Gail Dendy: Dancing in verse

Gail Dendy is the author of seven poetry collections, the latest being Closer Than That, published by Dye Hard Press. She was first published by Harold Pinter in 1993, with her subsequent collections appearing in SA, the UK and the US. Her poetry and, more recently, short stories, are regularly published in journals and anthologies. An internationally trained dancer, she helped pioneer Contemporary Dance in SA between the late 1970s and the early 1990s. Other passions are environmental- and animal-rights issues. She lives in Johannesburg with her husband, pets, a law library, and a huge rock ’n roll collection.

DH: Your first poetry collection, Assault and the Moth, was published by Harold Pinter, through Greville Press in the UK, in 1993. How did that come about?

GD: By accident! My husband and I were living in London for a year, and I set myself the task of completing a poetry manuscript and submitting it to a British publisher. Well, I completed the manuscript, and when it came to sending it off, I had no idea where to send it. So I bought a copy of Macmillan’s The Writer’s Handbook and sent the manuscript to various publishers as listed, mainly in London. One press I chose was ‘Diamond Press’ – I figured that, since diamonds have a South African connotation, this might be a lucky press to go with. So I sent it off to the contact person, in this case Geoffrey Godbert. Soon after, I received a postcard saying Diamond Press didn’t publish poetry (Macmillan was wrong!), but that he, Geoffrey, was an editor of another press called Greville. He said that so far two of the editors were enthusiastic about my work and that the third editor now needed to look at it and give the final say. The second editor was Anthony Astbury and the third was Harold Pinter. Eventually, I got a 3-out-of-3 approval, something that was apparently very rare in Greville Press. Ironically, as a student I’d been nuts about Pinter’s work, so you can imagine how incredible it was to know he’d read and admired my work. He later wrote me a letter saying that he ‘wrote [to me] as my publisher’ and was delighted to have published my poems.

In your second collection, People Crossing, there is a poem called ‘Assault’ which immediately reminded me of Sylvia Plath. What poets have influenced you – has Plath been an influence?

I read Plath as a teenager, but ‘Assault’ is a poem that just happened, its genesis being that dreadful case of those six young girls who went missing in the late 1980s. It turned out they’d been kidnapped by a notorious paedophile and his mistress. None were ever seen again. So I was thinking about child abuse at the time I wrote the poem. I often use a strong voice in my work, as did Plath, and given that I use family members (mother, father, sister, brother, cousin etc) as literary symbols, people might think I’m writing confessional poetry. Nothing could be further from the truth. My poetry is almost entirely fiction. My influences, though, are varied – anything from ancient Chinese poetry onwards. In 1991 I discovered Carol Ann Duffy, and felt there and then she ought to be the Poet Laureate. In homage to her, I based the cover of People Crossing on her book Mean Time. It feels good to know that I was in some way prophetic.

Your work focuses on the immediate and the familiar, but there is also a sense of the magical in some of the poems. What inspires your poetry?

I draw a great deal on biblical and literary references, fairy tales, myths, dream imagery and fables, so that probably accounts for the ‘magicality’. Rhyme (either internal or asymmetrical), rhythm and cadences play a huge part in my work, which is perhaps not surprising given that I’ve been a dancer and that dance is still so important in my life. Ditto the musicality of words and language. It sometimes gets to a point where I know exactly what vowel sounds I need in a line to make the ‘music’ that seems right for the piece I’m working on, but it’s the damn consonants that give me trouble.

There is another poem from your second collection, called ‘Tourists’ which deals with an incident where two tourists were murdered on a Natal beach, in 1992. But the ‘outside world’, if I may call it that, of socioeconomic and political realities, doesn’t really play much of a role in your poetry.Is this something you consciously avoid writing about?

Actually, I’m very aware of the outside world and confess to having become quite a news junkie in the past 10 years or so. What I prefer to do, though, is to personalise and individualise the external world so as to distil an emotion or set of ideas from it. I admire people who’re able to write meaningfully about socioeconomic and political reality, but I could never sit down and say to myself: ‘Today I’m going to write a poem about the earthquake/tsunami/civil war/rebel uprising …’. If I did, I’d probably end up with little more than a news report. What’s so exciting about poetry is that you can create an entirely new world parallel to, and resonating against, the real world, but one that has its own logic and rules of engagement.

