Interview with Dave Lordan

I’ve wanted to interview more poets for the blog and Dave Lordan was top of that list for ages. Whether it’s hearing Death or 20p for the first time online, reading and reviewing his new collection Invitation to a Sacrifice, or simply witnessing him explode on stage with his wild, provocative, cool, ear-burstingly loud, performances, I’ve always been impressed by him. He can write, he can perform, but more importantly he is whole-heartedly in pursuit of his art. Ladies and Gentlemen, without further kajagoogoo. I give you Dave Lordan.. well, my interview with him anyway.

Colm: So first off - that ol chestnut, the lazy interviewers favourite. Dave Lordan, tell me a bit about yourself, where you are creatively and how you found and find yourself there.

Dave: I was born and I am going to die. I am mortal. That's the main thing, I think. Everything sort of follows on from that.

Colm: Mortality. You like a bit of the ol death don't you? You seemed preoccupied with it as a theme when reviewing Theo Dorgan’s book, and the abyss is never too far away, tis like you see a hole a hole, a whirling hole, wherever you look. Do you think that for artists Mortality is a starting point?

Dave: in that I have always felt a pressure to do, to act, to achieve, to express, to rack up experiences in particular, never to rest. That can only stem from a deep-rooted awareness/pressure of mortality. The void inspires. I don't know the work of every artist or writer so don't want to generalise. But mortality, decay, the brevity and laughable futility of individual existence- it's no secret these are concerns of many.

Colm: true - it seems sometimes that a lot of problems in life stem from a lack of awareness of mortality. Do you feel the pressure to act in other areas of your life too or has the pressure kind of 'settled' into the realm of creativity.

Dave: lack of awareness of mortality, or defiance of mortality, presents itself in the illusion of invincibility or immortality, which you will get on certain drugs, particularly alcohol, and all religions, including poetry with its obsession with tradition, so called ‘craft’ and, the greatest illusion of all: ‘posterity’. There is a certain sense in which poets who write to tradition are attempting a charm against dissapearance and death, which is a laughably witless endeavour for such normally intelligent people.

On action- I feel a pressure to act many areas. Economically I have to secure the food supply, keep a roof over my head and all that. Which may be a stark way to put but that is the way it is heading. Politically I wish to act, where I can, to stand against inequality, oppression, injustice. That has always been part of my life. In terms of creative pressure, you write the next piece because you aren't happy with, or are bored, or have just forgotten the buzz of writing the last one. The buzz of writing, and the buzz of performing- two things which can only be experienced by a living mortal engaged in a creative act, that’s what I am in it for. I am a writing/performing addict. I do it for the hit. Everything else involved with writing aside from the living buzz of it is bullshit, by-product, side-effect.

Colm: You were politically active in your younger years, I find this very interesting and admirable, would you like to share some of the experiences from back then.

Dave: I have been involved in left wing activism from about 15 on, at varying degrees of intensity. There has always been something to fight for. I have been on countless picket lines, demos, sit-ins and so on. But the biggest and, I suppose, most interesting and inspiring were the anti-capitalist protests in Prague, Genoa and Florence, and of course the mass anti-war protests here in 2003 2004. All of these protest movements, like others before them, fell back from their peak, but not without leaving their mark. I hope we are on the verge of another outbreak of mass protest at the moment. It is the only thing that will save us, it is the only thing that can reverse the trend towards greater and greater social injustice. That is why the ruling class in this country, from IBEC to Joe Duffy are so hysterical about it and why the robopigs are sent out at the first sign of it to crack heads.

Colm: We most definitely seem to be reaching a point where resistance is increasingly necessary. What would you say to someone who wouldn't trust any politician though?

Dave: Get up off your arse and do something about it yourself. Survival of anything resembling a beautiful life in the next century depends upon everyone becoming political, everyone getting more active and representing themselves.

Colm: Like Jello Biafra says (I’m paraphrasing here) ‘Don’t hate the System, be/replace the system’. I doubt you were surprised by the riot police’s reaction to the student occupation of the Dept. of Finance building, were you?

Dave: I don’t believe that humans are collectively incapable of coming up with workable alternatives to the continuous catastrophe called capitalism. That is a council of despair. I think there is no shortage of options for what we can do if we all put our shoulder to the wheel.

Colm: We most definitely need change that's for sure. Well the poor do.

Dave: And no I was not suprised. I think, as Gene Kerrigan and others have said this was a live training excercise, a sort of muscle stretcher for the riot squad, to test out their new gear and all that, and, crucially to warn us all of the consequences of taking a stand.

Colm: yep - and the line about militants seems very convenient, an easy way to minimise the reaction.

