The house is slowly filling up with paper

The poet, the post-modernist, and the missing box of books.

The following is a copy of the fraudulent email sent by Christopher (Kit) Kelen to me and to the other seven poets that comprised the Flying Island poetry cohort of 2021. It’s dated February 18, 2022- only four days before the book was due to be launched at The Shop Gallery in Glebe. 

Dear all 

 

(a slightly embarrassing message to write)

... for the first time in the history of Flying Islands (and ASM) 

we are missing a box of books 

... approximately 100 copies of Alan Jefferies' new book  in the same breath 

are nowhere to be found

... so could I please ask you all to just check if they're unwittingly at the bottom of a box you took ... or in some other magical spot 

... just in case 

(yes, please check in a case)

it's a genuine mystery !

so any light cast thereon will be much appreciated 

no need to reply unless you have information leading to the retrieval of said pocket tomes 

best wishes to all 

from 

Christopher (Kit) Kelen, FRSN

Emeritus Professor of English

A mystery indeed?

You might have noticed the rather relaxed tone of the e-mail. Yeah, have a look but you won’t find anything. 

                     Embarrassing ain’t it, but yeah, shit happens. 

The reason they wouldn’t find the missing books is because the books weren’t missing, and the reason the books weren’t missing is because the books weren’t printed. So why would the publisher be sending poets off on a goose looking for books that don’t exist?

For that you’d need to go back a month to January 2022. 

The books are already at the printers; Flying Islands had been incorporated as a non-profit; a board appointed, a website created - distribution is assured (or so I thought). In the process of incorporation Kelen and his long-time personal accountant —now Flying Island Treasurer— John Burke hatched a new scheme; selling the PDF of our books through the FI website for the cost $5 with all proceeds going to Flying Islands.  

As a part of the current cohort I would have a choice of whether or not to participate; future participants wouldn’t have that choice. Predictably there was to be no paperwork, no contracts, no signed agreements - just a simple yes or no in an email. 

No discussion would be entered into.

From the beginning I thought it was lousy deal — not least because the cut for the author was zip. What was more concerning for me was the thought that anyone who bought the PDF could attach it to an email and forward it to everyone in their address book. Anyone who received it could do the same. 

If going with small press had any advantage at all it was being able to have more control over the way one’s work is handled and presented. Flying Islands wanted to take that control from me and was offering  nothing in return.

My book had taken me ten years plus to write and is dedicated to the memory of my late wife who passed suddenly and unexpectedly in 2011.  I had no intention of demeaning my work, my effort (or her memory) by agreeing to such unflattering terms. Kelen wanted a simple yes or no answer —he got it - NO.

(The “all for the poetry community” cover story was flimsy at best and later i was proven to be correct. Flying Islands is a poetry community in the same way the DPRK is a democratic community. Their real-world actual care and concern for their  so-called “poetry community” is sub-zero and their self-portrayal a grift at best )

I didn’t notice anything untoward at first. A friend tried to buy my book at the February 22 launch at The Shop Gallery in Glebe but couldn’t —no copies. 

Another person I know tried to order my book from the website but it showed “Out of Stock”. Weeks after the launch, how is that possible?

When i queried it with Kit he informed me that he had nothing to do with the site and someone else was looking after it. When i checked with another Board member i was told that Kelen and John Burke had taken control of the Website and everything went through them. Then i learnt what turned out to be a very significant piece of information —of the 8 Flying Island poets that year (2021) I was the only one that said NO to  selling the PDF .

By rights this information should have been kept private in confidence, instead Kelen was using it as an instrument to bludgeon me with. I was given a free choice, i exercised that choice and now i was being punished for my insolence.

For a Marxist ideologue like Kelen it was never about fairness or doing the right thing and everything about POWER - the wielding of it. In this situation I had none and Kelen was determined that I feel his superiority when all i wanted, like everyone else, was to have my work published and read.

I wrote to the Board setting out my concerns. Why was my book being treated differently from the other 7 books? Why was my book listed as out of stock while the other books are showing available? Why was my book not made available to buy at the launch and all other promotional events? Why were orders for my book being left unfilled? etc etc

As it turned out there were orders for my book waiting to be filled and a procedure was put in place so they could be . I was to receive order details, fill the orders from the stock i’d acquired before the launch, post them, keep details of postage costs receipts etc, and forward everything to John Burke (Flying Island Treasurer, KK’s long-time personal accountant, toad-faced ambulance chasing accountant tosser) and he would reimburse me.   All the above was carried out to the letter except for the bit about the reimbursement. 

I’m still waiting for an e-mal from John Burke after 5 years.

