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October
This is the second in the series of poetry collections that began with -September. Once again, adapting the Japanese tanka form, Quentin S. Crisp presents a poetic and aphoristic journal of season, mood, observation and introspection. Both a scrapbook of a writer's working process and a marshalling of new combinations of subject matter through an update of old forms, October is a further attempt by the author to close the gap between the time-taking, record-keeping distance of the written word and the immediacy of the living moment.
- GenresPoetry
45 pages, Paperback
First published March 20, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 6, 2017
Quentin S. Crisp is the man who started the Chomu Press, publishing fiction by contemporary authors. Wikipedia tells us “ Unlike the better-known personality of the same name, this Quentin Crisp was given the name at birth but, being younger, must use his middle initial to disambiguate. Originally from North Devon” England, “ He has a bachelor's degree in Japanese from the University of Durham, has spent two periods living in Japan and Japanese literature is a significant influence in his work."
Last year (May of 2016) Snuggly Books published the poetry book by Mr. S. Crisp titled “September” of which he is quoted as saying "In 2015, I decided that for the month of September, I would write, upon waking, at least one poem a day. In this way I have attempted to keep a diary of time, place, mind and their relations to each other.".
Now in a new year we are treated with more of Mr. Crisp’s thought poems titled “October”. Hopefully this is the beginning of an ongoing concern, after all there are ten months left ! Poetry has never been one of my top priorities in reading. It was given a chance to be appreciated and Mr. Crisp has earned a place of high regard, perhaps due to having read and immensely enjoyed of his previous prose.
“The Nightmare Exhibition”, BJM Press, 2001 (short stories)
“Morbid Tales”, Tartarus Press , 2004 (short stories)
“Rule Dementia”, Rainfall Books, 2005 (short stories)
“Shrike”, PS Publishing , 2009 (novella)
"Remember You're a One-Ball!", Chomu Press, 2010 (novel)
“All God's Angels, Beware!”, Ex Occidente Press 2009; republished by Chomu Press in 2012 (short stories)
“Defeated Dogs”, Eibonvale Press, 2013 (short stories)
“The Cutest Girl in Class”, Snuggly Books, 2013 (a novel co-written with authors Justin Isis and Brendan Connell)
“The Boy Who Played with Shadows”, L'Homme Récent , 2015 (memoir; limited to 85 copies)
Last year (May of 2016) Snuggly Books published the poetry book by Mr. S. Crisp titled “September” of which he is quoted as saying "In 2015, I decided that for the month of September, I would write, upon waking, at least one poem a day. In this way I have attempted to keep a diary of time, place, mind and their relations to each other.".
Now in a new year we are treated with more of Mr. Crisp’s thought poems titled “October”. Hopefully this is the beginning of an ongoing concern, after all there are ten months left ! Poetry has never been one of my top priorities in reading. It was given a chance to be appreciated and Mr. Crisp has earned a place of high regard, perhaps due to having read and immensely enjoyed of his previous prose.
“The Nightmare Exhibition”, BJM Press, 2001 (short stories)
“Morbid Tales”, Tartarus Press , 2004 (short stories)
“Rule Dementia”, Rainfall Books, 2005 (short stories)
“Shrike”, PS Publishing , 2009 (novella)
"Remember You're a One-Ball!", Chomu Press, 2010 (novel)
“All God's Angels, Beware!”, Ex Occidente Press 2009; republished by Chomu Press in 2012 (short stories)
“Defeated Dogs”, Eibonvale Press, 2013 (short stories)
“The Cutest Girl in Class”, Snuggly Books, 2013 (a novel co-written with authors Justin Isis and Brendan Connell)
“The Boy Who Played with Shadows”, L'Homme Récent , 2015 (memoir; limited to 85 copies)
April 19, 2017
A Dull Afternoon in a World of IQ Dunces and The Death Penalty
October is the new poetry collection by the man who I am unashamed to say is my favorite living writer...I pretty much live to read what he has written and has yet to write...
so, in other words I'm an unabashed (and incorrigible) fanboy...you would be one too, if you read Morbid Tales, Remember You're a One-Ball!, Shrike, Defeated Dogs, All Gods Angels: Beware!, or etc.
Who else has so many exclamations in their book titles?
Quentin S. Crisp is a writer who distrusts--like many of us, if we are honest, those who possess that "passionate intensity" which may or may not be the mark of Satan, that the "conspiracy against the human race" is down to us all, that we are all complicit in it, though not in the abstract but individually, who recognizes that we have the power and potential to dismantle the machine and switch off...or at the very least reduce our spiritually debilitating dependency upon it---a writer who wants to evoke a magical universe and bring faeries again forth into the world, more than children. He is a writer I feel the writing of on a deep level and to me, on an intuitive--almost telepathic level--I understand...I can see the rain on the drainpipe, I understand the coldness of a weekday floor, a dull afternoon in the world of IQ dunces and the death penalty...