Dave: the whole thing was rolled out like everyone already knew the script in advance. Every time the police riot anywhere the people they kick the shit out of get the blame. There was also a serious attempt, as there always is in situations of rising social tension, to dehumanise the militants. In the long run that softens the public up for prison camps and summary execution. It’s saying as long as someone is a socialist or an anarchist or a left republican it’s ok to kill them. But let's remember what a militant is - a militant is someone who believes in people power, and tries to organise people to defend themselves against the attacks of the ruling class, which are constant. Without militants and miltancy we are entirely defenseless and on the way to sheephood and slavery.

Colm: What would you say to a young person who is planning on being a member of say, Fine Gael or Fianna Fail instead of a more liberal political party? It always surprises and amuses me that people so young could rush to be part of the conservative establishment. I’m being a bit unfair there but I hope you know what I mean. There’s probably an attraction based around the understanding that the only surviving systems are self protecting systems.

Dave: I wouldn't know what to say to them to be honest. You are right though, the only surviving entities are those which are capable of standing up for themselves. History is, in part, a map of dead people’s who didn’t resist. Which is why resistance is urgent.

Colm: You posted a poem online recently which explores the same topics we’re discussing. It was called ‘The Moves’. You posted it a few times as you rewrote it. It started as a very terse piece and became more elaborate. Why did you expand it in that way? Did you think that it was missing something before?

Dave: I nearly always expand. Some poets go for brevity. I go for expansion. Also, it was missing vim and invention.

Colm: Interesting, because sometimes, in flatter poems, it seems one can read a lot into them but when you actually pin down the vague concepts that lurk beneath the original lines as you have done with The Moves, you give the reader no room to maneuver in a way – which grabs hold of the reader more, and in certain cases, leaves the reader a little punch drunk.

Note: (we where only taking about the earliest versions here – Dave subsequently edited further, and the version I said I preferred no longer exists. I have however, pasted two versions in below so you can see what we were on about)

Dave: Well when i write I am trying to get the most possible out of a concept or a run of images, or a particular set of sounds, what I call a soundscape. And when I perform I do intend to effect people in a serious way, to stun and knock them out of ordinary living, ordinary perception.

Colm: Why? Why fucking bother like..

Dave: Because I believe that art, and the art of performance in particular, can be a sacred and a transformative experience for performer and audience. It can reveal that we have different powers, different and better levels of existence and perception than the ones we are trapped in by repressive routine and convention. For me a performance or artistic space isn't a place to relax or be entertained, but somewhere to be opened up to the possible, the marvellous. 'Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous' - Anais Nin

Colm: I love that. I always think, that in the most inspiring performers, there is something shamanic going on, that we're transcending the ordinary. It's not a thing that can be done on demand either, or is it? Like, we've spoken before of pieces losing their power through repetition.

Where did this understanding originate for you?

Dave: Well I think the best, most ambtitious performance poets, the ones most aware of their own powers and of the possibilities of the genre will try for transcendence no matter what the circumstances. But numerous factors contribute to the show coming together on the night- the venue, the lighting, the sound system, the size and make up and openness of the audience. All that. For me, for example, hearing Abby Oliveira's new work at the All-Ireland slam last week was an incredibly inspiring experience. I think everybody there felt there was something special going on, something beyond the merely comical and, and to quote you, something shamanic. We were being inspired. In the sense that the creative life-affirming energy of another person was flowing over into us and strengthening all of us, awakening our own powers of expression and vision. This is what Blake means when he talks about the road of excess leading to the palace of wisdom (or vision) Excess is a flowing over of the self into the other in the creative act. In our case the act of performance.

On the second matter, pieces obviously lose their potency if they are overused, not least because the performer becomes bored by them and any audience, even your granny, can tell when you are bored of your own work.

When did I become aware of the power of performance? I think when I heard the Sex Pistols on my walk man at the age of 13. I knew had found my path.

Colm. Yeah Abby was brilliant on the day. I remember hearing her down at Electric Picnic. She really stood out then too. Speaking of good poets. Who are your favourites? Living or dead. Performers or otherwise.

Dave: I have lots. Like everybody. The book of revelations. Erich Fried. Aharon Shabtai. Rumi. Milton. Shakespeare. Blake. Shelley. Whitman. Plath. GInsberg. Pat Ingoldsby. Kenneth Rexroth. Bukowski. Many others. There's loads of contempoary performers that I like, but most of all I like the fact of the scene, the fellowship of it, the variety of it, the autonomy of it, the experimental open-mindedness of it.

Colm: Yeah, it's a great positive scene, long may it stay like that. Would you ever be interested in starting up a night yourself?

Dave: in the process of getting one started in Greystone's. You will be the first to know.

