dostoyevsky Research Station site; to read Katharena Eiermann's tribute to existentialism and Dostoyevsky, click here or to view Dostoyevsk's work on Amazon, click here
Click title for a short biography of Shikibu and extracts from her writings; for bibliography, links and quotes on the Other Women's Voices site, click here or to view her work on Amazon, click here
RODDY LUMSDEN
Click title to read and listen to poems by Roddy on the Vitamin P site; to read Roddy's poem, 'The Beginning of the End' on The Poem site, click here or for books by Roddy on Amazon, click here
Click title to visit The Indian Runner - the Sean Penn homepage; for Guardian Unlimited interview with Penn, click here or for related books and films on Amazon, click here
THE PILLOW BOOK
Click title to watch the trailer for 'The Pillow Book' on the Peter Greenaway website; for a review of 'The Pillow Book' on the Austin Chronicle site, click here or for related books and films on Amazon, click here
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Click title for the Beethoven Immortal site, featuring a detailed biography of the composer; for the Beethoven Reference site, click here or to listen to sound clips of Beethoven sonatas on Amazon, click here
ERIK SATIE
Click title to visit the Erik Satie homepage; for a profile of Satie on the Australian Jazclass site, click here or to listen to sound clips of Satie's music on Amazon, click here
YUKIO MISHIMA
Click title for a chronological history of Mishima's life on the Yukio Mishima Cyber Museum site; for a fascinating collection of college students' essays on Mishima's works, click here or for books by Mishima on Amazon, click here
Click title to read latest news from The Pixies on the website of their record label, 4AD Records; for an archive of The Pixies lyrics, click here or for albums by The Pixies on Amazon, click here
WAYNE WANG
Click title to read an interview with Wang on the Onion AV Club site; for BBCi interview with Wang about his film, 'The Centre of the World,' click here or for Wayne Wang's films on DVD on Amazon, click here
PLATO
Click title to visit St Andrews University's study of Plato's life and works; for the 'Exploring Plato's Dialogues' website, click here or for works by Plato on Amazon, click here
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Click title to for full online texts of all Shakespeare's work; to visit Shakespeare.com and generate your own Shakespeare poetry with the Poetry Machine, click here or for works by Plato on Amazon, click here
Click title to read interview and excerpts from Mitchell's work on Random House Bold Type website; for a review of Mitchell's novel, 'Ghostwritten' on the Remote Induction site, click here or for books by Mitchell on Amazon, click here
VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS
STOP THE WAR COALITION
PETER READING
DAVID LYNCH
MIKE LEIGH
RAINER MARIA RILKE
NAN GOLDIN
RAYMOND CARVER
PETER COOK
JAMES JOYCE
EDDIE IZZARD
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
JULIETTE BINOCHE
PAUL BOWLES
KEN LOACH
JAWS
NEIL YOUNG
LIZ FINCH
BOB DYLAN
MARK EITZEL
TED HUGHES
RON SEXSMITH
DAVID GRAY
THE CLASH
FRANCIS BACON
JACKSON POLLACK
AC/DC
MILES DAVIS
MARK BROWN
A L KENNEDY
