Category Archives: LeftLion

LeftLion 49

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LeftLion 49 is out and it’s a right whopper, weighing in at a gigantic 56 pages. And before you start, there’s only 15 pages of adverts. That means 41 pages completely devoted to Nottingham culture. I dedicated the WriteLion page to Black History Month and ran with an interview with Kerry Young, whose debut novel Pao was nominated for the Costa as well as the East Midlands Book Award and examines the changing fortunes of Jamaica, which celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence this year. Kerry is yet another success from the NTU MA in Creative Writing which just goes to prove getting in debt can pay off now and then.

I ran with three mini features at the bottom of the page celebrating Black History Month. These were I is AnOther, an exhibition celebrating Jamaican identity at the New Art Exchange which takes its name from an Arthur Rimbaud poem; Mouthy Poets, an open collective of young people whose  latest production ‘Black T-Shirt Collection’ will be performed at the Playhouse on 9/10 November; Blackdrop who were celebrating their ninth birthday by returning back to their roots at the Canal House. It’s not really LeftLion style to be explicit or ‘right on’ with issues but I do think we should do more to support Black History Month.

Our illustrated poem was about Rosa Parks and written by Alex MotaMouf Young who I commissioned to rap about finding solitude in the digital age for The Space. We also included an interview with Andrew ‘MulletProofPoet’ Graves who was also commissioned for the Sillitoe Trail project on The Space. Andrew recently had his first poetry collection Citizen Kaned published by Crystal Creators and will also be hosting Sillitoe Evening at the Nottingham Contemporary on 27 October which will include music from Gaffa and Sleaford Mods. The fabulous photograph was taken by David Sillitoe.

Our Notts metro map went down a treat and is another example of something that should be pushed further through merchandising but sadly nothing will come of this because it never does. Maybe there’s a savvy business graduate out there who could get in contact and help us develop our somewhat stagnated business model. And don’t even get me started on the fact that we don’t have an App for the mag…

I had the privilege of interviewing Jon Ronson who is a big hero of mine. I met him at No Direction Home Festival in June and then arranged a phone interview. Jon is a genuinely lovely person and when I called him in September at his home in New York (80p per minute from a mobile or 8p per minute if you pay £2.80 for a phone deal in advance) he put me completely at rest. Given the topics he writes about it was a pretty easy interview as I was spoilt for choice. I was disappointed that there was only 100 or so people for his talk at the Broadway Cinema on 4 October which I think was down to the following reasons: It clashed with Goose Fair, it was at an odd time at 6pm and it wasn’t marketed very well (probably because sponsors Waterstones have just changed managers). Afterwards, Jon stayed behind signing copies of his books and insisting on having at least a five minute natter with everyone he met. If only all writers were as lovely. He absolutely loved the illustration and so I’m dedicating this issue to those people who make the magazine beautiful. Illustration wise it’s Adam Poole, Steve Larder and the one and only Rikki Marr, official Secret Wars champion of Britain, and of course our photoshop Jedi and designer, Becca Hibberd.

I is AnOther

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By Étienne Carjat – Close-up from Arthur Rimbaud [1872] – foto de Étienne Carjat, Public Domain. At wikipedia.

Arthur Rimbaud became one of the most destructive and liberating influences on twentieth-century culture with an experimental form of poetry he described as “verbal alchemy”. For a brief, five-year period he became the ‘enfant terrible’ of French literature, whose rebellious and unconventional lifestyle made Lord Byron look like Pam Ayres in comparison. He quit poetry to travel thirteen different countries where he experienced life in a diverse range of roles that included; gun-runner, Muslim prophet, sailor, student revolutionary, and gay pioneer. He has since been described as “the first poet of a civilisation not yet born”.

I found the above image of Rimbaud disguised as Adam Ant on the aptly named website I am God by illustrator Roberta Marrero, which just goes to show that even though he passed away 121 years ago (10 November) he’s still reinventing himself and living as a seer, as outlined below in Lettre du voyant (“Letter of the Seer”).

“I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, and keeps only their quintessences. This is an unspeakable torture during which he needs all his faith and superhuman strength, and during which he becomes the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed – and the great learned one! – among men. – For he arrives at the unknown! Because he has cultivated his own soul – which was rich to begin with – more than any other man! He reaches the unknown; and even if, crazed, he ends up by losing the understanding of his visions, at least he has seen them! Let him die charging through those unutterable, unnameable things: other horrible workers will come; they will begin from the horizons where he has succumbed!”

Taken from the NAE exhibition

Given such an impressive and exciting philosophy and CV, it’s an absolute delight to report that the latest exhibition at the New Art Exchange takes its title from a phrase penned by Rimbaud in 1870. ‘I is AnOther’ captures the artistic angst and inner conflict between perceived and true identity and is perfect for an exhibition exploring the rich diversity of Jamaican identity. For too long Jamaica has been defined in terms of its colonial past or as the small island in the shadow of the U.S of A. Here, voice is given to Caribbean diaspora through sculpture, film, photography, painting and a series of symposiums, readings and performances that will hopefully go some way to smashing cultural stereotypes and simplistic thinking. The exhibition is the perfect way to celebrate Black History Month which runs throughout October.

Friday 28 September  – 8 December. New Art Exchange, 39-41 Gregory Boulevard, Nottingham NG7 6BE nae.org.uk

This preview was featured in LeftLion Iss:49 out now. If you want to know more about the life of Rimbaud, try Graham Robb’s superb biography.