Colm: That's cool, and a little surprising to me. I was thinking you were going down the 'i don't want to organise nothing’, lone wolf route. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Some people prefer not to compromise their focus on writing which is ok too. Why have you decided to set one up, is this a recent decision or has it been a desire for a while? I've always considered you as one of those incredibly focused poets.

Dave: No, not at all. I am a great admirer of the likes of Kevin Higgins, Gordon Hewitt, Stephen James Smith and Paul O Casey, for example. In fact I think the likes of them should be getting a lot more support from funding bodies then they are getting. The likes of them are the only people keeping up and building an audience for live poetry in this country. Without instigators and organisers nothing happens. I have been involved in running nights and events of all sorts down the years. Now space is opening up in my life to do that again. It's also about giving something back to my primary community. I have been hosted and treated very well over the years by a lot of people on the scene. I am very focused on producing work though yes - but involvement with the scene and organising is also a way of learning and of being inspired as we have already said.

Colm: Cool - It was just an assumption I had made, and you and I haven't really discussed it before now. I’ve a few more questions. Are you working on a new collection or is it just that you're always writing? Can you remember your first poem?

And finally, I said this before, The Boy in the Ring, the particular poem, seems to me sometimes the kernel from which all your other work explodes. It’s an incredible poem. One of my favourite poems of all time. Was that you in the ring?

Dave: I am working on a pamphlet which may turn into a collection, called, provisionally, Pretending to be Taoiseach(and other treasonous failures). Kit Fryatt at Wurm Press is going to put it out in the Spring, all going well. I am not always writing. Sometimes I concentrate on performing and learning off for performance. Sometimes I concentrate on reading or reviewing. I am very rarely mentally idle though, that is true.

That was me in the Ring. I was severely bullied as a young boy. I was surrounded by small and big bullies. Writing for me is a way of resisting, surviving, calling to account, but also hexing, taking revenge and going on the offensive. I think that is out of step with the prim pretentious world where a lot of poetry hides out, and my work can get some strong reactions as a result- in recent reviews I've been labelled 'profane', a 'dadaist' an 'anarchist', even an 'anti-poet'. These are fairly uncommon jibes in poetry reviews as far as I am aware, at least in ANGLOLAND, and I find them complimentary and encouraging despite perhaps pejorative intent.

Colm: Wherever it is that your work originates from, I think it’s coming from the same place from where all the best writing, poetry, prose, whatever, that I’ve ever read originates. From that iconoclastic, empathic place in us all that spots what’s wrong in the world and reacts to it with rage and love. Profane or not I'm looking forward to more. Fuck the critics.

Dave: Thanks Colm. I don't believe there can be any true compassion without anger. Rage, in our days of ever-deepening injustice and of intellectual quietism and convention, is, for me, the highest, perhaps even the only true form that love can take.

And that's that. Dave Lordan will be performing at Nighthawks at the Cobalt Cafe North Great Georges Street this Saturday - doors open 7.45

Dave's new open mic will be in:

Hotspot Cafe in Greystones

MCed by Dave Lordan

featuring Colm Keegan as guest. (woohoo!)

Friday 26th November,

9pm

musicians and all sorts of spoken word artists welcome.

3/5 euro in.




Some links below.....

Dave performing the poem Fearless at the legendary Brown Bread Mix-tape
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MoubIV_c4c

Audio and poems from The boy in the Ring
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=58&a=58

Video and poems from Invitation to a Sacrifice
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=203&a=58

The performance poet Dave praised is Abby Oliveira from Derry's Poetry Chics
http://www.myspace.com/poetrychicks

The Moves (Austerity Version)

Dave Lordan


Pawn to the scrap

to the car boot

to earwigs, moonheat

to nearly invisible dot

to narcotic IKEA

to teeth-grind and porntube

to greener shitholes

to mercenary planet

to realpolitik.

to pawnbroker

to hold-up

to chewing the the butt

to grimy shackles

to blackout phase

to Jail


to convenient cliff.


Rook to ruin

Bishop to Rome

Bishop to small boy

Rook to stately home


rook ruin boy rome

bishop small stately ruin

rook small bishop ruin

boy ruin stately rome


Knight to Commission.

Knight to mission.

Knight to command.

Knight to suck oil land


Queen to MTV.

Queen to globe-spanning charity.

Queen to the Chick-lit industry.

Queen to Saatchi


King of cuts, dons, traitors, bondholders, Lears, bouncers, studs, pharma futures, commercial crushers, news of the ghosts, linear graveyards, possessed estates, crowd madness, historical hordes


King of taxes, charges, prices, rates

survey the empty boards

command to form exactly as before.


though a pawn or two may missing or added

the bishop a mata-hari

the rook a commissioner

the knight in a T32 instead of a horse


and now the trumpets blast from very far above

and something dark and massive squatting

fart commands:


Recommence the Sport!


