Born in Durham, Ben Myers retired from conventional working life at the age
of 23. Since then he has existed solely by writing. Now 30, he is the author
of the novel 'The Book Of Fuck', several music biographies and one
collection of his journalism. He also lyricist/artist for The Gulag whose debut album is released next year, and his second novel, 'The Missing Kidney' will also be published in
2007 through Wrecking Ball Press. He currently lives in Peckham, London and also runs Captains Of Industry record label. He has no hobbies. No time.
Born in Durham, Ben Myers retired from conventional working life at the age
of 23. Since then he has existed solely by writing. Now 30, he is the author
of the novel 'The Book Of Fuck', several music biographies and one
collection of his journalism. He also lyricist/artist for The Gulag whose debut album is released next year, and his second novel, 'The Missing Kidney' will also be published in
2007 through Wrecking Ball Press. He currently lives in Peckham, London and also runs Captains Of Industry record label. He has no hobbies. No time.
BEN'S TOP 5 MODERN UNDERDOG HEROES:
RICHARD BRAUTIGAN
Brautigan's writing style was an epiphany. I recommend you carry one of his
books with you at all times - particularly 'Revenge Of The Lawn' or 'Trout
Fishing In America' He always reminds you never to take life too seriously.
Then he killed himself. Oh.
To visit The Brautigan Bibliography Plus+ website, click image; to read about Brautigan on the Literary Kicks website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here
MILLICAN DALTON
Also known as 'The Caveman Of Borrowdale', this Catweasel-like figure gave
up life in the city to live a life of freedom, walking, vegetarianism and an
appreciation of nature in the caves and woodlands of England - and became a
pioneer of climbing, philosophical freedom fighter and modern romantic along
the way.
For a profile of Dalton on Matthew Entwistle's website, click title; for the Dalton tribute site, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here
BILLY CHILDISH
Britain's greatest living combined painter, poet and publisher. He's
currently making a valid case for moustaches too.
To visit The Thee Billy Childish website, click image; for Childish's official website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here
TRACEY EMIN
Childish's ex and the other end of artistic spectrum commercially, though no less worthy. I think she's fun. I'd like to meet her. Plus, she's not Damien Hirst.
To read about Emin on the White Cube website, click image; for Emma Brockes 2004 interview with Emin on the Guardian Unlimited website, click here or for related items on Amazon, click here
KATE GILLHAM
Kat Gillham is a friend and contemporary of mine, a rock singer formerly
known as Stephen. In October 2006 she begins treatment to become a fully
fledged woman. Not an easy task living in a small Northern town. Her
ambition is to form an all-trans-sexual death metal band. I hope to make a
documentary about that, and the loss of her cock.
It�s strange and exciting that some of the best poetry and wordplay currently being created is not to be found in the pages of traditional poets or writers, but in the randomly generated unwanted SPAM messages that fill our e-mail �In� boxes daily.
Advertising viagra, penis extension programmes and all manner of other shady ventures, these e-mails are often crammed with poetry and prose that is wholly abstract, yet strangely effecting. What does it all mean, these post-Burroughs technologically-driven visions of the early twenty-first century? Who knows. Who compiles these little slices of nightmarish landscapes of conjoined adjectives and hybrid scenarios? Maybe we�ll never know � and that perhaps is the beauty of SPAM. It�s anonymous, disjointed, detached; the soul of the writer stripped away to leave only words to be unearthed like scriptures form the future.
In an attempt to make some sense or order of these cryptic daily missives I began to compile the best messages, occasionally doctoring them slightly to make them a little more readable, yet only spending only a matter minutes on each in order to retain their original feel. Each title comes from either the subject line of the original e-mail, or a particularly memorable line within it.
� Ben Myers
AUGUST NORMANDY
At the rising of the new moon
a one-legged mosquito
infects the neck-cracking Eskimo in
Panama reading a novel by fire kettle light.
Once he cracked Polish night club Passover bread
on Michaelmass Eve beneath
the timber roof of a ninth-born pauper
breeding needle bath greens
like a ninth-rate ox feather;
but now he�s a nerve-tingling overlap
a fault needle gathering night letters
- palm honeyed by the ocean�s compass
and as sour as a milk cart in August Normandy.
� Ben Myers
ALL YOUR CASH IS MUD LOST
the paper hunt chases
narrow-throated
palsy-struck
pack animals
their passion-kindled in
international oak beauties
an oblong-void
in the zealous party
an orange daisy
pressed in Sanskrit pages
offers a one-sidedness;
a wily net fixer newly-awakened
by the motorcade ballast
of the morning champion
returning in a pearl blue
paper-coated
musk bag
dripping mud pie
red eye
paracoto bark
more night-wandering in ninety-one,
once again out-of-print
open-aired and alcohol scented
a papyrus column
a paper clothed
and paint streaked
metric system
an oily organ desk
that�s nothing but a
multiple-toothed
one-hoofed
pale-livered
middle-witted
orderly officer
mew gull
� Ben Myers
YOUR HEALTH, THE MUSK BAG
your neighbours lost their alarm clock today
your neighbours lost that fat today.
many nice things suck
yet you inherited a small dick from your father
the fountain of sperm
one good turn
gets most of the blankets
but your muscles are nothing
if you can�t show them off
ever stop to think and forget to start again?
� Ben Myers
THROAT-SLITTING CASH
the lap ring troop leader is
too-aged for rod-polishing now
he�s thrice-sold the old
nickel gray back-spiker
to a trencherman philosopher
a steel merchant of the topmast shuttle shell
who first saw the sewer crow tread cradle steps in �88
- another animus injuriandi
for the witch that totes a broom
with an opium smoker�s pistol grip;
all pseudo impartiality sliced away
like fashion scissors through braid wool bonnets
discarded in Russo-Turkish snow.
� Ben Myers
EVERYBODY WINS!
state-pensioned
lilac-banded
iron-worded
buckle-beggared
ever-smiling
self-motivated
seven-figured
well-applied
with tooth and toil
and nail
he�s a high-towered miracle man
king of
the tourist-crammed
condominium colonies
a soot-colored
point scorer;
his aluminum family
pillow-shaped
and locked
bottle-tight.
� Ben Myers
CAN'T SLEEP?
Moon-mad noble-looking
one-eyed Italians in patent leather
nimbly side step with
mid-air thrusts.
Neck-deep
pearl-fishing night herons,
native millets with broken beaks
sing one-sided words
at multiple-speeds
yet perfectly poised
- neither dead nor
mud-splashed.
� Ben Myers
YOUR HEALTH VS OUTBOARD MOTOR
ocean-dried by a cypress palm
the sugared out guide
is night-enshrouded and
once removed by the old-line
nine-eyed, night-haired parochial
Owls, nebulous and newly framed
against ninety moon-white
naked-flowered morphine Mecca�s
open-hearted she shares
an oath on the stairs
to purgatory
to mis-eat like pale opal-tinted Mongols
neck rot naked
tailing molding edged passions
and breathing heavily
a non-Bolshevik
in the valley; his outline stitching
unravelling
forever
� Ben Myers
THEY
She's the apple of my eye
she's a mother hen
sturdy as an oak
in spaceship earth.
He�s as ugly as a mud fence
all washed up treat him like dirt,
put him in your pipe
and smoke him.
You�re both in hot water.
spring rain versus autumn gold
shall I compare thee to a summer's day
or the darkest winter dawn?
RICHARD BRAUTIGAN
TRACEY EMIN