Do you think poets have a ‘role’ to play in society, and if so, what?

I’d personally feel very arrogant saying that poets have a role to play as if they were somehow superior beings. On the other hand, I strongly believe that the arts, generally, are necessary and relevant in creating a well-rounded, vibrant society. People turn to the arts for an enhanced emotional experience, and perhaps to connect with what has proved to be both timeless and universal. For instance, I read somewhere that during World War Two more people visited London’s National Gallery than ever before. I like to think that more people bought and read poetry, too. Poetry offers a unique window onto the world. It would be sad if that window ever became boarded up.

Lately, there has been quite a bit of discussion about the diminishing space given in the media to book reviews, particularly poetry. Bookstores are becoming reluctant to stock poetry – they say it doesn’t sell. And so publishers don’t want to publish it. And certainly, from my experience, I see a lot less readers of poetry than there was about 10 years ago.

It’s very worrying that poetry is becoming the Cinderella of the arts. Everything works in a vicious circle in that the lower the profile of poetry, the less market there is for it, and the less interest there is for publishing houses to deal with it and for bookshops to make it available. But hopefully the cycle will, at some point, start turning the other way. Wouldn’t it be terrific if poetry made headline news, and if you had to book your seat a year in advance to attend a poetry reading or book launch? Oh, and pass me that glass slipper, will you?

Closer Than That is your seventh collection. Of your previous six collections, two were published in SA, the others overseas. Were the overseas publications available here? Does it bother you that most of your collections have been published outside SA? Do you think it has weakened or strengthened your reputation here, or does it not matter to you?

They weren’t readily available here, unfortunately, although obviously they could be purchased from an overseas source. I particularly wanted to be published ‘overseas’ as I was getting such positive responses from that initial manuscript I sent out (the original full-length Assault and the Moth). It was Gus Ferguson who introduced me to the South African audience, for which I’m eternally grateful. But I’m not sure I even have a reputation here to be strengthened or weakened. All I know is that I write what I write, and I write what I like.

Your story ‘The Intruders’ appeared in the short-fiction anthology, The Edge of Things, published by Dye Hard Press. Here again there was a sense of magical realism, with an interplay between outer and inner worlds. Does magical realism  play a big role in your short fiction as well?

Surprisingly, it does. Surprising to me, that is, as I never consciously set out to incorporate this element. It can be seen in ‘Wayfarers’ (2007), and also in 'Venus Crossing' which was shortlisted for the Thomas Pringle Award 2010, so it seems people are liking what they read. But allegory also slips into my prose without so much as an invitation. I specifically used it in a 2007 publication called ‘The Briar Hedge’, and of course both magical realism and allegory are highly visible in ‘The Intruders’.

What are the main challenges facing poets in SA? Getting published is obviously one of them.

It’s the old story of there being no shortage of poets, but a shortage of readers. So the huge challenge is to find vehicles for communicating one’s work. I’ve been a bit lucky in the past couple of years in being able to perform in productions which we call Off the Page, together with a wonderful pianist, Tony Bentel, and an experienced broadcaster and raconteur, Selwyn Klass. In our last Off the Page we added a cellist and flautist. We script the work very tightly, and are fully rehearsed. We’ve had some excellent audiences, and terrific feedback. Will that induce people to buy and read poetry? Probably not. And there’s the rub.

What do you regard as recognition?

I would say the ultimate form of recognition is having someone come up to you and say they can’t wait to read your latest poem, or – even better – your latest book! And believe it or not, that has actually happened to me. I just hope I wasn’t dreaming.

Closer Than That is available from Exclusive Books throughout SA, estimated retail price R105. It can also be ordered  from Dye Hard Press for R85 (including postage) in SA, or for R115  for overseas. Email dyehardpress@iafrica.com for order details.   

Pravasan Pillay: Humour me

Pravasan Pillay was born in 1978 in Durban. He has published a chapbook of poetry, Glumlazi (2009), and a collection of comedic short stories, Shaggy (2011), co-written with Anton Krueger. Pillay's poetry and short stories have appeared in numerous books and journals and on websites. His short story 'Mr Essop' appears in The Edge of Things, an anthology of South African short fiction published by Dye Hard Press. His humour pieces have appeared in A Look Away Magazine, Mail & Guardian and McSweeney's. He is the editor and co-founder of the small press Tearoom Books. Pillay has worked as a freelance journalist, philosophy lecturer, production and project manager, and copy editor. He currently lives in Sweden and works as the international editor of a Swedish trade magazine.