And the billion voiceless voices from the faces with no faces for four zero year, black and white calendar


for borders indivisible and impossible to cross,


for eternal, irrevocable, ridiculous bloody orders.



The Moves (expanded)

Dave Lordan

Pawn to the scrap-heap, dole-queue, health-board, free-cheese-line, FAS, or son-of-FAS.

Pawn to LIDL, ALDI, the 3 for 2 euro-shop, to car-boot and mission sales, to second-hand, to shoplift, to panhandle, to penny-pinch, to grow-your-own, to knit and stitch, to juggle, to haggle, to duck and dive, con, evade, plámás.

Pawn to be heaved from warm electric living into freezing pestridden bedsit, then a tent with moonheat and earwigs, then to watch the stars blink out, galaxies extinguished in the gutter.

Pawn to goof and shake and space all nightday, all daynight upon the Liffey Boardwalk, that narcotic IKEA, world’s numero uno inner-city-oblivion-superstore.

Pawn to insomnia and teeth-grind and night-sweats and so many stiff-backed hours on porntube and the Ryanair website.

Pawn to get the fuck out to whatever greener shithole’s got the least expensive flight.

Pawn to train for any mercenary army in the world, take your bleedin’ pick.

Pawn to know that exploitation’s stage-names are We’re-in-this-together andrealpolitik.

Pawn to cadge off parents, grandparents, uncles, in-laws, old friends, new friends, MABS, moneylenders, pawnbrokers, SVP.

Pawn to plan a hold-up but fuck it up, throw in the towel and get out of his fucking tree.

Pawn to appear as a nearly invisible dot on a maths-paper graph in a financial report.

Pawn to bounce along and break his ribs in a Paddywagon, to get a secret underground legal hammering in the Bridewell, to be led up the ancient grimy steps in shackles to the district court.

Pawn to can’t remember, truly deeply sorry yer honour, not like me atall and can’t afford the bail.

Pawn to crowded cell of moaning junky cannibals in the depths of Mountjoy Jail.

Pawn on desperation's floor, chewing the lino, trying to find the butt of a spliff.

Pawn to nearest convenient cliff.


Rook to ruin

Bishop to Rome

Bishop to small boy

Rook to stately home


rook ruin boy rome

bishop small stately ruin

rook small bishop ruin

boy ruin stately rome


Knight to the Imperial Franco-German Commission.

Knight to all-perversions-paid-for far-eastern trade mission.

Knight to intern at NATO global command.

Knight to suck oil from the sea and blood from the land


Queen to present a late-night shitehawk show for MTV.

Queen to be ambassador for a slick, globe-spanning charity.

Queen to HELLO, VIP, and the Chick-lit industry.

Queen to play for both Abromovitch and Saatchi


King of cutbacks and bail-outs and NAMA’s.

King of democratically elected Mafia’s.

King of traitorous Union bureaucrats.

King of PPPs and Public Contracts.

King of bonds and chains and Public Debt.

King of Lears and of Government Jets.

King of ex-INLA bouncers, ex-GARDA Concert Security.

King of Bookies, Stud-farms, Lap-Dancing Clubs, Casinos, Pornography.

Big Pharma King.

Bad Karma King.

Financial Futures King.

Commercial-Culture King.

Protest-Crusher King.

News-Censor King.

King of the Possessed Homes, the Poltergeist Hotels, the Spectral Holiday Villages, the dead lakes, the rivers swam in by images of leafless trees alone, the mountains full of hunted revolutionary shades, the linear graveyards of our roads, the homes full of drugged and insensible old, the empty Apartment Blocks omenic of total collapse, the crowds of strung out inner city skeletons haunting the inner-city-streets at dawn searching for a you-know-what, the riot cops that are already more than half way to robots, the zombie banks, the Ghost Estates.


King of Taxes, Charges, Fines and Rates.

All The Kings survey the empty boards

command the pieces back to form again

line-up exactly as before.


though a pawn or two may be blinded or missing or added

the bishop a mata-hari

the rook a commissioner

the knight in a T32 instead of a horse


and now the trumpets blast from way above the board

and something dark and massive squatting overhead to fart commands:


Recommence the Sport!


And the billion voiceless voices from the faces with no faces roaring out again for the satisfaction of a total sweep, for a four zero year, for a black and white divide of everything, for tradition, craft and stategy, for neat mathematical boxes of world,


for borders indivisible and impossible to cross,


for eternal, irrevocable, ridiculous bloody orders.