I pray for a November 2016 collection, because if these books, September and October, are any indication Quentin S. Crisp has all the makings of a great poet in addition to his genius level bonifides as a master of the short story.
Here are some hints of the quiet power in this slim volume:
From "Tuesday 25th"
"The thing I hate most
About people is they want
You to say, "I'm good,"
Before they'll believe that you're
Good. Naive, mistrustful fools.
Tree trunks at night curve
Solid with shadow and cars'
Fearful headlights, like
Waking up from a nightmare
To life, not sure you're awake."
Simple and profound on every page a rallying cry to live, while also a wrestling with the resignation towards the inevitability of death.
From Tuesday, 27th
Sustainable? For
How long? Not even the sun
Is sustainable.
All you have to do is live
And die. And now, October.
...Oh, in death I am broken
From Monday, 10th
There is no use for
Colour in a universe
Of good, evil and
Salvation.
...Only to
See everything, real, unique
No amount of gushing or excerpts can do this book, or any of QSC's books, justice;
go out and find out for yourselves...may/my god
have mercy upon your souls!
October is "Snuggly Slim" number 9.
October is the new poetry collection by the man who I am unashamed to say is my favorite living writer...I pretty much live to read what he has written and has yet to write...
so, in other words I'm an unabashed (and incorrigible) fanboy...you would be one too, if you read Morbid Tales, Remember You're a One-Ball!, Shrike, Defeated Dogs, All Gods Angels: Beware!, or etc.
Who else has so many exclamations in their book titles?
Quentin S. Crisp is a writer who distrusts--like many of us, if we are honest, those who possess that "passionate intensity" which may or may not be the mark of Satan, that the "conspiracy against the human race" is down to us all, that we are all complicit in it, though not in the abstract but individually, who recognizes that we have the power and potential to dismantle the machine and switch off...or at the very least reduce our spiritually debilitating dependency upon it---a writer who wants to evoke a magical universe and bring faeries again forth into the world, more than children. He is a writer I feel the writing of on a deep level and to me, on an intuitive--almost telepathic level--I understand...I can see the rain on the drainpipe, I understand the coldness of a weekday floor, a dull afternoon in the world of IQ dunces and the death penalty...
I pray for a November 2016 collection, because if these books, September and October, are any indication Quentin S. Crisp has all the makings of a great poet in addition to his genius level bonifides as a master of the short story.
Here are some hints of the quiet power in this slim volume:
From "Tuesday 25th"
"The thing I hate most
About people is they want
You to say, "I'm good,"
Before they'll believe that you're
Good. Naive, mistrustful fools.
Tree trunks at night curve
Solid with shadow and cars'
Fearful headlights, like
Waking up from a nightmare
To life, not sure you're awake."
Simple and profound on every page a rallying cry to live, while also a wrestling with the resignation towards the inevitability of death.
From Tuesday, 27th
Sustainable? For
How long? Not even the sun
Is sustainable.
All you have to do is live
And die. And now, October.
...Oh, in death I am broken
From Monday, 10th
There is no use for
Colour in a universe
Of good, evil and
Salvation.
...Only to
See everything, real, unique
No amount of gushing or excerpts can do this book, or any of QSC's books, justice;
go out and find out for yourselves...may/my god
have mercy upon your souls!
October is "Snuggly Slim" number 9.
December 3, 2018
I’m not going to go into every poem in Quentin S Crisp’s October but the first amuses with the last sentence. He’s life and he’s hungover. It’d be amusing if he only meant from drinking. More interesting is the exclusivity of life. In the third and fourth poems he would exclude time.
On the second day he has the sense of more bad things than good and wonders why then we go on. The alternative would be for ‘us’ to admit defeat if we shared the poet’s apprehension from the use of the word, ‘things’, of an impinging world. Not necessarily: in the third poem he feels (presumably, self)admiration when he does a hurtful thing, as if that’s bad, of him, but people are easily hurt and their feelings are not a moral criterion in themselves. The fourth poem took a little working out from the last question, ‘who mine?’ which I take to mean, since success steals freedom, and he’s not successful, who reads his lament his freedom’s stolen. In the fifth perceived lack of success acts as a goad.
In the fifth of the third day I assume ‘dual’s out’ means ‘both and’ is, and that ‘either/or’ or ‘duel’s’ in.
First of fourth he thinks our mortality comes between us and life and not that it gives it edge. Second he sees hell no one believes in, like a splinter emerging from his soul. Where else?
Who starches their socks! but what elicits exclamation is a tingle of life’s untold goodness - coming from him! Fifth of sixth: ‘how long will they allow such things to exist?’ Who’s ‘they’? A small bookshop won’t exist commercially if we don’t buy books from it. ‘They’ is us.
What convinced me he’s a poet is third poem, page eleven, in which he’s spiralling down the stairs from work and life to this work and death. See if you agree. If you do you don’t have to agree with this poetic thesis to read him. I don’t and I do. I should end there.