DH: Your short story ‘Mr Essop’, in The Edge of Things, focuses on a child growing up in Chatsworth, Durban, where you also come from. It makes me curious about your background and how you came to writing.

PP:I come from a single-parent working-class family. Both my parents read a lot and I was encouraged to do the same, so I got through many of the classics at an early age, as well as lots of genre and contemporary fiction. Apart from books, I read superhero, horror, fantasy, sci-fi and war comics, and humour magazines such as Mad. Unlike many parents, mine didn't discourage me from reading comic books. I don't think they made a distinction between high-brow and low-brow culture, which is something I inherited from them. My parents divorced when I was quite young and my mother, brother and I moved around a lot, and that meant having to transfer schools a few times. I think the combination of being quite lonely at each of these schools – which is something I didn't mind too much – and my appetite for reading probably led me to writing. I began writing jokes, stories and plays around the age of 10 or 11.

To what degree has your background influenced your writing? You have said that you dislike being labelled an ‘Indian writer’.

I can understand why I might be labelled as an Indian writer. My short fiction is all set in a little corner of the Indian township of Chatsworth, which is the place I know and can write about best, and the characters are all Indian – so there's certainly legitimate grounds for my race to be highlighted. However, I'd like to think that what I'm trying to do in the stories, technically and thematically, is a bit more universal.

You have worked in various creative forms – short fiction, poetry, film and music – and one common thread among them is humour. I am thinking specifically of the  Knock Knock Jokes  pamphlet you published through Tearoom Books and your most recent book, Shaggy (BK Publishing). I sometimes get the feeling that humorous writing is frowned upon in SA, that it is not considered ‘serious’. Do you think that South Africans, considering our history, are a bit too obsessed with tackling ‘serious’ topics? There are also many different approaches to humour – it is a bit of a loose term. Do you have any singular approach?

I think that the lack of a proper humour culture in South Africa can be traced partially, as you mention, to our history and the fact that humour writing isn't viewed as legitimate as more 'serious' forms of writing – which is a laugh because it’s far more difficult to write a good joke than it is to write, say, a poignant short story or poem. I would add that the national character of the country seems to lack the comedy gene; the majority of people don't seem to get satire, parody or irony. You have to be quite literal if you hope to make it as a comedian. So even if humour writing suddenly becomes respectable, I doubt you would see an outpouring of cutting-edge satire. But, despite these stumbling blocks, South Africa has produced a small but talented pool of genuine comedic masters. I'm thinking here of writers such as Herman Charles Bosman, Pieter Dirk Uys, Robert Kirby, Tom Eaton, Gus Ferguson, Imraan Coovadia, Ndumiso Ngcobo and a few others.

You're right, there are many different kinds of humour; and it’s important for a writer to know what kind of laugh he or she is aiming for. I suppose my own approach to humour tends towards the sarcastic and ironic. The late Robert Kirby said: ‘You can’t have humour without offending somebody. Every joke offends somebody down the line. Humour that didn’t plunge the knife into somebody’s ribs would be terribly pale, vapid, weak.’ I concur.

You published a small collection of short poems, Glumlazi, as Tearoom Books’ first title. Some of the poems are only two lines long, almost like haiku or text messages. Do you think that brevity is often more powerful than longer, ‘more developed' poems? Sometimes it seems to me that very short poems can act almost like a punch in the face or a wisecrack.

I'm not sure if shorter poems are more powerful or not, but they're what I prefer reading and writing. I like your use of the word ‘wisecrack’ because I think that's a more accurate classification of the contents of Glumlazi. It was a mistake to label it as poetry. I think that the brevity of the pieces and the inauthenticity of the emotions expressed in them are a reaction to the earnestness and clichéd register of ‘more developed poems’ that you mention. In a way, what I was trying to do was a kind of anti-poetry.

You started Tearoom Books a few years back, with your wife Jenny. Tell us more about it. There is also the Tearoom Books blog, which posts daily. It’s not just a promotional online presence for your press, but an online publication in itself.

