Mary Shelley was a bit of a rebel, especially in her younger days. I wrote this poem for My Iron Spine, and it was in there until the very last, when I decided it wasn't quite right and that the book would benefit from being a bit shorter. It was a hard decision, as I'm very fond of it. I'm glad it's found a home, and I hope I'll find a collection for it to fit into some time.
'Jesus Christ, Saviour' is actually about the actor Klaus Kinski rather than Jesus Christ himself, though both were rebels in their own ways. It's my response to watching a documentary of Klaus Kinski doing his performance peice called 'Jesus Christ, Saviour' in 1971 - it was pretty intense and pretty amazing.
I'm delighted to be in the issue with many fabulous folks, including Harvey Molloy, (with his poem 'Closer' - I've seen an earlier version of this, and I really think Harvey has nailed it with this version), Siobhan Harvey, Kate Camp, Janet Freegard and many others. Special mention goes to Marcel Currin, whose two short prose peices had me shreiking with laughter on my quick nose through.
And, as promised in the title, Harvey Molloy organised a Wellington launch for Blackmail Press 25. Details below:
1 comment:
Thanks Helen. I have just so many versions of this poem because I bloody well laboured over it and found it very difficult and unsettling. (I don't normally find poems I'm working on 'unsettling', it's just that it kept saying things I didn't want to hear.) A weird one: the poem was the rebel alright.
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