That he thinks he’s being asked to stop a future end, let us postulate by global warming, seems delusional. That we should live to heal the earth we’ve sacked less so though one of us be Trump. We can’t replay our lives, he says. Not all but I have replayed bits of mine. He despairs of the worth of his life’s work or his life. Since not himself, what would put value on it? Chances are he will be afraid just before dying but he won’t be there afterwards to deny he was; it’s an experience not subsequently understood. I like the pigeon unsure if it should get off the tube at that stop; and laughed at his breaking his umbrella in impotent rage at a splashing driver. He thinks it’s scientists who’re fucking up the world. His wish for fame’s receding. He must’ve taken a look at who want to be famous and, worse, who’ve succeeded. I’m glad he’s crooked, merry and mad, after straining to conform, and that the film of his life is as sizzling as frying mushrooms. He has two poems repetitive but not quite about what’s unreal though everything, if god’s a reality. My god is. I’m not sure who he thinks his is is. I’m being polite. I like: his tingle of unease in the morning at facing the rest of his life, while deploring the attitude; his little-read page; and his want for stability from life’s flux. In conclusion he keeps his distance.
On the second day he has the sense of more bad things than good and wonders why then we go on. The alternative would be for ‘us’ to admit defeat if we shared the poet’s apprehension from the use of the word, ‘things’, of an impinging world. Not necessarily: in the third poem he feels (presumably, self)admiration when he does a hurtful thing, as if that’s bad, of him, but people are easily hurt and their feelings are not a moral criterion in themselves. The fourth poem took a little working out from the last question, ‘who mine?’ which I take to mean, since success steals freedom, and he’s not successful, who reads his lament his freedom’s stolen. In the fifth perceived lack of success acts as a goad.
In the fifth of the third day I assume ‘dual’s out’ means ‘both and’ is, and that ‘either/or’ or ‘duel’s’ in.
First of fourth he thinks our mortality comes between us and life and not that it gives it edge. Second he sees hell no one believes in, like a splinter emerging from his soul. Where else?
Who starches their socks! but what elicits exclamation is a tingle of life’s untold goodness - coming from him! Fifth of sixth: ‘how long will they allow such things to exist?’ Who’s ‘they’? A small bookshop won’t exist commercially if we don’t buy books from it. ‘They’ is us.
What convinced me he’s a poet is third poem, page eleven, in which he’s spiralling down the stairs from work and life to this work and death. See if you agree. If you do you don’t have to agree with this poetic thesis to read him. I don’t and I do. I should end there.
That he thinks he’s being asked to stop a future end, let us postulate by global warming, seems delusional. That we should live to heal the earth we’ve sacked less so though one of us be Trump. We can’t replay our lives, he says. Not all but I have replayed bits of mine. He despairs of the worth of his life’s work or his life. Since not himself, what would put value on it? Chances are he will be afraid just before dying but he won’t be there afterwards to deny he was; it’s an experience not subsequently understood. I like the pigeon unsure if it should get off the tube at that stop; and laughed at his breaking his umbrella in impotent rage at a splashing driver. He thinks it’s scientists who’re fucking up the world. His wish for fame’s receding. He must’ve taken a look at who want to be famous and, worse, who’ve succeeded. I’m glad he’s crooked, merry and mad, after straining to conform, and that the film of his life is as sizzling as frying mushrooms. He has two poems repetitive but not quite about what’s unreal though everything, if god’s a reality. My god is. I’m not sure who he thinks his is is. I’m being polite. I like: his tingle of unease in the morning at facing the rest of his life, while deploring the attitude; his little-read page; and his want for stability from life’s flux. In conclusion he keeps his distance.
January 26, 2021
“But then, Lewis seemed to know
Of it;”
I have read all these quintains in one sitting, making up variously sized spaced-between poems. I did not understand them all. But many added to my wisdom by a new perception, and I recall the Suggs quintain particularly in this regard. Anselm, Plotinus, Lewis of Narnia, Chômu, Facebook, ordinary and rarefied things in cruxial enjambment.
But the greatest sense of satisfaction was allowing my sump to fill further with a growing gestalt (if that is not a contradiction in terms) of this great fictioneer and what he has decided to devote to public paper-printed text.
The first four lines of just one of the many quintains below. You will need to buy the book to see what the fifth line says. I found it significant.
“I fictionalise.
For me, it’s fundamental.
What if fiction were
Removed from the human brain?”
Of it;”
I have read all these quintains in one sitting, making up variously sized spaced-between poems. I did not understand them all. But many added to my wisdom by a new perception, and I recall the Suggs quintain particularly in this regard. Anselm, Plotinus, Lewis of Narnia, Chômu, Facebook, ordinary and rarefied things in cruxial enjambment.
But the greatest sense of satisfaction was allowing my sump to fill further with a growing gestalt (if that is not a contradiction in terms) of this great fictioneer and what he has decided to devote to public paper-printed text.
The first four lines of just one of the many quintains below. You will need to buy the book to see what the fifth line says. I found it significant.
“I fictionalise.
For me, it’s fundamental.
What if fiction were
Removed from the human brain?”
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