Tearoom Books is the natural development of my interest in zines, hand-made books and micro publishing. I've always micro published in one way or the other. While I was at high school I wrote and distributed comic books and co-wrote a satirical weekly handwritten newsletter, and at university I edited and distributed a photocopied zine. I started Tearoom Books because I wanted to publish Glumlazi and I was pretty sure that no else would. Our aim at Tearoom is to publish well-designed chapbooks and pamphlets of contemporary poetry, fiction and humour. We're happy to keep it very small scale, perhaps a chapbook a year.

The blog publishes new content from writers that I enjoy. To an outsider, the site can appear a bit incoherent ‒ that's a consequence of trying to achieve a tone rather than a unifying theme.

Tearoom Books recently published its first e-book, the anthology of poems and recipes called Reader Digest. Is the shift to e-books likely to be permanent?

I prefer print to the screen. Reader Digest was published as an e-book purely because I didn't have the money to print it. It's been relatively successful receiving close to 1000 reads, which we would have never achieved with a regular chapbook – so that's something to keep in mind for future publications. But if we have the financial resources, I still see us doing hard copies.

You have also made some short films, and with Jenny formed a folk music duo called The Litchis. Tell us more about that. Which filmmakers and musicians/bands do you like?

The films are amateur, essentially home movies with credits appended on them. Last year we shot a more professional – at least by our standards – effort and hopefully we'll get it edited some time this year.

The Litchis was started as an archival project with the aim of translating the sugar-cane plantation stories of the late folklorist Sivakami Chetty into a folk music idiom. We later encompassed a few other folk stories, such as Rachel de Beer.

I watch a lot films and have a particular interest in b-movies and exploitation cinema. I think that there's very compelling art to be found in these genres. Most people watch these types of films in quite a condescending, ironic way – which I think is a shame. There's a quote which I recently came across in the comment section of an exploitation film site which summarises my attitude well: ‘Films like [these] are folk art...like the works of Grandma Moses or Henry Darger. Their failures of perspective, anatomy or narrative logic are excused when they achieve effects that go beyond the conventional. Because movies are seen as a narrative art, naive works like [these] don't get the same sort of consideration that other forms of folk art receive.’ I think that if you consider b-movies in this manner, as folk expressions or folk art, then a different type of interpretation and appreciation becomes possible. Because these films are made by amateurs or people on extreme fringes of the established movie system, their contents and structures are very often free of the clichés found in mainstream and even art house or indie cinema.

As far as music goes, I enjoy the country blues and folk.

You have mentioned your love of comics. What is it about comics that attracts you?

I don't read comics as much as I used to, but when I did it was the stories above all that drew me in – which is the same thing that I look for in prose. Having said that, there are things that you can do with images and text that can't be done as well in prose or film. For instance, look at Alan Moore's graphic novels From Hell or Watchmen, which are two of my favourite books. The structure and the complexity of the plots and references in these works could never be done as well in other mediums, which is why the film adaptations were so bad.

In collaboration with Anton Krueger, you have just published Shaggy, a collection of humorous monologues. How did the collaboration work? Brion Gysin wrote  that when there is a bringing together of two minds, there is the creation of a third mind, which, as I understand Gysin, almost starts operating as an independent entity. What is your opinion on that?

Writing with Anton is probably one of the most enjoyable creative experiences I've had. He is remarkably generous both as a collaborator and a person. We have different approaches to humour: Anton is more in-the-moment and favours the absurd while I'm more structured and grounded in the everyday. His humour is also more humanistic while I tend towards meaner, more offensive comedy. I think that either extreme on its own wouldn't work, but by combining our sensibilities we temper each other and the result is a more well-rounded comedy.

The book arose by accident. Anton and I had originally planned to write one story together, and it was meant to be a serious genre piece. We attempted a few more of these but we found it impossible to not insert jokes into them, always at very serious moments. That's when we decided to abandon genre stories and write straight-up comedy. We write a story by first batting around a few conceits until we can both agree on one, then we create a shared online document which we both work on simultaneously. The first draft gets written quite quickly, in about a day or two, then we put it aside for editing at a later date. Even after we'd written quite a few of the stories, we still didn't have any concrete publishing plans in mind. Our sole aim was to make the other person laugh.

I would agree with Gysin's observation. The writing in Shaggy definitely comes from a 'third mind.' Reading through the manuscript it was very difficult to remember which one of us came up with a particular joke.

Any other comments?

Who gives the shower head?