Subsequently i obtained a copy of the invoice from the printer and that confirmed what i had long suspected: the “missing box of books” was a mere figment of Kelen’s addled post-modern brain. There wasn’t any missing books because the books weren’t printed, but Kelen couldn't openly punish me for my wrong decision and hope to retain the confidence of the Board hence the ruse.

So anyway, why does any of this matter? Why not just agree to it and be done with it -                                                               

Because how we treat each other matters. 

Because POETRY should be fucking better than this! 

Because POETS should be better than this! 

Because people who pretend to respect your work enuf to publish it 

should be called to account when that work is ‘disappeared' 

Because Kelen whose whole swag rests on his grift of moral superiority should be exposed for the grubby operator that he truly is.

 

The ghost of Leonard Cohen

 “Ah but don't go home with your hard-on 

  it will only drive you insane” 

                               L.C. 

I saw the ghost of Leonard Cohen 

On stage the other night; 

the latter, hatted version 

gave me one hell of a fright 

His form was recognisable 

but his cheeks were hollowed out 

like he’d done a round or two 

wif the grim reaper, in a one-sided bout. 

His voice was reduced to a whisper 

as he leaned into the microphone 

and the audience leant in too 

until they caught a whiff of his stinky bones. 

His skin was thin as rice paper 

his range, totally shot — 

like an AI programmed hologram 

or a poorly assembled bot. 

The ghost of Leonard Cohen 

had seen better days, 

but for the punters who’d paid to see him 

it was pretty much all the same 

towards the end of his performance 

he took a seat on a raised platform

centre stage; 

crossed his legs, closed his eyes 

and appeared to disengage 

(had he truly died—

or simply transmogrified?)

Just like that, he was wheeled out

ready for the next late-night show 

on an anonymous stage somewhere 

god only knows — 

I swear I saw the ghost of Leonard Cohen 

bumming cigarettes at the bar 

whatever he went home with that night 

I can testify, was most definitely — 

hard. 

 ©️ alan w jefferies

“Thirty poems: 2022-2025”

Stance

 

When did I become him

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

    

When did I become him

when did I become that gormless twat
who walks up to complete strangers at the mall
and starts telling them their life story like they were a guest
on an episode of “This Is Your Life!”

who keeps talking long after the other party has stopped listening
or quite often, when they’ve totally walked away —
(left the state)
who has been left conversing with trees, butterflies, windscreen
wipers…

who yeah, nah, yeah, nah

can’t get to the point without taking a side road round the houses
and when he reaches the main fork forgets where he started
and why;

who falls in love with sales people
whose discount deals are like personal invitations to candle-lit dinners
who comes back again and again spending their hard-earned
just so someone, someone he deeply cares for, will speak to him
like his life meant something—
when in reality she couldn’t give two roots whether he lived or died.

who ran up on Gough Whitlam at the airport long after he left politics
assailing him with decades-old stories that made no sense to anyone
who wasn’t there;
poor old Gough just kept walking straight ahead —
purposely not averting his eyes like the Giant that he was;
being yapped at by an over-excited Chihuahua.

when did I become that plonker

somewhere between Steve Irwin in terms of enthusiasm
and a billy goat in terms of being able to appropriately read
the reactions of others.

who earned the nickname “the marijuana kid” by going down to the nearest
Queensland RSL and telling anyone who’d listen (including the local drug-squad
detectives) about his wild days smoking weed in the merchant navy
when in all likelihood it was a blunt or two at most.

who turns up to someone’s crib he met only once 12 years ago
with an overly-friendly “Remember me?!”
only to be told to fuck off or they’ll let loose their hounds!

whose solution to other people expressing opinions different from his own
is to up the volume and continue talking 

like an out-of-control steamroller.

so, yeah, nah, yeah nah

when did I become that guy?

who’s been left outside on a freezing night
after his girlfriend whose bed he was sharing
decided his best mate who was crashed on the couch
was a better prospect, or a better root,
or both;

who wears shorts, t-shirt and thongs all year round in all weather
even when it’s ten below and blowing a gale
just so someone more appropriately dressed might ask,
“Aren’t you cold?”

and he can rattle off the long convoluted story
about the time he climbed Mount Wellington outside Hobart
in a blizzard at night dressed only in garbage bags
(a story that anyone who has known him 

more than a week
has heard multiple times)

so yeah, nah, yeah
when did I become him —that absolute fucking 

gormless plonker;
my dad.

Close Encounters of the Poetic Kind: a collection of poetry by poets from Australia and New Zealand

 

                  Poems were translated into Bosnian and Turkish languages by Vesna Suljic 

                  and Hehtap Ozer Isovic. The volume was published by the University of Sarajevo.